Under Earth

by Ellen Renner

  “If I was like other witches I wouldn’t be here.”

  Talon’s eyes narrowed as he peered at her, trying to read her intentions. Everything hinged on this moment.

  “You want me for a friend.” Storm was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. “I want that too. You wouldn’t like me as an enemy – ask the Drowned Ones. And I don’t think you want the Albatross and Dolphin as your enemies either. Or the Tortoise, of course,” she added thoughtfully.

  Her opponent licked his lips. Sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down, marring his face paint. “Can you ask the Elementals if they object to your change of allegiance?”

  “I can try,” Storm lied solemnly. “But it will take time.”

  “If you gain their assent, you will agree to our terms?”

  “The Pact’s generosity is overwhelming. I am deeply honoured!” Storm hoped her words would be taken as assent. Her heart thudded; had she won herself time?

  All around the room, expressions of smugness had been replaced with frowns of doubt and worry. Mer’s face wore a look of bitter disappointment. So … there had never been any real hope of friendship there – it had all been about wealth and power. Storm felt nauseous. She longed to be away from here, out of this too-warm room with its stink of rich food and perfumes, away from the flickering oil lamps and greedy faces.

  “You have one day.” Talon tapped his long red nails together. “By the end of tomorrow we will expect you to have reconciled the Elemental spirits to our plan.”

  “I need a five-day at least!”

  “One day!” Clack-clack-clack went the scarlet claws.

  Storm bowed. Before tomorrow evening, she would escape this house, find Uncle Lake and sail away from Bellum Island, out of the Pact’s reach!

  Now that she knew Talon’s plans for prison-ships, she didn’t think anything could stop the coming rebellion. The only way to prevent the Drowned Ones from attacking Bellum if war came was to go to sea and hunt them down herself. Cloud was right: it was time she finished the job she had failed to do in Yanlin Harbour. This time, she would destroy the enemy!

  “I shall go at once,” she said, “and try to contact the Elementals.”

  She was thinking so hard that she didn’t notice Mer follow her up the stairs until Storm had opened the door to her bedroom. The older girl pushed past into the room. It was so unlike the cool, amused Mer that Storm stood and stared. Mer pulled her inside and closed the door.

  “May I come in?”

  “You are in.”

  “I wanted a quick word. Do you mind?”

  Storm shrugged, wanting Mer to leave so she could be alone to think.

  “You look ill,” said Mer. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” Storm went into the bathing room and rinsed her face in the lacquered basin, which always seemed to be freshly filled. She stared down into the bowl, watching drops of red and yellow face paint stain the water.

  “Did you enjoy the dinner?” Mer stood in the doorway.

  “Not much.”

  “You do realise that guards were waiting outside the dining room for your answer? Talon would have used force to ‘persuade’ you.” Mer’s voice was expressionless.

  Storm felt her heart began to beat faster. Why tell her this? She laid the towel carefully beside the basin, turned to confront the older girl. Mer’s hands were shaking.

  When the truth occurred to her, it was so unexpected it made Storm dizzy. “You’re not upset because I haven’t agreed to Talon’s offer. You’re upset because I might!”

  Mer watched her warily, as if trying to decide something. At last she said, “You’re only guessing! Even if you’re right, why should I trust you? You might have already decided to work for them!”

  “But you’re one of ‘them’.” Except it was obvious that Mer wasn’t. She was seeing the real Mer for the first time – and this stranger was full of anger, even hatred. Hatred of the Pact and anyone who might help them. But why?

  Mer frowned. Storm could see her mind whirring. At last the older girl said, in a low voice, “We cannot talk in this house. There are eager ears everywhere. That brat could burst in here at any moment. She despises you, you know. Calls you ‘The Bumpkin’. She’s jealous, of course. She wants Almond for her consort when Talon is dead and she’s running things!”

  Storm already knew Betaan’s true feelings, and right now they didn’t matter. This was her chance! “I have no intention of helping the Pact. I had to stall for time. You’re right – we can’t talk here. Help me get out of this house unseen, and you can tell me why you hate them so much.”

  Mer watched her through narrowed eyes. At last she nodded. “I must go. Talon’s servants count people in and out of this house. Expect me after moonrise.”

  “Expect you where?”

  “Just be ready!” With a last, calculating glance, Mer stalked from the room. Storm listened to the soft thud of her bedroom door closing and wondered what had just happened, and whether she was wise to trust the enigmatic Mer to lead her into the night and the unknown danger that was almost certainly waiting there.

  Storm sat cross-legged on her bed in the dark time between sunset and moonrise, listening to Scoundrel pad back and forth across the floor. The cling-monkey was muttering under his breath. After Mer had left, he had leapt on to her shoulder and began to scold, with much moaning and chittering of teeth. Scoundrel had even pulled her hair for emphasis until she gently set him on the ground.

  “No point in being cross with me! I have to escape tonight and Mer is my best chance.”

  The cling-monkey snorted derisively. Storm decided to ignore him: she was nervous enough already. And what did a monkey know, after all?

  The wait in darkness seemed endless, but at last a cool light silvered the window, waxing stronger until Scoundrel’s shadow followed him as he paced back and forth across the room.

  Storm clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a cry. Mer loomed over her, her face merely two glinting eyes in the dimness. She had let herself into the room without making any noise.

  “Follow me.” The whispered words were a command. Mouth dry, Storm rose to her feet, gesturing for Scoundrel to follow. The monkey showed his teeth in a ferocious grimace, but obeyed.

  Mer led her through long, confusing corridors, up winding stairs and out a narrow attic window on to a rickety wooden parapet at the top of the house.

  Holding tightly to the slender railing, Storm looked down at the moonlit shapes of the trees in the garden far below and wished herself safely back in her bed. She might be an Air-witch, but she didn’t have wings, and she was quite certain that she could not fly!

  Something leapt on to Storm’s shoulder and wound both long furry arms around her throat. “Careful, Scoundrel!” Storm held her breath and waited for her heart to stop jumping like a frog in the rain. “A bit of warning next time, please!”

  The cling-monkey chuntered in her ear. It sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

  “Quiet!” Mer hissed. “We’re near the servants’ sleeping quarters. Hurry – this way.”

  “Wait!” Storm put a hand on the other girl’s arm, drew her near and said in a low voice, “Why have you brought me up here?”

  “If you don’t trust me, go back.” Mer’s eyes glittered in the moonlight.

  Storm’s heart was full of misgivings. How could she escape Talon’s house from the attics? Was this some sort of complicated trick? Was Mer loyal to the Pact after all? Was she going to fling her off the roof? Storm gripped the hilt of her knife. Mer turned without another word and glided along the wooden parapet to the end of the house. Where she instantly disappeared.

  Storm approached the spot where Mer had vanished, heart thudding. Had the girl fallen, or…? No! Now she could see that the platform continued around the side of the house where it became a wooden ladder descending into the shadows. Mer was already out of sight. Storm sighed and stepped gingerly on to the ladder. It was even more rickety than the parapet.
Each step groaned as she put her weight on it.

  “Hurry!” The single word floated up.

  Scoundrel clinging tight, Storm climbed down and down and down. At last her foot touched solid ground. This side of the house lay in blinding darkness. A hand grabbed her elbow, tugged.

  And then they were creeping through the back garden, darting from tree to tree, keeping in the shadows. Past the carp pond and far into the garden. When they were out of sight of the house, Mer set off at a trot. Storm followed close on her heels. Scoundrel made huffing noises in her ear, as though urging her on. Within a few breaths, they were at the far end of the wall encircling the garden. It was the height of two men and made of lumps of stone mortared and made smooth with a facing of clay.

  The older girl turned to face Storm. “There is a way here over the wall. Here!” And she pointed to a deep crack in the wall where the smoothed clay had crumbled away from the stones.

  The holes would serve as hand- and footholds, Storm saw at once. She thought she could see signs of it having been used recently.

  “Yes, I came this way. Now, follow me.”

  It was an easy climb. Easier than what faced them on the other side. Storm was glad of the moon’s light as she stumbled and scuffed through tangled plants and rubble. Bamboo grew head-high but someone had beaten a winding path through its stems.

  They had only travelled a few paces when Mer stopped. “We can talk here.” They were in a small clearing, just large enough for two people to stand face to face. “Promise me!” said Mer without any preamble. “Promise that you won’t ever work for Talon against the people!”

  Storm winced: the other girl’s passion was like a furnace blast. “Slow down! First, you tell me why you hate him so much. You’re from the Fifteen. Your family is rich. Why do you care?”

  “Have you seen the poverty on this island? The desperation of the people? You’ve been spending too much time with Betaan!” Mer’s voice was scathing. “You have no idea how much it has cost me, pretending to be her friend. At least she’s so self-obsessed that it was easy to trick her into thinking I actually like her. She expects everyone to fall at her feet in adoration!”

  “All right,” said Storm. “Maybe you aren’t as selfish as Talon and his daughter, but you can’t tell me this isn’t personal. If you want me to trust you – to be open about my plans – tell me why you are working against your own kind.”

  Mer hesitated, eyes narrowed. Then she shrugged. “It is personal. They killed my father.”

  “Who did?”

  “Talon and that unnatural demon, Waffa!”

  “The tally-keeper?”

  “My mother.”

  Storm rubbed her nose, hard, waiting for the shock to lessen. There was no physical resemblance between the sour-faced Waffa and graceful, tall Mer, but now that Mer was no longer acting a part Storm could see a similar ruthlessness in the daughter’s eyes. “Your mother murdered your father?”

  “She betrayed him to his death. For profit!” Mer’s lip curled. “The Fifteen would eat their own children if there was enough profit in it. When I was small the old chief councillor died, and my father decided to compete with Talon for leadership of the Pact.

  “He was an honourable man, my da. Which did not make him popular with the Fifteen. He saw that the ordinary people of Bellum were growing rebellious. Our island’s makers were dying off and the Pact did not bother to organise apprenticeships for the newly Chosen. ‘Why go to the bother?’ they asked, ‘when we get all the goods we need from other islands?’ Even the fisher-folk were no longer going out with their nets. The Fifteen grew richer and richer while every year the people became poorer and more resentful. My father foresaw trouble and wanted to guide the Pact into a new path – one of sharing wealth and power.”

  Tears of rage armoured Mer’s eyes behind a glassy shield. “My loving mother listened to his words, then repeated them to Talon. Da was accused of treason. He was set adrift in a tiny rowing boat with a five-day supply of water and no food. He is dead, his body lost forever! I shall not even meet him in the afterlife.”

  It was the nightmare that had haunted Storm since childhood: a raging sea, an overturned boat, the body of a man floating face down in the waves. “My father died at sea when I was five. But my chief Elder, Teanu, says that the soul still finds its way to the afterlife. She says that because this life is not fair, the next must be.”

  “But still you fear, don’t you?” In the moonlight, Mer’s face was a mask. Only her eyes lived, shine-full of hate.

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” said the older girl. “We share that at least. Now you have my story. I have been working with the rebels for years. We grow in strength every season. Soon, we shall destroy the Pact! And I shall myself put Talon and Waffa into a leaky boat and tow them out into treacherous waters!” She panted with the effort of hating. “Which is why I cannot allow you to help them.”

  Something in her voice made Storm’s shoulders twitch. She took her time before saying, in a measured voice, “I would never help Talon. What he intends is evil.”

  “Even if it means you live as a non-sex for the rest of your life?” The eyes watched, unreadable.

  “Even so.” The older girl could surely do nothing to her: Storm had only to call the wind. But the sense of threat did not lessen.

  “I believe you,” said Mer at last. She placed both her hands on Storm’s shoulders and pulled her into a brief, formal embrace. “I’m glad. I like you. I hoped, when I first met you, that we might become friends. But it would be best if you left Bellum Island. Go to your uncle’s ship and leave my island tonight! For your own sake as well as ours.”

  “My sake?” Had Mer’s eyes flickered? “Do you know something?”

  “I know that Talon is devious and will not stop trying to convince or coerce you into working for him against us! You must leave.”

  “I think so too. But is there no other way except war?”

  Mer drew herself tall. Her face grew austere, and the resemblance to Waffa was now striking. “It will be cleansing, not war. We will scour the evil from our land!”

  “But many on both sides will die! Do you think their guards and soldiers will simply lay down their weapons and welcome you?”

  Mer shrugged. “We will win.”

  “Can’t your side negotiate with the Pact? The stakes are higher than you realise. The Elementals have told me that a war here could break the Balance!”

  “The Balance!” Mer gave a soft laugh. “I had forgotten: you come from the edge of the world. The ‘Balance’ is a tale told to children, to make them behave.”

  “But the Unknowable One—”

  “Does not exist! Or, if it does, it has travelled too far away to have anything to do with us now. The Pact is in charge because it took power, not because it deserves to rule! The only ‘balance’ is the one we make!”

  “Does that apply even to the Drowned Ones?” Storm watched Mer’s eyes for any flicker of guilt, any sign that she was in league with the enemy.

  “You mean we should blame them for their own misfortune?” Mer gave a chilly smile. “It’s a bit convenient to think that an island sinks because the people living on it are evil.”

  Storm sighed; Mer had given away nothing. “But surely you acknowledge that the Balance can be broken by the Elementals?”

  Mer shrugged. “I told you, I don’t believe in the ‘Balance’. And as for the Elemental spirits, I am not sure they exist.”

  Storm stared. “Then where does magic come from?”

  “Perhaps from inside witches themselves. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”

  Storm shook her head, shocked to her core. “Whose Child are you?”

  Mer laughed again, as though Storm had said something very funny. “I did not undergo the ritual! No member of the Fifteen undertakes the Choosing. Why would we? We will never be apprentices. We rule, we do not make.”

  “But I have seen the Albatross, the Dolphin. The T
ortoise speaks to me. The Salamander…” Her words dried on her lips. She would not confide about the Fire-witch to this girl full of hate.

  Mer shrugged. “Perhaps you are right and I wrong. I don’t know … or care. But you must leave my island tonight. Promise!”

  There was a fanatical glint in Mer’s eyes. The threat in her voice was real. Yet Storm found there was still something about the other girl she liked. And it was moon-clear now that Weather-witch or no, she would never be able to influence the rebels. She could only save the Balance by hunting down the Drowned Ones and defeating them. Any civil war could be contained on this island. The Salamander would not win.

  “I promise,” said Storm. “I shall seek out my uncle and return to Yanlin.”

  Mer’s face sagged with relief. “I am glad! Go, with my good wishes. This path leads to the harbour.” After a last, considering look, the older girl turned on her heel and strode back the way they had come. The bamboo swallowed her with a shudder.

  Storm pushed through the bamboo. The plants rattled and sighed, sounding as though a dozen hunters were stalking her through the grove. Her heart pounded, and she felt glad of Scoundrel’s company.

  At last she struggled through a particularly stubborn clump and found herself in a winding alley. Storm took careful note of where the tunnel began, breaking a stem and bending it down as a marker. Then, after a quick glance at the moon, which was already descending back towards its bed beneath the sea, she broke into a run. Time to find Uncle Lake and escape Bellum and the Pact.

  The winding alley led to a street Storm recognised. Thank the Ancestors! This street led to the main road down to the harbour. Mer’s route had bypassed the main square and its dangers.

  Storm soon turned on to the harbour road, walking as quickly as she could. Even at this time of the night – approaching the dark time when the moon was swallowed by the sea – Bellum Town was not asleep. She had imagined that the streets would be empty, but lanterns still glowed outside taverns. Dark figures strolled through the night, intent on unknown business. Storm had dressed in her old ship-board clothes and tied her hair up in a topknot, and no one paid her any attention. She trotted down the harbour road and out on to the quay, looking for the Wayfarer among the tens of dozens of ships at anchor in the vast harbour.