Singay could feel her face turning red. ‘Oh no, not at all. I just—’
‘Is something the matter?’ The Philosopher stood in the doorway with a laden tray in his hands.
Singay jumped up to help him. ‘Nothing at all, Philosopher. Except I’m starving!’
‘There’s just one thing, though,’ said Rose suddenly. ‘I don’t eat food. I eat rocks. With my nose.’ And he pulled a stone out of his pocket.
Singay froze with a plate halfway to the table.
Pema buried his face in his hands. What’s come over him? First he says all that stuff about eating babies and now he’s telling them everything – they’re going throw us off the boat or take us back to Cliffton or who knows WHAT they’ll do to us!
Singay felt tears pricking – it was nice on this boat and she was so tired.
But the Auberginers hardly blinked.
‘Fair enough,’ said Captain Gata. ‘And after breakfast, would you like to look around the boat?’
And that was that.
The Aubergine was a surprising vessel. She was a cargo boat, but that was almost a sideline. A good half of her, both above and below deck, was given over to experimenting with various ways of producing power, each more ingenious than the next.
‘The Aubergine’s a hybrid,’ said Bob proudly.
‘Come along – we’ll show you everything!’ said the Philosopher.
And they did. They showed them the Reverse Windmill Apparatus and the Bifurcated Paddlewheels. They explained the workings of the prototype Streamjets and the experimental Lurch Mechanism. When Singay tried to act intelligent by asking about oil engines, both men were quite scornful, and explained in enormous detail how utterly lacking in interest and challenge the new devices were, until the captain arrived.
‘Need rescuing yet?’ she said, peering up at them with a grin.
‘Oh, er, not at all.’
But she took them back on deck anyway.
As the Aubergine trundled downriver and the days passed, Pema and Singay were sad to see that Rose didn’t pick up. The experience at Cliffton had drained him and, though he didn’t say as much, they feared that keeping control of the Mountain, all those leagues behind them, was becoming more and more difficult.
‘I just need to rest,’ he said, and so they left him in peace.
In spite of their worries, it was a peaceful time. After its tumultuous passage through the canyon, the River seemed to relax too. It spread out and flowed more gently now through level countryside.
‘This is the Plains,’ the Philosopher told them.
They’d never heard of it. Farms and clusters of houses and big estates covered every inch of the land, and boats of all kinds travelled up and down, including the noisy, smelly speedboats Bob and the Philosopher so despised. But the Aubergine felt serenely separate from it all.
There was plenty of work for Pema and Singay to do. With so many different machines on board, there was always something that needed tinkering with. They got very good at finding things like the twelve-bore spanning winch from the toolbox, and knowing how hard to bang on the pipes of the Reversible Windmill Apparatus when it jammed up. The project that was really holding everybody’s attention at the moment was the Philosopher’s newest idea Solar Storage Lamps. Working on this seemed to require everyone involved becoming smeared to the eyeballs with grease. And Bob was busy adapting the Bottom Scrabbler – a sort of miniature dredging machine in the prow – for collecting nice, cool river rocks for Rose to inhale.
In a company of eccentrics, they fitted right in.
‘Have you noticed how they’ve asked hardly any questions?’ said Pema. ‘I mean, they ask questions all the time, but it’s mostly ones like “Should it be making that sound?” or “Do you think I could get this to go faster if I did that?” But they haven’t asked us anything about what we’re doing on their boat.’
‘I know,’ said Singay. She smiled at him. ‘It’s wonderful. And I haven’t had a single dream!’
I haven’t seen her so relaxed since . . . ever! thought Pema.
Rose was resting on the deck one afternoon, with Ferdinand the ship’s ferreck curled up on his lap, when the others came to join him.
‘It’s so strange,’ said Pema, flopping down beside the Driver on the warm wood. ‘I can remember every second of when things were going wrong, but the time we’ve been on the Aubergine just seems to blur.’
‘Just because you can remember something, doesn’t make it important,’ said Singay, leaning back against the railing. When she noticed Pema staring up at her in surprise, she poked at him with her foot. ‘What – only Rose gets to be gnomic?’
The little man opened his eyes. ‘You think I’m gnomic?’ he murmured. ‘How wonderful.’
It was a golden time.
And, as everyone knows, golden times don’t last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Welcome to the Flats
‘Goodbyes don’t get any easier,’ said Pema. He was carrying Rose on his back as they climbed away from the River. The Driver was very quiet. In the moonlight he looked deathly, but then so did they all.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Singay. ‘It wasn’t hard saying goodbye to Ma or Klepsang. Or that mob at Cliffton. Or—’
‘All right, all right. You know what I mean.’
Singay sighed. ‘Yes. I do.’
But Gata and Bob and the Philosopher hadn’t actually said goodbye. They’d made sure everybody was kept extremely busy right up until the last moment, and then had simply said, ‘Here’s your pay. No time to argue. When you reach the crest of the hill, take a moment, look back. And travel well!’
At which point they’d more or less booted Pema, Rose and Singay off the Aubergine. The fact that it was long past midnight wasn’t significant – at this point in the River the tides came into play, and the Aubergine would start her return journey when the incoming tide was there to help push her on her way.
‘I didn’t cry,’ said Singay. ‘I’m glad about that, anyway.’
‘Me too,’ said Pema, though it wasn’t clear whether he meant he was glad he hadn’t cried or glad she hadn’t.
As they neared the top of the rise, panting a little, they paused. Pema set Rose down gently. Then, without a word, they all three turned and looked back.
They could see her – the Aubergine – lying in mid-river, a dark smudge on the light grey, moonlit surface of the water. It had been their whole world for a while, but now . . .
‘It looks so small,’ murmured Singay. ‘It looks—’
Pema grabbed her arm. The smudge had suddenly exploded into a dozen points of light. ‘Look! Look! They did it!’
‘The Solar Storage Lamps!’ cried Singay.
‘Look to the stars!’ murmured Rose.
The lamps were indeed like a sliver of night sky hovering on the surface of the water. Then the Aubergine up-anchored and the incoming tide began to sweep it back towards the heart of the land. The lights grew smaller, and smaller, until they winked out of sight in the distance.
For a long moment the three stood there, looking north. Then, squaring his small shoulders in the dawn light, the Driver turned towards the Sea.
‘Almost journey’s end, my friends. Almost journey’s end.’
Singay helped him back up onto Pema’s back and they took the last few steps to the top.
The expectation with any hill is that once you reach the summit, you’ll start going down again, but not this time. This hill was broad on top, with a dip in the middle. As they crossed it, the sun rose, and with every step the same thought danced in their heads: The Sea! At last we’re going to see the Sea!
Aren’t we? Singay felt suddenly queasy. ‘You know, Rose, things may have changed some. In all this time. You need to expect that, or you’ll be disappointed.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Rose agreed. He was sounding stronger. ‘Shorelines shift, things like beaches and bays come and go. But I think you’ll understand when you see
it why I’m not too worried about the Sea changing!’ He laughed, but Singay still looked worried.
Pema was watching her. ‘Have you had another dream? Is there something you want to tell us?’
Singay shook her head and tried to smile. ‘I just can’t believe we’re so close, and any second now, Rose will hear them, the others, and get his irradiant and save the world and . . .’ And now she was crying.
‘Hush!’ said Rose. ‘Put me down.’
Pema set the little Driver on his feet. Side by side, they took the last few steps to the final crest of the hill.
‘There it . . .’ The triumphant words died away as the full vista opened out before them.
The Sea was gone.
Rose moaned.
Spread out before them in the full light of day was a vast expanse of black muck, divided up by hundreds of channels and pools. The rays of the morning sun glinted off multi-coloured slicks. Growing like a many-fingered mould over the surface was a network of ramshackle houseboats, joined haphazardly by walkways and bridges. The whole scene was crawling with movement: bodies and boats; laundry hung out to dry, flapping like the flags of a hundred battles; sounds of hammering and bickering and babies crying. In the distance, a great wall sliced across the nightmare. It was too far away to get an accurate sense of height, but it looked enormous.
And beyond that . . .
‘What is it?’
Higher than the wall of stone was a wall of fog that obscured the view in a great cloaking curve from east to west.
‘Where’s the City? Where’s the Sea?’ stuttered Pema, but Singay was staring at Rose.
‘You still can’t hear them, can you.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Silver tears spilled onto his thin face and he spread his hands helplessly. ‘I don’t understand. It’s all wrong. I can’t . . . there’s no . . .’
‘Hey! Budge over!’
They spun round just as an enormous wicker basket full to overflowing with leafy vegetables loomed up behind them. Singay pulled Pema and Rose aside as it trundled past without slowing. Underneath the greenery was a man, bent double so that only his muscled legs showed. And he was not the only one. As they looked about, they saw that there were trails zigzagging all over the hillside, all aiming at the point where the River spread out into the mud flats. And the trails were dotted with travellers, heavily laden and hurrying downhill.
‘Wait! What’s going on down there?’ Singay called after the man. ‘We’re strangers here.’
The man didn’t stop. ‘Embarkation Pier,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Buy your disc at the Disc Shed. Better hurry!’ Then he took his own advice and powered off down the hill.
‘Thank you so much,’ muttered Singay bitterly.
Rose just stood there looking small and frail, saying nothing as he stared out over the vast horrible mess.
Pema put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, we didn’t come all this way to stop now. I’m not surprised you can’t hear the other Drivers with all that in the way.’
Singay rallied. ‘That’s right. We just need to get past all the muck and the smog and out to the clean Sea.’
‘But how?’ Rose’s voice was tremulous.
‘We’ll just have to go and find out,’ said Pema. ‘Come on!’
The focus of all the hurrying was a pier, but firmly on the solid shore, running alongside a channel in the mud. There were dozens of people clustered about, yelling and waving their arms at dozens of small boats in the channel. The people in the boats were standing up, shouting back, gesticulating, even sometimes reaching up and grabbing hold of prospective customers by their trouser legs. The closer the three got, the louder the noise – and the stronger the smell from the churned-up water – became.
It was like a market day where there was only one product for sale – transportation – and no one was allowed to speak below a bellow. Some of the boats had oil-powered engines, and these attracted the more prosperous-looking fares. They saw the man who’d passed them on the hill clambering into a much less impressive boat powered by nothing more advanced than human muscle and an oar.
In the scrum, no one paid any attention to the little ragged group at the back of the crowd. Pema, Singay and Rose watched, bewildered, as the ferry-ers and the fares sorted themselves out. There seemed to be a system involving the exchange of small metal discs.
‘Look at those!’ Pema shouted into Singay’s ear, while at the same time trying not to breathe in. ‘They’re like the one Rose has!’
The metal circles did look remarkably like the one Rose had been sent in prison, back in Cliffton, all those leagues ago. The Driver fished it out of his pocket and handed it to Pema.
Already the crowd had mostly dispersed, and the little boats were scurrying away down the muddy channels as fast as their owners could take them, all heading for the strange barrier on the horizon.
‘The man said we should go to the Disc Shed,’ said Pema.
‘There,’ said Singay, pointing. It was the only building on the pier, so it seemed a good guess.
They ventured nervously inside. The shed was dimly lit, and empty except for an official-looking man sitting at a counter, tidying things away. Without looking up, he held out a free hand and rumbled, ‘What kind?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘What kind of disc do you want to buy?’
‘I . . . we’re not sure. We have this?’ Pema held the metal circle out.
‘What are you doing here then?’ the man snapped. ‘You’ve already bought your disc – why aren’t you on your way?’
‘I . . . we . . .’
The man got up impatiently, grabbed Pema by the arm and marched him out of the shed.
‘House Priority discs embark over there,’ he said, pointing along the Pier. ‘But you’re too late now. All the boats are gone. Come back next tide.’
‘But . . .’
‘When is that, sir?’ said Singay, pitching her voice to sound sweet and young.
The man did not seem impressed. He threw a casual glance at the mud beyond the pier.
‘Ten hours,’ he said. ‘Give or take. To the Wall. But you’re talking tomorrow morning to get into the City, House Priority or not.’ And he walked away.
‘What?’ said Perma
Rose sank down on the pier, too weary to stand up anymore.
‘What’s he talking about – that’s not a ten-hour trip! We can see the wall!’ exclaimed Singay, gesturing.
‘He didn’t say it took ten hours to get to the Wall,’ said a new voice from behind them. ‘He said it was ten hours till the next low tide.’
For a second they couldn’t see who had spoken. It was only when they let their eyes drop low enough that they saw two tiny children squatting in a boat, a boy and a girl, staring up at them out of two sets of identical black, beady eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Twins
And it wasn’t just their eyes. Pretty much everything about the pair seemed identical, from the expressions on their faces and the way they held their heads tilted to one side, down to the mud-coloured clothes, the mud-coloured skin and the mud-coloured hair.
‘Er, hello,’ said Pema. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Zamin. He’s Za,’ said the girl. ‘Got any money?’
‘What do you think?’ said Singay. ‘And we’ve got one of these.’ She nudged Pema, who showed them the disc. They appeared quite impressed, exchanging glances and nodding at each other. ‘Right, then,’ Singay continued. ‘How much to get us to the City?’
‘She really enjoys it, doesn’t she,’ murmured Pema to Rose as they watched yet another epic battle of wills played out over the value of half a coin.
Rose gave him a wan smile but didn’t answer. Pema patted him carefully on the shoulder. That’s good. He’s saving his strength for the next bit of the journey. He wished he believed himself.
As soon as the price was agreed and the money changed hands, the twins ushered Pema, Singay a
nd Rose solicitously on board. There was just room for them to sit amongst the wicker storage baskets and general boat gear. Though it looked thoroughly mucky, the craft didn’t seem to be about to fall apart or sink. Not immediately, anyway.
Zamin took up the sculling oar, Za cast off the mooring rope, and they headed into the noisome maze of mud, canals, rickety walkways on stilts and grubby houseboats moored amidst a haphazard forest of slimy poles.
‘First,’ said Zamin, ‘you’ll need a place to stay for the night. We eat at Granny Geyma’s table, so we’ll take you there.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ protested Singay. ‘Look – we’ve paid you to take us to the City, to Elysia. We don’t want to stay the night, we want to go to the City.’
‘Which is on the other side of the wall, right?’ added Pema.
The twins nodded.
‘So it can’t be more than an hour away. We saw from the hill.’
‘That’s right,’ said Zamin. ‘The Wall is about an hour away. But you can’t get to the City till the morning.’
‘You wasted the tide,’ said Za. ‘It’s too late to get through the water-gate today. Sure, there’s another low tide this evening, but nobody’s going to let you into Elysia at that time of night. So, obviously, you’ll need a place to stay.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ But what are you going to do in the middle of a swamp, Singay – walk away? ‘We want to go to Elysia, and we want you to take us. Now. That was the deal.’
‘Look, let me explain,’ said Zamin, sounding unbearably superior. ‘You don’t seem to understand – there’s City Time, right, and there’s Flats Time, and they’re not the same thing. In Flats Time, high tide is when you sleep. Low tide is when you work.’
‘The way the birds used to,’ murmured Rose.
The girl paused and gave him a strange look. ‘Fancy you saying that. Granny sometimes tells stories about long ago, that she heard from her Granny, about when there was no Wall and no City and the Flats had nobody living on them but birds. Thousands and thousands of birds. That was the story, anyway.’ She shook her head and then repeated, ‘Fancy you saying that. Well, anyway, that’s Flats Time. City Time, now, that’s what the rich people go by. They sleep in the night, and do business in the day, and pay no attention to what the tides are at. Flats Time is nothing to them!’
Walking Mountain Page 15
