Glurk blinked at him.
‘Enough of this talking, harharhar,’ he said eventually, and hit the guard on the head.
The green eyes went out.
‘I runs out of ideas after a while,’ said Glurk.
Pismire’s eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom. It was a big cave, but it didn’t look as big as it really ought to have done because of the enormous size of the things in it.
‘These are pones, aren’t they?’ said Brocando.
‘Not easy to mistake for anything else. Why are they here?’ said Pismire.
‘They turns the wheels for the lifting platform,’ said Glurk. ‘They’re used for all the heavy work. Know something? They’re intelligent.’
‘No, that’s just a story,’ said Pismire airily. ‘They look bright, I’ll grant you, but the head’s tiny compared to the body. They’ve got a brain the size of a dried pea.’
‘But a very clever dried pea,’ said Glurk. ‘I lay low in here last night. They’ve got a language. All made up of thumps and nose honks. Watch.’
A tiny head was lowered towards him out of the shadows, and two bright eyes blinked.
‘Er ... if you can understand me, stamp twice,’ he said hoarsely.
Thud. Thud.
Even Glurk himself looked surprised.
‘These are friends. You’ll help, OK?’
Thud. Thud.
‘That means yes,’ said Glurk.
‘Really?’ said Pismire.
‘There’s his saddle, by the stall.’
It was more like a small castle. It had wide girths made of red cloth studded with bronze, and a roof over it, hung with curtains and bells. Inside were cushioned seats, and on the decorated harness was the word ‘Acretongue’ in tarnished bronze letters.
Pismire sidled closer to the pone while the others were manhandling the saddle, and held up his hand with the fingers spread out.
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he said suspiciously.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
‘Aha! So much for—’
Thud.
‘Lucky guess.’
The pone lumbered down on to his knees to let them heave the saddle on to his back.
Then he opened his mouth and trumpeted.
It sounded like the creaking of a door, magnified a thousand times – but it wavered and changed as well, and seemed to contain a lot of busy little other sounds. Language, thought Pismire. Language without words, but still language.
I wonder if the wights invented that, too? People used to have language without words. We still have. We say ‘Hmm?’ and ‘Uh’ and ‘Arrgh!’, don’t we?
What am I thinking? These are animals.
Just very bright ones, perhaps. Very bright indeed.
The other pones raised their heads and answered, with a variety of blasts and trills. Glurk motioned the others up on to Acretongue’s back.
‘The mouls will have heard that,’ said Pismire.
‘Won’t matter,’ said Glurk. ‘The pones have decided to go home.’
‘You mean they could have gone any time?’ said Brocando, watching the huge animals leaving their stalls in an orderly line.
‘They liked it here when the Vortgorns ran the place,’ said Glurk ‘They likes stuff they find interesting. The mouls don’t interest them any more. They don’t like them. I think they think we’re interesting.’
‘Now listen, Glurk,’ said Pismire, ‘I mean, I’m not saying you’re not, you know, quite bright, but I don’t think you could have learned a language and all these other things in just a few—’
‘Didn’t,’ said Glurk, smirking. ‘Knew what to expect before I come here.
‘How—’
‘Enough of this talking, harharhar,’ said Glurk. ‘Tell you later. Be polite, by the way. She said they understand people very well.’
‘Don’t believe it,’ said Pismire.
One of the pones blew a raspberry in his ear.
‘That means they think you’re interesting,’ said Glurk.
‘And who’s she?’ Pismire demanded.
‘Tell you soon,’ said Glurk. He was enjoying himself in a quiet way. For the whole of his life Pismire had known more than he did. It was nice, just for once, to be Mr Answers.
At the far end of the cave was a thick bronze door. The first two pones walked straight into it, tearing it off its hinges. Once outside the herd broke into a trot, with Acretongue moving up into the lead.
On his trumpeted signal, it became a gallop. It looked ponderous and funny, until you realized that those great big bouncing balls would walk through a house without noticing it.
Up on Acretongue’s back the four of them were shaken like small peas in a big pot. Pismire saw a pack of mounted mouls galloping after them, spears ready to throw. Acretongue must have seen them too, because he bellowed like a distressed trumpet.
Three pones detached themselves from the herd and turned. The mouls suddenly realized that they weren’t chasing a herd of fleeing animals . . .
Pismire stood up in the saddle. ‘They’ve gone over them!’ he said.
‘What, do you mean they jumped?’ asked Brocando.
‘No! I mean just . . . over.’
‘They hate mouls,’ said Glurk. ‘Hate ’em more than any other creatures do. They think they’re very uninteresting.’
Ahead of them was the archway, surrounded by a milling throng of mouls and Vortgorns. ‘But all they’ve got to do is lower that platform and we’re done for,’ shouted Pismire.
‘They won’t,’ yelled Glurk, and pointed. ‘He powers the platform!’
Beside the gateway they noticed for the first time a large treadmill. There was a pone in it. A pack of mouls were attacking it with whips and goads. But it stood stolidly, trumpeting. Acretongue bellowed back.
‘They’ll rescue it,’ said Glurk. ‘By the way – er, what was it – oh, yeah, they hate sharp things even more than mouls, so we got to be careful with spears and things . . .’
Some pones hurled themselves towards the mill, tossing mouls aside like dust. Their heavy jaws snapped through the bars. The caged pone shrugged itself free, paused for a moment to stamp on a couple of mouls who had been poking it the hardest, and then leapt through the gateway.
‘They must be mad!’ said Pismire. ‘That platform won’t hold them!’
‘We shall see,’ said Glurk, as they clattered on to it. The other pones piled on behind them, and Pismire noticed that, though they went out of their way to trample on mouls, they avoided the running Vortgorns. Vortgorns were still a bit interesting.
He expected the platform to split under the weight of the pones. It didn’t – quite – but something went clang above them and the remains of the treadmill spun until it was nothing but a blur. The chains shrieked over their pulleys. The wall rushed past. Only Glurk sat calmly. Even Pismire had crouched down in the saddle. They were going to be crushed when they hit the bottom, he knew. Brocando hung on and moaned, with his eyes shut. Even Bane had slumped down, bracing himself for the shock.
So only Glurk saw the pones leaping from the platform, one by one.
The tiny wings opened. They were too small to carry pones – but they worked. They whirled madly and the pones stayed up, drifting gently between the hairs.
With only Acretongue’s weight upon it the platform slowed down, and hit the dust with a thud. Acretongue lumbered off, while all about them pones crashed down through the hairs like falling fruit.
The others looked up at Glurk’s face.
‘You knew we wouldn’t crash!’ said Pismire accusingly.
‘Hoped,’ said Glurk. ‘I wasn’t too sure, even after all Culaina said.’
‘Who’s Culaina? Is he the she?’ said Pismire. He was badly rattled. He was kind enough in his way, but knowing more than Glurk about almost everything was one of the few things he was sure he was good at. He wasn’t used to this.
Another pone bounced onto the dust beside them. They’re li
ghter than they look, he thought. Balloons with wings. No wonder they don’t like sharp objects . . .
‘Culaina’s hard to describe,’ said Glurk. ‘I think she’s a sort of wight.’
‘A sort of wight?’ said Pismire.
‘You’ll have to ask her yourself,’ said Glurk. ‘We’re going to see her now.’ Acretongue’s head dipped, and he began to plod between the hairs.
‘No, we’re not,’ said Bane. ‘We must go to Ware!’
‘Back to Jeopard, you mean!’
‘Ware’s only a few days away. I have to tell them about this!’
‘They might know already,’ said Pismire, glumly.
‘They don’t,’ said Glurk.
‘How do you know?’
‘We’re the only ones who know about the moul army,’ said Glurk. ‘We’ll have to go to Ware to warn people. But first we’ve got to go back to talk to Culaina.’
‘This wight? Why?’ said Pismire.
‘To tell her what we’ve seen,’ said Glurk, smiling in a puzzled kind of way. He scratched his head. ‘So she can remember what we tell her now and tell me two days ago. When I met her.’
Brocando opened his mouth, but Pismire waved him into silence.
‘Wights remember the future as well as the past,’ he said. ‘But . . . look, they never tell anyone, Glurk.’
‘This one does,’ said Glurk. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You think I could make this sort of thing up?’
Chapter 13
‘Following you was easy enough,’ said Glurk. ‘I mean, twenty people leave a trail, no problem there. Half the time I had to be careful I didn’t walk into you. And then I thought . . . they’re going south in a straight line, so I might as well go on ahead, spy out the land, see what’s happening. One person can move a lot faster than twenty, so why not? I’d got a snarg to ride, too. They respond well to a bit of kindness,’ he said. ‘Mind you, you have to use quite a lot of cruelty as well. And that’s how I met Culaina. She’s very strange.’
There was a pause. Then Pismire said, ‘I think we missed something there.’
‘You’ll see where she lives,’ said Glurk. ‘I . . . er . . . I don’t think people see it unless she wants ’em to. I’ve never seen anything like it. And there she was and . . . and . . . she told me where you were going, and how I could hang on to the bottom of that lifting cart, and pinch the armour off a Vortigorn, and release the pones, and how they could fly . . . everything.’
‘How did she know all this?’ Brocando demanded.
‘Because we’re going to tell her,’ said Glurk. ‘Don’t ask me how it works.’
‘They remember forwards as well as backwards,’ said Bane.
‘But they must never tell!’ said Pismire. ‘Otherwise dreadful things could happen!’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Glurk, guardedly. ‘The way I see it, you’ve been freed . . . that doesn’t sound dreadful.’
‘But we must get back to the tribe,’ said Pismire
‘And my people!’ said Brocando. ‘They need us!’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Glurk. ‘There’s two hundred Munrungs and three thousand Deftmenes, and they’re all armed and together and . . . they need us? We’ve got some good lads in the tribe. And Snibril’s with them . . . isn’t he?’
‘Er,’ said Brocando. ‘Yes. We hope so.’
‘Right, then. And your people know how to fight. We’re four people in a strange land with enemies all over the place . . . I think we need them. Anyway, we must see Culaina.’
‘But she’s told you, and it worked,’ said Brocando. ‘We can say thank you some other time—’
‘No,’ said Pismire. ‘If Glurk’s right, and she’s told him something she remembers from the future, and we don’t go . . . then, I don’t know, anything could happen. The whole fabric of the Carpet could roll up, or something. It would be the worst thing that could ever happen anywhere.’
‘Worse than—?’ Brocando began.
‘Worse than anything you could possibly imagine,’ said Glurk.
They all thought about this.
‘She must trust you a lot, then,’ said Bane.
For the rest of that day the pones moved on. On Acretongue’s back the four dozed, or looked out silently at the lengthening shadows. But for most of the time they were each busy with their own thoughts.
Dust grew luxuriantly underfoot, and in it unseen little creatures buzzed and clicked. And growing on the apple-green fluff that draped itself in thick festoons high above were flowers, fluff flowers, bigger than a man, with petals that glittered in a thousand shades of green from deep olive to cool yellow, that gave out a scent that filled the glades and tasted like the colour of green.
‘Now this is very interesting,’ began Pismire, sitting up. It was the first time any of them had spoken in an hour.
He stopped, and stared across the clearing. Every pone turned its head in that direction.
‘It’s something you don’t often see,’ he added. The others looked where he pointed.
Among the greenery at the far side of the glade a wild pig was watching them solemnly. As they all turned it backed away hastily, and they could hear it crashing off through the hairs.
‘That’s common enough,’ grunted Bane.
‘It’s just that it was brown,’ said Pismire. ‘It should have been green. Almost all wild creatures in the Carpet take on the colour of the hairs where they were born. Protective camouflage.’
‘Perhaps it just wandered here,’ said Bane.
‘No,’ said Glurk, grinning. ‘Something brought it here. We’re nearly there. You’ll be amazed. You really will.’
The pones turned, and pushed their way along another track. As they shouldered their way through the thick fronds, scores of small creatures scurried away hurriedly. They were all the colours of the Carpet.
And then the pones stepped through . . .
Hairs clustered in closely on the borders of a wide clearing, reflecting the dim glow from the thing in its centre.
It was one uncut crystal of sugar. High as the Great Palace of Jeopard, whiter than a bone, the crystal glittered coldly in the green dimness. It caught all the light that filtered through the densely packed dust, and within its marvellous cubic bulk a shifting white glow danced. In parts it shone like polished varnish, reflecting the faces of the creatures that clustered round it.
There were dust rabbits and weft borers of all colours, pigs by the herd, long-necked soraths, patient fat tromps, gromepipers, scurrying goats with spiral horns and creatures even Pismire could not recognize: a scaly thing with spikes on its back, and a long creature that seemed to be all legs. The clearing was filled with the sound of a thousand tongues . . . licking.
Acretongue and his herd pounded forward, almost throwing Glurk and the rest out of the saddle. Smaller creatures leapt aside hastily to give them room.
‘It’s . . . beautiful,’ whispered Brocando at last. Bane stood staring up, gaping. Even Pismire was impressed.
They climbed down from the pone’s back and walked gingerly up to the smooth surface. The animals licking the sugar hardly paid them any attention.
Glurk cracked a piece off with his knife, and stood crunching it thoughtfully. ‘Have a taste,’ he said, tossing a piece to Bane. Bane bit it cautiously.
‘Sugar,’ said Bane. ‘I’ve only ever tasted it once before. There was a crystal down near the Hearthlands. The Emperor used to get it in very small amounts.’
‘Like honey, but different,’ said Brocando. ‘How does it get here?’
‘Like Grit, and Salt, and Ash do. From above,’ said Pismire. ‘We don’t know any more than that.’
Instinctively they looked up at the spreading hairs.
‘Well, here’s our lunch, anyway.’ Brocando’s voice broke the silence. ‘Take your pick – fried tromp or baked gromer. No wonder they’re all colours. This must attract them from everywhere. Mind you,’ he added, ‘it hardly seems sporti
ng to kill them while they’re not looking.’
‘So put away your knife,’ said a new voice.
Pismire choked on his sugar.
A figure stood a little way away. It was tall, with the thin face of a wight, and looked ghostly in the light of the crystal. It had a mass of white hair – it was hard to see where the hair ended and the shapeless long robe began. And she was young, but as she moved sometimes she was old, and sometimes she was middle-aged. Time moved across her face like shadows.
One of her hands held the collar of a white snarg, which was swishing its tail menacingly.
‘Um,’ said Glurk, ‘this is Culaina.’
The wight walked past them and patted Acretongue’s flank. The pone’s long neck turned and his little eyes looked at Culaina; then he clumsily lowered himself to his knees and laid his head on the ground.
Culaina turned, and smiled. The whole clearing seemed to smile with her. The change was sudden, and dramatic.
‘So here you are,’ she said, ‘and now you must tell me of your adventures. I know you will, because I remember you did. Follow me. There will be food.’
At the far side of the clearing was Culaina’s home, or one of her homes. It was no more than a roof of woven dust on poles. There were no walls or doors, no ditch or stockade to protect it at night, and no place for a fire. Above it was a large hive of hymetors. Animals cropped and dozed peacefully around Culaina’s camp.
When Glurk and the others approached the hymetors hummed furiously and rose from their hive in an angry swarm. The four ducked and tried to protect their faces with their arms, until Culaina whistled once.
The creatures swooped harmlessly overhead and returned, peacefully, to their home in the hairs. Glurk caught a glimpse of long sharp stings.
‘She sent them back,’ whispered Brocando urgently. ‘She just whistled and they obeyed her!’
On the floor under the shelter was a pile of fruit and some bowls of green liquid.
‘I had this before,’ said Glurk. ‘It’s sap from the green hairs. Sets you up a treat.’
They sat down. Pismire shifted uneasily, and Culaina smiled at him.
‘Say what you think,’ she said. ‘I remember that you did. But you must say it.’
Carpet People Page 9
