The Girl of Ink & Stars

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

  I slid down the rough surface of the rock wall and sat on the damp ground next to her, repacking the satchel as I faced the thick darkness of what I was sure was a tunnel. If it was, I could not ignore how we had found it.

  Through the waterfall. Just like Arinta did, on her way to fight Yote.

  Think.

  Doce said the Tibicenas came from below – this tunnel, and others like it, must be what she meant. The Tibicenas could not be reaching the surface from here. We had only just broken through the back of the waterfall’s cavern and there was no way up. That meant there must be other exits.

  Lupe quietened, her breathing still irregular. I stood and helped her to her feet.

  ‘We’re going.’ I pointed into the darkness.

  Lupe shrank in on herself, shaking her head. ‘No, I can’t… I hate the dark.’

  ‘We have to.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything.’

  ‘There must be a way out.’ I said, more certainly than I felt.

  ‘But you don’t know that!’

  ‘We’ll make it, we will. I…’ I trailed off.

  Lupe glared. ‘What? You promise? You don’t know the way out. You don’t even know there is a way out.’

  ‘The Tibicenas had to come from somewhere. The Banished said they came from below.’

  Lupe glanced over quickly to where the wood-light illuminated the slack shadow, then at the tunnel mouth. ‘Maybe the horse boy will wake up soon. If we just wait…’

  I didn’t know what to say. I could not tell her what she wanted to hear, and could not say why I did not think Pablo would come. I could not think he was—

  Stop thinking it, then.

  But I also could not stay here and wait to die, any more than Lupe could stomach entering the darkness. If only I had a map, I’d feel safer facing the unfathomable black ahead.

  ‘A map!’ I gasped as I remembered: Ma’s map changing, the lines appearing and vanishing as I watched. The satchel floating in the Arintara …

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lupe asked as I emptied the satchel on to the floor, inks and ripped star charts tumbling.

  The map was at the very bottom. I unrolled it and smoothed it out on the damp ground, holding the wood-light over it.

  ‘What’s—’ started Lupe.

  ‘Shhhh!’ I stared hard at the paper, but nothing happened. I sat back on my heels, rubbing my eyes with frustration. Then—

  ‘Look!’ Lupe was pointing at the map.

  It was changing. The trees and villages were retreating, sucked into the surface, a new landscape developing slowly.

  ‘Why is it doing that?’

  ‘The water…’ My heart was thumping too hard, too loud. ‘It was the wrong water.’

  ‘What?’

  I wished she would be quiet. It was clear now. The first time the map had changed, it had been drenched by the river. The river at Arintan. When I tried to recreate the change, I used water from the flask filled at home. Now the ground was again damp from the waterfall. The map had to be wetted with water from Arintan to reveal this hidden layer.

  I snatched the map up and waved it around. As the corners began to dry the original images reappeared.

  I held the map against the dripping rock wall. The lines regrew and intersected, covering the outline of Joya in a mesh of what I now realized were tunnels. Dotted across the network were circles. One was positioned above the place where the waterfall had just faded. My breath caught. The circles were exits. Thank you, Ma.

  ‘What is it?’

  I looked up, smiling broadly.

  ‘It’s our way out.’

  I measured the distance to the next exit with my fingers. We would have to walk miles along the tunnel to it. I was not happy about venturing so close to the red circle that crouched at the centre of the map, but we had no choice.

  I did not tell Lupe what I thought this circle meant. If she didn’t want to go into the dark, I didn’t think mentioning a fire demon would be much comfort. I had never hoped so hard I was wrong. For now, our only concern was getting out of the maze. Even the black forest would be a comfort. Anything above ground would do.

  We drank from the rivulets trickling down the wall. The water was grainy but it tasted fresh enough. We drained our flasks of their stale water and refilled them. I soaked the map through and we set off, the way illuminated by the wood-light.

  It was difficult to keep track of how long we walked, each step reverberating off the walls, the heat growing all the time. I tracked our location by moving my finger along the lines on the map, tracing our progress from corner to corner, bend to bend.

  It took all my concentration, so I did not speak except to direct us left, right, straight ahead, or to ask Lupe to dampen the map. The air stank.

  Lupe wrinkled her nose. ‘Smells like off fireworks.’

  Whatever it was stung my lungs, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue, but I could not waste water washing the feeling away. The downward slope of the ground increased minute by minute, and soon we were sliding down a steep channel. I hoped it would not take us too deep.

  Da’s stories spiralled through my mind, one joining up to the next. But it was the myth of Arinta that returned again and again. She entered through a tunnel behind a waterfall. I cast a sideways glance at Lupe, wondering if she had been listening any of the many times I told her the story. But her face was set in a grimace, pulse going fast in her temple.

  As we scrambled further into the depths of the island, the heat intensified. Sweat ran down my face, steam lifting off the map as it dried. Soon Lupe had emptied one of the flasks of half of its water.

  We reached a crossroads, four tunnels intersecting. I squinted at the mesh of lines, trying to work out which one we should take, but they vanished.

  ‘It’s drying out too fast.’

  Lupe groaned in frustration. ‘We can’t use the water like this, we need to keep some to drink.’

  ‘I’ll try to sketch the route,’ I reached into the satchel for the map-making materials. My hand closed on nothing but the blade, and my half-finished map. Along with the keys and water flask on my belt, they were all I had. With a sinking heart I remembered emptying the bag, the pile of inks and paper stacked where we had fallen with the Tibicena.

  ‘I left everything behind. I’m sorry—’

  Lupe made a hushing sound, ‘Shhh!’

  ‘I said I’m sorry,’ I sulked.

  ‘No, seriously, Isabella.’ She held a finger to her lips, taking the wood-light from my hand and burying it in the satchel.

  Then I heard it: a shuffling sound, echoing down the tunnel to our right, followed by a low growling. I pulled Lupe into the shadows of the left-hand path just as the pushing away started in my stomach. I felt the walls blindly. They were pitted with cracks and gaps.

  A handful of moments scattered as the Tibicena approached, Lupe moaned, creased over, and I dug my fingernails into my palms as we heard it stop at the point where we had just been, sniffing the air. Then it let loose a horrible sound, sharp, with a rattling undertone that shook dust from the tunnel ceiling. I swallowed, tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  The seconds dragged by. Eventually, the Tibicena turned and began racing up the slope in the direction we’d just taken. Lupe exhaled in relief, but then the tunnel began to shake. I pulled Lupe into a crevice no wider than Miss La’s coop.

  We wedged ourselves in, satchel squashed between us, as the Tibicenas came swarming from all directions, panting and returning each other’s calls, sniffing the ground. The black shapes blurred past, like a swarm of bats, rousing clouds of stinging dirt, and the bitter smell in the air intensified.

  I felt my throat closing, lungs sucking in like sponges. Lupe was stifling coughs into the crook of her arm. A couple of Tibicenas seemed to pause near our hiding place, but were soon swept along by the tide of the pack. Just as I couldn’t stand the pain in my stomach any longer, the shaking stopped. Soon, only echoes and hanging dust re
mained.

  Lupe squeezed out of the crevice again. I followed, relief humming through me, and pulled the wood-light back out of the satchel.

  ‘How long until they reach the waterfall?’ Lupe asked shakily.

  The Tibicenas moved much faster than us, but it was a steep incline for most of the journey and we must have walked for a couple of hours already. If the Tibicenas did not realize that they were following the scent in the wrong direction…

  ‘We might just make it.’

  ‘Which way?’

  I held up my hand to look at the map, but it was not there. I opened my fist and a fragment fluttered out, coming to rest on the claw-marked ground.

  ‘No.’ I dropped to my hands and knees, scrabbling in the dust near the crevice. The corner must have ripped as we scrambled in.

  ‘Over here.’ Lupe’s voice was oddly flat.

  I raised the wood-light in the direction of her outstretched finger, uncertain what she was pointing at. Then I saw a corner of the map in the dirt. Then another scrap, and another.

  It was torn to pieces, pressed like petals into the dust by the stampeding Tibicenas.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Lupe asked, though surely she knew the answer.

  I looked into the darkness. It stretched around us, featureless and terrifying.

  We were lost.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  I did not know what to do. We could not stay here now that the Tibicenas had our scent, but we did not know the way, nor what lay ahead.

  To my surprise Lupe did not shout or blame me. She knelt and began gathering up the fragments.

  ‘Leave them,’ I said quietly. ‘There’s no point.’

  Tears threatened. That was Ma’s map, all I had left of her.

  Lupe ignored me and collected as many bits of the map as she could. She piled them carefully and held them out. I rubbed my eyes fiercely.

  ‘It’s all right to be scared, Isabella,’ she said. ‘I’m scared, too.’

  I looked up, blinking hard. Her expression was soft, and I remembered that face from years before, from the day we first became friends. Lupe holding out her hand as I sat crying by the abandoned rabbit warren, missing Gabo.

  I took the fragments.

  The satchel’s strap had also snapped, so I emptied it, putting the keys and fragments in the pouch on my belt. I kept the blade in my hand, the worn leather of the handle comforting.

  ‘What now?’ Lupe asked, suddenly brisk.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and again tried to call the map to memory. I knew we were close to where the map had indicated an exit. When I had looked, just before the first Tibicena arrived, where had we been?

  The answer bubbled up behind my closed lids. Southeast. Beneath the Arintara. That was it! The tunnel had curved and turned, but had roughly followed the line of the river. What next? The three possible routes onwards.

  ‘Isabella?’

  Lupe’s voice sent the vision of the map spiralling away. But it didn’t matter. I knew.

  ‘We need to take the right passage.’

  ‘Yes, but how are we meant to know which one that is?’

  ‘No, the right-hand passage.’ I pointed. ‘That one.’

  She looked at me doubtfully. ‘That’s where they came from.’

  ‘They came from everywhere,’ I said impatiently. ‘That’s the way out. We need to follow it to a sort of twisty bit—’

  ‘Twisty bit?’

  ‘Yes, like a knotted rope, but if we stay on the left side of the knot and take the first path off it, we’ll get there.’

  I was almost sure. Almost.

  We continued in silence. The path led downwards. The only good thing about the destruction of the map was now we could use the water for drinking. We passed a wide turn-off scored with paw prints, and I felt Lupe relax slightly as I led us past, into a narrower tunnel that was unmarked.

  The heat was growing, and soon I had a throbbing ache drilling deep behind my temple. The sharp smell became stronger, until the air was barely breathable. My head was light and the world around me felt soft and too close. I blinked, trying to push everything back into focus. Lupe seemed dizzy too, stumbling occasionally and dragging her feet.

  Worst of all was the sameness of the surroundings. Without a sky, time meant nothing. I measured the distance by the ache in my legs. I longed for the clear skies above Gromera, bright with sun or with stars, even the haze of the Forgotten Territories and the fearful wind of the Carment village.

  My knee jarred painfully. The tunnel, suddenly horizontal, curved sharply ahead, and its height dropped by almost a metre. Head bowed, we walked on, the ceiling continuing to slope until we were bent almost double. The Tibicenas would surely have trouble fitting through this space if they tracked us here, but what if I was taking us the wrong way? We would be trapped.

  My throat tightened, but we had to keep moving.

  The tunnel continued closing in until we were crawling on our bellies, clothes catching on the rough edges of rock. It would be impossible to turn back in such a small space. I followed closely behind Lupe’s feet and tried not to think about the massive weight hanging above us, the whole of Joya poised over our heads.

  The tunnel curved again. I guessed we were in what I had called a twisty bit, the tunnel looping back on itself. This passage should intersect with others soon, and then we would take the first left, hopefully to an exit. I drew in a long, steadying breath, the air sharp in my chest.

  ‘Lupe, I think we’re going the right way.’

  ‘I hope so,’ came her muffled reply as she spoke over her shoulder, ‘I don’t think I can stand this much longer.’

  ‘Well, no. We can’t stand at all.’

  ‘At least you’re small!’ Lupe’s laugh was cut short. Her head and upper body rapidly disappeared, legs slithering after. I reached out, dropping the wood-light in my panic, but was left grasping air.

  ‘Lupe!’

  A muted thump from the darkness ahead.

  ‘Lupe?’

  Her reply made me jump, sending rock dust streaming.

  ‘I’m all right! It’s only a short slope. Isa, you’ve got to see this…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just lower yourself down. It’s safe.’

  I inched ahead, feeling for the edge. I dropped the blade and heard it clatter down, then hung for a moment, letting my weight tip me forward.

  It was not an elegant landing, and I only just missed the blade. I waited for Lupe to laugh, but she was oddly silent, standing at the centre of a cave, face tilted up. I did not need the wood-light to see her, because its glow bounced back at me from all directions.

  A million crystals arced over our heads, throwing out light that danced and shifted, like underground stars. Even the rock beneath my knees glinted below the glittering ceiling.

  Da had told Gabo and me about places like this. I’ve never seen one, but once I met a man who had found a crystal cave under a river. Some crystals are formed by water, others by fire.

  And as there was no water here, no river… it had to be fire.

  There are two kinds of crystals. One is granite, a light-coloured rock. And, like you two, it has a twin, a dark version of itself. Its name is ‘gabbro’. Gabo, Gabbro.

  Now as I stood, surrounded by the walls of glittering crystals, that coincidence came back to me, like a gift.

  Something clicked slowly into place, like a sum. It all added up. The smell, the crystals, the heat. I could not ignore it any longer.

  ‘Lupe? I think I know what this is.’

  Lupe didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the crystals.

  I took another deep breath and said, ‘It’s a fire pit. That’s what formed these.’

  Fire pits happen where the ground is so hot it melts. Imagine that, whole lands filled with flame! Sometimes it rises and swallows entire towns. Gabo hadn’t liked that, but Da had calmed him. But more often they sleep and rumble a bit. Or make crystals name
d like twins.

  I opened my mouth to tell Lupe, but she was looking at me oddly.

  ‘Did you say a fire pit?’

  Just like in the myth of Arinta. I recalled Ma’s map, how the lines had seemed jumbled but still led to the centre. That strange red circle, at the centre of a map a thousand years old. I took a deep breath of acidic air.

  A demon’s promise lasts a thousand years.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Lupe’s face was wary.

  I was thinking of the drought. I was thinking of the Governor’s animals, fleeing to the sea. I was thinking of the people in Gris, poisoned by the air.

  ‘The knot on the map was close to the red circle,’ I said carefully. ‘Maybe only a mile. I think the exit is that way.’ I pointed to a tunnel on our left. ‘But that way leads to the red circle.’ I pointed to another, lower tunnel ahead. It shimmered in a different way from the crystals. It shimmered with heat.

  ‘So?’

  I nearly changed my mind. But now was not the time to doubt. ‘Yote is in that red circle.’

  ‘Yote?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘From that story you like?’

  I bristled. ‘He’s a fire demon. And it’s not a story. It’s a myth.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  Irritated, I rubbed my eyes, grit grinding against my lids. ‘A myth is something that happened so long ago people like to pretend it’s not real, even when it is.’

  Lupe did not say anything for a long time. When she spoke, it was in a careful, calming voice, as if to a dangerous animal. ‘Isabella, Yote is no more real than Arinta.’

  ‘Arinta was real!’ My voice echoed around the cave. ‘And anyway, what about the Tibicenas? They seemed real when they were chasing us!’

  ‘Maybe the horse boy was right,’ she said in a determined voice. ‘Maybe they were wolves—’

  ‘Wolves as big as horses, whose fur stinks of smoke?’

  ‘Because they live underground, near a fire pit!’

  ‘They’re driven by more than hunger. They didn’t eat Cata. They killed her, left her to be found.’

  A warning, Doce called it. They’ve been sent to clear the island.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Isabella. You’ve got to stop believing these things.’