`Good,' sighed Chad, closing his red-rimmed eyes and holding Rosie under his chin to keep her warm. `Because I want to tell her that the poisoned tree is our mother.'
15
The Oopla Sisters
Chad woke up hungry and wincing from the pain of his blistered back. He joined Swift on the road's edge to look at Babylon Forest again but was astounded to see there wasn't a charred branch in sight. It was as if there hadn't been a fire at all, as if flying fireballs and flame warriors hadn't burnt it all to nothing.
`I don't believe it!'
`Me neither,' agreed Swift. `But my socks and sandals are damp, my arms are covered in cactus scratches and burns, and I've hardly any hair left.'
Chad rubbed his own burnt hair. `Me neither.'
`You two neither what?' demanded a croaky voice from the ditch.
`Celeste, you're awake,' Chad slid into the ditch to join her.
Celeste sniffed loudly. She looked terrible. Her spiked hair was full of pine needles, her nose was red and blocked, and her red-rimmed eyes were a bit scary. But none of this stopped her from asking, `And why shouldn't I be?'
Then she realised she was lying in a ditch. `Hey!
What am I doing here? I'm sure I went to sleep under the pines.'
`Yes. Pines that hid you under their needles so that we almost couldn't save you from the fire,' he said.
`What fire? And what happened to your hair?'
The boys helped Celeste up on to Belem Road, away from the others so they wouldn't wake them, then they took turns in telling her everything. They finished with their dramatic dragging of her to safety, then Chad unlinked the chain from his neck and handed it to her.
Celeste held the sapphire stone tightly against her chest and stared into Babylon Forest in search of a burnt tree, branch or twig. There were none. `So if the forest didn't really burn perhaps the cacti maze and our mother didn't burn either. Perhaps she is still alive.'
`I'm hoping that too,' whispered Chad.
Lyla climbed up beside them and gave Celeste a hug. `Your mother is fine. We have her talisman and now we have to get to Belem and San Jaagiin to find out how to get the next one.'
Last to wake was Lem who rolled over to check on Nutty and found four parcels and five bottles lying beside the wounded pup.
`Where did these come from?'
The others hadn't seen the parcels so they said they didn't know.
`Why don't you open one and find out?' said Lyla.
`Because it might be a trick sent by the High Enchanter, or Hanging Hannah, or Jeg the slave trading shape-thief.'
They all peered at the innocent-looking parcels.
`We could just leave them there,' whispered Swift, as if the parcels could hear him.
`Then we'd never know.'
Lyla rolled her eyes. `Then open one, but wait until we are up on the road.'
Lem carefully opened the closest parcel inside which was a jar with a cork stopper, and the words, `Balm for Burns,' written on the label.
The second parcel contained a similar jar, labelled `Cacti Spine Ointment' and the third a bottle of `Syrup For Coughs'. The fourth parcel had five slices of bread, five boiled eggs and a piece of meat labelled `Dog'.
Lem eyed the lot with suspicion. After having a glacier shatter under him, a volcano erupt in front of him, and his shape stolen, he was determined to be extra careful. `Who would leave us this? Who knew we were here? he asked himself. `Only the High Enchanter and Jeg the shape changer. The parcels still might be a trick or contain a spell. We could be turned into-'
`Wouldn't the High Enchanter have just put a spell on us while we were sleeping?' Celeste interrupted.
`Celeste is right!' exclaimed Chad, sticking his finger in the Balm for Burns and smearing it over his face and arms. `This feels great. And if no-one else is hungry I'll eat the lot. I'm starving!'
`Me too,' said Lyla, handing everyone their share of the bread and eggs. `Let's eat and walk. The quicker we get away from here the better.'
By midday they had stood aside for five wagons being driven in the direction of Belem. Four of the drivers were Belemites wearing pointed, wide-brimmed hats and long coats. The fifth wagon had a tall skinny man in a floral waistcoat and an even skinnier woman, wearing a floral dress similar to the purpleberry drink woman.
Each time, Lyla offered to pay for a ride to Belem but none of the drivers even glanced up.
`They haven't any space anyway,' said Lem, as they resumed walking after the driver with the floral waistcoat had ignored them. `Their wagons are packed so high that a mouse couldn't squeeze in. It's a wonder their horses don't fall down dead from overwork.'
`Here comes another,' called Swift.
Wobbling towards them was a brightly-painted wagon with flags fluttering at each corner. Its shafts and hooped roof were painted sky blue and three of its wheels were painted sunflower yellow. The fourth was unpainted and smaller, which was why the wagon was lop-sided. Pulling this vehicle were two large grey horses with manes and tails braided with purple and pink ribbons, and harnesses decorated with green and orange pom-poms.
High on the driver's seat sat three identical women, all with red-rouged cheeks and red-painted lips, and dressed in sequinned skirts and jackets. They also wore jaunty hats, each with a different-coloured feather. Best of all they had wide welcoming smiles.
The driver reined-in the horses so the wagon stopped beside the children. She nodded her head and her red-feather bobbed at them. `Through all the lands I've travelled I've never seen a sorrier sight. Did bandits attack you, you poor darlings?'
Lyla smiled. `We were in Babylon Forest when it caught fire.'
Three heads and three feathers swung round as the women looked back at Babylon Forest where not even a spiral of smoke backed up Lyla's explanation.
`And then?' asked the woman in the blue-feathered hat.
`We escaped. Now we want to buy a wagon ride to Belem because my cousin has a bad cold and can't walk far. Only we haven't any coin so we'll have to pay with this.' Lyla handed a small diamond to the driver.
The woman bounced the diamond in the palm of her hand as if to weigh it then, eyeing Lyla curiously, she placed it in a pocket of her velvet sequinned jacket.
`We won't be able to give you any change until after the fair when we are paid. When our wheel broke Petrie Wartstoe took all our coin.' She pointed to the unpainted wheel. `Now, I ask you, one traveller to another, were we robbed?'
`Robbery and Petrie Wartstoe go together,' piped up a voice from somewhere in the wagon.
`And murder,' said Lem. `You're lucky to be alive.'
The woman in the yellow-feathered hat agreed with him. `That is what I told my sisters. So, as we will be travelling together, let me introduce our good selves. We are The Oopla Sisters Plus One.'
`Plus One is here,' came a voice from the wagon.
`We are an acrobatic, juggling and balancing troop on our way to the Belem Fair. No doubt you have heard of us.'
The children were shaking their heads when Chad recalled the acrobats and jugglers at Mussel Cove market. `Were you performing at Mussel Cove market when the Goch herded the brawlers into a corner?'
The three women spoke at once their feathers nodding in unison. `We were. Were you there? What a catastrophe! What a shemozzle! And what are your good names?'
Lyla pointed to herself and then to the others, `We are Spear, Wolf, Tree, Arrow, and Splash is the one with the cold.'
The woman in the blue-feathered hat pointed to the woman in the red-feathered hat. `That's Uno, I'm Duo, this is Tres and Plus One is in the wagon. Climb aboard. We must reach Belem Meadow before middle night.'
The children hurried to the back of the wagon and saw that it contained four yellow trunks, an assortment of cycles, ropes and ladders. A little man the same size as Chad sat on top of everything. He wrinkled his face into a smile that made him look like his three round-faced sisters, and helped them climb into the wagon.
&n
bsp; Uno twisted round in her seat to ask Lyla if they were going to see the fair.
`Not particularly. We're looking for a bird seller. We have a rainbow parrot that has no feathers, and we want to make them grow back so he can fly.'
`Flying is difficult,' said Plus One. `We only set up the trapeze if we are paid in advance. But there's not enough space in Belem Square so we'll only be balancing and tumbling.'
The little bright-eyed man fascinated Swift. `Master Plus One, have you always been an acrobat?'
`Acrobats are brave,' answered Plus One. `If I fall off Tres' feet, Tres falls off Duo's head, Duo falls off Uno's shoulders, then we have to pretend we meant to fall so everyone will laugh.'
Swift was trying to make sense of the little man's answers, so he asked how many years had he been performing?
`Performing is what we do. We used to be four Oopla Sisters Plus One but now we are The Three Oopla sisters Plus One.'
Tres tapped Swift's shoulder. `Plus One only responds to your last word. He's been that way since the Raiders stole his twin sister, Quattro.'
`Quattro is in Ulaan with General Tulga,' explained Plus One.
Lyla's ears pricked up at the words General Tulga. `What will happen to her.'
`Eventually the General will tire of watching her turn herself into knots and he'll sell her. Hopefully to someone from whom we can buy her back,' said Uno.
`Backs must be strong if you are to hold up four people,' said Plus One.
It was night when they saw the lights covering the steep hills of Belem Island and the two strings of lanterns that lit up Belem Bridge.
`Belem Island is in the middle of the Shambala River,' explained Uno. `Once there were hundreds of barges trading up and down the Shambala, the Mickle and the Stim Rivers and Belem was the busiest city in the whole of Ifraa.'
`With the biggest fair,' added Duo.
`That stopped after the High Enchanter attacked M'dgassy,' sighed Tres and her yellow-feather drooped.
`Now the Belemites trade in all manner of illegal goods,' continued Duo. `Never trust a twelve-fingered Belemite, that's what our father always said. Will you be camping with us on the meadow or going into Belem tonight?'
`Going into Belem, thank you,' said Lyla.
`Then we will leave you at the bridge. But the guards won't let you in looking like that. They'll think you're beggars and Belem has enough of those. Don't you have any better clothes?'
`Clothes make the man,' said Plus One.
The children shook their heads and Swift tucked his feet under Lem's legs to hide his broken sandals.
The sisters put their feathered hats together and the children heard whispers of, `Paid more than enough. Can't hurt. Doesn't need them. We owe them.' Then Tres called out: `Plus One - costumes.'
`Costumes make an acrobat,' said Plus One, opening a trunk and holding up a pair of diamond-patterned tights and a sequin-covered shirt. He measured the children with a practised eye and began handing out outfits to all of them.
`But they're your costumes,' said Celeste, accepting a cape and jester hat. `What if we damage them?'
`They are Quattro's. When we find her, we will buy her new ones. Now hurry and get dressed, the gates shut at eight bells,' Uno said, as Plus One turned his back so they could change into the costumes.
After they were dressed, Uno told them what to do. `When you reach the guards tell them you are performers wishing to check Belem Square for tomorrow's performance. Plus One - face paint.'
`Everyone wears a disguise or a mask during Belem fair time,' explained Duo. Plus One painted brilliantly-coloured flowers all over their faces.
`Hide your weapons under your coats and hide your dog,' advised Tres, as they stopped in front of the bridge. `Belem dogs will eat him alive. And watch out for shape thieves.'
Lem looked worried. `How can we tell who is a shape thief and who isn't?'
`Shape thieves can't eat,' said Uno.
Belem Bridge was packed with people pushing and shoving to reach the city gates. Some had climbed onto the balustrades, ornate lamp-posts and the gigantic statues that decorated the bridge. At first getting through looked impossible, but with a determined Lem in the lead, the five wriggled between the crowd, under elbows and around legs until they reached a row of guards.
`And who be you?' demanded one, blocking their way with his spear.
Lem made a pose with his arms wide and his head thrown back. The others did the same, while he announced, `We are the Ta Dum Brothers. We are performing in Belem Square tomorrow and need to see how much space there is.'
`And where will the Ta Dum Brothers sleep this good night?' demanded a second guard.
`At the house of San Jaagiin, the bird seller.'
`Pass.'
Lower Belem was a grimy and squalid city. The damp, riverside houses leant so far out over the water that their owners' kitchen water, food peelings and effluent fell straight into it. The unpainted, three and four-storey houses along the main High Street looked no better. They were built higgledy-piggledy up the hill, with each floor built wider than the one below until their top levels were so close that their inhabitants, if they wanted to, could shake hands across the tiny gap. The people in these houses tossed their rubbish into their back lanes, turning them into stinking gutters. Most people, it seemed, carried umbrellas to navigate the lanes so they didn't get showered with rubbish.
The smell around them was so bad the children had to hold their capes over their faces.
When they got to the clock tower they began to climb the street that led to Belem Square. On either side of the steep thoroughfare, squashed close together, were the tall, thin shops of the Belemite merchants, each with painted signs outside advertising the wares.
Lem and Lyla took turns asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of San Jaagiin's bird shop. Finally a man selling cat masks pointed to an alleyway ten steps up. `Go up five steps, turn first right and you'll see his birdcage sign. That will cost you half a coin.'
Lem looked surprised. `We don't have any coin.'
`Then don't waste my time, daisy face,' snapped the mask seller, holding up a cat mask to a passer by.
`But we do have information,' said Lyla, matching the sharp tone of the cat-mask seller. `Your wife was so worried that you had not returned home that she gave your fence to Edith the Oracle to use as firewood just to find out when you'd be back.'
`And Edith told her you'd be back after you'd spent the cat mask money, so she knows what you are up to,' added Swift.
They were climbing the five steps when Celeste was almost knocked down by a wolf-masked man hurrying by with the front poles of a sedan chair on his shoulders. A second man, carrying the two back poles, stamped on her foot as he ordered her out of his way.
`This is a horrible city with horrible people in it,' Celeste cried, limping up the steps.
`Wasn't always,' said a loud voice they all recognised. `Used to be clean, and the people were friendly.'
Slipping her witch's mask up onto her frizzy red topknot, the huge woman with the three chins grinned at them. Then biting into an enormous meat pie with her tombstone teeth she continued on up the hill.
`She didn't recognise us,' gasped Chad.
Swift poked his painted face out from behind Lyla where he'd ducked at the sound of Hanging Hannah's voice. `Do you think it was the face paint, Lyla?'
`No. She was eating, so she's the real Hanging Hannah. We travelled with the shape-thief, Jeg.'
They turned right, spied the birdcage sign and pushed open the shop's door where they were greeted by the twittering of canaries, the cawing of crows and the cackle of evil laughter.
`What was that?' whispered Celeste, crowding in behind Lyla and Lem.
`That is a famous laughing bird,' answered a voice from behind a chicken cage. `Which by your acrobatic garb I'd warrant you can't afford. How about a canary?'
Lyla peered through the chicken cage. `No canaries thank you. We're looking for San Jaagiin
the bird man.'
`That is my good self,' said a man stepping into the lamplight. He had a yellow-crested cockatoo perched on his shoulder.
Apart from his wispy beard, he so resembled his wizen-faced sister that Lyla was sure Edith had reached Belem before them and dressed as a man to trick them.
Swift edged forward. `Your sister sent us. But first you have to tell us her full name so we know that you aren't a shape-thief.'
`A very good precaution.' The little man climbed up onto a high stool. `My sister goes by the name of Edith du Lac du Mont. Am I correct?'
`You are.' Chad held out his sock with Rosie in it. `This is Rosie. Her feathers were burnt off and we want to make them grow again.'
`We also need to know where to find a chained eagle,' added Lyla.
San Jaagiin carefully peeled back the sock to examine the scorched parrot as Swift stepped closer. `She's my bird too. I had to leave my snow leopard with Edith so I'm sharing Rosie with Chad.'
San Jaagiin smiled at the scruffy-headed boy. `A snow leopard eh? But it looks like you've lost some of your own feathers. How did that happen?'
Swift rubbed his white stubble self-consciously. `Another fire. Can you help Rosie?'
San Jaagiin nodded and then, raising his eyebrows, he asked Lyla why she wanted to know about a chained eagle.
`I have to find it before the next three moon eclipse.'
The laughing bird burst out in hysterical chuckling as if Lyla's words were the funniest he had ever heard. San Jaagiin wagged his finger at the rude bird before turning back to Lyla. `Let me show you my house, then you can tell me why.'
San Jaagiin's house had three floors. The bird-shop filled the ground floor. The first floor was rented to Eric the baker whose Belem buns were famous, or so boasted San Jaagiin as he held up his lantern so they could see the baker elbow-deep in flour. The second floor was rented to Verv Roliat the tailor. A growl from behind Verv's door warned them to keep away. The third floor was where San Jaagiin slept, and up a narrow ladder was a flat roof covered in cages, with many more tied to poles hanging over the sides of the building.
Lem stopped to look at a large cage full of purple-winged, yellow-headed pigeons. `You must have hundreds of birds.'
Legend of the Three Moons Page 15
