by Maurice Gee
Barni thought about it. The creature ate and grew, it excreted foul liquids, it puffed out grey dust. Sometimes it rested. Sometimes when men crept in to fight it, it oozed back into the walls and slept.
Why does it sleep? When does it sleep? he asked himself.
He made a chart, his beast-chart, and studied it and the answer came: It sleeps on the nights when black clouds pile up in the sky and blot out the red star and the white.
He went to the village council and told them what he had found.
The elders grew angry with him. Everyone knew it, they said – although they had not mentioned it themselves. It was no help. What must they do?
Barni had the answer: We must build a ship with great sails to catch the storm, and sail it into the sky, with strong men armed with spears, and slay the red star and the white. Then the beast will sleep forever.
That’s impossible, Duro said.
It’s a tale, Duro. It’s a myth, Xantee said. Listen.
Tealeaf went on: So they built a ship larger than any ever seen before, with great square sails to catch the wind, and when the next storm blew, the men of the village went on board with their spears, and Barni took the tiller and they sailed out into the eastern sea. The sails puffed out like bladder fish and the great ship climbed into the sky.
Impossible, Duro growled.
They approached the white star and the first squad of men threw their spears and the star gave a cry like a wounded bear, and blazed red and then grew pale and died. Barni thrust the tiller round and the ship sailed south, through the gathering clouds, to the red star –
And the second squad of men threw their spears, Duro said.
Quiet, Xantee said. She reached out and held his hand.
The men threw. The spears flocked down like hawks swooping on their prey, and pierced the star, which gave a shuddering cry, like an old man dying, and shed its light into the black sky –
And down in the cave the beast died, Duro said. Crap.
Ah, Duro, Tealeaf said, if you would only open your mind a little. But yes, the beast died. It howled and hissed and writhed and shrank and thinned its flesh until there was no flesh left, but a foul-smelling mist, which twisted like smoke out of the cave, and the storm turned in its tracks and blew it away. That’s the story. You can take it any way you like.
So they made Barni their king, Lo said.
No, it’s not that sort of tale. He went back to being a fisherman, and grew old and died too, many hundreds of years ago. It’s better to be part of a story than be a king.
It means, Pearl said.
Yes, Pearl, what does it mean?
That the beast Sal and Mond found isn’t the first. There’ve been others, centuries ago, and it means . . .
What?
There are ways to kill them.
What ways? Xantee said.
You build a ship and sail it to the stars, Duro said, grinning when Xantee squeezed his hand angrily. He had seen the point of the story.
It means, I think, Tealeaf said slowly, that there are only a few times when this creature can be born. The conditions have to be right – there has to be a red star and a white.
What are they? Xantee said.
I’ve no idea.
This Barni was human, not a Dweller?
Yes, human. Listen to me.
She seemed older suddenly, with her cat eyes faded and her three-fingered hands bonier. She’s seen too much, she’s learned too much, Xantee thought. And Tealeaf read it.
No, Xantee, she said, it isn’t what I know, which is far from being enough. It’s what I’m not able to do. Dwellers work differently from humans. Our minds travel in different ways. I can understand this story of Barni and the stars but I can’t see what to do about it.
She shook her head. That will be for humans to work out.
Us, Xantee said.
Work it out first, then do something about it, Duro said. What were those fishermen called, Barni’s people?
I’ve heard them called Wideners, because they sailed away from the coast, across the ocean. Others simply called them the Fish People.
And they’re gone?
The storms were too much for them. The eastern coast was too barren. They heard of calmer seas and flatter shores across the Great Sea. So they migrated. You can still find their traces, people say. Ruined villages. A few broken sea walls around their tiny harbours. That’s all.
No use going there, then, Duro said.
But there must be records. Or histories. It can’t all be lost, Xantee said.
If we can find out what the stars really were . . . Duro said.
A cry came from the sickroom. Tilly, who was not a ‘speaker’, was sitting with Hari. Pearl ran inside, with the twins following. A moment later Tilly came out, her face pale and strained. She sat by Duro, who put his arm around her.
‘Easy, Ma.’
‘It started to wake up. It started turning over inside its skin.’
‘Pearl’s there now.’
‘I can’t bear looking at it. It’s eating Hari.’
‘We’ve got it like a rat in a trap,’ Duro said. ‘It’s got no chance.’
‘But you can’t kill it. And Hari can’t stay like that.’
They knew it was true, and sat brooding, while dull red sunset streaks faded from the sky. Tealeaf closed her eyes and rocked back and forth.
She’s growing old, Xantee thought.
If Tealeaf picked up the thought, she did not respond.
There were tales, she said. Then she deepened her eyes and spoke aloud so Tilly would also hear: ‘There were tales –’
Not more of them? Duro said.
Shut up, Duro, Xantee said.
‘Not myths, just bits of knowledge Dwellers picked up about the city when it was called Belong. It was a great city and a great civilisation, but growing fat and lazy, and easy prey for Company when its ships arrived. Hari’s people lived there, the Belongers.’
‘He’s told us about it,’ Lo said.
‘And about Blood Burrow,’ Xantee said.
‘Yes, Blood Burrow. And Keech Burrow, and Keg and Bawdhouse. All the burrows. And Port. And the old man, Lo the Survivor – you’re named after him, Lo.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Hari told me that Lo talked about great galleries and concert halls his father’s father had seen when he was a child. And a library where all human knowledge was stored. The stories – the histories – of all the races the Belongers had ever met. But everything, the storerooms and stacks, were buried in the rubble when Company’s fleet came back after the rebellion and broke Belong into little pieces with its bolt cannons. Ten days and nights they stood off shore, turning the city into broken walls and buried rooms . . .’
‘Hari used to cry when he told us,’ Xantee said.
‘That’s when the burrows were born. Company kept it that way – rubble and swamps and pits and hovels – so the Belongers would never have the strength to rebel again. Hari was born there. No wonder he cried.’
‘He never told us about libraries,’ Xantee said. ‘I’m not sure what they are. Books and things?’
‘Lo the Survivor told him about them. Hari never found them. He wouldn’t have known what a book was if he’d picked one up.’
‘So even if we could talk to him . . .’
‘He couldn’t tell you where to go. But there is someone you can talk to. Someone who knows the burrows even better than Hari. If you can find him.’
‘Who?’
‘Tarl, Hari’s father.’
‘The Dog King,’ Xantee said.
‘We don’t even know if he’s still alive,’ Duro said.
‘He’s alive. The people with no name know where he is.’
‘Can we go to him? Duro and me? And get him to guide us?’
‘And me,’ Lo said. ‘I’m going.’
‘And us,’ said the twins.
‘No, not you. You’ve got to stop here and keep Hari alive until . .
.’ Tealeaf stopped.
‘Until Tarl takes us to the city,’ Xantee whispered. ‘And we find out what the stars were. And the gool. And how to kill it.’
She felt small and weak, which confused her. All her life she had been certain nothing would prove too much for her. But now, looking at her fingers, skin and bone, she saw how fragile they were; and looking into her mind, which had seemed limitless, she felt she might break out the other side and find nothing – nothing but the beast opening its black mouth at her.
Duro held her hand.
She swallowed.
Tealeaf, she said in Tealeaf’s mind, you’ll have to persuade Pearl. She won’t let us go.
She will. She’ll understand there’s no other way. You’re children of the burrows, like Hari. And you, Duro, a child of the city. You were born for this.
FOUR
The sea was calm for two days, then a storm blew up from the south, making waves with jagged tops that struck the schooner sideways and seemed to want to bite her in two. Karl found shelter in a cove, where they lay for a night and a day, Xantee fretting at the lost time and talking back through the storm to the twins at home: How was Hari?
No better, no worse, they said. The necklace had hardened into an iron band and seemed to be in a kind of hibernation. But water, milk, honey, broth, would not keep Hari alive forever.
Tealeaf was on the schooner guiding them to a river on the south-eastern shore, where they might find the people with no name. She kept Xantee busy with tasks about the boat and in the galley, or sat talking with her, telling stories of her life in the city, when she had been Pearl’s maid.
Three hours dressing for a ball? Xantee said. It was hard to believe.
And another hour painting her face. And two hours for her hair, with maids weaving pearls into the braids, so a man called Ottmar might notice her.
That’s Ottmar the king, who was killed by the dogs?
By Tarl’s dogs. Tarl learned how to talk with dogs.
And he told them to kill Ottmar?
They were cruel days, Xantee. They’re cruel days still. Nothing changes.
And Tarl still talks with dogs? Will we find him?
I think so. Whether he’ll help you is another matter.
The storm died away and the schooner sped south. Mountains towered like thunder clouds on the third day, and on the fourth Xantee saw black jungles sweeping down to the shore, streaked with red from summer trees flowering in gullies. She wondered if gools had come this far. There were bitten cliffs where seams of dampness might break out. She tried to sense the dome of coldness that had hung over the gool Sal and Mond had found, but only the shimmer of heat and dampness lay on the jungle.
Lo, she called, and he came from his job reading the wind for Karl at the tiller.
Can you feel anything? Has it come here?
They sent their minds out in unison, but in the heat and steaminess found no prickle of cold.
It’s a big world and this thing’s small, Lo said.
But it’s growing.
Yet the size of the mountains and the sea comforted Xantee. Then she remembered the living torc back home, that tiny bit of the creature locked on Hari’s throat. They must find where it had been born, and kill whatever lived there. She felt sick with fright, at the thing itself, and what she and Lo and Duro must do.
One step at a time, Duro said, from his job trimming sails.
Who invited you in? Xantee said.
When you’re squealing everyone hears, Duro said.
I don’t squeal.
You squeak.
I do not.
Lo laughed. Tealeaf says we’ll anchor by this river of hers tonight. See if you can stop squabbling by then.
He went back to Karl.
Xantee shut her mind to Duro. But she was pleased by his intrusion. She knew he thought she was conceited, that she thought herself more gifted than the others, and he had ways of making her see how ordinary in most things she was – in generosity (she was inclined to greediness and selfishness), in looks (she was no beauty, not alongside her mother, Pearl), in strength (no match for Duro), in voice (yes, she was inclined to squeal and squeak). Duro made her see it, but let her see he liked her anyway. Xantee laughed. Well, she thought, aren’t I perfect in everything else? She heard Duro laughing too. How had he got back in?
They anchored off the river mouth as the sun went down. The jungle blackened in an instant and the cries of night animals rose – shrieks, warbles, long melancholy fading shouts that seemed almost human.
Do the Peeps know we’re here? Lo said.
They know, Tealeaf said. We’ll go ashore in the morning and talk to them.
Can I talk? Xantee said.
If they let you.
How many are going on this expedition? Karl said.
Just three. Xantee and Lo and Duro. Not you, Karl. You have to sail the boat back home.
We want to go, Sal and Mond said with one voice.
No, Tealeaf said.
Although they had worked hard on the boat, the cousins made only one set of hands. Sal’s right was locked in Mond’s left and never let go. Sleeping, eating, washing, working, Sal and Mond were one; and the locking was mental as well as physical. They found little need to speak with other people. Their minds were closed.
They need to travel quickly and you’d slow them down, Tealeaf said.
The cousins turned away. They shifted to the schooner’s bow and stared into the dark.
At midnight Xantee rose from her bunk. Heat rolled off the jungle, enveloping the little ship and seeping into its corners. She took a blanket, hoping to find a cooler place on deck.
Duro was already there, sleeping by the rail. She lay down by his side, trying not to wake him. He was breathing easily, but after a moment he gave a cry like a tree cat and woke with a start.
What? Xantee said.
You here? What’s wrong?
It was too hot to sleep. Did you have a dream?
Bloody nightmare. I had a gool around my throat. They scare me, Xantee.
Me too. I just want to curl up. I want to be safe.
They held hands.
I’d get out of this if I could, Duro said.
So would I. But we can’t.
No, we can’t.
So . . . tomorrow.
Yes, tomorrow.
After a while they slept, but movements woke them before long. Sal and Mond came on deck. Each wore a pack, Sal’s slung over her left shoulder, Mond’s over her right.
We’re leaving, Mond said.
Where? said Duro.
If we can’t go hunting this gool with you we’ll go by ourselves.
In the city?
Wherever we find it. It touched us, not you, so it’s ours to kill.
It touched my father. It’s killing him, Xantee said.
Hari saved us, Sal said, so when we find the gool we’ll save him.
Have you heard the story of the two stars?
We don’t need stories, Sal said.
We’ll take a canoe and leave it at the river, Mond said.
How will you find your way after that?
We’ll find it.
The jungle will kill you, Duro said.
If it does it does.
Xantee watched them lower a canoe over the side. They were quick and agile. Already they had learned ways of moving and compensating. In the dark she could not see their faces, but saw their eyes shine. Two girls, wiry, supple, smaller than northern people, quicker too, and braver and more ready to die. If only they weren’t locked together they might stand a chance in the jungle. She wondered if, in the end, their joined hands would grow together and learn skills impossible for one.
Goodbye, she said.
They answered in their own language and paddled away, Mond with her arm angled back to Sal. That was not a new skill, Xantee thought, it was simply awkward.
They’re dead, Duro said.
They tried to sleep again and managed an h
our or two before dawn. As the first light showed, Xantee stood at the rail searching the river mouth for the cousins, but they were gone. Tealeaf came on deck and stood beside her.
I felt them go.
Will the Peeps help them?
Maybe. They’re a bit like the people themselves.
By mid-morning Xantee and Lo and Duro were ready to leave. They took packs, like the cousins, and knives as weapons. They took all the lessons Hari and Pearl and Tealeaf had taught them: survival lessons, fighting lessons, speaking lessons, food-gathering lessons, stories of the city and the burrows, stories of the jungle and the people with no name, and of Tarl the Dog King and his black Dweller knife. They took their determination to save Hari, which was firm in each of their minds, but faltering and thin when they tried to imagine how it might be done.
Karl lowered a dinghy and rowed them to the river mouth, then up a broad reach close to the jungle, where tangled creepers screened the banks and trees with fat trunks and heavy branches and leaves the size of bucket lids squatted low.
The canoe Sal and Mond had taken lay on a mud bank joining the shore. Tealeaf probed the creepers for hidden water choppers – a single bite would take an arm or leg – but found none.
Sal and Mond’s footprints, Lo said, pointing to ooze-filled puddles in the mud. They got into the trees all right.
I hope the Peeps have found them, Duro said.
The people have been here. I can smell them, Tealeaf said.
Karl, come back for me at dark. We’ll leave the canoe as a gift.
Karl rowed away, speaking cheerfully, sending them on their way, but they heard the hidden sadness in his voice. Karl did not believe they would come back.
The cousins’ footprints led into the trees, then vanished. All around, the jungle hissed and moaned with hidden life.
What do we do now? Lo said.
Wait and listen, Tealeaf said. She stopped in a clearing.
There are no hunting animals, Xantee said. The Peeps don’t need to protect us.
Pearl and Hari had told her how the people had helped them through the jungle on their flight from the city. They wove harmonies around them painful to the animals that would have taken them as prey. Pearl had been able to hear the protecting song but could not hear the people’s voices when they spoke. Tealeaf could hear. Dwellers had centuries of knowledge of the people.
