Zenith

by Julie Bertagna

  What else does he see? What else has he planned?

  The Arkiel keeps ploughing through the city in reverse, making a catastrophically clumsy exit.

  Up high on the rig, The Man watches and smiles.

  PENDICLE PRENDER

  Tuck wanders the city, blank and numb. He ends up back at the lagoon and slumps down on the damp wooden walkways, exhausted. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there, shivering, when a hand on his shoulder makes him jump.

  ‘You’re alive then.’

  Pendicle sits down beside him with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Ma’s gone,’ says Tuck. He has to force the words out; he still doesn’t believe it. ‘She went down with The Grimby Gray.’

  ‘Urth,’ Pendicle curses softly. He bites his lip and clearly doesn’t know what else to say. They sit together awhile, just staring out at the waves on the lagoon. All of a sudden Pendicle gets to his feet. He punches Tuck softly on the shoulder, in place of soft words.

  ‘There’s a family meeting,’ says Pendicle, with the faint edge of self-importance in his voice that, lately, Tuck has begun to hear. ‘Something’s happening.’

  Tuck gives a small, hard laugh. ‘It already happened.’

  Pendicle’s eyes are on his home-boat, one of the Prenders’ fleet of masted mega-yachts, anchored alongside the family’s market gondolas on the lagoon. A group of people, their windwraps bearing the Prender emblem, are gathered on its deck. Men and woman flock to Pendicle’s home-boat from grand yachts and schooners all around the lagoon. Their windwraps are emblazoned with the various emblems of Pomperoy’s oil families. Tuck realizes the reason for Pendicle’s self-important tone. It’s not an everyday family meeting, but an extraordinary summit of the powerful families that rule Pomperoy.

  Pendicle shoves something into a pocket of Tuck’s windwrap. Tuck hears the rattle of pearls.

  ‘Enough to get you bed and board somewhere, get you sorted,’ says Pendicle. ‘I’d better go.’

  Once upon a time, Pendicle would have taken him back to his boat for a hot meal and a bunk. But he’s changing, Tuck senses, from his old mate Pendicle into a fully fledged Prender, becoming part of the powerful engine of the oil families, no longer the carefree wildhead he used to be. Even if Pendicle would harbour Tuck, his Ma won’t. She’s the kind of woman you cross once if you dare; never twice. That’s how the Prenders got to be who they are. She’ll be heart-sorry about what’s happened to his Ma, she’ll even put Tuck in her prayers to The Man, but she’ll never have him near her precious boat again.

  Tuck watches Pendicle walk round the lagoon to his yacht, tall and proud, with his beautiful windwrap flapping in the wind. It’s the walk of a Prender man. Tuck looks down at his own faded blue windwrap, a worn castoff of his Da’s. His hair whips across his face, as light and unkempt as Pendicle’s is sleekly plaited and dark.

  Their differences never mattered when Da was alive.

  It’s only once Pendicle has gone that Tuck remembers the tattered object he has been carrying about in a pocket of his windwrap; something he stole from a shelf in Pendicle’s yacht a while ago. He’s been meaning to give it back as a peace offering. It’s no use to him anyway. He took the thing all around the market with the rest of his loot, but all it earned him was shrugs. At last he came across an old scavenger in a leaky gondola that looked close to sinking under the weight of its sea spoil. The scavenger was so weathered he seemed to be made out of one of his rescued leather boots. He squinted sunken eyes at the stained and tatty object Tuck handed him and gave it back, saying his eyes were no good for books now. He didn’t know anyone else who had any use for a such a thing; he was one of the last who still knew how to read words.

  So Tuck’s still got the book in a pocket of his windwrap. He should run after Pendicle and give it back. But Pendicle’s already gone, his dark head and windwrap merged with the other Prenders on the boat.

  Pendicle’s left him with a pocketful of pearls, the hard tears of the ocean, and it’s Tuck’s own fault.

  CITY OF A THOUSAND SAILS

  Already, the city is knitting back together. The great tear made by the Arkiel is disappearing fast. Tuck stands on a bridge and stares at the spot where his home used to be.

  The air rings and clatters with the noise of boat chains and hammers. Wood and metal strain, mixed with human groans, as the boats and bridges are heaved into a new pattern, and chained together again.

  By sundown, the city is mended. It’s as if all the sunken boats and bridgeways were never there.

  Tuck can’t bear it. They should have left the hole in the city. There should be some mark, some scar of what’s happened. Urth knows how many people are drowned, Ma among them, yet already Pomperoy seems to want to heal the awful scar and get on with the usual business of life. Ma will hardly have fallen to rest on the seabed, where she’ll end up as fish food, like the rest of his family and all the other dead.

  A sob shakes him. He swallows it down and wipes his nose with the tail of his windwrap, wipes his leaky eyes too. He tugs the windwrap tight around him, secures it with his belt, and stands up to walk the bridgeways back to the lagoon. He doesn’t even think about jumping the boat roofs as he usually does. Couldn’t anyway; he can’t see clear for his blurry eyes. It takes all his energy to put one foot in front of the other. When he reaches the lagoon, he’s engulfed by people. They pack the walkways around the lagoon and the arms of the Middle Bridges. The crowd is so huge the whole of Pomperoy must be out.

  What’s happened? Is it another ship?

  But there’s no panic in the crowd. They are expectant, quiet, still.

  Tuck elbows his way to the edge of the lagoon. Why is everyone staring out at the water?

  When he sees, his heart skips a beat.

  It’s the Steer Master’s ship. The Discovery has unchained from the cluster of tall ships at the North side of the lagoon. It sweeps across the water, aglow with lanterns, its sails billowing in the evening wind.

  Until he saw the Arkiel, Tuck would have sworn the Steer Master’s ship was the greatest vessel upon the seas. Now the three-masted ship seems a much lesser thing. For the first time Tuck sees how wrecked it is, how the bent masts creak wearily with bedraggled sails.

  Still, the sight of it lifts his spirits. The citizens of Pomperoy cheer as The Discovery sails into the heart of the lagoon. The ship drops anchor. Expectation buzzes in the crowd.

  Tuck pushes to get a clear view. When he reaches the front of the crowd he sees the figure of the Steer Master himself; it’s the first time he’s glimpsed him since he was small enough to sit on the shoulders of his Da. Even then, the Steer Master was old and feeble, though there was an energy about him still. Now he seems lifeless, slumped in the seat of an old world Land vessel, an ancient car recovered from the sea. A team of attendants hauls the Steer Master’s car to the front of the ship. It’s a Rover, Tuck knows, because Grumpa liked to gloat that Tuck’s own Landcestors once owned just such a car; one as sleek and shiny and speedy as the wind. It’s hard to believe that the Steer Master’s Rover was ever anything other than a rusty ocean-battered wreck, encrusted with limpet shells.

  ‘We are wounded.’

  It’s not the real voice of the Steer Master. The Pilot of Pomperoy, a tall and commanding man, nicknamed The Pomp on account of his pompous demeanor, is the Steer Master’s vigorous right arm. Nowadays, his voice too. The Pomp relays the Steer Master’s message through the long spiralling tusk of a narwhal horn.

  ‘Wounded but still strong. Pomperoy, are we strong?’

  The crowd pushes against Tuck, almost landing him in the lagoon. He loses track of The Pomp’s words but the voice has the rising rhythm of a gathering storm. The crowd rouses and Tuck realizes he was wrong. Anger is simmering all about him. Pomperoy has not forgotten about the Arkiel.

  The Pomp continues. ‘We will not forget what we are. We gypseas are masters of our ocean.’

  An attendant reaches through the empty frame of the Rov
er’s front window and raises the frail arm of the Steer Master. For a moment, Tuck wonders if the Steer Master is even awake. Does he know what is being said in his name? But the rapt faces in the crowd around Tuck tell him it’s a lone doubt. The crowd is hushed, tense, fixed on every word.

  ‘This attack on us is a test. Pomperoy will rise to the test,’ continues The Pomp. He puts the narwhal horn to his lips and blows out a deep bellow, an alien sound that sends a shudder to Tuck’s heart. Pomperoy seems to hold its breath.

  The Pomp raises the horn above his head. He aims the tip of the horn past a cluster of stars in the shape of a long-handled salt basket towards the small salt scoop twinkling above it. At the very tip of the salt scoop’s handle is the Star of the North. Its light is still a faint pinprick in the salmon-streaked twilight. Tuck knows the map of the sky better than his own face. A gypsea child learns the patterns of the stars in its cradle; the pictures in the stars are glittering bedtime tales. And now he knows why Pomperoy hasn’t shown its rage sooner. Gypseas sail by the stars. The city was only waiting till the first stars came out.

  In The Pomp’s other hand is the long wing of a Great Skua, the ravaging pirate bird of the northern seas. The Pomp holds the wing up towards the rig, pointing it at the face of The Man. The citizens of Pomperoy watch the wing shiver and bend. The Pomp looks at the slumbersome face of the Steer Master and nods.

  ‘The world’s wind is with us. Attend to all masts. In the name of The Man, on the wing of the Great Skua and the command of the Steer Master, we will avenge our dead and salvage our pride. Pomperoy will set sail on the tail of the Arkiel tonight!’

  The crowd erupts. Moments after the cheering dies, before Tuck has gathered his thoughts, the walkways around the lagoon begin to empty. He tries to grab someone to ask what he should do but everyone is rushing off; they all seem to know.

  There’s a shout behind him. Gypseas are yelling at him to move.

  Tuck panics. Where to?

  The city fills with the rattling and clanking of the boat chains unlocking.

  A mighty BOOM almost scares Tuck out of his skin. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Tuck ducks for cover and pulls his windwrap over him like a tent as a storm of booms erupts. In his seventeen years, Tuck has never heard such a noise, but all of a sudden he knows what it is. He looks up.

  The big ships are launching their skysails! Tuck stares open-mouthed at the glorious billows high in the sky. Crowds of fluttering shadows have massed below the skysails as the rest of the city unfurls the boat sails from its masts.

  All around the lagoon bridges are heaved on to ships and boats. The great arms of the Middle Bridges that link to the rig crash into the lagoon. The clang of unfastened boat chains is deafening. Now a great groaning fills the city.

  The anchors, thinks Tuck, and falls flat on his face as the walkways are hauled up, right under his feet.

  Wind fills the masts and skysails. The rigging creaks and whines. Pomperoy heaves into motion like a great beast stretching limbs that have been chained too long.

  In the second before the walkway he is standing on disappears, Tuck makes a leap for an abandoned gondola left behind in what was the market, moments ago. There’s a coil of rope. He throws it to a passing boat in the hope that someone might catch it, but the rope whacks back down on his head.

  In front, the sea is being churned into froth by a steam ship. The Waverley’s old body is armoured against the ocean with layers of metal and rubber tyres. Its defunct steam funnels now support thick branches of masts. Tuck whirls the rope around his head, yelling for help.

  ‘Hey, lad, throw it up!’

  A woman on board the Waverley has spotted him. Tuck throws up the rope, she catches it, knots it around the boat rail. Tuck knots the other end of the rope to the anchor on the floor of the gondola, and he’s hitched a ride.

  As he hangs on, blasted by wind and surf, there’s a fleeting memory of the dark-haired girl on the Arkiel, knocked to her knees by the movement of the ship. A mirror image of himself, sprawled here, now, in the gondola, caught in the thrust of the vast, motley fleet that his city has just become.

  Pomperoy is set for North, for revenge, chasing the Arkiel.

  And Tuck is hanging on for his life.

  WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE

  Mara opens her eyes. Broomielaw is shaking her out of sleep. She looks panicky and scared. Mara sits up, dizzy and sick. Her head is fuzzy and her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  ‘The baby,’ she croaks. ‘Clay, is he—’

  ‘He’s safe, remember? Mol was holding him when the ship crashed.’

  Mara lets out a breath. ‘I forgot. I was dreaming about him – a horrible dream. But he’s safe.’

  ‘You’re not safe here, Mara. People are fighting over the water tanks.’ Broomielaw nods to a noisy brawl on the far side of the ship’s hold. ‘You must be exhausted to sleep through that. Quick, come up on deck. We’ve been gathering rain in empty tins and packets so we don’t have to fight over it with that lot.’

  Broomielaw pulls her to her feet. Up on deck, mouthfuls of rainwater start to clear Mara’s head. But a clear head brings flashbacks of the sinking barge. Mara splashes her face with cold water, trying to wash away the sickening images and sounds.

  ‘She’s trouble,’ mutters Broomielaw. She squeezes Mara’s arm. ‘We know it wasn’t your fault.’

  Ruby, the tall, stern woman who challenged Mara before, stands in the centre of a crowd of refugees.

  ‘So what do you think we should do?’ another woman argues. ‘The girl seems sure there’s land in the North. At least she has a plan. What’s yours?’

  ‘What plan does she have?’ Ruby scorns. ‘To smash through more ships and kill more people? To head to the ends of the Earth on a whim?’

  ‘There’s the girl over there. Ask her,’ says a man. He points to Mara and a hundred faces turn.

  Mara wipes the streaming rainwater from her face. Still foggy-headed, she faces the crowd.

  ‘It’s not a whim,’ she says. She clears her throat but even to herself her voice sounds cracked with doubt. ‘There’s a book I found in the drowned city. It’s in my backpack. It says Greenland is a huge island of mountains at the top of the world. Once the weight of all the ice is gone, it could bob up like a cork.’

  ‘Bob up like a cork? A huge land of mountains would bob up like a cork?’ Ruby couldn’t be more scathing.

  ‘The ice has melted, the seas have risen so—’

  ‘Yes, we’ve noticed,’ Ruby interrupts. ‘But how do you know Greenland hasn’t drowned? Everywhere else has.’

  Mara glares at the sarcastic woman, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice. ‘It’s written in my book. I found it in the university – that was the old place of learning, so it must be—’

  Mara halts, unsure now.

  ‘Must be true? Why? That other book I’ve seen you reading – did you find that in the university too? Is everything it says true?’

  Ruby holds up A Tale of Two Cities. People stare at the unfamiliar object with gold lettering on its cracked leather cover. Shocked, Mara pushes through the crowd.

  ‘That’s mine. Give it back!’

  ‘You were asleep and it was lying beside you. I borrowed it. I had good reason to.’

  ‘Give it back.’

  Mara is no longer trembling, she’s shaking with anger. This woman is treating her like a silly child. Ruby has no idea what she has been through – an immense struggle, unbearable losses. All, in the end, to save someone like Ruby. And now she has to live with another burden of guilt: the bargeful of deaths in the floating city.

  ‘Ruby,’ a cool voice warns. ‘Let it be.’

  Ruby doesn’t even blink.

  ‘This book is full of lies,’ she tells the other refugees. ‘It’s just a made-up story about people who never existed. This book is full of things that aren’t true.’

  ‘Yes, but – but some books—’

  ‘How do we know,’ Ruby cuts
in, ‘what’s true and what’s not? How do we know that what it says in an old book about an island bobbing up is true? What if it’s just a story? Someone’s silly idea? What if it’s all wrong?’

  The faces around her are doubtful; even those of Mara’s friends, though they try to hide it.

  ‘I know it’s true.’

  But Mara doesn’t. What is her proof ? She has believed the book because she needed to. It was her one hope. If it’s wrong, what will they do? Being wrong about land at the top of the world will turn the ship from a floating village into a floating coffin, once they run out of water and food.

  And she has been wrong before, so wrong it cost the lives of the people most precious to her.

  Rowan has pushed to the front of the crowd. Mara can’t look at him. Gail, his twin and her best friend, died because Mara believed, wrongly, that they’d find refuge in the New World.

  Ruby is holding up another book.

  The book on Greenland!

  Mara lunges at the woman to snatch back the book, just as the ship dips into a valley of sea. As it lurches back up over the rise of a wave, Mara loses her balance. There’s a flutter like wings above her head. Mara hurls herself into the air with a yell.

  Too late. The wind whips her precious book over the side of the ship. The fragile pages rip and scatter, then vanish among flecks of ocean spray.

  Mara turns around.

  ‘You threw it – you—’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ Ruby is patronizingly calm. ‘The wind took it. But it would never have happened if you hadn’t tried to snatch. Anyway, it’s time an adult took charge.’

  With that, Ruby marches into the control cabin of the ship. Mara stares after her, dizzy with rage. The crowd melts away, avoiding her eyes. Only her Treenester friends remain. Even Rowan has turned away with a frown.