by Lian Tanner
Everyone except Double nodded. The slaver folded her arms and snorted in frustration.
The Protector pushed her eyeglasses up her nose. “And no one has any suggestions as to how we can stop the Fugleman? Practical suggestions?”
Silence. Goldie felt as if her brain had been forced through a sieve, until there was not a single idea left whole and sensible.
The Protector leaned more heavily against Sinew. “As far as I can see,” she said, “there is only one solution. We must bargain with him, and quickly.”
“But we can’t get near him—” began Toadspit.
“We can’t attack him, that’s true,” said the Protector. “But if we approach him under a white parley flag, the mercenaries should let us through. We must offer him something of great value, but only if he agrees to leave the museum alone.”
“Bah,” said Olga Ciavolga. “Do you think he would keep the agreement? Treachery is in his nature.”
A bead of sweat ran down the Protector’s forehead, cutting through the dust. “Of course. But it will buy us time. And that is what we need.”
Another shift. Goldie’s voice was as crackly as old paper, but she sang, as did the other keepers, all of them thinking hard.
When they came back together at last, Herro Dan tapped the Protector’s arm with a stubby finger. “Nope, you ain’t gunna do it. It wouldn’t buy much time anyway.”
“What isn’t she going to do?” whispered Bonnie, who had crept around to stand close to Goldie.
“She wants to give herself up,” whispered Goldie.
The Protector closed her eyes, then opened them again. “I would certainly prefer not to hand myself over to my brother’s tender care. He thinks I am dead, and once he discovers I am not, he will do his best to rectify the matter. But I am the Protector, and that position is not misnamed. I have a duty to the city.”
Toadspit shook his head. “Herro Dan’s right. It wouldn’t buy enough time to make a difference.” He had that focused look on his face again that made him look older than his years. “We need something more. . . .”
There was a rattle of claws in the doorway behind Goldie, and Pounce leaped to his feet. “Did ya find ’im?” he demanded as Broo bounded into the room. “Where is ’e?”
“He is here,” rumbled Broo, and he stepped aside to reveal Mouse.
The little boy looked as if he had been burrowing through piles of lathe and plaster. His face was covered in dust and his white hair was matted, but he smiled shakily at Pounce and dragged the baby’s bath, still filled with scraps of paper, into the room behind him.
Goldie felt a flurry of hope. “A fortune!” she said. “That’s what we need!” And she sprang to her feet and helped Mouse pull the bath under the shelter.
“A fortune?” said Double. “I can think of a dozen things we need more than a fortune!”
Goldie ignored her. She ignored Ma and Pa, and Herro and Frow Hahn too, who were all looking as doubtful as the slaver. “Go on,” she said to Mouse. “Quick!”
The boy whistled, and his mice crept out from inside his jacket. But their white bodies trembled, and they clung to Mouse and would not go into the bath.
“Poor little sprats are scared silly,” said Pounce. “Try again, Mousie.”
The boy whistled a second time, and crooned softly, but his pets were too frightened to leave the safety of his body.
Goldie thought of the way the mice and the cat had worked together on board the Piglet, when the children were trying to escape from Cord. “Cat?” she said. “Can you help?”
The cat, which had been lying silently beside the Protector all this time, raised its battered head. “Mooooouses?” Then it dragged itself to its feet and limped to the bath.
Double muttered, “It seems that children were not enough. Now I find myself allied with small furry animals.”
The cat was clearly in pain. But it blinked reassuringly at the mice, and purred so loudly that Goldie could feel the vibration in her chest. The mice squeaked. Their trembling eased a little. The cat waved a regal paw and said, “Doooown!”
The mice squeaked again. Then, in a flood of white fur and pink ears, they disappeared into the bath.
The scraps of paper rustled. The museum shifted. Goldie scrambled to the nearest wall and sang, all the while keeping her eyes on the bath and the white-haired boy.
As soon she could, she dived back into the shelter. “What does it say, Mouse?”
She scanned the bits of paper that lay on the floor, her spine prickling. “It’s the same as last time! Exactly the same! Of gold. This journey will. Last chance to win. Beast. And a picture of a road.”
Herro Dan closed his eyes. His brown face was wracked with grief, and Goldie shivered, as if someone had walked across her grave. “What does it mean, Herro Dan? Please tell me. Where am I going?”
But before the old man could answer, there was an awful roar and Frow Carrion renewed her assault.
As the cannonballs pounded against the walls, the museum seemed to swell with rage. The air was already hot, but now it grew feverish, and as thick as porridge. Whale bones splintered and cracked. Old military uniforms lashed out with tattered arms and legs, smashing the glass of their cabinets. In the room called Vermin, teeth chattered in anticipation.
Goldie could no longer hear Mouse or Toadspit or even her own voice. The wild music swept everything before it.
The Lady’s Mile rampaged from one side of the museum to the other. The ground in Old Mine Shafts split like a crevasse, and the neighboring room of Lost Children tumbled into it.
The Dirty Gate swung open.
“Sing!” roared Herro Dan, and the keepers sang their throats raw. But the Museum of Dunt had had enough, and now it was taking matters into its own hands. The wildness was fighting back.
Even as she sang so desperately, Goldie could feel the disaster that was upon them. Black water poured into the lower rooms, followed by the unnamable creature that lived in Old Scratch. Famine crept through Early Settlers. Somewhere a siege engine rumbled into action.
But that was only the beginning. To Goldie’s horror, a column of soldiers in ancient costumes was marching out of the war rooms and through the Dirty Gate. And behind the soldiers, pouring out of the plague rooms in numberless hordes, came the rats.
“What is it?” Double cried in Goldie’s ear. “I felt something! What’s happening?”
The slaver’s voice jolted Goldie out of her shock. Beside her, Olga Ciavolga was shouting, “Dan, tell Goldie about the Beast Road! It might yet reverse this! It is our only hope!”
The old man let out a dreadful groan. “There’s no time to get her there! This bombardment’s drivin’ things too fast!”
“He is RRRRIGHT!” snarled Broo. “The end of EVERRRRYTHING is almost upon us!”
Another cannonball crashed overhead. As the reverberations died away, the Protector dragged herself out from under the tables. “Is it time you need?”
“Yes!” cried Herro Dan. “If we could just slow everythin’ down a bit—”
“But while this bombardment lasts,” said Olga Ciavolga, “we cannot!”
“Then I will give you time,” said the Protector in a grim voice. “Herro Roth, help me out to my brother.”
“No, wait!” Toadspit raced across to Bonnie and muttered something in her ear. Then he ran out of the room.
“Where’s he gone?” cried his mother. “Bonnie? What’s he doing?”
Bonnie crouched beneath the tables, mute with fright. A cannonball hit the museum, directly overhead. Chips of wood and stone plummeted down around Goldie, and she put her arms over her face and cowered as close to the wall as she could. She could feel death’s relentless advance through the dusty corridors. She forced herself to keep singing, knowing that it was no use, and that the city and everyone in it was as good as lost.
There was one final crashing roar—and the bombardment stopped again.
The silence this time was so terrible tha
t Goldie could hardly bear it. Her ears would not stop ringing. She felt the soldiers slow their headlong pace, and the rats with them, as if the force that drove them had lessened.
“Bonnie!” she shouted. She didn’t think she would hear herself otherwise. “Where’s Toadspit gone?”
The pile of tables in the middle of the room trembled. Herro Hahn emerged, then Bonnie. She was crying, the tears cutting deep runnels in the plaster that covered her skin.
“He said—” she began; then grief overtook her.
Her father wrapped his arms around her. “It’s going to be all right, sweeting,” he said.
“No, it’s not!” Bonnie threw off his arms and marched over to Goldie. “I don’t know—” She stopped and took a snuffly breath. “I don’t know what the Beast Road is, or how you’re going to walk it. But you’d better hurry. Because Toadspit’s gone to buy you some time.”
“How?” said Goldie, although she was afraid that she already knew.
“He’s—he’s going out under a parley flag. He’s going to challenge the Fugleman to a duel!” More tears flooded Bonnie’s eyes, and this time she did not try to stop them. “A duel at sunset. A duel to the death!”
Native and stranger
From the moment Frow Carrion had ground to a halt in Swindler’s Plaza, the Fugleman had been expecting tricks from his enemies. He had warned Brace to be on the alert, and had surrounded himself with armed men. If anything nasty came out of the museum, it would be shot down before it advanced more than a few paces.
What he wasn’t expecting was to see a boy clamber out of the smoke and rubble, waving a white flag and carrying a sword.
To the Fugleman’s dismay, the roar of Frow Carrion stopped immediately. He rubbed his ears, which felt as if they were filled with sand, and shouted at the field marshal. “What’s the matter? I said, what’s the matter? You assured me you would keep firing until the place was flattened!”
Brace pointed to the boy, who was picking his way carefully toward the troops. “Parley flag.”
“Nonsense,” said the Fugleman, shading his eyes. “It’s just an old tablecloth.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Brace. “It’s white and that’s what counts. Rules of war. Both sides of a conflict must respect the parley flag.” He shrugged. “Besides, they might want to surrender.”
The Fugleman stared at him in astonishment. “But I don’t want them to surrender! I want them destroyed. Shoot the brat before he gets any closer!”
Now it was the field marshal’s turn to stare. “Are you mad? It’s a parley flag!” He spoke loudly and clearly, as if the Fugleman was an idiot. “Which means he can’t shoot us and we can’t shoot him. Rules. Of. War!”
The Fugleman was not the least bit interested in the rules of war, and said so, vehemently. Then he put his hand on his sword and repeated his order to shoot.
“I will not!” said the field marshal, puffing up his cheeks in outrage.
“Remember who’s paying you!”
“What I remember,” snapped Brace, “is how hard it was to get that payment!” And with a great wagging of his mustache he turned away from the Fugleman and cried, “Let the boy through! We’ll see what he has to say.”
The brat was so covered in plaster dust that he looked like a walking statue. Only his eyes showed clearly, white around the rim, as if it took all the courage he possessed to walk so steadily toward Frow Carrion, knowing that with each step he might be blown to pieces.
The Fugleman didn’t recognize him until the very last minute. And even then it was only due to the squawk of horror from Guardian Hope. “It’s Toadspit Hahn! But he’s got pla—”
“Be quiet!” roared the Fugleman, cutting her off in midwail. His temper was rising; why did he always have to be surrounded by fools? First Brace with his ridiculous “rules of war.” Now Guardian Hope, who had no more sense than to cry plague at a time like this!
He glared at the approaching figure, wondering how the brat had escaped from the Silver Lining. Was he infected? The Fugleman was tempted to run the boy through with his sword and burn the body, just in case. Brace would protest, of course, and bleat about the parley flag, but if it was done quickly enough . . .
The boy, however, stopped a dozen paces away and raised the white flag above his head. “I bring—” His voice slipped and wobbled, and he started again. “I bring a challenge!”
The Fugleman could not help himself. His mouth fell open and he laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. Some of the mercenaries began to chortle too, but they soon fell silent. There was something about the way the boy stood; the look in his eyes; his air of deadly seriousness.
Guardian Hope tugged at the Fugleman’s elbow, her face contorted with fright. “Your Honor!” she whispered. “That boy! He has pl—”
The Fugleman’s glare made her swallow the offending word. But she would not be silenced, not entirely. “ You know what is wrong with him!” she hissed. “Kill him! Now! Save your people from a terrible death!”
The Fugleman would have liked nothing better than to kill the boy, but Field Marshal Brace was in his way. And besides, the whole plague ship episode was beginning to stink like week-old fish. It had been too convenient. Too . . . clever.
“In fact,” he muttered, “it reeks of the ridiculous tricks practiced by the Hidden Rock.”
“Tricks, Your Honor?” said Hope, still flapping around him.
“The ship, you fool! And this little charade too, probably.” The Fugleman shoved Hope out of the way and raised his voice. “It’s nothing but a trick, Brace, and we should treat it as such! Shoot him. Get rid of him. The museum is playing games with us.”
The field marshal ignored him. “What is this challenge, boy?” he asked.
Smudge, who had found a place of sorts in the mercenary ranks, nudged his companions and said loudly, “That’s Toadspit he’s talking to. I know Toadspit.”
The brat took a visible breath. “I—I challenge the Fugleman to a duel!”
“What?” said the Fugleman. “Are you deranged, Toadspit Hahn? Has the bombardment knocked a hole in your stupid skull? You want to fight me?”
“A—a duel at sunset.” The brat’s voice wobbled, then grew stronger. “To the death!”
“Pah!” said the Fugleman, turning away. “I would not waste my time!”
Field Marshal Brace glared at him in disapproval. “Can’t turn down a challenge, not when it’s issued under a parley flag. Rules of war.”
The Fugleman found himself sputtering. “Don’t be ridiculous! He’s a mere boy! I’m not going to fight a boy!”
There were hostile murmurs from the men around him. “A challenge is a challenge,” said Brace, smiling through his teeth.
“But it’s a delaying tactic, can’t you see that? There are dangerous things inside that museum, and you are giving the keepers time to rally them. You’re supposed to be a soldier, Brace. I suggest you act like one. Resume the bombardment!”
But the more the Fugleman protested, the more the field marshal dug in his heels. He placed a guard on the boy, in case it was nothing but a trick, and set a number of his men to watch the museum. The rest of the mercenaries began to clear a suitable space for the duel and to build a ring of fires around it.
The Fugleman ground his teeth until they hurt. “Guardian Hope,” he said, in deceptively mild tones. “It seems that, if we wish to keep our allies, I have no choice but to take part in this ridiculous game.” He lowered his voice so that only Hope and the brat could hear him. “But I will do it on my own terms. Do you still have your little pistol?”
“Yes, Your Honor!”
“Good,” murmured the Fugleman. “Keep an eye out for anyone trying to escape from the museum. The mercenaries will not fire on children. But if you see the boy’s sister, you have my permission to shoot her.”
The boy grew white under the plaster dust but said nothing.
Hope smiled. “With pleasure, Your Honor.”
The Fugleman turned back to Brace. “Very well, Field Marshal, I accept the challenge. I will fight this boy in a duel to the death. And when I have beaten him—when I have killed him—then we will destroy the Museum of Dunt!”
The thought of Toadspit in the hands of the Fugleman was so dreadful that Goldie could hardly breathe. For a moment it eclipsed everything else. She looked at the faces around her and saw her own horror reflected in them.
But then Olga Ciavolga drew herself up, like an old warrior who knows that nothing must distract her from her purpose. “It is not yet sunset,” she said, “and Toadspit is no fool. He will be able to hold the Fugleman off for a while—”
“But then the Fugleman will kill him!” wailed Bonnie.
Frow Hahn sobbed, and Herro Hahn muttered, “I’ll go and get him. I’ll bring him back.”
“No, I’ll go,” said the Protector. “We can’t let him sacrifice himself like this.”
“Be quiet, all of you!” The old woman’s eyes flashed. “The Dirty Gate is open, and war and plague are stalking these corridors, searching for the front door that will release them into the city. Thanks to Toadspit’s challenge, they are moving far more slowly, but they are moving. Our only hope now is if Goldie can walk the Beast Road.”
“But what is the Beast Road?” cried Ma. “Is it dangerous?”
“Will it stop these soldiers you’re talking about?” said Pa. “Will it stop the rats?”
“What about the Fugleman?” said Double. “And Frow Carrion. Will it stop them?”
“Will it save Toadspit?” whispered Frow Hahn.
Herro Dan stepped forward, his face solemn. “We don’t know for sure what it’ll do. Maybe all of that. Maybe none. But we gotta give it a try.”
A babble of questions rose around Goldie. Her own mind was blank as she tried to ready herself for whatever was coming. She heard Double’s voice rise above the rest.
“All right, say Goldie does walk this Beast Road. What do the rest of us do in the meantime? Sit here and make polite conversation? Can’t we slow these rats and soldiers down a bit more? I’ll have a go if no one else will.”