The Hungry Isle

by Emily Rodda

  The scathing words washed over Britta without touching her. She knew that Mab was fighting for all their lives in the only way she could. And Mab was winning. The men had begun glancing at one another. Many had begun casting dubious looks at Crow.

  ‘I cannot promise that we will have plain sailing ahead,’ Mab added, gazing steadily at the crew. ‘No voyage is without its dangers, as you men know only too well. But I can assure you, at least, that no trouble we may face from now on will be young Britta’s doing.’

  She smiled slightly, as if she was sure that the men must now agree that the very idea of such a thing was ridiculous. The shamefaced smirks in her audience seemed to show that she was right. It did not seem to matter that she had not even tried to answer most of the charges against Britta. Her mellow, confident voice, ringing with authority, had triumphed where a hundred logical arguments might have failed.

  ‘Here is my proposal,’ Mab continued. ‘If you now release Captain Hara and return to your duties, the offer of double pay still stands. In addition, this matter will not be raised again between us, nor will it be reported in Del. Every one of you will leave the Star of Deltora without a stain on his character.’

  There was a rumble of sound from the men—a low, relieved sound. Crow showed the whites of his eyes.

  ‘Well?’ said Mab. ‘Is it a bargain?’

  And at that moment, just when it seemed that her success was assured, fate took a hand. Perhaps Davvie, in his fear and tension, had squeezed Black Jack a little too tightly. Perhaps the cat simply grew tired of being held. Whatever the reason, the result was disastrous.

  Black Jack struggled violently, broke free from Davvie’s grip, shook himself indignantly and stalked away from the mast with his tail held high. He was making for the prow, no doubt in search of peace and solitude, when he came face to face with Britta, and saw what no one else could see. He saw the wraiths of Tier, curling about the girl like smoke.

  Instantly he stopped dead, his claws digging into the boards of the deck. His fur stood on end, his back arched and he hissed, his eyes blazing.

  ‘You see?’ Crow howled. ‘The creature knows! It knows what she is!’

  The men groaned and cursed in terror. Britta did not hear them. She stood frozen in a whirlwind of whispers, staring in shock at Black Jack’s wild, golden eyes, his gaping pink mouth, his bared white teeth. A memory was twitching at the edge of her mind. It was the key to the horror—somehow she knew that—but the more she tried to drag it into the light, the more it danced out of her reach.

  With a yowl the cat spun round and streaked away through the legs of the shocked, staring men.

  ‘What more proof do you need?’ Crow yelled. ‘Do we all have to die before you stir your miserable carcasses an’ do what no soul in the nine seas would blame you for doing? Get the witch an’ all who tried to save her off this ship! Get them off!’

  A wave of panicking men overwhelmed the small group standing by the rail. Vashti screamed and screamed again as rough hands were laid upon her. Mab staggered and sagged back into Kay’s arms.

  Britta felt Jewel’s grip on her arm break as the woman of Broome, cursing and struggling, was dragged back by Bolt and the others who had helped launch the landing boat.

  ‘The Rithmere sneak as well!’ Crow shouted. ‘He’s one of them!’

  ‘No!’ Davvie cried shrilly, as two men seized Sky and began dragging him away. ‘Not Sky! Sky hasn’t done nothing!’

  ‘Keep quiet, boy, or you’ll find yourself over the side with him!’ Crow snarled. He raised his voice. ‘An’ that goes for anyone else who don’t like what I’m saying. Any man wants to object, now’s his chance. Well? Speak up!’

  No one said a word. Cowed and sweating, Grubb hung his head. His neighbours shuffled their feet, their eyes troubled but their mouths shut tight.

  Crow grinned. Holding his knife steady, he snatched the captain’s cap from Hara’s head and clapped it on his own.

  ‘All right, scum!’ he growled. ‘Move!’

  The end came quickly after that. In a very few minutes, it seemed, Britta was crawling across the benches of the landing boat, removing herself as far as possible from Sky, Jewel and Vashti, who had followed her over the side of the ship. She sank onto the short, narrow seat in the boat’s prow and crouched there, numb with shock. Shadows were swarming around her. Soft, echoing voices whispered her father’s name.

  The landing boat must be as drenched in memories as the ship itself, Britta thought vaguely. There seemed something odd or wrong about this, but she could not think what, and soon stopped trying.

  Jeering faces stared down over the ship’s rail as Mab, swinging at the end of a rope like a bundle of rags, was lowered into Jewel’s arms. Pale with outrage, Healer Kay scrambled down next. And last of all came Hara, his face set like stone.

  ‘Take the oars,’ Hara muttered to Sky and Jewel, jerking his head at the rowing bench in the boat’s centre. ‘Get us well clear as soon as they cast off. I would not put it past Crow to try to run us down.’

  Silently Sky and Jewel obeyed, leaving Kay to make Mab as comfortable as she could.

  Huddled in the prow, locked in a whispering nightmare, Britta heard Crow’s voice bellowing orders in the ship above. She heard the heavy splash as a rope was cast off carelessly, and a few raucous cheers as the landing boat floated free. She saw Hara heave the dripping rope on board. She saw Jewel and Sky bend to the oars. She roused herself a little, forcing the whispers back.

  ‘How is she?’ Hara muttered, looking down at Mab’s gaunt face.

  ‘Bad,’ said Kay tightly. ‘That performance with Crow cost her dearly. A week drifting in an open boat will finish her.’

  Hara set his jaw. ‘It will not be so long, and we will not be drifting. We will be rowing—as hard and fast as we can. I have my compass. The map of the Silver Sea is in my head. I know where we are, and I know which way to go. Be assured, Kay, I will not fail Mab now.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Kay murmured, giving him a strange look. ‘And what of the rest of us?’

  ‘Speaking for myself, I will be more than happy to return to Illica, whatever anyone else might think!’ Vashti declared in a high voice, with an angry glance at Britta.

  Staring dully back at her, Britta felt a faint stab of pity. How could Vashti think that Hara meant to make for Illica? Illica was far behind them now, and Mab would not survive a long, hard journey. Hara’s loyalty was to Mab, and only Mab. His plan must surely be to find land—any land—as quickly as possible.

  Britta waited for the captain to tell Vashti so, but he said nothing. No doubt he was wise. Vashti would find out her mistake soon enough, and why condemn everyone to her fury before then? Vashti had not been brought up to hardship, and the idea of landing on a tiny dot in the ocean for Mab’s sake would fill her with rage and terror.

  White sails swelled high above them and the Star of Deltora began to move. The landing boat bobbed a little in the wash, but by now was too far from the ship to be in danger.

  I have lost the Star, Britta thought, as the gap between the ship and the boat widened. I have lost her again—this time, forever.

  A memory floated into her mind—her father saying that he had named the ship Star of Deltora because for lost travellers stars were beacons in the darkness, guides to be trusted. And slowly it came to her that the Star of Deltora had indeed been like a flaming beacon in her life. The beautiful ship had been at the heart of her longing for the life she had lost when her father failed her.

  She had loved and trusted the Star as once she had loved and trusted Dare Larsett. She had followed her love blindly, from that moment in Captain Gripp’s cottage when she had agreed to enter the Trader Rosalyn contest. And every step she had taken since had brought her closer to this—this small, creaking boat, this sullen waste of sea.

  The mutineers had begun cheering once more, and this time the sound drifting back from the ship was deeper, stronger and more heartfelt. It sounded as if every
hand aboard was rejoicing.

  Without surprise, Britta saw the reason. The Star of Deltora was surging through clear water. The turtles that had surrounded the ship for so many days had fallen behind. They were letting the ship go, and massing instead around the landing boat.

  5 - The Turtle Tide

  Jewel cursed in shock as her oar was almost torn from her hands, its blade jammed between the huge, humped creatures suddenly swarming in the water beside her. At the same moment, Sky jerked back, nearly falling from his seat as his oar too was fouled.

  ‘Ship the oars!’ Hara bellowed as the boat rocked violently and water poured over the sides. ‘Don’t lose them, for pity’s sake!’

  His shouts were almost drowned out by everyone else’s cries of alarm, but it did not matter. Jewel and Sky had both grown up with boats, and knew what had to be done. Already they were skilfully freeing their oars and dragging them in to safety.

  In moments they had succeeded, without damage or loss. Water lapped around their ankles as they slumped forward, panting, on the rowing bench.

  Hara surveyed the great, dark circle of swimming turtles that surrounded the boat on all sides. Then he turned to look at Kay, sitting expressionless in the stern with Mab’s head resting on her shoulder.

  ‘We are not to be allowed to row, it seems,’ the healer said quietly.

  His lips a thin, hard line, his hair and beard draggled with spray, Hara reached for the bucket under his bench and doggedly began to scoop water from the bottom of the boat.

  ‘This is your fault!’ Vashti shrieked at Britta through chattering teeth. ‘You and your sunrise pearl! You stole it from the turtle people to win the contest, and now they have sent their creatures after you, in revenge! You have killed us all!’

  ‘We are not dead yet, Vashti,’ drawled Sky. ‘And, by the by, if you really believe that these turtles followed us, invisible, all the way south from Two Moons, you are as stupid as Crow.’

  As Vashti glared at him, speechless with outrage, he shrugged. ‘The turtles gathered around the ship just out of Illica. Does it not seem likely, then, that they live in this part of the Silver Sea, and have nothing to do with Two Moons, or sunrise pearls, at all?’

  ‘So this may not be quite the disaster it seems,’ Jewel put in stoutly. ‘Turtles breathe air, and these turtles have been swimming for days. They will surely want to return to their home island soon, so they can rest. If they carry us along with them, we may find ourselves on land very soon.’

  ‘Indeed we may,’ Kay murmured. ‘As in the old tale.’

  Hara hesitated, then nodded and returned to his baling. Sky said something under his breath and began fingering one of the charms threaded in his hair.

  Britta slid further back on her bench and stared down at her hands. A great, aching lump had risen in her throat. After the terrible scene with Black Jack, she had fully expected to be treated as an outcast by everyone aboard the landing boat. Yet Kay and Hara, despite their fears for Mab, had not uttered a word against her. And Sky and Jewel had defended her as if she deserved it, and as if they still thought of her as a friend.

  But I do not deserve it, Britta thought, the pain in her throat becoming as sharp as a knife thrust. The mark of the turtle man Tier on my forehead is plain for everyone to see. But no one in this boat knows about the goozli. No one knows that I carry the living magic of Tier with me, hidden in my pocket, and cannot make myself give it up. If they did, they would change their minds about me. They would realise that the turtles must be my doing, wherever they come from and whether they mean good for us, or ill.

  The knife seemed to twist as it came to her that the secret of the goozli was small compared to the other—the great, shameful secret that she had kept for so long. If Mab, Hara, Kay, Jewel and Sky knew that she was the daughter of Dare Larsett, they would see, as Britta now did herself, that Crow was right—that she was indeed the curse that had dogged the Star of Deltora from the beginning.

  Her quest to become Mab’s Apprentice had been doomed from the start—Britta knew that now. She had been a fool to think she could escape her past. Like her father, she had snatched at what she wanted in vanity and deceit. She had followed in Dare Larsett’s footsteps, just as the Star had followed the route of his final voyage. And like Larsett, though without intending it, she had led her companions to disaster.

  Numb with misery, she huddled in the prow, wishing with all her heart that Hara had put her over the side the moment the crew demanded it. She wished that Hara had not resisted Crow, wished that Mab had not spoken for her, that Jewel and Sky had not defended her. Then she would have been alone in her trouble—but her anguish would have been less.

  Now that the oars had been shipped, the boat was moving smoothly. And, sure enough, it was not drifting aimlessly but gliding along in a definite direction, making good speed.

  Britta could feel it, could hear Jewel gleefully pointing it out to the others, but she did not raise her head. She did not want to meet anyone’s eyes. She did not want to see the turtles. Most of all, she did not want to be tempted to look over the leaden sea at the Star of Deltora growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

  Jewel at last fell silent. No one else spoke. It swam into Britta’s exhausted mind that turtles or no turtles she and her companions would still be on the ship if Black Jack had not happened to cross her path. The sickening image of the cat’s wild, golden eyes rose before her, and again a memory plucked at the edge of her mind, just out of reach.

  It was no use. She could not think. It was becoming harder and harder to block out the whispers that hissed around her, endlessly repeating her father’s name. It was easier simply to close her eyes, to give up the struggle, to let the whispers ebb and flow around her like the water rippling softly around the gliding boat.

  For what seemed a very long time, Britta drifted in the space between sleep and waking. Pictures of Jantsy came to her there: Jantsy kneading bread in the warm bakery, looking up to smile a greeting, a smudge of flour on his cheek. Jantsy walking beside her at sunset, his honey-coloured hair ruffled in the breeze. Jantsy waving a red scarf from the harbour shore, his white-clad figure growing smaller and smaller as the Star of Deltora surged towards the open sea ...

  Faintly Britta could hear him whispering her name. Britta ... Britta ... Britta ... She smiled at the caressing sound, then her smile faltered. Jantsy had been shouting his farewell to her that day, not whispering! His hand had been cupped around his mouth. Borne on the wind, his voice had sounded thin and wild as a seabird’s call. It had not breathed softly into her mind, like this ...

  Something was wrong. In her half-sleep, Britta struggled to bring back the picture of Jantsy calling and waving from the shore. There he was, just as she remembered. Captain Gripp was beside him. Bosun, Gripp’s polypan, was capering around them both ...

  Bosun!

  And finally Britta grasped the memory that had been fluttering at the edge of her mind ever since she saw the terror in Black Jack’s golden eyes. Suddenly she remembered the polypan bobbing and gibbering, baring his teeth at the sight of her, the evening that Gripp had told her about the Rosalyn contest. Bosun’s eyes had blazed with fear that night—just as Black Jack’s eyes had blazed this morning. And, like the cat, Bosun had not been looking directly at Britta, but at something behind her—something no one else could see.

  Britta forced her heavy eyelids open. Shadows swooped and twined around her, so many that it was as if she was looking through a tattered grey veil. Adoring whispers flooded her unguarded mind, and amid the tumult of hissing sound she could hear two names repeated over and over again.

  Britta ... Britta ... Larsett... Larsett... Larsett...

  Memories ... She caught at the word as if it were a lifeline, but it slipped away from her and vanished. She could believe in it no longer.

  These voices sighing her father’s name and her own could not be echoes from the past, stored in the timbers of the landing boat! Britta had never been
in this boat before—and nor, she now remembered, had Dare Larsett! Her father had taken the Star of Deltora’s original landing boat to the Isle of Tier. This craft had been built to replace it.

  The twining shadows were not memories either—suddenly Britta knew that. Suddenly she knew that the shadows, so much denser and more visible now than they had ever been before, were real. They were pressing close, wanting to be near her. She could sense their longing. She could feel their ghostly fingers brushing her face, her neck, her hair ...

  Dread took her by the throat. Through the tumult in her mind, she heard again the voice of the Del fortune-teller who called herself Lean Alice, croaking in the dark.

  The girl has dealings with the dead in body, as well as the dead in spirit. I have seen them with her in this very street, attending her, fawning upon her, watching and listening ...

  They have been with me all along, Britta thought numbly. They have been haunting me since the day Captain Gripp told me of the Rosalyn contest. They boarded the Star of Deltora with me. They were with me in Maris harbour, in Two Moons, in the hold where I found the metal box, in Bar-Enoch’s cavern ... But why? What do they want of me?

  Britta ... Britta ... Larsett’s daughter ... child of the Staff .

  Britta made out the whispered words, and her blood ran cold. Frozen in horror, she gazed through the veil of flitting shadows at her companions in the boat.

  Jewel was dozing, leaning against her oar with her head pillowed on her arms. Kay, Mab and Vashti were also asleep. Only Sky and Captain Hara were awake. Both of them sat motionless, looking past Britta at something ahead.

  Stiffly, Britta turned to look over the prow. Between the boat and the horizon, the air was shimmering, rippling like water. The next moment, the illusion began fading like mist vanishing in sunlight. And as the terrible beauty it had hidden was revealed, she stopped breathing.