Path of Beasts

by Lian Tanner

  Then it was time to go. Goldie hugged her parents, her heart almost bursting with love and pride and worry. They hugged her back. “Take care, sweeting!” they whispered. “And we’ll see you in a few days.”

  But as she slipped out of the apartment, Goldie knew that there was a good chance she would not see her parents in a few days. In fact, if things went wrong, she might never see them again.

  A fine contraption

  When the children met, three hours after they had parted, all of them had the marks of tears on their cheeks.

  “They won’t listen!” said Bonnie. “We told them they should come back to the museum with us, but they said they’ve got work to do here. They’re going around to visit your parents. They’re really angry about the Fugleman!”

  “Good,” said Goldie, glad that Ma and Pa wouldn’t be facing danger alone.

  In the back of her mind, the warrior princess stirred. It is time to find out more about the invaders. To learn their strengths and weaknesses.

  Goldie hesitated, remembering Herro Dan’s words of the night before. What if he was right? What if it tore her apart, having this other life stuck inside her?

  No, she told herself, she wouldn’t let it! She would use Frisia’s knowledge of war to fight the Fugleman, but that was all. She wouldn’t go mad. She wouldn’t betray anyone’s trust. There was nothing to fear.

  Aloud, she said, “Let’s go back to the museum a different way. We need to see as much as we can in daylight. Then we can work out what we’re going to do.”

  They followed the Grand Canal all the way to the House of Repentance. The last time Goldie had seen that notorious prison, it had been deserted. But now a dozen or more blackclad figures patrolled the front courtyard, their robes thrown back so that everyone could see the heavy brass punishment chains wound around their waists.

  High above them, at the top of the steps, the boards had been stripped from the windows, and the façade of the building gleamed white from hours of scrubbing. And on the newly repaired roof, two flags—that of the Fugleman and that of the Grand Protector—flew on a single mast.

  As the children scurried past, hunching their shoulders like whipped puppies, a squad of mercenaries marched up the boulevard. Their faces were wooden and their eyes were as flat as the buttons on their ragged coats. The only scrap of feeling in them seemed to be for their rifles, which they cradled across their chests like babies.

  When they drew level with the House of Repentance, the mercenaries came to a clattering halt. The Blessed Guardians stopped their pacing and hurried forward to stand beside them. A hush fell over the courtyard.

  “They’re waiting for something,” whispered Goldie. “Listen!” Toadspit had the keenest ears of the three children. He nodded toward the west. “Whatever it is, it’s on its way.”

  A moment later Goldie heard it too, a low grinding sound, like a thousand cobblestones rubbing together. As it grew louder, the people who had been hurrying past with their heads turned away stopped and looked around nervously. A crowd formed and the children slipped into the middle of it.

  They could hear shouts now, and a hissing, clanking sound. The ground beneath their feet began to shake. Then, with a particularly loud grumble, an enormous tractor hove into sight at the far end of the boulevard, accompanied by another squad of soldiers.

  “It’s pulling something,” said Bonnie.

  Toadspit squinted. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Goldie.

  She was lying. She did know. Or at least, she thought she did. Princess Frisia had seen something like this, five hundred years ago.

  Goldie hoped desperately that the princess was wrong. As the thing drew closer, the tractor groaned under its burden. The onlookers groaned too; by now, even the most short-sighted among them could see what had been dragged into the heart of Jewel. They could see the great iron wheels, nearly twice as tall as a man, and the iron carriage. They could see the nuts and bolts, and the name FROW CARRION inset between them in huge iron letters.

  But most of all, they could see the long iron barrel, with its gaping black mouth.

  Goldie watched it with a sense of horror that echoed through the centuries. Princess Frisia was not wrong. It was a great gun. And it was bigger than anything the princess had ever seen.

  Deep inside the House of Repentance, the Fugleman was demonstrating his sword skills to Field Marshal Brace, the leader of the mercenaries. He was a little rusty, so he didn’t try anything too elaborate. He merely cut and thrust to show off the strength of his arm, then launched into a series of soft parries.

  “It is a great pity,” he said as he trod gracefully back and forth across the floor of his office, “that the city has been subdued so easily. I was hoping for someone to test my blade on.”

  “Mmmph,” said Brace, who was a man of few words.

  The Fugleman drove his imaginary opponent in a circle around the desk. “But,” he said, “we will soon move on Spoke. The people there will fight harder for their freedom.”

  “You know the city of Spoke well?”

  “As well as I know this sword. Not only that, but one of my Guardians is there as we speak, preparing the ground for our arrival.”

  The Fugleman feinted toward his invisible opponent’s neck, wondering when Guardian Hope—or Flense, as she was called in Spoke—would arrive back in Jewel.

  As they had agreed, there had been no messages between them since his release from the House of Repentance; he did not want his enemies stumbling upon the fact that the Fugleman of Jewel was also the master criminal Harrow. But it should not be long now before Hope completed the jobs he had entrusted to her and returned home.

  He finished off his imaginary opponent with a stab to the heart and smiled. It would be interesting, he thought, to hear about the death of the children. . . .

  “There was a ruckus on Old Arsenal Hill last night after curfew,” said the field marshal, tipping back his chair and scratching at his mustache. “There may still be pockets of resistance here.”

  “I doubt it,” said the Fugleman. He wiped his forehead with a kerchief. “I have come to believe that Jewel does not know the meaning of the word.”

  Brace grimaced but said nothing. He was a pompous little man, thought the Fugleman. His face was as plump and soft as a yeast bun, and he was ridiculously proud of that silly mustache. No one would have guessed that he was a soldier—not until they looked into the gray puddles of his eyes and saw what lay beneath the surface.

  The sound of the great gun arriving outside the House of Repentance was a welcome distraction. The Fugleman led the way to the top of the steps, and both men watched as the gun was drawn up, with a deal of shouting and scraping, into the middle of the courtyard.

  “A fine contraption,” said the Fugleman. He glanced sideways at his companion. “Though I was beginning to wonder if it would ever arrive.”

  Brace grunted. “I gave my word, did I not? Rules of war. A soldier does not break his word.”

  The Fugleman laughed, thinking that the field marshal had made a joke. “Look at the crowds!” he murmured. “How fascinated they are. How they fear it!”

  Up close, the gun was even more impressive. It smelled of gas and black powder, and its huge iron sides were pitted with the wounds of war. The Fugleman liked it. Oh yes, he liked it very much.

  But the frightened whispers from the crowd were growing louder, and he could see the doubtful glances that were coming his way. He let it all go on for just long enough; then he swung around (with an elegant swirl of his cloak) and cried, “Do not be afraid! This mighty weapon”—he stroked Frow Carrion’s flank—“this magnificent weapon is here to protect our city from slavers and other such scum. It may look like a monster, but it is our friend.”

  He smiled his charming smile. When people began to smile back, he bent down and murmured to the field marshal, “They’ll believe any lie if it is big enough. And if it fits in with their pathetic desire for safe
ty.”

  The field marshal inspected his black leather gloves and glared at three children who had crept too close. “When will my men get their money?”

  “I’ll send a handcart with the first payment in silver thalers tonight, two hours after curfew.”

  “To the barracks?”

  “Of course.” The Fugleman adjusted the folds of his cloak and gazed thoughtfully at the crowd. “You know, Field Marshal, I do not believe for a moment that you are right about the resistance. But if by some unlikely chance you are, it will come from a single quarter: the Museum of Dunt. Its keepers are the only people in the city who would dare stand against me.”

  He patted the barrel of the great gun. “But now I am ready for them. The moment there is a whiff of trouble I will batter the museum to the ground and destroy everything and everyone within it!”

  First strike

  "He’s mad!” said Toadspit as the children hurried back up the hill. “How could he even think of doing such a thing? Doesn’t he realize what would happen?” Goldie shivered. The Museum of Dunt was no ordinary museum. Its back rooms held five hundred years of living history, much of it violent. If the Fugleman attacked it with his great gun, that violence would burst out onto the streets of Jewel, bringing death and destruction to everyone in the city.

  “Does this mean we can’t fight him after all?” asked Bonnie.

  Toadspit and Goldie looked at each other. Neither of them was prepared to give up, but the threat of the great gun was so terrible that they could not immediately see a way around it.

  They continued on in silence, each of them sunk in their own thoughts. Goldie stared at the cobblestones, thinking about the money that was to be delivered tonight, two hours after curfew. It was the perfect opportunity to stir up trouble, and she did not want to waste it.

  But when she said so, Toadspit scowled. “And then sit back while Frow Carrion blasts the museum to smithereens?”

  In the back of Goldie’s mind, Princess Frisia whispered, Warfare is based on—

  “—on trickery and deception,” murmured Goldie. “Yes, I know.” It was one of the first lessons the princess had ever learned. But what did it have to do with the Fugleman and his threats?

  The children hurried around a corner into a cul-de-sac, and there in front of them was the museum, an ugly little stone building that gave no hint of the wonders and dangers it contained.

  Trickery and deception . . .

  And suddenly the whole thing was laid out inside Goldie like a campaign map. “Of course!” she said as she led the

  way down the cul-de-sac. “What we have to do is convince the Fugleman that any attacks are coming from somewhere else!”

  Toadspit chewed his lip. “I suppose that’d do it. But how—” “We lay red herrings,” said Goldie. “Things that point away from the museum. And at the same time, we make the museum look as if it has lost its power and become weak and helpless.”

  She grinned at Toadspit. “If we can carry that off, we’ll be free to do whatever we like! You and me, Herro Dan and Sinew and Olga Ciavolga—”

  “And me,” said Bonnie quickly.

  “I’ve got another job for you,” said Goldie. “Have you ever met the Fugleman? Does he know what you look like?”

  Bonnie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think so. Guardian Hope does—”

  “Guardian Hope’s dead. We don’t have to worry about her,” interrupted Toadspit.

  “—and the Fugleman has seen my description,” said Bonnie. “He saw all our descriptions when he was pretending to send out messages searching for us. But I don’t think he’s ever seen me.”

  “Good. Then you can be the Museum of Dunt’s first and only line of defense,” said Goldie as the three children trotted up the steps. “Or maybe you and the cat—”

  She broke off. Mouse was waiting for them just inside the front door, gesturing at the walls with a dozen unspoken questions.

  When the children had left the museum earlier that morning, it had been quiet, with no sign of the wildness that lurked in every corner. But now that wildness was stirring. The air crackled, as if there was lightning not far away. The rooms shifted. Somewhere nearby, Sinew played his harp, plucking out the notes of the First Song.

  Goldie and Toadspit threw off their hats and scarves, laid their hands on the nearest wall and began to sing the same sliding notes that Sinew played. “Ho oh oh-oh,” they sang. “Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”

  Wild music surged up from the center of the earth and poured through them. Bonnie clenched her fists. She was not a keeper and could not feel the shifting or hear the wild music. But she had learned many of the museum’s secrets from her brother, and she said, “It’s the great gun, isn’t it? The museum doesn’t like being threatened!”

  Toadspit nodded and kept singing. Mouse signaled another question.

  “It’s because of all the wildness,” explained Bonnie. “Jewel used to be a very dangerous place. But people got sick of their children being eaten by idle-cats and dying of horrible diseases, so they drove the dangerous things out of the city. Or rather, they thought they did, but really all those things ended up here in the museum. Nice things like brizzlehounds and birds, and nasty things too, like plague and famine and war. Only those bits are locked away behind the Dirty Gate, deep in the back rooms of the museum, so they can’t hurt anyone.”

  “Ho oh oh-oh,” sang Goldie. The wild music churned through her bones and would not settle. She sang louder. Mouse listened to Bonnie with his eyes half closed and his fingers wiggling in time with the First Song.

  “Toadspit says you can’t keep wildness in one place, and that’s why the rooms shift all the time,” continued Bonnie. “The trouble is, if anything threatens the museum or its keepers, the shifting gets worse. Like now. And the keepers have to calm the museum down by singing to it. Because if the shifting gets really bad, all the wars and plague and stuff will break out from behind the Dirty Gate!”

  She bit her lip. “It’d be the end of Jewel. And of us too, probably.”

  Mouse patted her arm. Then, to Goldie’s surprise, he put his hand on the wall and began to hum a rough approximation of the First Song, as if he could calm the Museum of Dunt in the same way that he had calmed Broo and the cat.

  And perhaps he could, because the museum began to settle almost immediately. The wild music was still there, but now it rumbled along beside them, like a huge beast that has agreed to be tamed—for a while, at least. “HO OH OH-OH,” sang the museum. “MM MM OH OH OH-OH OH.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the children met up with the older keepers in the room called Rough Tom. This was not one of the wildest rooms in the museum, but it was one of the strangest. Half a dozen enormous sailing ships lay on their sides in the middle of the floor, as if a tide had brought them there and left them stranded. The air smelled of mud and salt water.

  The news about the great gun drew a groan from Sinew’s harp strings and turned Herro Dan pale. Olga Ciavolga merely nodded, as if nothing the Fugleman did could surprise her.

  Toadspit repeated his question. “Doesn’t he know what would happen if he attacked us?”

  He knows,” said Olga Ciavolga, “but he does not care. All he wants is destruction. The city, the Protector, everything.”

  Goldie thought of the limp body that she and her friends had dragged from the canal. “Has the Protector woken up yet?”

  “Not yet,” said Olga Ciavolga. “She has a slight fever, which worries me. I wish she would regain consciousness—”

  “You know, I’m not sure you’re right about the Fugleman,” Sinew interrupted her. “This city is his base. He’s not going to want to see it flattened.”

  “So why is he threatening us?” asked Bonnie. “He’ll get killed too if everything breaks out from behind the Dirty Gate, won’t he?”

  Sinew nodded. “Which makes me think that he doesn’t really understand what the museum is.”

  “Oh, come on, Sinew,” said Toadspit. �
��He’s been in the war rooms! Of course he—”

  “He knows a bit of it,” said Sinew. “He stole a book from the Protector’s office last year—a book about the Dirty Gate. That’s how he learned about the war rooms. But you know what he’s like; clever—brilliant, even—but he has little patience. I suspect he read just enough of the book and no more, and as a result he has no idea of the museum’s true power. He’s picked up a twig and mistaken it for the whole forest.”

  “Then shouldn’t we tell him how dangerous—” began Bonnie.

  “No!” cried Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga together.

  “I shudder to think what he would do with such knowledge,” said the old woman. “He cannot be trusted in any way. It is bad enough that he has discovered a small part of the truth.”

  “Besides, he wouldn’t believe us,” said Goldie. “He’d think we were trying to fool him.”

  “Trouble is,” said Herro Dan, “whether he knows what he’s doin’ or not, the museum’s growin’ restless again. Which means we daren’t leave it alone, not even to fight him.”

  At the old man’s words, the stranded ships moaned as if the tide was coming in. The smell of the sea grew stronger.

  “But if we don’t fight the Fugleman, the museum will get even worse!” said Goldie. “We can’t just give in!”

  Olga Ciavolga raised an eyebrow. “Did Dan say anything about giving in?”

  “No,” said Goldie, reddening, “but if we can’t leave the museum—”

  “We can still fight, Goldie,” interrupted Toadspit. “You and me.” He looked hopefully at the other keepers. “You don’t need us so much now. Mouse can take our place. Did you hear him singing?”

  Mouse had been leaning against Sinew’s legs, listening to the conversation. His face was drawn, as if he was missing Pounce now that the excitement of the shifting was over. But at Toadspit’s words his eyes brightened.