Gullstruck Island

by Frances Hardinge

  ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ Hathin had found herself staring up at Jimboly, who suddenly seemed to be nine feet tall. ‘That’s a Death Rattle. Whoever you thought of when you shook the rattle will be making that noise in their throat within the week. They’re going to die, do you understand that?’

  Hathin tried to speak, but could only manage a little yelp of terror.

  ‘I can try to stop it,’ snapped Jimboly, ‘but I need a living tooth. One of yours, or one from your sister. Quickly! Go get your sister!’

  Hathin had obeyed and sprinted back to her home, even though she suspected that Jimboly had seen her coming and hidden away, deliberately leaving the rattle in sight to lure her in, for the sake of gaining one extra tooth – a Lost tooth, perhaps. Hathin had stifled her sobs so that she wouldn’t wake anybody, furtively readied Arilou and brought her back to Jimboly’s tent.

  Jimboly had looked vexed but craftsmanlike as she had levered open Arilou’s mouth, and slipped her tongs inside. A quick tweak, and then Arilou had been making small watery-sounding wails and pushing her tongue into her cheek. Hathin had burst into helpless tears.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Examining the little tooth in the early light, Jimboly had recovered all her good humour at once, and her smile had opened like a treasure chest. ‘Everything’s going to be all right now, Hathin. I’ll make sure nobody dies.’

  Everything was not all right. Hathin had been crying because as her hands tightened around the rattle she had known in her stomach what it was, what it had to be. And in the instant the teeth had rattled within it, her mind had flown unbidden to Arilou.

  8

  Heat Haze

  Nothing was real, and he had no arms or legs any more. He floated through a land of fairy-tale gold, where the air was a golden comb, too fine to see, but he could feel it rake through him as he moved. He was cupped in a golden nutshell, and he could not guide where it flew.

  No, he was a barren land, and he pitied the little explorers that trekked across his skin, even while he hated them for the way their feet stung him. His throat was a roaring volcano crater a mile deep, and lava boiled just beneath his skin. His eyes were blind with ash.

  No. He still had limbs, sprawled over the belly of a boat. He had ears, and became aware that the deep roar of the sea had faded to a hiss. He had eyes, swollen almost to closing, and could make out the dark, blurred shapes of men standing over him.

  ‘Sir? Sir? What happened to you, sir?’

  The water from their bottle struck through his innards like a spear made of sky. It choked him and burned him and unglued his tongue.

  ‘Cast adrift,’ he managed to say, at last. ‘My name . . . My name is Minchard Prox.’

  Within twenty-four hours of Jimboly’s arrival the village had started to receive a mixed parade of visitors. However, these were not locals coming to pay their respects to Arilou as the new Chief Lost for the district.

  The first set of visitors were the Lace porters from Pearl-pit who had arrived with Skein and Prox. They turned up in the early afternoon and seemed eager to be gone again, perhaps unwilling to have it known that they had visited. They looked about them with a bitter, hard curiosity, but asked no questions, did not even leave openings for hints to be dropped. They wanted to take their elephant bird and leave.

  The bird had been tethered in one of the smaller caves. Eiven followed Hathin to the cave, and looped a leather cord over the bird’s head.

  ‘You’d better check that everything there is as it should be, so we get no complaints,’ Eiven told Hathin sharply, nodding towards the pack on the bird’s back. Her meaning was clear. Make sure there’s nothing in there to incriminate us.

  Much of the contents were as Hathin had found them when she searched the pack previously. However this time she noticed a pocket on the side of the pack and drew out a leather-bound book with a brass clasp. When she flipped the clasp and opened it, she found that half the pages were crowded with dense, immaculate handwriting. The rest were blank.

  Hathin and Eiven held each other’s gaze in mute conference. It was some kind of diary or notebook, but they could tell nothing more. Although they understood the older pictograms, and some of the hybrid signs that had emerged from a mingling of these with colonial letters, this Doorsy script might as well have been written in cloud patterns as far as they were concerned.

  ‘Did Skein enjoy his hospitality here?’ asked Eiven at last. ‘Did he seem . . . troubled by anything?’ Did he suspect anything?

  ‘No,’ Hathin said slowly, and then remembered his curious determination to float away and look for messages, right in the middle of the test. ‘Well, nothing he found here.’

  Eiven took the book from Hathin and narrowed her eyes. She flicked back two pages, to where there was one that finished with a banner of unwritten space, as if an entry or account had ended. Then she tore out the two written pages that followed it.

  ‘Well, now we’ve definitely put his mind at rest,’ she said, her smile grim. She pushed the torn pages into Hathin’s hands and set about carefully picking away the frayed edges until one could not tell that anything had been ripped out.

  Hathin watched with her heart in her mouth, marvelling at the way in which Eiven could make a swift decision and commit herself to it. Hathin herself would have tried to hide the whole thing, or more likely stood with the book in her hands in a paralysis of terrified indecision, and probably been discovered with it. Eiven was right as usual. If the book always rode in the pack pocket, it would be missed if it was not there.

  The elephant bird’s talons scored the sand testily as they led it back to the porters, the torn pages tucked away in the swathes of Hathin’s belt.

  The porter who had given her hints about the tests seemed to recognize her.

  ‘Thank you, little sister.’ His smile became pensive. He glanced away from Hathin down to where a gaggle of the younger boys were splashing and diving for pebbles, their heads dark beads afloat on the rolling water.

  ‘You have a lot of children here,’ he said at last very quietly, and Hathin sensed that he was no longer talking to her even before he looked up at Mother Govrie.

  ‘It’s a good place to rear them,’ Mother Govrie responded, with a slight questioning edge to her voice. She had picked up on something in his tone. ‘Plenty of reefs in the shallows where they can learn to dive, and the coral wall around the cove to keep the sharks out.’

  ‘There’s beaches just as good further up the coast. It’s not healthy here for children. Did you know that a little girl died in Sweetweather, the same night as Milady Page? She was wander-witted and her parents thought she was Lost.’ He gave Mother Govrie a long, steady look, then stretched his legs and stood. ‘You’re living in the lap of a volcano, Mother. We can taste it in the air. So we’re getting out, back to Pearl-pit, before the air gets too difficult to breathe.’

  And get out they did, without further ado.

  The next caller dropped in and then out again in the predawn, before even the first of the divers had left their huts. On the beach they found the only evidence of his visit – the imprint of a man’s bare foot, stained with blue around the heel. The advancing waves soon licked away this print as they had its fellows, but not before half the village had seen it.

  Until she saw the indigo-tinted footprint Hathin had not quite believed that the Ashwalker was on the prowl. Now the early daylight turned chill against her skin.

  Hathin had only seen the local Ashwalker once, long ago. She had got lost and had found herself in a dimple of a valley matted with briars high as her eyebrows and hazy with the thrum of bees. Her nose had filled with a strange reek, and at last she had glimpsed ahead a lean-to shack with small, dead running birds hanging along the fringe of its palm roof. Beyond it were four great barrels, streaked with sky-coloured dribbles, and standing in one of them a blue man. He had been stamping and churning, foam flecking his bare chest, the whites of his eyes startling against the dark streaks that p
ainted his face. And she had run and run and torn her arms and blouse to pieces against thorns, for fear that the Ashwalker would chase after her, leaping the creepers on his long blue legs.

  Ashwalkers were called in to hunt only the most fearsome murderers, for punishment at their hands condemned a criminal in the next life as well as this. This Ashwalker could not hunt criminals without a licence and, whatever Jimboly said, the governor was hardly likely to have given him one. It made no sense to call in an Ashwalker to discover the truth. Such men were hunters, not detectives.

  And yet, despite all this, it seemed that the Ashwalker really had left his pungent shack, and for some reason his steps had led him to the cove of the Hollow Beasts.

  The third visit to the Hollow Beasts occurred a couple of days later. It was an official envoy from Sweetweather. He made it known that the Lady Arilou was invited to attend upon the governor that afternoon, to discuss the matter of instating her as Milady Page’s replacement.

  Many villagers leaped and shrilled with excited laughter, then stood and stared at the prospect, appalled, then giggled helplessly again. It was awful. It was wonderful. They had no choice but to accept. The slightest hesitation, and rumours might start to spread that Arilou had not perished with the other Lost because she was not Lost. They would say that the villagers had killed Skein because Arilou had failed the test. And . . . ah, then there was the house to think of, the goats . . .

  There was one source of relief, anyway. The governor might think that all the Lost had been murdered, but if he wanted Arilou to become Sweetweather’s Lady Lost, surely he did not suspect them of anything.

  The young men retrieved green and supple trees from the uplands and lashed their slim trunks together with bark strips to make Arilou a litter in which to sit. They spread it with embroidered cloths and crushed herbs against the raw wood to scent it. Arilou remained fractious and uncooperative. She still seemed hazily awake to her surroundings, as she had been the preceding days, but her motions were if anything clumsier and more fretful than usual. She lurched and struggled as a long white ceremonial tunic embroidered in yellow was pulled over her head, and her long hands batted at the necklaces of pink and pale gold coral as they were trailed around her neck.

  There was no doubt or discussion about who would form Arilou’s delegation. Mother Govrie shaved anew the scalp above her daughters’ foreheads, and they all beat the dust out of their stiff skirts and embroidered blouses. Whish could be seen scraping her children’s teeth clean with a little split stick, so their plaques would be gleaming for the visit, her own lips grimacing and wincing in sympathy.

  Arilou was hauled up the cliff in the pulley-chair, Hathin clinging to her all the while to stop her lolling out of her seat. At the top Arilou was arranged carefully in her litter, and they set off down the cliff path to Sweetweather, keeping their voices low out of respect for the volcano.

  The only thing that saved Hathin from all-consuming terror was the scale of the situation. When she had been faced with the task of fooling a single Inspector she had felt panic, but now that she had to speak in Arilou’s voice in front of the governor and his entire town, all she felt was a blank sense of falling. Take as many deep breaths as you can, she told herself. It’s like diving. It’ll be fine once you’re in.

  It was as they were entering Sweetweather that Hathin decided the Pearlpit porters were right; there was a taste of volcano in the air.

  She noticed it when they encountered the sentries at the town’s edge. These were young men who always made a point of singling out Eiven when she came to sell pearls or shells, asking her about her business in town in a way that was half challenge and half overbearing flirtation. Eiven, never easily overborne, gave as good as she got, and Hathin had always suspected that she rather enjoyed the sparring.

  But today they showed no sign of recognizing her. Instead they were formally polite in a way that ran cold water down Hathin’s spine.

  The streets of Sweetweather seemed uncommonly quiet. None of the town’s children were playing on the street.

  ‘I haven’t seen those for a while,’ Mother Govrie said under her breath.

  Following her mother’s gaze Hathin realized that over many of the doorways were hanging squares of cloth, each daubed or dyed yellow. ‘They look a bit like the green cloths people hang to ward against demons,’ she murmured in her mother’s ear.

  ‘They’re wards against demons of a sort,’ Mother Govrie muttered, jutting her swollen lower lip and narrowing her eyes, and Hathin knew from her tone that these cloths were meant as protection against the Lace. ‘It happens from time to time. It does little harm and it always passes. Remember why our village has the name “Hollow Beasts”.’

  According to local Lace folklore, the village had once found itself in danger of attack while all its menfolk were absent. The Gripping Bird himself had decided to defend the village, but since he had no gift in arms, instead he had woven dozens of jaguars and other fearsome beasts from grass and placed them on the headlands. Daunted by the alarming silhouettes, the soldiers had hung back for a week, giving the women, children and old people left in the village long enough to dig their way into the caves using eggshell spades that the Gripping Bird had given them. One of these tunnels was said to have become the Path of the Gongs. The enemy had eventually discovered the empty cove, and left in perplexity.

  ‘The towners have always kept their friendship on a string,’ Mother Govrie continued quietly, ‘dropping it into the hands of the Lace just so that they can tug it out again. So let them have their silly fears – it’s the better for us. It’s all grass jaguars, Hathin – that’s the only thing that keeps us safe from them.’

  In the heart of the town the governor’s contingent was waiting, a delegation of twenty or so with many of the town’s stronger young men at the back. Their faces were smileless, and to Hathin they looked like battle masks. Then, giddy under the heat, there was a swimming moment when she felt she knew how she and her fellow Lace must look. The towners wear their thunderfaces like their black scarves as a sign of mourning, she thought, and then we walk in smiling . . .

  And yet even as she thought it she could feel her own smile spreading and tightening with the tension.

  The Lace came to a halt, barely five yards from their hosts. A white-haired man with a wobble to his chin walked forward and Hathin realized that it was the governor.

  ‘Lady Lost,’ he said.

  And the panic that had shackled Hathin suddenly broke away. She reached out and slid her hand under one of Arilou’s long hands, palm to palm, and gently raised it. Another supporting hand under Arilou’s elbow . . . and Arilou was flowing upwards to stand in the litter. As if compelled by a single thought, the two young men who flanked the litter stooped and placed hands ready for Arilou’s hesitant steps. And the Lace’s Lady Lost stepped forward on to air that became hands, and like a thing of foam drifted down to earth, the train of her robe slithering and tumbling from the lip of the litter to pool behind her.

  Arilou’s free arm floated up, and she extended it towards the governor and produced a rough, undulating squawk from the depths of her throat.

  Hathin heard her own voice speaking even before she had quite decided what to say.

  ‘We greet you, governor of Sweetweather,’ she declared in her clear, cold Arilou voice. Part of her mind was almost calm. Another part was terrified that Arilou would do something else peculiar that she would have to work into the conversation.

  ‘Lady Lost.’ The governor spoke again. ‘I am obliged to you for accepting our invitation.’ So that was how Doorsy should sound, polished like a conch’s innards. ‘Our town has been robbed of its Lost, and this is an intolerable situation. After conferring with my advisors I decided that the best – the only – solution was to invite you here.’

  The governor reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded square of paper. For a moment it looked so like the pages Eiven had torn out of the notebook that Hathin al
most reached guiltily for her own belt pocket where they were hidden. The governor’s paper, however, unfolded into a single sheet.

  ‘This was found in Inspector Skein’s locked room at the inn. It was pinned to the headboard of his bed.’

  The governor perched an amber-lens monocle in one eye socket and started to read:

  Sightlord Fain,

  I will be in the village of the Hollow Beasts for another day, testing the child Arilou, and if the storm breaks and the paths become impassable I may be forced to sojourn there longer.

  I have seen enough while travelling down the Coast of the Lace to convince me that our worst fears are justified – indeed, the problem is far more severe than we guessed. Sooner or later I shall have to reveal my findings to D. If we do not act quickly, yet more deaths and disappearances will occur. I must continue my investigations, for the sake of Gullstruck.

  If you are right, then we are both in considerable peril – after your meeting we will better understand the hazards we face. As soon as it is over, leave a message for me in the Smattermast tidings hut. I shall look for word from you every two hours.

  Raglan Skein

  The name of Fain meant nothing to Hathin, but she had heard the title ‘Sightlord’ before. The Sightlords were the leaders of the Council of the Lost, and all of them were themselves powerful Lost.

  ‘Evidently,’ the governor went on, ‘Inspector Skein and this Sightlord Fain had arranged to leave each other notes at particular locations so that they could communicate long distance. Inspector Skein was expecting urgent news from the Sightlord, news of an island-wide threat. Lady Lost, you must see how important it is that we try to learn at the first opportunity what Fain discovered at this meeting.’

  He paused, and Hathin sensed that an answer was expected. But Arilou had fallen into a serene silence, giving Hathin nothing to ‘translate’.

  ‘Our Lady Lost must return to the village,’ Mother Govrie said after an awkward pause, ‘to think on what you have said.’ She then had understood at least some of the conversation. Hathin was painfully aware that the other Lace were having trouble following the smooth, swift syllables of the governor’s Doorsy.