by City of Lies
The air moved, as if someone was creeping down the tunnel toward her. Goldie’s skin crawled.
“ ’Oo’s this, Mousie?” whispered a hoarse voice. “Whatchoo doin’, bringin’ someone down ’ere?”
It sounded like a boy. Goldie roughened her own voice. “I’m—ah—lookin’ for a place to sleep. Me name’s G-Growl.”
“Yeah, and I’m Bald Thoke’s grannie. Ya think I’m stupid? You’s a girl.”
Goldie heard the scrape of a tinderbox and the light flared up again. She was right; it was a boy. He wore a homemade half-mask covered in pigeon feathers, and his skinny arms were wrapped in a blanket. The lantern he carried held a thick, oily-looking candle.
“I told you before, Mouse,” the boy said crossly. “Ya don’t bring no one else down ’ere. It’s just you and me, just Mousie and Pounce. Always ’as been, always will be.”
Mouse’s hands danced in a strange version of fingertalk. Something stirred in the back of Goldie’s mind.
Missing something, whispered the little voice. Missing something.…
“Help ’er?” The second boy looked at Goldie in disgust.
“We got enough trouble ’elpin’ ourselves.” He pointed to the cat. “And where did ya dig up that creepy-lookin’ thing?”
Mouse shrugged.
“Spose yer gunna give ’er our bed too,” muttered Pounce as he stalked back up the tunnel.
Mouse pushed the rattling, bumping pram in Pounce’s wake, and Goldie followed. Before long, they came to a place where the tunnel joined another one. The right-hand side of the new tunnel was blocked a little way in by a rockfall, and a blanket had been strung across it to make a room. There was a circle of stone in one corner, with a fire burning in it. Beside the fire, quilts and blankets were piled in a nest.
It was surprisingly warm in the little room. Goldie held her hands over the fire and rubbed them together to get the life back into them. The cat bumped against her legs and then, to her surprise, settled down next to her, its scratchy purr rumbling in its throat.
Goldie watched hungrily as Pounce took a half-loaf of bread, a jar of jam and a carrot out of a big square tin. He cut two thick slices from the loaf and smeared them with jam. Then he handed one slice to Mouse and bit into the other himself, his eyes glaring at Goldie from behind his mask.
“I ain’t givin’ you none,” he said. Jam glinted on his teeth. “You didn’t work for it, not like me and Mousie did.”
The white-haired boy wrinkled his forehead. Then he smiled at Goldie and handed her his slice of bread.
“Mouse,” said Pounce. “Don’t be soft! How many times do I ’ave to tell ya?”
The younger boy smiled again and held out his hand for the carrot. Pounce sighed, and cut it into a dozen tiny pieces. Goldie didn’t hear a signal, but the white mice came pouring out of the pram and scurried up Mouse’s back and onto his shoulders. They took the pieces of carrot from his fingers and carried them back to the pram. The cat watched them calmly, like a queen smiling upon her subjects.
“And what does that leave you?” said Pounce. “Nothin’. You’d starve to death if it wasn’t for me.”
He hacked another chunk off the loaf and slapped some jam on it. “There,” he muttered, handing it to Mouse. “Don’t give that one away or I’ll kill ya.”
The bread wasn’t fresh, but neither was it stale. Goldie chewed slowly, to make it last. She could hear the mice rustling in the bottom of the pram.
“Where ya from?” said Pounce through a mouthful of bread.
“Jewel.”
The boy sneered. “Ya think I’m stupid? People in Jewel got faces like dogs, and all their snotties is mad. They gotta chain ’em up or else they bites people to death.”
Mouse was nodding seriously. Goldie swallowed a laugh. “I—um—I slipped my chains and ran away.”
Pounce stared at her for a long moment, as if he was trying to decide whether she was dangerous. Then he sniffed and leaned back on his elbow. “So. What’s a mad snotty from Jewel doin’ in Spoke?”
Goldie knew that she was going to need help to find her friends and get them away from Harrow and his men. But she hadn’t forgotten the bandmaster’s reaction, so she merely said, “I’ve got a job to do.”
“Don’t pay too well, if you ’ave to sleep in this grand ’otel.” Pounce waved his hand around the smoky den.
“It’s not that sort of job,” said Goldie.
“So what’s yer name? Yer real name.”
“My real name doesn’t matter.” She hesitated, thinking of all the things she didn’t know about this city. Things she might need to know. “Tell me about the Festival of Lies.”
“What’s it worth?”
Mouse’s fingers danced. Pounce sniffed. “Yer a regular little goody-goody tonight, Mousie. Don’t reckon I’ll give ya no breakfast. That’ll learn ya.”
The white-haired boy giggled. Pounce drew himself up in mock importance. “So, the Festival of Lies,” he said. “Lesson one, which is for simpletons, and girls from Jewel.”
He leaned forward so that the light from the fire caught his mask. His voice lost its mockery and became serious. “Once a year, for three days, everythin’ in Spoke becomes a lie.”
“Everything?” said Goldie doubtfully.
“Shut up and listen. Ya can’t trust nothin’ or no one durin’ the Festival. Everythin’s turned on its ’ead. And it’s not just the people who lie.” His voice sank to a whisper. “The city lies too. And that’s the good bit.”
“What do you mean?”
Pounce’s finger began to draw circles on his knee. “Everyone’s lyin’, right? And all those lies, they sorta join together like whirlpools.” The circles grew bigger. “And the whirlpools build up into Big Lies. There ain’t many of ’em. Sometimes there’s only two or three or four for the whole Festival. No one knows where they’ll turn up, but if ya get caught in the middle of one, ya can feel the air fizzin’ round ya, full of lies and stories and stuff. That’s when ya gotta have your own lie ready. A good one!”
“Why?” said Goldie.
“It’s like this,” said the boy. “Mousie and me is walkin’ down the street, right? Only it’s tomorra night and the Festival’s in full swing. And suddenly I feels the air sorta fizzin’ round me. And at the same time someone says to me, ‘Oy, Pounce, where’s you and Mouse livin’ now?’ And I says, ‘We got this nice little room up on Temple Hill. With feather beds and a fireplace and all. And lots of food and no cockroaches.’ And ya know what ’appens?”
Goldie shook her head.
“Suddenly me and Mousie is up there in that little room. For a whole day and a night we eat ourselves silly and sleep on feather beds in front of the fire. And we think we’s always lived like that. Cos that fizzy feelin’, that’s the Big Lie that’ll make yer own lie come true.”
Goldie stared at him, wishing he wasn’t wearing the mask. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t tell if his story was itself a lie. The pigeon feathers told her nothing.
“Ya can’t cheat, mind,” said Pounce. “Someone ’as to ask the right question or it’s no good. And ya gotta give the right answer. If ya do that, a Big Lie can take ya anywhere. Anywhere! For a day and a night ya can be a whole different person, if that’s what ya want.”
Mouse was licking his fingers dreamily. “What about afterward, when it finishes?” said Goldie. “Wouldn’t it be hard to go back to how things used to be?”
Pounce grinned. “But ya might not ’ave to, see? ’Cos the city always gives ya somethin’ to take away with you when the Big Lie ends. Somethin’ real. Might just be a feather from the feather bed. Might be the bed itself. Or the whole room.” His eyes gleamed. “That’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it? The whole room!”
Goldie stared into the fire. Once again Spoke reminded her of the museum, a place of strange and powerful forces. If only she could find one of those Big Lies! Then she’d be a match for Harrow.
She shook her head. Pounce w
as probably talking nonsense. From what she had seen so far, the Festival was just people wearing masks and throwing food. Pounce was trying to fool her because she was a stranger.
A stranger searching for two stolen children in a city of thousands.
Mouse yawned. Pounce grabbed a chair leg off the pile behind him and poked it into the middle of the fire. “You sleep in the corner,” he said to Goldie. He nodded toward the cat. “And take that nasty old bag of bones with ya. I don’t trust it. Look, it’s givin’ me the evil eye.”
Goldie was so tired that she was glad to curl up in the corner with a blanket, and the cat draped over her feet. As she drifted toward sleep, the last thing she heard was the whisper of the little voice in the back of her mind.
Missing something.…
She wasn’t sure what roused her several hours later. It could have been the hard floor. Or the cockroaches. Or the cold. The fire had almost died down, and the blanket that Pounce had given her was threadbare. Only her ankles were warm, where the cat lay across them.
On the other side of the little room, both boys were snoring softly. Goldie drew the useless blanket up to her chin. Her mind drifted to Ma and Pa, and she quickly pushed them away and thought of Toadspit and Bonnie instead.
Missing something, whispered the little voice.
Goldie sighed. Maybe she was missing something, but she had no idea what it could be.
She rolled over, trying to get comfortable, and woke the cat. It stood up and stretched. Its unpracticed purr rattled in her ear.
It was hard to imagine that this was the same wild creature that had refused to take food from her hand. Goldie scratched its neck, and it pressed against her in such a friendly fashion that her worry and loneliness receded a little.
“Cat,” she whispered. “You were in the bread shop with me. What am I missing?”
The purr grew louder. Goldie’s feet grew suddenly colder. “Hey!” she said. “Give that blanket back!”
She put out her hand, but the cat dragged the blanket out of reach. Dropped it on the ground and stared at it. Tapped it playfully.
“It’s too cold for games.” Goldie scrambled after the blanket, wrapped it around herself and lay down again, trying to get warm.
Missing something, whispered the little voice.
Mouse grunted in his sleep, and Goldie found herself thinking about the odd fingertalk the little boy used. She’d never seen anything quite like it. It was very different from the fingertalk that she and Toadspit knew—
Her thoughts shuddered to a halt. The words tolled like a bell inside her.
Fingertalk.
Toadspit.
The cat.
The blanket.
The storeroom.
Missing something.…
“Shivers!” She sat up.
Pounce poked his head from beneath a tattered quilt and growled, “Whassa matter?”
“Nothing,” said Goldie, although her head was spinning and she could hardly keep from shouting out loud.
“If yer gunna slit our throats, wait till I’m asleep again.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” said Goldie.
Pounce snorted, and in a minute or so his breathing was slow and heavy. Goldie stared at the glowing coals, but in her mind’s eye she was seeing the last storeroom in the bread shop. The one with the burlap bags thrown willy-nilly across the floor.
But what if they weren’t willy-nilly? What if that one was curled up like a fist? Like the fingertalk sign for the letter “G.” And the one next to it was the letter “R.” And the one next to that …
Goldie’s heart almost tripped over itself with excitement. Her friends had been there in that little room. They had been moved, but before they were taken away, Toadspit—clever Toadspit, brilliant Toadspit—had found a way to leave her a message.
In the dying light of the fire, she traced the letters on the dusty floor.
G. R. N. C. T.
She stared at them for a long moment. Then her eyes widened, and she traced them again, with a gap between them.
GRN CT
And again—only now she added letters.
GREEN CAT
For a moment she felt dizzy with triumph. But then she sat back, puzzled. Green cat? How could that help her? What could it possibly mean?
She scratched her arm, wondering if there were fleas in the blanket that Pounce had given her, and looked at the letters again.
They must mean something. Toadspit wouldn’t have left a message unless it was important.
“Green cat,” she whispered, gazing at the fire. “Green … cat.”
And then it came to her. Her first day in Spoke—the day when she saw the man in the horse mask and the old woman selling meat scraps. And a cloak as green as a parrot …
She traced the letters again. But this time, with her pulse thundering in her ears, she added words.
GREEN CLOAK. CAT MASK.
On the other side of the little room, the fire sputtered and flared. The cat blinked in a satisfied way, as if Goldie were a kitten that had at last done something clever.
“I’m going to find her. I’m going to find that woman,” whispered Goldie, so quietly that she could barely hear her own voice.
Then she scrubbed out the words she had written, wrapped herself in the blanket and lay back down, impatient for the morning.
Why was it, wondered Sinew, that the museum saved its worst shiftings and shufflings for midnight or later? Here he was, sitting on the long balcony of the Lady’s Mile, playing the sliding notes of the First Song on his harp and yawning so hugely that he thought he might split in half.
He could hear Herro Dan in the hall below him, stroking the wall and singing the same strange tune, a tune that came from the very beginning of time, before there were human throats to shape it. “Ho oh oh-oh,” sang the old man. “Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
All around the keepers, the rooms surged and fretted. The tall-masted sailing ships that lay stranded on their sides in Rough Tom groaned, as if their planks were being torn apart by a storm. In Old Mine Shafts, the ground gaped in a dozen new fissures. A flood of wild music poured up from deep within the earth, as hot as lava.
Broo sat at Sinew’s elbow, his little white head cocked to one side, his single black ear pricked. Strange things were stirring in the Museum of Dunt, things that surprised even Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga. Whatever was happening to the children, the museum really didn’t like it.
But the First Song was a powerful tool, and before long the wild music and the rooms began to settle. Sinew played for a few minutes more, then laid down his harp, leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“That was a bad one,” he murmured to Broo. He yawned. “I hope Morg finds the children soon. I know they’re brave and resourceful, but I can’t help worrying about them—”
A growl interrupted him—a growl far too deep and threatening to have come from a little white dog. Before he even opened his eyes, Sinew knew what he would see.
Back in the early days of Dunt, idle-cats, slommerkins and brizzlehounds had roamed the peninsula, causing the new settlers to tremble in their beds. But that was five hundred years ago, and the idle-cats and slommerkins were long gone, hunted to extinction.
The brizzlehounds were gone too, every single one of them—except for Broo. He did not look dangerous, not when he was small. But when he was big …
Sinew gazed up at the great black hound that loomed above him. “What’s the matter?” he said quickly.
Broo’s nostrils flared. His ruby-red eyes flashed. His voice, when he spoke, was like the rumble of approaching thunder. “I smell something. Something GGGGRRRR-ROTTEN!”
Sinew jumped to his feet, his tiredness forgotten. “Where?” he said. The smell hit him like a bucket of slops, and he pinched his nose in disgust. “Great whistling pigs! You’re right, it’s awful.”
He leaned over the balcony. “Dan,” he shouted. “What’s that stink?”
Herro Dan sniffed the air, and his eyes widened with shock.
“What?” said Sinew. “What is it?”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t believe it! Where’d it come from? Musta been tucked away in a corner somewhere, sleepin’ all these hundreds of years—”
“What?”
But it was Broo who answered. Every hair on his back was bristling, and his eyes glowed with rage. “It is a SLOMMERKIN! There is a SLOMMERRRRRRKIN loose in the museum!”
Goldie and the cat emerged from the sewers next morning to find that everything had changed. The streets of Spoke were festooned with flags and banners and thronged with people. No one was going to work. Instead, they hung around the food carts buying revolting-looking drinks, and pies made in the shape of tiny coffins.
Most of the street signs had disappeared, and the ones that were left had been turned around or swapped. An underground kitchen had a notice above its door saying BARBER. A barber’s shop was made up to look like a kitchen. As Goldie walked past, a masked man darted out and thrust a cake into her hand.
“Some breakfast for you, boy,” he said.
Goldie inspected the cake. It looked nice enough. She took a bite and immediately spat it out again. “There’s hair in it!”
“No there’s not,” said the man. And he trotted back into his shop, chortling loudly.
Nearly everyone Goldie saw was wearing a mask, and many of them wore huge, elaborate costumes as well. A group of people dressed as the Seven Gods capered in the middle of the road. Great Wooden attacked passersby with a papier-mâché hammer. The Weeping Lady laughed. The Black Ox (which was really just two boys in costume) lay down in the middle of the street and rolled on its back like a puppy.
They’re mocking the Gods! Goldie thought nervously. And none of them are even flicking their fingers!
But gradually she realized that what Pounce had told her was right. During the Festival, everything was turned back to front and upside down. Women were disguised as men and men were disguised as women. They staged pretend battles in the street, or walked everywhere backward, or dressed as plague victims and collapsed on the cobblestones, groaning horribly. They fell in love with stray dogs, and when the dogs barked at them, they cried, “Oh, my beloved, how sweetly you sing!”