by Emily Rodda
There were other survivors too, gathered in a tight knot behind her. The King could not see them clearly, could not see how many of them there were, but they were all on their feet, that was certain.
The King hesitated. He knew that it would be prudent to keep to his plan and take no active part in destroying the invaders of his peace. The wraiths might detect a killing spell, and their faith in him had been shaken enough. Besides, there was no doubt that the forest would prevail in the end.
Yet the thought that his will was being defied made fury rise in him. What was more, though the wraiths’ dismal whining tormented him, he could not order them to leave the cavern till all traces of the intruders had vanished beneath the island’s greedy earth. He did not dare.
He, the all-powerful King of Tier, did not dare ...
His rage swelled. He could feel the hot blood pulsing in the veins of his neck. The shadowy picture he held in his mind wavered then suddenly grew clearer. Now he could see that the wretches sheltering behind the woman of Broome were supporting one another, defending their tight circle as best they could, beating back crawling orchids with belt buckles, boots—even with what looked like huge gold coins. And among them ... among them ...
At first he could not believe it. He told himself that the flare of red in the centre of the group was a mirage. But then he saw, beneath that blazing crest of hair, the fierce, haggard face, the narrowed eyes like chips of flint ...
Mab! But Mab was dead! He had killed her! With his own eyes he had seen her crumpled lifeless on the cavern floor.
Yet there Mab stood—feeble but alive, held upright by that hulking dolt Hara, her new lap-dog, though Hara was staggering and bloodstained himself.
Sweat broke out on the King’s brow. He wrenched his mind from the forest, forced his eyes open. The wraiths had retreated to the cavern walls. They were twining there, whispering, watching him. The Staff seemed to be quivering in his grip and he glanced at it almost fearfully. Its black diamond surface winked at him slyly in the flickering rainbow light.
For the first time since he had made the Staff his own, it had failed to do his will. Somehow Mab had been protected.
Well, no protection would save her a second time. Snarling, the King tightened his grip on the Staff. This decided things. He would make an end to Mab, once and for all, and the other wretches in the forest, too. The wraiths would not like it, would not understand it, but he did not have to explain himself to them!
Confidence swelled in him. What had he been thinking of? He was the Master of the Staff of Tier, and could do anything he willed. Britta’s voyage on the Star of Deltora had reminded him what it was to feel fear, but all that was in the past. There was nothing to fear any longer.
He felt a tremor in his arm. He felt a sudden pressure, almost as if ...
Puzzled, he looked at the Staff again. His heart gave a great, plunging thud. The Staff was leaning, leaning away from him, a little more every moment. He could see it straining against the hand that had gripped it so firmly, and for so long. He could feel the wasted muscles of his arm tensing painfully in the effort to hold it back.
He caught a tiny movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked down. Again his heart plunged in his chest. He stared in shock and disbelief.
A small, amber-coloured figure was digging busily in the ground around the Staff’s base. It must have been at work for some time because already the hole was broad and deep. Already much of the Staff’s base had been uncovered. And, free of the earth that had held it steady, the Staff was tilting—tilting towards the digging creature—as if it was willing, even eager, to stray from the one who called himself its Master.
The King growled deep in his throat, heat rising within him. The amber creature looked up. Its eyes glittered. Its mouth was a small, straight line.
Flame burst from the King’s roaring, dripping jaws. A blaze white hot with rage and dread blasted the hole in the earth like a thunderbolt. But the goozli could move faster than flame. By the time the fire hit the ground, the little clay figure had swarmed more than halfway up the Staff.
It clung there for an instant with fire raging beneath it and the straining fingers that gripped the Staff clamped tight above its head. Then it arched its back and with both its tiny hands, it pulled.
The Staff leaned further, further towards the ground. Jerked forward, clinging to his throne with his free hand, the King of Tier bellowed, spitting gobs of fire. Snakes burst from the cavern floor, their fangs dripping venom. Ragged birds of prey swooped, screeching, from above, and giant scorpions swarmed from cracks in the gem-studded walls. The King howled at them all to attack, to kill!
But none of the horrors that he had called into being could touch the goozli. They blundered uselessly around it, savaging one another, while it hung, unharmed, on the black diamond Staff and looked at the King, its eyes now cold as pebbles on a forgotten beach.
The King cried out in dread. ‘I am the Master of the Staff!’ he babbled, as the goozli jumped lightly to the ground, beckoning to the Staff to follow. ‘You cannot take it from me! It knows my flesh. It knows my name. It cleaves to me alone. Any living soul who tries to take it from me will be slain!’
Any living soul...
He met the remorseless, inhuman gaze of the little clay doll. His face went blank with terror as at last he understood. But still he clung to his throne. And still he kept hold of the black diamond Staff, though his arm was ablaze with pain. He could not have let his treasure go, even if he had wanted to. The fingers that had gripped it for more than eight long years would never loosen now.
But slowly the Staff tilted away from him. And slowly, as the scorched, crumbling earth gave up its hold, the Staff’s base, buried for so long in the island’s heart, broke through the ground, into the light.
The wraiths howled. The island shuddered once, and was still. As the Staff began to topple, the King’s chilling screams echoed from the dimming walls ...
Then there was a brittle, cracking sound. The screams broke off abruptly. The fighting beasts and the golden throne shivered into dust.
And suddenly all that was left on the cavern floor was the huddled, shrunken body of a man with blood on his lips—a man who had called himself mighty, and thought he would live forever.
In the dimness, the goozli watched, unmoved, as the Staff thudded softly to the ground, taking with it its dead Master’s clutching hand. Torn from the lifeless body in the dust, the hand was already shrinking to a claw of dry white bones.
11 - The Lure of the Staff
The sunlight of late afternoon lapped at the cave entrance. Warm fingers of pale gold reached into the shadows and touched the eyelids of the girl lying there. Britta stirred. Ghostly voices were whispering her name. She could hear a soft, dragging sound, coming closer. When it stopped, she opened her eyes.
The goozli was standing beside her, watching her, its head tilted enquiringly, its tiny hands gripping the muddy tip of a long, black Staff.
By the magic of the turtle man the Staff came to me. It knows my flesh. It knows my name ...
The words floated dreamily in the mists of Britta’s mind as she gazed at the treasure lying in the dust beside her. Ancient, powerful, beautiful, the Staff of Tier shone in the reaching beams of sunlight. Its lure was very strong. Its promises were dazzling. Britta knew that all she had to do to make it her own was to tell it her name, and claim it. Then she would have everything her heart desired, and she would never die.
Dazed with wonder, she sat up. Aching with longing, she put out her hand ...
Then she saw the clutch of pale bones that still clung to the Staff’s shaft, and a cold sliver of memory pierced the fog in her mind. She saw sunken eyes that did not reflect the light. And in those eyes she saw the madness of a raging will and the darkness of a shrivelled soul. Shuddering, she snatched her hand away and put it behind her back.
‘No,’ she mumbled. ‘No!’
Wailing, the wraiths came rushing
from the walls, but did not dare come near. Britta could see them, twining together in the dimness, their ghostly arms stretched out to her, to the Staff.
The goozli took no notice of them. It looked down at the Staff then up at Britta, cocking its head enquiringly once more.
Into Britta’s mind swam a picture of the gentle sorcerer Tier, moulding amber clay into shapes that moved while the birds of the Two Moons swamp sang around him. She thought of Tier later, betrayed and far from home, fashioning the Staff of Life and Death to wreak his revenge on humankind.
Had Tier meant his revenge to stretch over all eternity? Perhaps he had, in his rage that first day on his new island’s shore. But did his spirit want it still?
If it did, would I be here, now? Britta thought.
The goozli was waiting, its small black eyes unblinking.
‘The Staff has no Master now,’ Britta said. ‘Please do with it what Tier would have wished.’
The goozli bowed. And smiled.
When Sky and Jewel came looking for Britta shortly afterwards, the cavern was dark and silent. Nothing remained within the great, echoing space but the faint, sour smell of cold ash and the body of the King of Tier lying huddled in the drift of dust that had once been a golden throne.
‘Where is she?’ Jewel whispered in dread, as she and Sky crept back to the light. ‘If she had left here, we would have met her on the path.’
‘She may not have taken the path,’ said Sky. ‘She may not have wanted to meet us.’ Abruptly he turned and began to run back the way they had come.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’ Jewel shouted after him, but Sky did not answer, and he did not stop.
Britta stood on the glittering shore, wraiths wailing and pleading around her in a coiling grey cloud. The great turtles that dotted the beach had all stretched out their necks to watch as the goozli set the black diamond Staff rolling slowly down towards the sea.
The Staff came to a stop just above a curving line crusted with weed and tiny shells. The first wave that broke after that did not reach it. Neither did the second. But when the third wave broke, the warm salt water of the Silver Sea surged eagerly past the line, and the Staff was engulfed in hissing foam.
The wraiths howled. For an instant, the long black shape seemed to writhe. For an instant, the foam bubbled and spat. Then the Staff began to dissolve and melt away. From the sand of the Hungry Isle it had been fashioned, and to that same sand it was returning.
By the time the water ran rippling back to the sea, tumbling a small tangle of white bones with it, the Staff of Tier had gone. All that remained to show where it had been was a shallow pleat in the gleaming sand.
The anguished howling stopped. Time itself seemed to stop.
Britta stood frozen in the sudden silence. Her ears were still ringing, but tormented shades no longer swirled in the mist that hung about her. Instead, she could see human faces—hundreds of human faces— old and young, beautiful and plain, foolish and wise. She could see sailors and traders, travellers and treasure-hunters, fishing folk and castaways, a bride and groom in the wedding finery of long ago ...
The magic Staff that had enthralled them and held them captive in the world of the living was no more. Their long bondage had ended. Their faces were as serene as the washed sand of the beach. Their eyes, filled with joy and gratitude, were shining like stars. For the last time, Britta felt their soft touch tingling on her skin. Then an icy gale thrilled through her, and they were gone.
Sky burst onto the sand from the dimness of the forest path and stopped, dazzled and gasping. The sky was a dreaming dome of cloudless blue. The sea was like liquid silver in the sunlight. And the shore ... the shore was moving, rippling like water! For an instant Sky blinked in wild confusion. Then he rubbed his streaming eyes and realised what he was seeing.
The turtles were on the move. They were crawling back to the sea, so closely packed together that their huge shells were almost touching. Some were in the shallows already. Most were still making their slow way down the shore. There were only two places on the beach where the tide of moving creatures parted. One was where the landing boat lay drawn up above the high water mark. The other was where Britta sat, her knees drawn up to her chin, her bent head pillowed on her arms.
Sky’s heart gave a sickening thud. He began to run. He was too late, he knew he was too late, but still he ran, dodging and stumbling down to the bare patch of sand where Britta huddled.
‘Britta!’ he panted as he threw himself down beside her. ‘Where is it? Where is the Staff?’
‘Gone.’ The voice was very faint.
Bile rose in Sky’s throat. This was what he had feared. The moment he saw the turtles leaving the beach as if their task was complete, the moment he saw Britta sitting alone with no wraiths twining around her, he knew what she had done. But still he could not believe it—could not make himself believe it.
‘Is it buried in the sand?’ he demanded, looking around wildly. ‘Is it hidden in the forest? Britta, answer me!’
‘Not—hidden,’ the faint voice murmured after a moment. ‘Gone. Destroyed. The sea ...’
Rage swept through Sky—hot rage he had not felt since he was a puny boy in Rithmere, shouting at his mother for gambling away the few coins he had scraped together to pay their rent.
‘You had no right!’ he spat. ‘The Staff was a priceless treasure! If you could not face keeping it because of what your cursed father did, why did you not offer it to someone else? Why did you not offer it to me? I wanted it—I would have given my soul for it!’
Slowly, wearily Britta raised her head. She saw Sky’s lean, familiar face grown sharp and pale. She saw his narrowed eyes glittering like the black sand in the heat of the sun. She saw how the Staff of Tier had cast its spell on him during his time in the cavern, how avidly he had listened to its silent promises of untold wealth and power.
She knew how strong the Staff’s lure was. Of course she did—she had felt it herself. As she stared in misery at the mask of frustrated greed that Sky’s face had become, her vision blurred and she seemed to see other faces—Jewel’s, Mab’s, Hara’s, Vashti’s, even Healer Kay’s—changed and hardened by the same, evil dreams of absolute power.
‘That ... is why,’ she whispered. She saw Sky become quite still. She saw his eyes widen in quick, shamed understanding. Then her strength failed her. She bent her head, and said no more.
The days and nights that followed were lost to Britta. She had no sense of time passing, no sense of who was with her, no sense of where she was. Never fully asleep or fully awake, she huddled silently with Mab and Healer Kay in the stern of the landing boat, eating nothing but sipping obediently from a water flask when it was put to her lips.
Sometimes she thought she was lying ill at home, with her mother and Margareth talking softly by her bedside. Sometimes she thought she was sitting by the River Del with Jantsy, when the violets were in bloom. Sometimes she thought she was in her bunk on the Star of Deltora.
But never did she think that she was in a boat being rowed steadily away from the Isle of Tier, because where her memories of her time on Tier should have been, there was only darkness.
When Healer Kay stroked her brow and said she was a brave girl, she vaguely wondered why. When Jewel came to tell her not to worry, that all would be well, she barely heard. When Sky crouched beside her, murmuring that he had been ten times a fool, that of course she had been right to destroy the evil, treacherous thing, and that he had told no one what had happened, she merely enjoyed the sound of his husky voice.
Lost in the strange half-world of her shocked, bruised mind she felt no fear as the boat glided on through a wasteland of sea. She felt no pity for the exhaustion of Jewel and Sky, who took most of the burden of the rowing. She felt no admiration for Captain Hara, doggedly plotting their course for Illica by his compass and the stars. She felt no surprise when Vashti took the oars with Kay, so that Jewel and Sky could sleep. She did not think about Mab, who wa
s so silent and so still. She did not notice when the food ran out, and the sips of water she was offered became fewer.
And so it was that she felt no joy when one fine morning a sail appeared on the horizon. She did not notice Hara tearing off his stained white shirt and waving it wildly above his head, or see Jewel holding her gold armband high and twisting it back and forth so it flashed in the sun like a beacon. She barely heard the shouts of amazement as the ship came closer, and was recognised. But when she heard the name Star of Deltora, something stirred in her numb mind and she looked up.
Waving crewmen lined the ship’s rail. With them were a sturdy, freckled young woman in blue and a thin young man.
‘By all the serpents and little fishes!’ Hara bellowed hoarsely. ‘That girl ... it’s Vorn the Boat! And that scrawny fellow must be the lad she ran away with—Olla-Scollbow’s son—what was his name— Collin, that’s it! I thought they were fish food long ago! What in the nine seas are they doing on the Star?’
The world is wide and full of wonders ...
The words floated through Britta’s mind like the memory of a dream. For some reason, they made her sad. She let them go.
‘More to the point, where is Crow?’ Kay muttered.
‘At the bottom of the sea, with luck,’ said Jewel.
Britta stopped trying to pay attention. The light flashing from the sea seemed far too bright. She closed her eyes to shut it out. Excited voices still gabbled around her, but soon they grew fainter, till after a time she could not hear them at all.
12 - Dreaming and Waking
Britta woke as she was being lifted onto the ship, wind whipping about her, spray spattering her face. She did not have the strength to open her eyes, but she could hear people chattering around her.
‘Collin and Vorn ... on the Star all the time!’
‘They drugged Crow’s rum barrel ... Crow and his cronies out like snuffed candles ... locked up below ... the rest of the crew happy as flying fish ...
