City of Lies

by Lian Tanner

  “Morg,” she said, holding the burning rope carefully away from the coal scuttle, “I want you to carry this up to the roof. Put the scuttle down near the edge, where it won’t tip over, then drop the rope into it and get out of the way. Don’t let anyone in the street see you.”

  The slaughterbird shuffled her wings, glaring at the cat. The cat glared back.

  “Morg!” said Goldie sharply.

  The bird glared one last time at the cat. Then she grabbed the handle of the coal scuttle in her beak, wrapped a claw around the rope and launched herself upward.

  “Come on,” Goldie whispered to the cat, and she ducked back out the gate and squeezed through the crowd until she was standing next to the fire bell.

  “Bald Thoke, god of thieves and jokers,” she whispered, slipping the lever out of her waistband, “I think you’ll like this. I hope you’ll like it.”

  In front of her, the dancing was growing wilder than ever. Some of the sailors were trying to pick a fight.

  Now, she thought. Now, Morg! NOW!

  She looked up at the roof and saw the first puff of smoke. Her hands felt stiff and clumsy, but she gripped the lever and swung it against the bell, again and again and again and again and again.

  CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG!

  The sound stopped everyone in their tracks. The music died away. A fizgig sputtered out in someone’s hand.

  In the sudden silence, Goldie pointed to the roof of the house, where the smoke was billowing across the face of the moon in a great black cloud. “Fire!” she screamed, at the top of her voice. “Fire! Fire!”

  It didn’t seem to matter that the smoke disappeared as quickly as it had come. In this flammable city, everyone knew what to do. They leaped into action, and buckets of sand and water appeared from nowhere.

  The sailors pounded on the front door of the house. There was a shout from inside. “Go away.”

  “Are you mad?” cried the sailors. “The place is on fire!”

  They had forgotten about the Festival and speaking in lies. They kicked at the door until it crashed open. Goldie saw Cord trying to block their entrance. One of the sailors waded into him with his fists, but Cord managed to fight his way to a flight of narrow stairs, where he stood his ground, shouting over his shoulder, “Smudge! Git down ’ere!”

  It was not only the sailors who had forgotten their lies. Fear had driven the Festival from everyone’s minds.

  “We’ll be burned to the ground,” shrieked a woman behind Goldie. “They won’t let anyone upstairs to fight it.”

  “Won’t they just?” cried her companion. “We’ll see about that!”

  There was no time to waste. Goldie wriggled through the crowd. But before she could reach the gate, a hand grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

  The bandmaster thrust his face into hers. “What’s this?” he hissed. “What’s this you’ve dragged us into? It’s him, isn’t it. Didn’t I beg you not to get us mixed up in his business? Didn’t I? What’s he going to think when he hears that my band brought all these people here tonight? He’s going to think I was part of it!” He shook his head in fear and anguish. “Let me tell you, boy, you’ve signed my death warrant, and that of all my fellows, as surely as if you’d taken that little knife of yours and sliced our throats open!”

  With a roar, he pushed her away and shouted to his musicians, “Come on, we’re getting out of here.” And he and the rest of the band clanked away down the hill.

  Goldie watched them go, her hand over her mouth. Had she really signed their death warrants? No, she couldn’t bear it—

  She pulled herself together. There was no time for regrets. She must get Bonnie and Toadspit out before it was too late.

  She slipped through the gate, ran down the passage and dragged the coil of rope from its hiding place. Inside the house, the noise of the brawl was growing. Someone was ringing the fire bell again.

  Goldie tore off her boots and shinned up onto the roof of the lean-to. The bars of the first-floor window were just above her head. She tested them, then hoisted herself up. She climbed as quickly as she could, her body pressed against the wall, her bare feet searching for crevices in the ancient wood. Her fingers scrabbled at knotholes. Her heart thundered in her ears.

  By the time she came to the third story, her shoulders were aching and the rope was growing heavier and heavier. She pressed her ear to the wall. It sounded as if the sailors were farther up the staircase now, but Cord and Smudge were still holding them at bay. She took a deep breath and kept going.

  The next bit was the trickiest. Centuries of sun and rain had worn this part of the building down almost to its bones. There were toeholds aplenty, but Goldie soon found that not all of them could be trusted. Sometimes they held right until the last minute, then crumbled under her, and she had to press herself flat and cling by her fingertips while her feet thrashed frantically for another hold.

  By the fourth floor, she was soaked with sweat and had almost stopped breathing a dozen times.

  To her relief, the highest part of the house had been added by someone who liked decoration. There were ledges and windowsills, and crisscross patterns in the wood, and iron curlicues that stuck out invitingly. Goldie scrambled up until she was next to the topmost window. She tested one of the curlicues and slung the rope over it.

  There were no bars on the window, but it was fastened from the inside. Goldie took out the lever and forced it between the frame and the sill. She wiggled it back and forth, then wrenched sharply. The catch broke. The window groaned upward, and with a roar, the noise of the fighting poured out to meet her.

  She heard the crack of wood and the stamp of feet and the bellow of angry voices. Someone shouted with pain. There was a thunderous crash and the window frame rattled. Quickly Goldie slid over the sill and into the house.

  The room she found herself in was empty except for a heavy table bolted to the floor. The carpet beneath her feet was sticky. In front of her, winding down into the darkness, was a staircase.

  She ran down it without bothering to Conceal herself. The whole house was shaking, and the noise of the fighting made the air as thick as syrup. She raced across the fourth-floor landing and tried the handle of the only closed door. It wasn’t locked. She threw it open, ducking backward at the same time. Something crashed past her head.

  “Toadspit,” she hissed. “It’s me!”

  Toadspit stepped, fierce-eyed, from behind the door. He was clutching the legs of a chair and his face was hollow with strain, but when he saw Goldie he managed a desperate grin. “You took long enough to get here.”

  Bonnie slipped past him. “Goldie! Toadspit said you’d find us. Did you get the message? Did you understand it? Toadspit said you would.”

  There was no time to talk. Goldie seized the younger girl’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs. “Come on, Princess Frisia. Your troops are keeping the enemy busy down below.”

  They pelted up the staircase with the noise of the mob howling at their heels. When they reached the top floor, Goldie grabbed the rope from the iron curlicue and uncoiled it.

  “Will it hold two of us?” said Toadspit. “Bonnie can’t manage by herself.”

  “Yes I can,” said Bonnie.

  “No you can’t,” said Toadspit.

  “Don’t argue,” said Goldie. “Bonnie, we’ll send you down first. Then Toadspit, then me.”

  She dragged the rope over to the table and wrapped it around one of the legs to anchor it. Then she tied the end around Bonnie’s waist. The younger girl’s face was stiff with fright, but she said nothing.

  “Toadspit and I’ll pay out the rope as you go,” said Goldie. “When you get to the bottom, you’ll see some packing cases. Untie the knot—like this, see? And jerk the rope three times so we know you’re safe.”

  Bonnie nodded, shivering. Goldie grinned at her. “Go on, Princess. See you at the bottom. Don’t worry, we won’t let you fall.”

  She and Toadspit h
eld the loose end of the rope while Bonnie climbed out the window. The younger girl gulped, then closed her eyes and let go of the sill.

  The rope snapped tight around the table leg. As Goldie paid it out, she imagined Bonnie sinking down and down—past the drainpipes, past the third-story window. She imagined a faceless man—Harrow—waiting at the bottom.…

  Stop it! she told herself. Don’t think like that!

  Quicker than she had hoped, the rope jerked three times and went slack. Toadspit raced to the window and peered down. “She’s there!”

  There was a shout from the stairwell. Goldie darted across to the doorway. Cord was roaring above the sound of the fighting, “Where’s the fire, you drunken idjits? Show me. I don’t believe yez.”

  Goldie ran back to the window. “Quick! They’ll be here in a minute. You take the rope. I’ll climb down.”

  Toadspit whipped the end of the rope away from the table and tied it around the iron curlicue. Then he wrapped his legs around it and began to clamber down it as fast as he could. As he sank out of sight, Goldie scrambled over the sill and dragged the window shut behind her.

  The climb down was even worse than the climb up. Her fingers were slippery with nerves, and she kept expecting to hear a roar of anger from the fifth-floor window. She imagined a knife flashing out and slicing through the rope, and Toadspit crashing onto the roof below.

  “Stop scaring yourself,” she whispered. “Just think about what you’re doing. Here, this drainpipe. Then swing your foot across—there’s a hole in the wood somewhere. No, not that one, that one crumbles. Ah, that one—”

  She was just passing the third story when she heard the sound she had been dreading. Above her head, a window scraped open. “There they are!” shouted Cord. “One of ’em’s ’alfway down the rope. Quick, Smudge, grab it! Pull ’im back up!”

  There was a frantic shout from Toadspit as the rope started to rise.

  “No!” cried Goldie. “Morg! Morg! Help!”

  The slaughterbird came down from the sky like a visitation from the Seven Gods. Her great wings beat at the open window. Her claws tore at Smudge’s arm. He screamed and let go of the rope.

  Goldie scrambled down the face of the building as fast as she could in the darkness. It seemed to take forever, but at last she felt the roof of the lean-to under her feet. She sprang down onto the packing cases, and then to the ground.

  And there were Toadspit and Bonnie, with the cat standing guard over them. “Come on!” cried Goldie, grabbing her boots.

  And the three children and the cat ran for their lives.

  “Where are we going?” panted Toadspit.

  “Down near the harbor. Are they following us?”

  Toadspit looked over his shoulder. “No sign of them. Morg’ll keep them busy.” He laughed shakily. “Good old Morg.”

  They ran and ran until they were heaving for breath. By then they were only four or five blocks from the harbor and it had begun to rain. Most of the revelers had disappeared from the streets. The cobblestones were black and slippery underfoot.

  Goldie heard a flurry of wings overhead. “Morg!” hissed Toadspit. He held up his arm, and the slaughterbird fell out of the sky like a patch of night. Toadspit bit his lip at the sudden weight, but his face glowed. “You found us. You and Goldie both.”

  “And the cat,” said Goldie.

  “Ffffound,” agreed the cat, rubbing its wet body against Goldie’s legs.

  “We’d better get off the streets as soon as we can,” said Toadspit.

  Goldie nodded. “The sewers. We’ll go there. I don’t know anywhere else that’s safe.”

  Morg ruffled her feathers and glared down at the cat. “Sa-a-a-a-a-a-afe.”

  By the time they reached the entrance to the sewers they were soaked through. Morg wouldn’t go in with them, though Toadspit spent several minutes trying to persuade her. She perched on a pile of fallen bricks, then clacked her beak and flew off into the night.

  Toadspit watched her go with a mournful expression on his face. “I expect she’s hungry,” he said. “I hope she finds something to eat.”

  All three children were shivering, but Goldie lingered in the tunnel entrance. “There are two boys living here,” she whispered. “Pounce and Mouse. Pounce is the older one. Don’t believe anything he says. Don’t believe anything anyone says, from now on. It’s the Festival of Lies and everything is back to front.” She stopped, then said, “Oh yes, and you have to talk in lies, too.”

  “Even when we’re talking to each other?” whispered Bonnie.

  “Not when it’s just us,” said Goldie. “But when there are other people around I think we’d better. Unless we’re touching an animal. Then we can tell the truth.”

  The cat led the way into the tunnel, which was even darker than Goldie remembered. She gritted her teeth and felt her way along the slimy walls, with Bonnie clinging to her jacket and Toadspit bringing up the rear. The dripping sound was louder tonight, and she could hear water gurgling through underground cisterns somewhere nearby.

  When she thought they had gone approximately halfway, she stopped and called out softly. “Pounce? Mouse? Are you there?”

  There was no answer, but Goldie thought she could hear someone breathing. “Pounce?” she said. “Is that you?”

  “Nah,” said Pounce’s rough voice. “It’s the bogeyman.”

  A tinderbox scraped, and a yellow light sprang up. Directly in front of the three children, hanging in midair like a phantom, was a hairy snout, with long silver tusks and little wicked glinting eyes.

  Bonnie squeaked with fright. Toadspit leaped forward to stand in front of her.

  “I know that’s not you, Pounce,” hissed Goldie.

  There was a moment’s silence; then Pounce moved the lantern so that Goldie could see his skinny arms. “What do ya think this is, a boardin’ouse?” he said. He turned his back on them and began to walk up the tunnel.

  Goldie hurried after him. “I knew you’d be pleased to see us.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Pounce. “Whoopee.”

  They turned the corner, and he lifted the blanket to one side. “No one there, Mousie,” he said. “Just ghoulies and gobblings.”

  Mouse smiled when he saw Goldie, and the cat rubbed itself against him, purring. Toadspit and Bonnie eyed the two boys uncertainly; then Toadspit pushed his sister toward the fire and crouched next to her.

  There was an old kettle perched on the edge of the fireplace. Mouse wedged it in among the coals, dug out two tin mugs and put a trickle of brown powder in each one.

  Pounce leaned against the wall with his arms folded. “You give ’em everythin’ we got, Mousie,” he said sourly. “They’re welcome guests, they are. They can stay as long as they like.”

  Mouse grinned. Goldie said, “We’ll be here for weeks, Pounce, you’ll see. We’ll be back tomorrow night, sure as anything. We’re never going home if we can help it.”

  Pounce shrugged. Mouse took the kettle off the fire and poured hot water onto the powder. The smell of chocolate filled the little room. He grimaced at Goldie as if to apologize for the fact that there were only two mugs, then gave one to Bonnie and the other to Toadspit. They wrinkled their noses at the steam and gulped the hot chocolate thankfully. The cat leaped up onto the stones beside them and closed its eyes, soaking in the warmth of the fire.

  “It’s the cat from the ship,” said Bonnie. “I didn’t realize.”

  “You mean it’s not the cat from the ship,” said Goldie.

  “Oh,” said Bonnie. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean—” She shook her head in confusion.

  The cat yawned. Its wet spotted fur was plastered to its body, and for the first time Goldie saw the length of its legs, the enormous paws and the deceptive stillness.

  Just like an idle-cat! she thought. Then she laughed at herself, because idle-cats were many times bigger than this and had been extinct for hundreds of years. And besides, if this were an idle-cat, it would certainly have killed
them all by now.

  Still, there was something uncanny about the creature, and she was amazed that she had been bold enough to pick it up.

  When Toadspit finished his hot chocolate, Mouse made another one for Goldie. Then he whistled. There was a rustling sound from the pram in the corner, and the mice peeled over the side like a breaking wave and scurried up onto the boy’s shoulders. He crooned softly to them. Two of them trotted down his arm to his hand.

  Bonnie leaned forward, wide-eyed. The mice sat up on their haunches and inspected her, their tiny noses twitching.

  “They won’t bite her, will they?” said Toadspit.

  “Course they will,” said Pounce. “They’re man-eaters, they are. They dragged an old lady in ’ere earlier, and there’s nothin’ left of ’er now but false teeth and undies.”

  Toadspit rolled his eyes. Bonnie laughed and stroked one of the mice with the tip of her finger.

  Goldie wrapped her hands around the hot mug. “They don’t tell fortunes.”

  “Can they tell ours?” asked Bonnie.

  Mouse whistled again, and the mice raced back to the pram and returned with a dozen scraps of paper. The boy rejected them one by one, until there were only three left.

  The first was a picture of a cat. The second said, too much water. The third said, at the last minute, a lady of high birth.

  Bonnie’s face fell. “It doesn’t—I mean, it does make sense.”

  Mouse laughed. He picked up three of the mice and gave one to each of the children. Goldie closed her fingers around the small quivering body. “Good,” she said. “Now we can tell the truth.”

  She stared at the bits of paper. “The first one—it might mean the cat’s coming with us when we leave here. Maybe that’s important for some reason.”

  The cat blinked slowly and leaned closer to the fire.

  “The second one is probably the sea—perhaps that’s how we’re going home. It’d be much faster than going by road. And the third one—I think the third one must be the Protector.”

  “High birth?” said Toadspit. “That means a queen, or someone like that. Royalty.”