Limbo Lodge

by Joan Aiken

  He certainly loved and heeded his daughter Talisman: the look he gave her was pure devotion, and he stretched out his hand as if she had been away from his bedside for ten hours, instead of ten minutes.

  “Father!” she said loudly and clearly. “You know I told you of Lord Herodsfoot, who has been visiting Aratu in search of ancient games – here he is—”

  Her introduction was never finished, for at this moment her words were violently interrupted. The glass of the window shattered, splinters from it hurtled all over the room and a man burst through the gaping hole that had been made.

  It was Manoel – but a very different Manoel from the calm, scornful man they had met in Regina town. This Manoel was blackened with soot from head to foot, his clothes were singed and tattered, his face, shoulder and side were disfigured by a great angry red burn mark.

  He held pistols in both hands.

  “This is your finish, John King!” he said loudly. “And your daughter too. Time’s up! From now on, I give orders here—”

  As he spoke he took aim, and now fired directly at the man on the bed. But also while he spoke two things had been happening: Herodsfoot, who had moved to the end of the bed, threw himself at the intruder, ducking low, and managed to knock his feet from under him; and little Yorka, quick as a flash, darted at the man on the bed and pulled him out of the line of fire.

  Both pistols exploded; one shot hit the canopy of the bed and brought it down in a tangle of massive, gold-embroidered folds; the other shot took Yorka full in the chest and killed her instantly.

  Herodsfoot and Manoel rolled over and over, kicking and struggling, until Talisman, who had snatched up one of the pistols dropped by Manoel, managed to deal him a fierce blow on the head with the butt of it, and knocked him senseless.

  “Father?” she cried urgently, “are you all right? Father? You were not hit?”

  “No, no, I am well enough,” said King. “But this child – I fear she is done for.”

  He pulled back the gold canopy and revealed Yorka lying in a pool of blood.

  “Oh, no!” cried Talisman. “Yorka! Not Yorka!”

  And Tylo, from his place by the door, let out a long, heartbroken wail.

  Herodsfoot, disentangling himself from Manoel, stood up. His face was white with shock.

  “Not poor little Yorka?” he stammered. “Not dead? I am so grieved – so horrified—”

  Dido could not speak at all. Her throat was tight with anguish.

  Tylo, running to the bed, clasped Yorka’s hand, as if in hopes there might still be some sign of life in her, some chance to bring her back. But there was not. His head sank down, he stood silent, with tears running down his cheeks. Then he turned and made for the door.

  “I go fetch Aunt Tala’aa,” he said.

  But Aunt Tala’aa herself appeared at that moment, carrying Miria.

  “What is all this commotion?” she demanded.

  But she took in the scene immediately: Manoel sprawled on the floor, Yorka’s body on the bed, John King in his black serge robe looking shaken and appalled by the suddenness of these happenings.

  Aunt Tala’aa was frozen by a passion of rage and grief.

  It was a silent passion. She looked steadily at Yorka, drew a deep, careful breath, and said, “Our island has lost something irreplaceable. That child was the best – could have been the best – since your wife, since Erato,” she told John King. “But now she is gone. For always. We can’t bring her back. And this – this human rat—” she looked down at the prone body of Manoel “ – he had to wipe her out. Like the fool who sets fire to the forest because he wants to fry an egg for his supper. Well, he has done enough harm for this lifetime. He shall do no more. His time has come.” She addressed Manoel sharply.

  “Wake up, you! Get up!”

  To Dido’s astonishment Manoel, who had seemed deeply unconscious, gradually came out of his faint and hoisted himself to his feet. He looked blearily round the room, his face tightened with disgust as he saw the various people in it, and finally his mouth twisted in aversion at the sight of Aunt Tala’aa and the baby.

  “So you’ve come back, you old hag,” he muttered.

  “I have come back,” said Aunt Tala’aa. “Not before time. And you are about to leave.”

  “Much obliged!”

  “For years your wish has been to travel from this island. And now it is going to be granted. Today you have cost me one of my best students.”

  She gestured to the body of Yorka, among the fold of the gold canopy.

  “Her?” Manoel seemed baffled. “That child? If she got killed it was her own fault. She shouldn’t have got in the way. I never meant to kill her.”

  “Do you think that makes it any better? You kill without regard. A human life is no more to you than an empty bottle you toss away. You killed my Erato because she laughed at you and refused your offers. You have hated all women since then. You did your best to kill Erato’s daughter. Now you are going away to a black hole where you will be cold and bored for the rest of eternity. There will be no games to play there: no dice, no cards, no tally-sticks, no counters. You may stay there until your mother turns into a hyena and comes to pounce on you. And you may remember, if you choose to do so, that you were sent into the dark by a woman. And by a baby. A baby whose name you have cause to remember. Look at me!”

  She stood facing Manoel, one palm raised in the air, the other arm holding the baby. Manoel gazed at her vacantly, with his jaw fallen, mouth open, prominent eyes staring. Gradually his expression became fixed, a curious whining gasp issued from his mouth, and he sank, first to his knees, then in total collapse on the floor.

  “Ashtaa, Tala’aa-kanikke!” murmured Tylo. “You make an end of that poison-man. Is good.”

  “Merciful heavens!” exclaimed Herodsfoot. “Is the man dead? Just like that?”

  “He is dead, and will trouble us no more,” said Aunt Tala’aa. “We will not think of him again.”

  Tylo said, “I take him away.”

  He left the room and reappeared in a few moments with a wheeled basket-chair, presumably kept for the use of John King. Tylo and Herodsfoot between them lifted the body of Manoel into the chair.

  “Good,” said Aunt Tala’aa. “Now you can tip him over the Cliff of Death. The hungry mouths down below can make an end of him.”

  “What about Yorka?” said Dido sadly.

  “Little Yorka. We shall burn her on a fire of sandalwood and djeela-bark. And let the wind carry her ashes away. But you, in the meantime, my friend,” Aunt Tala’aa said to John King, “I think you had better return to bed.”

  “Not in this room,” he said in dismay. “Too many bad things have happened here.”

  “No, no, we shall find some other. Rooms in plenty in this house.”

  When another chamber had been chosen, and John King settled in it, with Talisman beside him, playing the hyena game on a beautiful spiral board made of nutmeg wood, Aunt Tala’aa, Tylo, Dido, and Lord Herodsfoot walked slowly out on to the veranda of Limbo Lodge. They were all dejected and silent. The sight of the woods below, with burnt patches still steaming from Yorka’s rain, did nothing to cheer them.

  But Aunt Tala’aa said, trying to be brisk about it: “We should not grieve for her. Only for ourselves. She is now receiving a Kanikke’s welcome in the Other Forest.”

  Tylo said: “And Manoel sent to Black Hole. That one very good thing.”

  “What shall we do now?” said Dido. “We can’t cross the bridge, it’s burnt. Manoel must have been on this side when that happened. And those fellows over there in the camp won’t know that he is dead. Do you think we should tell them? In case they start shooting again?”

  “No,” said Aunt Tala’aa. “As they do not know what has happened they will wait and wait for Manoel to reappear, and then gradually they will drift away home. So, that way, probably when we go to Regina, only some, not all of those men will have returned.”

  “But – but how can
we get to Regina? The bridge is burned—” Dido swallowed, remembering how Tylo and Yorka wove their own bridge of rope. Would she be able to help Tylo make another?

  “We go by ship.”

  “You don’t mean – climb down the cliff to Manati harbour?” Herodsfoot came out of his gloomy reverie to inquire.

  “No, no. Let us go and look at the ship. That will take our minds off sad things.”

  Aunt Tala’aa led the way down the steps off the veranda and across the stretch of short grass to the cliff top. A low building stood near the southern tip of the promontory. In front of this, a small ship was perched upon chocks: a solid, stubby, clinker-built sloop, Bermuda-rigged, with an enclosed cabin. Her name was painted on the side: The Lass of Cley.

  “Dear me,” said Herodsfoot. “That seems a stout, seaworthy little craft – but how in the world to get it down to the water?”

  Here they were, perhaps a bowshot length from the edge of the cliff; a thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, which they could see, black, blue, silvery, and crinkled, away to the south.

  Aunt Tala’aa smiled. “No problem. In a few days the undersea volcano Mount Ximboë will erupt. The eruption is always preceded by earthquakes in this region. Part of the cliff we are standing on will fall.”

  She began to walk about near the cliff edge, pacing to and fro, counting the paces. She had taken a forked rod from the boat-yard and held it with both hands, her thumbs pointing upwards and backwards along the forks. When it quivered, as it did now and then, she stuck a sliver of bamboo into the ground.

  “See,” she said, “that defines the area of the rock-fall. Now it only remains to shift the boat to this spot.”

  “On rollers?” suggested Herodsfoot doubtfully. “But how shall we pull it? And then—” his words absolutely dried up in his throat as he contemplated the scheme which Aunt Tala’aa seemed to be proposing.

  “You mean,” he said hoarsely, “we put the boat here and then wait for it to fall into the sea?”

  “Ah, the sea will not be so far down then,” Aunt Tala’aa said, laughing at his dismay. “You will see! After Mount Ximboë erupts, a great wave races northwards past this island. They call it the onda. All we have to do is choose our moment when the wave approaches – we shall see it coming, here, for a long time before it arrives – then launch off at the moment when it is nearest.”

  “Just so,” muttered Herodsfoot in a hollow voice.

  But Tylo was enthusiastic. “Like ride a dolphin.”

  This, he had told Dido, was a favourite sport of the island boys, when dolphins were in a co-operative humour.

  “Well, I reckon it’s the best way to get to Regina town,” Dido remarked. “How long does it take a boat on that onda, Auntie Tala’aa?”

  “Not more than nine or ten hours. The most difficult part is steering out of the onda when we reach the north tip of the island.”

  “Oh yes – I remember that was why Doc Tally never got back to her dad after Manoel threw her in the sea and the Dutch boat picked her up, ’cos the current took the ship right up to the Moluccas.”

  “Just so. John King used to be a skilful sailor – but whether he will be equal to the task at this time remains to be seen,” Aunt Tala’aa said equably.

  Herodsfoot croaked out: “Er – sailing used to be quite a little hobby of mine – before I began collecting games.”

  “Then you are just the man we need,” said Aunt Tala’aa, giving him a kindly look.

  Chapter Eleven

  THEY SPENT TWO DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS AT Limbo Lodge. Most of this time was passed by Dido, Herodsfoot, and Tylo in playing games, of which they found a huge selection about the place. Dido’s favourite was Hyena, a board game somewhat akin to Ludo, using a spiral track on which players moved their counters according to throws of dice. The counter was the player’s mother, going to the well for water. If she managed to escape all the hazards on the way, and returned with a jug of water, she turned into a hyena and could pounce on all the other contestants. This tickled Dido greatly.

  “Coo! Don’t I just wish my ma would turn into a hyena! She couldn’t be any meaner than she is already.”

  Dido’s own parents were so disagreeable that she could not help envying the happy relationship that had sprung up between John King and his daughter Talisman.

  He got up from his bed on the morning after they had arrived, declaring that he was entirely better, and spent most of his time in an armchair by a window facing out to the southern sea. Sometimes Herodsfoot spent time with him, and played a game of Go, or Hnefatafl, or Four Field Kono, but in general it was Talisman who sat beside him, holding his hand, looking lovingly into his face, and discussing, endlessly, what should be done for the welfare of the island of Aratu. Sometimes Aunt Tala’aa joined them and shared these discussions, but Aunt Tala’aa was a true Forest Person; she could hardly endure to be in one place for more than six or seven hours, and would often vanish away on her own concerns.

  “Where do you go, Aunt Tala’aa?” Dido asked her.

  “Oh . . . here and there! Up and down. To and fro. Sometimes to the camp, to see how they go on there. Many were killed by that fire. The others – poor things – they are in great confusion, some deserting. Other times I take a look at the madman Ruiz – or those sad Ereiras—”

  “But, Aunt Tala’aa – how do you get across the gorge? How do you get about?”

  Aunt Tala’aa smiled. “Oh, comme-ci, comme-ca! One way or another. Lo’ongoh . . .” She used a Dilendi phrase that Dido had not heard before.

  “Aunt Tala’aa – what did you mean by that thing you said to Manoel about the baby?”

  Aunt Tala’aa said, “Once – long ago – Manoel (in those days he was still known as Paul, Paul Kirlingshaw) he played a game of Mancala with a Forest Man. Manoel cheated – he moved his piece when the other man had left the board to fetch his baby who was crying. But a memory-bird saw what Manoel did and told its master when he came back. And the man’s wife, who was a Kanikke, held up the baby and said, ‘Angrian man! The next time you see a baby with the same name as our daughter, your wits will leave you for ever and they will never return. From then, you will be as good as dead.’ So always, after that, Manoel hated the company of women and small children and would avoid them whenever he could.”

  “What was the baby’s name?”

  “Miria. It is a name often used by the Forest People. It means Daughter of the Sun.”

  “Is it so terrible – to cheat in a game?”

  Aunt Tala’aa looked at Dido seriously. “It is the first step towards annihilation of the spirit.”

  “I see. So it was quite kind of you to knock Manoel off, after he had seen Miria. Otherwise he’d have been ninepence in the shilling for the rest of his life.”

  “All I did was remind him. After that, sheer terror finished him off.”

  Dido gazed at Aunt Tala’aa with respect.

  “Did you know that Manoel had pinched a skull from the Place of Stones?”

  “Yes, a memory-bird told me that. If he had ever gone back to that place, one of the stones would have fallen and crushed him.”

  “No wonder he didn’t care for Aratu.”

  “He was a poor, despicable wretch,” Aunt Tala’aa dismissed Manoel with a wave of the hand. “The urge to gamble is a disease – like the craving for opium, or rum-toddy.” Dido nodded. She knew all about that. “Some might say – leave such poor fools alone, to wreak their own destruction. But the danger is that they do harm to others – they steal, they lie, they commit crimes to pay for their habit. And they infect their companions.”

  “Yes. That’s so,” said Dido sadly.

  “We will think of him no more. He did great harm to Aratu. But matters will mend now.”

  Tylo came to summon them to Yorka’s death-rites.

  On the stone floor of the little Ghost House, he and Dido had built a pyre of musk, aloes, ambergris, djeela-bark, sandalwood, pepper, bezoar and nutmeg leaves. Yorka’
s body was tucked into this, wrapped in the gold brocade from King’s four-poster. Aunt Tala’aa had removed the wooden ring from her finger.

  “Even a wooden ring may tie down her spirit.” Tala’aa gave it to Dido. Then, with a piece of fire-fungus she touched the djeela-bark and blew on it gently. At once a clear green flame shot up. In five minutes the little fragrant pile was totally burned, without smoke or sound. Dido wondered that no wind stirred the flame, for, outside the ghost-house, she could see that a strong southerly breeze was bending the branches of the clove-trees; then she noticed that both TaIa’aa and Talisman wore expressions of deep concentration, focused on the flame; she remembered Yorka making the rain, and, before that, Yorka and Talisman at the Place of Stones, dispersing the mist.

  It’d be great to be able to do that, Dido thought, and noticed, as the last spark died away, Tala’aa’s eye fixed measuringly upon her.

  “Teirale haseem – go with light feet, Yorka,” called Tylo loudly, and the others echoed him; and Dido heard another voice take up the message from above, a voice that she recognised, which then went on to sing:

  “O-o-o, from swim to fly, from wet to dry

  from fly to blow, blow in the wind, o-o-o . . .”

  Dido looked around, startled. Nobody else seemed to have heard the ghost song. But again, she noticed the eye of Aunt Tala’aa fixed on her measuringly.

  When they returned to Limbo Lodge, Tala’aa pointed to the sky in the south. “It will not be long now till the onda. We had better provision the boat.”

  They ran back and forth to the Loss of Cley with food, fruit, water, and warm waterproof clothes.

  Herodsfoot caused some dispute by his urgent request to bring a dozen games, wholly unfamiliar to him, which he had found about the house. In the end he was persuaded that there really was no room for them, and, despite his arguments, he was obliged to reduce the number to three, when he pointed out that John King might need some entertainment during the trip.