The Islands of Chaldea

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Then I saw Ogo clinging to the handle of one of the doors that was smacking open and shut as if it would shake him off. “Ogo!” I shouted.

  The wind filled my mouth and dried up the words in my throat. It was howling now too, so it drowned out my voice. But he heard me. I saw him nod. I crawled towards him, fighting the wind. It was so strong and so hard to move that I felt as if my hands and knees were glued to the floor. Airborne grapes, figs and plums whistled over my head and I had to keep ducking. I’d nearly reached Ogo when Prince Alasdair’s sofa hurtled, end-on, towards me with shoals of little loaves whisking around it. I threw myself flat and felt it skim my hair before I heard it slam into the arches behind me and fall to pieces, then on I crawled, with the wind screaming in my ears.

  Ogo wedged his shoulder in the door and it closed on him like a vice, trying to squeeze him out of the room. It must have hurt a lot, but he stayed put long enough for me to crawl through the gap, past his legs and into the corridor. Then he was heaved out on to the floor beyond me and the door clapped shut. Bolts shot, keys turned. Did it think it had locked us in or out?

  We sat on the floor, panting with effort, and I managed to gasp out a thank you to him for rescuing me. The thought that I could have been locked in the room with that killer wind was frightening. I was fairly sure it was the same wind as the gusting one that had set light to our balloon. It was obvious now that it had been sent to do it on purpose. And I guessed that the wind that had carried us across Logra had been conjured too. It hadn’t been caused by the barrier coming down, like I’d thought, and it hadn’t blown us towards the capital by chance. It had intended to bring us here.

  I started to say so and Ogo just nodded again. He’d already worked that out. We could hear it still beating about on the other side of the doors. Then we heard it stop. We heard the crash of furniture and tinkle of cutlery as broken bits of things fell back to the floor. Then there was silence. There was a kind of fury to that silence. “It’s realised it hasn’t got us,” I whispered. “Run!”

  We ran for our lives down endless corridors and staircases. We didn’t know where we were going or where the others had been taken, we just ran. I was afraid the clatter of our feet on the wooden steps would give us away, but the wind appeared to have lost us or given up. I almost laughed at Ogo running beside me. The wind had flung a pie into his hair and he was spotted with pastry flakes. He didn’t look much of a prince. He saw me smile and took my hand and, I have to say, we went twice as fast with his long legs at full stretch.

  We both saw the feather at the same time. It was on the floor ahead of us: one of Green Greet’s green feathers lying outside a hefty wooden door. “They must all have been blown this way through the door,” Ogo panted.

  I think I was expecting to find them all there, on the other side, in another magistrate’s room or even a dungeon. Instead, we found ourselves alone in a beautiful little paved court, enclosed by the white palace walls. A few windows overlooked it, but they were tightly shuttered. In the centre was a long oblong of rippling water with cypress trees stationed at each corner, like dark pencils. There was a fountain of sorts at the far end – a tall sculpted block of stone – that fed a peaceful-sounding cascade into the rippling water.

  It was so unexpectedly calm, and we were so breathless and frightened and pastry-covered, that I felt like an intruder in a sacred place. I think Ogo felt the same because he turned to go back. Then a streak of sunlight on the surface caught my eye. “Bless me!” I panted. “There’s another of Green Greet’s feathers.” The sun had lit it up, floating and rocking, at the base of the falling water.

  We ran along the water’s edge and looked across at the feather bobbing about under the fountain, which towered over us – a lovely intertwining of lithe, running creatures. Higher up, there were giant seahorses supporting the figures of a bird, a dragon, a great cat and a winged bull – the four guardians of our world. The water poured down out of the gaping mouth of a huge fish they were all holding. But the feather, pitching about down at the bottom, was not at all bedraggled by the splashes, which was odd.

  “What’s it doing there?” Ogo asked. I didn’t know. We walked around behind the fountain, as if there could be an answer there. But there wasn’t and we trailed back to the front. I was getting very worried now about Aunt Beck and my father and all the others. I was miserable too, because I was beginning to think we might never find them.

  A pressure at the back of my legs and sinewy winding around my knees cheered me up at once. “Oh, Plug-Ugly,” I cried. “I thought that terrible wind had got you!” A throbbing, purring spit, a ‘fat chance!’ sort of spit, came by way of an answer. And I suddenly felt much safer. “He seems to want us to paddle,” I told Ogo, as Plug-Ugly gave me a little push towards the water’s edge.

  Ogo jumped in and then helped me down. The water only came just over his ankles, but I was up to my shins. We waded over to the feather and Ogo put it in his belt. He had four now. But what were we supposed to do next? It was puzzling. We looked back along the rippling water. “They can’t all have been blown here,” Ogo said. “There would be more signs of them.” He grinned. “Like the fruit jelly all over the back of your dress.”

  How he could laugh when we were in such trouble defeats me. I nearly reminded him that the Regent would kill him if he knew he were here. Instead, I told him crossly, he’d be as well to sluice his great pastry head under the fountain. “Yuk,” he said, as soon as he felt his hair, and did.

  “Shush,” I told him as he shouted with the freezing cold of it.

  He looked up at the huge fish reproachfully. “You’d think a salmon your size could do us the favour of warming up the water.”

  “How do you know it’s a salmon?” I asked, but I wasn’t really wanting an answer because what he’d said had jerked at something at the back of my mind and made me think about the feathers differently. What if they hadn’t fallen by chance? Might Green Greet have left them there deliberately? I looked up at the water cascading from the fish’s mouth, like a small waterfall. “I think these feathers are directions,” I said. “Green Greet is showing us the way.”

  Ogo stared at me. “The way to what?”

  “How should I know?” I sighed. “I’m only a Wise Woman – a learner one at that. But I’m going to climb the waterfall. Give me a leg-up.” And he helped me clamber up on to a running hare.

  It was a slippery climb to the top – about three times the height of Ogo. The fountain may have looked beautiful, but everything was covered in thick water-washed slime. It was a bit like climbing a mountain of frogspawn. The water kept hitting me slaps on the top of my head, but I suppose it got rid of the fruit jelly. I pulled myself up by stone tails and manes, hooves and antlers. At the top, I wrapped one arm around the cat’s neck and looked around. There was nothing but a different view of the same thing. What was I doing up here, soaked through and nothing to show for it?

  I looked into the cat’s face and – I no longer know if this is true – I could have sworn the sun glinted on its wet, stone eyes and turned them the exact green-blue of Plug-Ugly’s, and they slewed to look behind me into the fish’s great mouth. Beyond the water, running smooth as satin over its lip, were steps going down into darkness.

  I waved at Ogo and gestured at the fish, to show him what I was doing, then I crawled into the mouth. I could nearly stand upright. The water piling over the edge took up most of the room in there. I had to squeeze past it along a narrow slippery space at the side. I went slowly: it would be simple enough to be dragged over the edge with it. Once past, it was an easy climb down the steps. They spiralled down and down and down. I must have been far deeper than the height of the fountain, but I could see my way fairly well in the greyish dark. That should have been a warning. What kind of light could be here, so deep down?

  Then such a strong, urgent longing for Skarr and home swept over me that I had to stand still for a minute and steady myself against the cold walls. I could sm
ell the sea: the salty, seaweed-and-cockles tang of the sea that was never far from wherever you walk on Skarr. I shook myself free of the homesickness and went on down. I couldn’t possibly have smelt the sea so far inland.

  Quite soon after that, the steps ended. The light brightened so quickly that I was blinded for a minute and could scarcely see the cavernous room I was standing in or the man sitting in the middle of it. For a mad moment, I thought it was Ogo. There was a hint of Ogo in his face. But then I saw he was much older than Ogo and, worse, I saw his weird, pulsing aura that was like a halo of poison. He reminded me of something. Was it a jellyfish? No. He was like a sponge – a seeking, searching sponge – that sucked up everything it needed.

  “Hello,” he said in a soft voice that could smother your hopes.

  But it wasn’t him I was looking at any more. There was a small calf lying on the rocky ground next to him, so cruelly tied and trussed up that I could hardly make out the shape of it at all. Broad mustard-coloured ribbons of seaweed lay across its barnacled back, but, just visible through the tangle of dark magic binding it to the ground, were its small blue wings.

  It looked up at me, and I could see in its eyes a longing to die. I thought: Please, you mustn’t do that. Then I saw something more terrible in that look. The calf knew that, whatever it suffered, it couldn’t die, and I guessed this tiny helpless creature was the Great Guardian of the East, the blue-winged bull. How had it come to such a state?

  The man was smiling now. He wore splendid purple robes and a brilliant ring on every finger. As for his neck, there was enough gold hanging around it to win the envy of Ivar’s brother, Donal.

  “Look what the wind has blown in,” he said, just as softly, and I knew it was he who had sent the wind to kill us. The sickening energy that seeped out of his sucking presence scared me. He was powerful. I’d a suspicion that the wind he’d conjured was just child’s play to him. I had never met such a powerful wizard in my life.

  “But we’ve met before, Aileen,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “On Skarr, at the conference you and your aunt had with the High King Farlane. Remember? At your cousin King Kenig’s castle.”

  I shook my head. How could he possibly have been at that meeting? I’d known everyone in the room. Except of course the High King’s attendants behind his chair. Later, one of them had given us the purse that turned out to be full of stones. “Who are you?” I asked. I was surprised at the firm way it came out. Not giving away the frightened shaking inside me.

  “I’m Waldo,” he replied. “Regent Waldo.”

  There was the sound of hurrying footsteps behind me and Ogo came into the huge room. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

  I said quickly to warn him, “Regent Waldo, this is Prince Ivar’s servant, Ogo.”

  Waldo told us everything we might have wanted to know. He told it so completely, we knew he didn’t intend us to survive long enough to pass it on to anyone else. All the time he was talking, the calf trembled with cold – or that’s what I thought it was at first.

  “You see, my dears,” he said, as if he were telling little children a bedtime story, “we poor old Lograns had to stop the Chaldean Islands warring with us. We were perilously close to defeat. I appealed to our great protector, the Lord of the East, the blue-winged bull, and, with a little persuasion, he agreed we should make a barrier to keep you all at bay.”

  “What kind of persuasion would that be?” I asked.

  “Why, we told him the truth,” Waldo said innocently. “We Lograns were losing the war because the other three Guardians of the West, South and North were helping Skarr, Bernica and Gallis in the fight.”

  “There’s not a whisker of truth in that,” I said. Ogo gave me a kind of ‘be careful’ nudge, meaning not to make Waldo angry, but I couldn’t help myself: I felt so sorry for the calf and I went on, “It would take warped magic to convince a guardian of such a thing.”

  He pretended to be shocked. “Aileen, child! How can you say that? I’ve heard this about you: suspicious to the point of insolence.” He nearly caught me out, nearly sidetracked me by making me wonder who he’d heard it from, and if I minded. But with a wizard of his strength I had to concentrate for every second if we were to try and get out of this alive.

  It was Ogo who ploughed on. “Did the king agree to making the barrier too?” he asked abruptly.

  Waldo gave him a sharp look. “The king was losing the war.”

  “Don’t you mean you were losing the war for him, on purpose?” I asked.

  It was a guess, but I could tell I was right by the way Waldo wagged a jewelled finger at me and said, “What a spiteful thought, Aileen! Betray my own brother? No, the war was destroying Logra and the king begged for my help. As his loyal brother,” he paused to give me a smile that would stop you wanting your food for a week, then went on, “I ended the war by making the barrier. But alas, the king became a sick man, too grief-stricken with the loss of his son to rule sensibly.” He sighed – a truly disgusting sigh that he didn’t even bother to make sound sincere – and added, “Reluctantly, I had to step in and take over.”

  Ogo’s mouth went into that straight line it makes when he is holding back words and feelings. I said, “You must have been upset too. You’re his son’s uncle. You were in charge of him when he got left behind on Skarr, weren’t you?”

  “A dreadful tragedy!” Waldo was handling my question like oiled water. “The king said that we should only put up the barrier as a last resort and he sent me to Skarr to make a final bid for peace. To my everlasting regret, I took the little prince with me as a mark of our good faith.”

  I swear Waldo almost winked as he said it, and it came crashing in on me that he’d left Ogo on Skarr deliberately. Leaving him stuck behind the barrier forever was all part of Waldo’s plan to destroy Ogo’s father, the king, and take over Logra. No wonder Lucella had warned us Waldo mustn’t find out that Ogo was here. Ogo was the rightful heir. Waldo would kill him rather than give him back Logra, or all that treasure of his.

  Waldo did his disgusting sigh again. “Such a headstrong little boy! He gave me the slip at the very moment the Chaldeans rejected my pleas for peace, and I lost him. I was forced to put up the barrier and leave him there.” He shrugged sadly. “What else could I do?”

  “You’re the wizard,” I said. “Was a simple search spell beyond your talent? It would have found him in a trice.” It made Ogo smile a little, which pleased me. He was looking so grim.

  Waldo shook his head at me sorrowfully. “Dear me, Aileen! You’re beginning to sound like your Aunt Beck. All snap.”

  “Good!” I said. But the thought of Aunt Beck took the heart out of me. She would have known far better than I did how to deal with this man. I daren’t ask what he’d done with her and the others for fear of his reply. He smiled. I hated the way he smiled, as if he were tasting you. I was too frightened by him to think straight, and I forced myself to calm down. I thought about the scent of the sea I’d smelt and the seaweed wrapping the calf, and a horrible idea came to me. “How did you make the barrier?” I asked. “It would need massive power. Did you do it with the winged bull’s power?”

  Waldo clapped his hands. “Clever Aileen!” He pretended to applaud me. “That’s exactly what I did. He agreed to become the barrier, which of course made it impenetrable. What’s more, he agreed to remain the barrier until I sent him word that the war was over and Logra was safe from the attacks of the Chaldeans and their guardians. We imagined it would only be for a week or so but time ran on. Life was good. The people were on my side. Somehow or other they’d got the idea the Chaldeans had taken our little prince Hugo hostage and then put the barrier in place.” He shrugged and his gold necklaces jingled. “Why change things?”

  My heart ached for the poor bull. I imagined him buried under mountains of water, holding the great wall in place, a prisoner of his own agreement with Waldo.

  Waldo slapped the calf’s flank and it flinched. “It
seems to have taken it out of the old fellow, doesn’t it?” His round face suddenly flushed with anger. “He would have stayed as the barrier too, if it hadn’t been for the other three guardians interfering. They couldn’t prevent the barrier. No guardian can use their power directly against another guardian, but the three of them could insert that proviso that it would come down if a Wise Woman and a man from each island crossed it. I was annoyed at the time, but it’s turned out rather well. Now you’re here, I can get rid of all you troublemakers in one fell swoop.”

  As he talked, boasting and sucking, I found that, if I half-closed my eyes, I could see he was soaking up power. I could see it flowing out of the calf, like blood, and into Waldo. And the calf was dwindling. It really was smaller than it had been when I first saw it, as if he were eating the little creature alive. Waldo was using the greatest magic in our world to defeat us. There is nothing greater than the power of a guardian. I was ready to cry.

  Ogo asked about the tunnel in the air that had kidnapped Alasdair and my father. But Waldo was ready to leave now and stood up. His purple robes couldn’t disguise his squat flabbiness once he was on his feet, though they had quite concealed the silly-looking throne he’d been perched on, piled high with cushions to raise him up. “We knew there was a special magic in Skarr,” he said briskly.

  “Aunt Beck,” I agreed.

  He flicked a look at me – almost as if he felt sorry for me. “Not Beck, someone else,” he said vaguely. “I had to prevent them concocting any form of retaliation to the barrier. To do that, I needed as priceless a hostage as the Lograns believed Skarr had in our beloved Prince Hugo.” He treated Ogo to a sneery little smile and my heart sank. The smile made it quite clear he knew exactly who Ogo was. “It took a lot of work but, between us, Mevenne and I did a good job on that tunnel.”