The Hungry Isle

by Emily Rodda

  ALSO BY EMILY RODDA

  STAR OF DELTORA

  1. Shadows of the Master

  2. Two Moons

  3. The Towers of Illica

  THREE DOORS TRILOGY

  1. The Golden Door

  2. The Silver Door

  3. The Third Door

  DELTORA QUEST 1

  1. The Forests of Silence

  2. The Lake of Tears

  3. City of the Rats

  4. The Shifting Sands

  5. Dread Mountain

  6. The Maze of the Beast

  7. The Valley of the Lost

  8. Return to Del

  DELTORA QUEST 2

  1. Cavern of the Fear

  2. The Isle of Illusion

  3. The Shadowlands

  DELTORA QUEST 3

  1. Dragon’s Nest

  2. Shadowgate

  3. Isle of the Dead

  4. The Sister of the South

  ROWAN OF RIN

  1. Rowan of Rin

  2. Rowan and the Travellers

  3. Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal

  4. Rowan and the Zebak

  5. Rowan of the Bukshah

  Teachers’ notes for the Star of Deltora series are available from www.scholastic.com.au

  1 - Closer

  The Isle of Tier was moving, carving a slow, rippling path through the waters of the Silver Sea. Schools of fish dived in panic as the great shadow passed above them, but they were in no danger. The Hungry Isle would not stop to feed today.

  Hunched in his cavern, the King of Tier felt the movement thrilling through the magic Staff that stood beside him, its base embedded in his kingdom’s earth. For many years he had barely noticed the steady vibration that meant the island was on the prowl. But today he was very aware of it, because today it was accompanied by something new—something that brought beads of cold sweat to his brow.

  The Staff had begun tilting a little away from him, towards the sea. It was straining towards a single point in the lonely ocean—a ship that as yet was not even a dot on the horizon.

  The King knew why. The ship was the Star of Deltora. Aboard was a girl who was bonded to the Staff of Tier by no will of her own, but by the blood that ran in her veins. And the Staff had sensed her.

  Britta, breathed the wraiths that twined adoringly about the golden throne, about the hand that held the Staff. Your daughter, Larsett. Flesh of your flesh. Bone of your bone. She is nearer. Soon she will be with us at last. With us here, with the Staff,forever ...

  Their whispers were eager, thick with longing. Pictures of Britta flickered among them—pictures brought to the cavern by those of their number that had at first been sent to spy on the girl, then had sped back to her with love.

  The King could not help but look, though the images made something twist painfully in his chest.

  Britta, no longer the child she had been when he last saw her, but a determined young woman who longed to be a trader. Britta creeping from her home while her mother and sister lay sleeping, to compete in the contest that would choose the great Trader Mab’s Apprentice and heir. Britta waving farewell to Jantsy the baker’s son, whose heart she held in her hand though she did not know it. Britta and her rivals aboard the Star of Deltora, making the trading voyage that was to be their final test.

  Britta, surrounded by a cloud of adoring wraiths she could not see.

  Britta, pretending to be an orphan, fiercely keeping the dangerous secret that she was the daughter of Dare Larsett, whose name was cursed throughout the nine seas ...

  The King closed his eyes to shut the pictures out, but still they danced behind his eyelids, tormenting him.

  To the last, he had hoped to sense the Star leaving Illica, her final trading port, and sailing away to the north, carrying Britta safely home. Instead, the ship had strayed to the south-east, closer to Tier.

  Why? By what evil chance—?

  Like the stab of a knife it came to him that the wraiths he had sent to bring him news of Britta might be playing their part in drawing the island and the girl together. Bitterness rose in his throat. He tightened his grip on the leaning Staff, and his mind steadied.

  The drift of the ship might well have nothing to do with the yearning of the wraiths on board. The weather was not fair for sailing. Only the faintest of breezes stirred the sullen air. The newly risen sun sulked behind a thick blanket of cloud, casting a dull yellow glow over the Silver Sea.

  Dimly the King recalled cursing such days in his former life—days when the sails had hung limp above his head and his ship had crept with agonising slowness through water that seemed as thick as oil.

  There had been nothing he could do about the weather then, and there was nothing he could do about it now. With the Staff of Tier at his command he could create wonders from the empty air. He could destroy on the whim of a moment. He could cure all ills. He could live forever.

  But for all his might and power, he could not fill the Star’s sails and send her far away—any more than he could halt the silent, relentless progress of the island that was drawing nearer to her by the hour.

  It was strange to think of it. He had grown used to believing himself all-powerful. Yet slowly he became aware that for some reason he felt more alive now than he had done for many years. It was as if ... as if the present crisis had acted as a tonic, waking him from a long dream.

  It came to him that if he dragged the Staff from the island’s heart, the island would no longer be able to move, to creep towards Britta. It would cease to be the Hungry Isle, and become as it was when the turtle man Tier first created it from bare rock long ago.

  Elation flamed within him, but died almost at once. He knew that he did not have the strength to carry out that plan. The Staff’s will was far stronger than his—always had been.

  Memories swam up to the surface of his mind. How vivid they were, compared to his vague memories of the trackless time since! Eight years ago, the King thought—eight years or more ... Yet he could see it all as clearly as if it were yesterday.

  The reeking chamber in Illica where he knew the pirate Bar-Enoch sprawled dead, the Staff still gripped in a shrivelled hand. The triumphant whispering in the dark. The exhausting crawl down the underground stairway with the long, heavy iron box in which the prize lay hidden. The row through the blackness of the night, perilously low in the water, to the anchored Star of Deltora. The struggle to load the box into the cargo hold. The feverish, secret celebration.

  And then ... the growing, nagging call of the Staff from its dark hiding place. The glorious visions of power that at last could not be denied ...

  And afterwards—after the blood and death— standing alone, triumphant, the magic and power of the Staff flowing through his body, flooding his mind. The hazy, black-rimmed island calling to him across the water. The seabirds fluttering down, picking at the dead ...

  Ah, yes! Throwing the ship’s log into the sea. Lowering the landing boat. Drifting slowly into the perfumed haze ...

  And the wraiths of the island rushing with moaning joy to meet him as he set foot on the glittering black sand and took possession of his kingdom, his destiny, his prison ...

  Shut in her hot, dim cabin on board the Star of Deltora, Britta was thinking of perils far closer at hand than the Hungry Isle. Her eyes kept straying to the mirror that hung above the table where she sat. Her fingers kept brushing aside the fringe that covered her forehead and touching the amber stain that the crew called in dread ‘the mark of Tier’.

  ‘Leave the mark be, Britta, for pity’s sake!’ hissed Jewel of Broome, jumping from her bunk and beginning to pace the cabin restlessly. ‘It is not going to disappear from one minute to the next!’

  Britta looked up at the tall figure of her
friend. Jewel’s brows were knitted, and her skin was shining with sweat. Even her shaved head gleamed.

  ‘Go on deck, Jewel, and get some air!’ Britta urged. ‘I have to hide myself away from the crew but you do not, and I know you feel stifled in here. I am perfectly safe alone—during the day, at least. And Vashti is in her cabin, I think, just a few steps away.’

  ‘Surely you do not believe that Vashti would help you!’ Jewel growled. ‘That girl would not lift a finger to help a rival—or anyone else, come to think about it.’ She stopped by the porthole, twitched the curtain aside and stared out.

  Britta sighed. ‘If only Mab were not ill! She would soon make the men see reason. But surely, before too long, they will realise for themselves that Captain Hara is right and they have nothing to fear from me.’

  Jewel turned from the porthole. Her brown face looked strangely bleached. She seemed about to speak, but before she could say anything there was a tap on the cabin door. The door opened a little, and a cropped grey head appeared in the gap.

  ‘Healer Kay!’ Britta exclaimed.

  Kay slipped into the cabin, closing the door behind her. Her worried eyes searched Britta’s face then slid quickly away again to glance at Jewel.

  Britta felt a stab of fear. ‘Is Mab worse?’ she heard herself ask.

  ‘No worse—though very weak and feverish.’ Kay dropped into the chair opposite Britta, wearily leaning her elbows on the table. Her face, usually so calm, looked strained.

  ‘I—I hope you both understand that my first loyalty must be with Mab,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Britta, staring at her in confusion. ‘You are her healer.’

  ‘Yes. And have been so for seven years—ever since the day I was called to tend to her for a poisoned finger in Dorne, where I lived then.’ Kay’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. ‘The old crab had fallen out with every healer she had ever had before me, but somehow I took to her and she to me. I have sailed with her ever since. For all her faults, I must stand by her.’

  She darted a sideways glance at Britta. Britta thought of the precious sunrise pearl that Mab had forced her to give up as their price for leaving Illica, then let the bitter memory slide away.

  ‘I understand, Kay,’ she managed to say.

  ‘It is the same story with Hara,’ Kay went on, as if she had not heard. ‘After Captain Mikah left Mab’s service to sail with Dare Larsett—a mistake that led him to his death—Mab could not find another captain to suit her. But five years ago she met Hara. She lured him away from his home port in the Ocean of the South, and now I truly believe he would lay down his life for her.’

  ‘I am sure,’ Britta murmured, trying to ignore the clamour that her father’s name always raised in her mind. With a chill, it came to her that perhaps she was being warned not to expect Kay or Hara to protect her from the crew, if protecting her would do Mab harm.

  The same idea had obviously occurred to Jewel.

  ‘I am here for Britta,’ she said. ‘And so is Sky of Rithmere.’ Her voice sounded harsh and strange to Britta’s ears. It was almost as if Jewel was afraid.

  ‘I know that,’ Kay said, ‘and I am glad of it. The men are in an ugly mood. According to Sky, none of them believes Mab’s tale that you stole that sunrise pearl, Britta. They all think you found it in Two Moons, by sorcery. Bosun Crow is doing nothing to calm them—quite the reverse, I fear.’

  She sighed. ‘It seems they have begun to talk of the Star’s evil history again, too. It is as if the horror of the ship’s first voyage with Dare Larsett counts for more than all the voyages she has made since, under the Rosalyn flag. These men are all new to the Star— that is the trouble! Our regular crew would never—’

  ‘If that troublemaker Crow is still going about saying I am a witch, and a curse on the ship, it is he who should be kept below!’ Britta burst out angrily.

  ‘I fear Crow is not the only one saying it now.’ Kay looked at Jewel, who was still standing by the porthole, the corner of the curtain gripped in her hand. ‘Have you seen?’ she asked abruptly.

  Jewel nodded. Silently she beckoned to Britta, and pulled the curtain back.

  ‘What is it?’ Britta cried, very irritated. ‘I know the wind has not freshened, Jewel! I can feel that as well as you can!’

  Jewel simply pulled the curtain further. Her eyes were very dark and her skin looked almost grey. Britta’s heart seemed to leap into her throat.

  She hurried to the porthole and looked out. The sky was filmed with cloud through which the sun glowed sullenly, casting an eerie yellow light. The sea was dull and oily-looking. At first she could see nothing unusual. And then she began to pick out dark shapes beneath the surface of the water, many, many dark shapes, and as she realised what they were, the hair on the back of her neck began to prickle.

  ‘Turtles!’ she whispered.

  ‘They are following the ship,’ said Kay. ‘They are all around us. They came from nowhere—hundreds of them. And more every minute.’

  2 - Ship of Fear

  F or the rest of that day, and for two days after that, Britta stayed out of sight, battling a mounting sense of dread. The turtles swarming around the ship had made the mark on her brow seem even more like the sign of a foul disease.

  Davvie, the ship’s boy, brought her meals. Sky had made a single hurried visit and left after saying very little. Vashti, of course, kept well away. The only sign of her presence on the Star was the soft opening and closing of her cabin door.

  Jewel came in and out, looking increasingly troubled and bringing news that grew worse by the day. Mab was still unwell. Captain Hara was barely sleeping, manning the wheel all night and snatching catnaps through the day. He had thundered at Crow because Crow kept insisting that the ship was straying off course and that the mass of turtles was to blame. The crew was very tense. There had been several fights. A man called Wrack had been gravely injured after falling from the rigging. And there were tales of groans and ghostly wails in the night.

  ‘The only person on board who looks happy is Vashti,’ Jewel said. ‘She is cock-a-hoop. She thinks that I am disqualified for my trouble in Illica and that you will have nothing to show the Trust Committee, so the prize is hers. That is all she cares about. The girl is a fool, as well as a cheat. She seems to have no idea what is happening on this ship.’

  Britta nodded listlessly, turning the hair clip she had found in Bar-Enoch’s cavern over and over in her fingers so that the rare blue odi shells winked in the dim light.

  Perhaps the clip would win the contest for her— perhaps it would not. At this moment it was hard to think about the future—or even to care about it very much. Imagining her life after the voyage was like trying to see through a thick, ominous mist. She felt a dull ache at the thought of losing the Star of Deltora, but that was all.

  Jewel never spoke about mutterings of witchcraft, and Britta did not ask. There was no need. The way Davvie scratched timidly at the cabin door, thrust the tray into her hands and scurried away looking fearfully over his shoulder, told her more than she wanted to know.

  She found herself smoothing her fringe over her brow again and again, even when, as so often, she was quite alone. She felt jittery and sick. The sticky air of the cabin seemed to jump with shadows and seethe with whispers.

  She could not concentrate on the books Jewel brought her from the reading room. And as for her old friend, A Trader’s Life—she was afraid to open its tattered covers. She knew that if she did, she would be compelled to turn to the tale called ‘The Wondrous Staff of Tier’, and read of the turtles that had swarmed to the sorcerer Tier’s aid after his enemies on Two Moons had cast him adrift.

  In the end, she spent long hours simply lying on her bunk, with the little clay manikin she had brought from Two Moons perched on the pillow beside her. The goozli was company of a kind, and seemed to hold the shadows back.

  She kept being drawn to the porthole. Over and over again she looked out, hoping that the
scene had changed. But it was always the same. The muffled sun still cast its unearthly light. The leaden sea was still thick with swimming turtles.

  Late on the third afternoon, sick at heart, she closed the porthole curtain and sat down at the writing table. Delighted to have something to do, the goozli sprang onto the tabletop and busily began to fold the dingy white shirt that it had mended for her that morning.

  ‘I cannot go on like this, goozli,’ Britta murmured. ‘What in the nine seas am I to do?’

  The goozli dropped the shirt and gazed at her mournfully, its small mouth turned down. It looked around as if trying to think of something that might cheer her, and abruptly pounced on the odi shell hairclip. Scampering up Britta’s arm, it gathered up a few locks of hair from each side of her face, deftly lifted them onto the top of her head, and used the clip to fasten them in place.

  Britta looked in the mirror. Even in her misery, she could see that the new style suited her. The tiny shells on the clip gleamed like blue jewels against the darkness of her hair. Standing on her shoulder, the goozli put its hands on its hips and nodded with satisfaction. She could not help smiling.

  ‘Thank you, goozli,’ she murmured. ‘That looks very nice.’

  And then, very suddenly, it came to her on a wave of fear that if anyone should see her now, see her talking to a little clay figure that could move and think and do her bidding, that person would be certain that she was a witch indeed.

  And perhaps ... perhaps in a twisted sort of way that person would be right—if to be a witch was to have magic at your command.

  Britta pressed her sweating hands together. Her heart was thudding hard in her chest. She had become so used to the goozli that she had started to take it for granted. She had certainly stopped wondering at the power of the magic that had created it. There had been so much else to think about!

  But now, as the goozli jumped nimbly from her shoulder and began pottering about the writing table, tidying the books and pencils scattered there, Britta looked at it with new eyes. And the more she looked, the more her fear grew.