by Lian Tanner
“It won’t take all day,” said Double. She eyed the two children. “If this was my expedition, I’d pick out my best crew—
the useful ones, the fighters and the thinkers—to take with
me. And I’d leave the rest of this mob to follow later.” Goldie didn’t want to admit it, but it made sense. She studied the people around her. “Pounce,” she called. “We want
you. And Mouse too.”
Double raised an eyebrow as Mouse stepped forward. “He’s
a mite small and tender for battle, isn’t he?”
Goldie glared at her. “He’s not too small and tender for the
salt mines!”
“Dearling—” protested Ma.
But Double merely smiled, as if nothing Goldie said could
touch her.
“And Bonnie,” said Toadspit. “You’d better come with us.” His sister beamed.
“A bunch of snotties?” said Double. “Is that the best you
can do?”
Pounce puffed out his chest. “We is as good as an army, the
five of us. Ain’t no one else ’ere as useful as we is.” “He’s right,” said Ma. “These children put the rest of us to shame. But—” She brushed the papier-mâché sores from Goldie’s neck. “But dearling, I’d like to make a suggestion. I have no idea how you are going to stop Frow Carrion, but if anyone can do it, it will be you and your friends. There’s just one thing. I think you should take your aunt with you.”
“What?” said Goldie.
“I’m sure she’ll be useful,” said Ma.
In the back of Goldie’s mind, Princess Frisia whispered, In
the midst of battle, a strong arm counts for more than a kind face. Still Goldie hesitated. “Pa?”
She could see that her father loathed the slaver as much as she did. But he said, “Lives are at stake here, and so is the future of Jewel. If your aunt will go with you, and if she can be trusted”—he looked doubtful—“then we must put our prejudices aside, for a while, at least. She is clearly a formidable woman.”
Double made a sarcastic little bow. “Thank you, Harken Roth. I will return the compliment. Your death-defying leap into the ocean was one of the silliest things I have ever seen—”
Pa flushed bright red.
“—but it was also one of the bravest. Every expedition should have a brave fool in its company. Someone who will, if needed, sacrifice themselves in a blaze of idiotic glory.”
Now Goldie hated her more than ever. She turned her back on the slaver and said loudly to Toadspit, “I’d like totake Pa. I don’t want to take Double, but I think we must. Every expedition should have a slaver in its company. Someone who can, if needed, be used as cannon fodder.”
Double snorted with laughter. Ma linked her arm through Pa’s on one side and Double’s on the other, and said, “You needn’t think you’re going without me. Because you’re not.”
“I was about to say the same thing,” said Frow Hahn, and she and her husband would not be dissuaded, however much Toadspit argued with them.
As the ship’s boat was lowered into the water under Double’s instruction, Ma watched the slaver, and Pa watched Ma. Goldie tried not to watch any of them, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her mind kept slipping back to last night, on board the Silver Lining, when she had been captured and brought before Old Lady Skint’s second-in-command.
And suddenly it struck her that Double had known who she was, almost from the beginning. The slaver had recognized the bluebird brooch. She had stopped the two sailors from searching Goldie properly.
And this morning, when Old Lady Skint had refused to believe that there was indeed plague on her ship, it was Double who had tipped the balance.
As if she could read Goldie’s thoughts, the slaver dipped her hand into her pocket and held out the brooch. “Here,” she said, “you can have this back.”
Goldie shook her head and walked away. She never wanted 234
to touch that brooch again! It meant nothing to her. The fact that Double had helped them escape meant nothing to her. All Goldie cared about now was getting back to the museum in time to stop the bombardment.
She wiped an angry tear from her cheek. “Bald Thoke,” she whispered. “Please help us to get there in time. And help us to stop Frow Carrion. I don’t care how we do it. Just show us the way. I’ll do anything. Anything—”
Bombardment
It was late afternoon by the time the small group reached Jewel. They managed to slip into the city without being seen by either Blessed Guardians or mercenaries, which raised their spirits a little. But as they began to climb Old Arsenal Hill, Goldie heard the dreadful grinding roar of a gas tractor somewhere ahead of them and felt the ground quake beneath her feet.
Frow Carrion was almost in position.
Up until that point, Goldie had believed that they would be able to stop the great gun. According to Double, a cannon could be disabled by driving an iron spike down the touch hole, and they had brought such a spike from the ship’s carpentry store, and a hammer as well.
“It won’t be easy for them, getting Frow Carrion up that hill,” Goldie had said as they left the Silver Lining behind and rowed toward the shore. “There’ll be mercenaries all over the place and lots of noise and confusion. If we Conceal ourselves, either Toadspit or I should be able to get close enough to do some damage.”
“Conceal yourselves? What are you talking about?” said Double, peering over her shoulder as she rowed.
Goldie pretended she hadn’t heard. We can do it, she told herself. We can do it!
But by the time they reached Frow Carrion, the great gun had come to a halt in Swindler’s Plaza, which was as close as the gas tractor could get to the museum. A dozen mercenaries were turfing people out of their homes and sending them weeping down the hill to find shelter wherever they could. Another dozen were winching the monstrous iron barrel toward its target. And in a wide circle around Frow Carrion’s base, three score of armed, watchful men stood shoulder to shoulder, so close to each other that not even a thief from the Museum of Dunt could get past them.
The Fugleman had learned his lesson at last.
When she saw that impenetrable circle, Goldie’s heart sank to her boots. Toadspit frowned, and she knew that he too was scanning for weak points and finding none.
“How do you stop a gun like that if you can’t get near it?” she whispered.
Toadspit didn’t answer. The smell of cold iron drifted past their hiding place at the edge of the plaza, and Goldie shivered. “Do you think Herro Dan knows it’s here?”
Toadspit nodded, his lower lip raw from chewing. “The museum must be tearing itself apart by now. He’ll know, all right. And he’ll need us.”
The two children looked at each other. They were both battered and worn by the events of the last twenty-four hours. They wanted baths and hot food, and comfortable beds to crawl into. More than that, they wanted to run as far away from Frow Carrion as possible.
But they could not run. They were keepers of the Museum of Dunt, and they were needed.
They crept back to where the others were waiting. “It’s no use,” Toadspit said to the expectant faces. “It’s too well guarded.”
There was a murmur of dismay. “So what do we do now?” asked Herro Hahn.
“Any sensible person would dive for cover,” muttered Double. “A museum is only a museum, after all.”
“Not this one!” snapped Goldie. She turned to the two sets of parents. “Toadspit and I have to go and help the other keepers, but the rest of you—”
“Don’t say it,” interrupted Frow Hahn. “If you’re going into the museum”—her voice wobbled slightly, but her mind was clearly made up—“then so are we.”
“No!” said Toadspit.
“That’s all of us,” said Herro Hahn, looking as stubborn as his wife. “We’ve discussed it.”
“There might be something we can do,” said Ma.
Pa,
Pounce, Mouse and Bonnie nodded agreement, even though fear whitened their faces and made their shadows tremble.
Double blew out an irritated breath. “You’re all mad! You’re going to die in there, you realize?”
“You can leave if you want to,” said Pa stiffly.
“Never said I was leaving.” And Double followed the others toward the museum, only slowing to make sure that Ma wasn’t left behind.
The Fugleman had not bothered to set a guard on the culde-sac. Toadspit led them down it at a run, with Goldie bringing up the rear. As she tore up the front steps of the museum, she heard the rumble of cannonballs being rolled across Swindler’s Plaza toward Frow Carrion.
In front of her, Double skidded to a halt. “What is this place?”
Goldie ran past her without answering. Unlike the slaver, the two sets of parents could not feel the violent shifting, but even they looked shocked. This was not the peaceful museum they remembered. A claw of black water was crawling across the entrance hall toward them. Spiderwebs half filled the doorways, as thick as rope. The air was heavy with dust, and the dust was heavy with malice.
“Come on!” said Goldie, and she and Toadspit dragged their parents around the water, under the spiderwebs and through the front rooms as quickly as they could. Behind them, Pounce kept up a constant stream of complaint about the stupidity of anyone who thought they could beat the Foobleman. But he did not falter, and when the small group burst into the back rooms, he was there with them, helping Bonnie when she tripped and urging Mouse to run faster.
They found Morg, Broo and the older keepers gathered deep inside the museum, in the room called the Tench. The Protector was there too, propped up on a mattress, with a pile of solid wooden tables around her and the cat at her side. She cried out when she saw them, and Olga Ciavolga, Herro Dan and Sinew swung around, their tired faces lit up with momentary relief. Then they went back to singing and playing the First Song.
Broo bounded over to the children, his eyes sparking like fireworks. He licked Goldie’s face with his huge tongue and did the same to Bonnie, Toadspit and Mouse. Then he stuck his nose inside Mouse’s jacket and said anxiously, “Are you still there, small people?”
The mice ran across the top of the brizzlehound’s head, squeaking their hellos. Pounce groaned with amazement. Then he pulled himself together with a visible effort and said, “Hey, old Black Ox. Remember me?”
Double turned to Ma and said, “I thought I was beyond surprise. I was wrong. What is this place?”
“Pla-a-a-a-ace,” croaked Morg from the top of one of the cell doors.
Goldie had always hated the Tench. It stank of misery, and its cramped cells made her shiver. Now, with the museum in ferment around her, she thought she could hear the creak of a treadmill, and the clank of chains, and the sound of someone crying for mercy that would never come.
In the back of her mind, Princess Frisia berated her for leading her family and friends into such danger, with no plan and no way out.
Goldie grabbed Toadspit’s hand. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Toadspit. “We’ll think of something.”
“You’ll have to think quick,” said Double, coming up behind them. “Or we’ll all be mincemeat. How about you start by introducing me to your friends?” And she nodded at the Protector and at the older keepers.
It was clear from Herro Dan’s expression that he was not pleased to have a slaver in the museum. But when Double questioned him about the walls, and how they would stand up to cannon fire, he said, “They’re strong enough to hold for a while, even against a great gun. There’s five hundred years of wildness in this stone, and it won’t fall easily.”
“The problem is,” said Sinew, his fingers plucking a tired note from the strings of his harp, “it won’t lie quiet either. It’ll fight back. And that’ll be worse than anything the Fugle man can throw at us. The plague rooms are already on the move.”
“ Plague rooms?” said Double.
But before Sinew could explain, the bombardment began. The roar of Frow Carrion as she launched her first cannonball almost lifted Goldie off her feet. Morg squawked and threw herself upward. Ma screamed. As the long rolling explosion died away, Goldie heard a howling like the approach of a hurricane—and something crashed into the ancient stone walls.
The impact sucked all the air out of the museum, then blew it back, so that first Goldie had no breath and then she had too much. The museum shook with outrage. Dust cascaded from the high ceilings. In the front rooms, jars cracked open, and the mummified snakes inside them fell to the floor and slithered away. Somewhere below Goldie’s feet, the waters of Old Scratch rose as high as a tidal wave.
Choking with dust and shock, Goldie crawled to the wall and placed her hand flat against it. The wild music hit her, as hot as lava, and she cried out in pain. Her blood boiled. Her head swam. She dragged the notes of the First Song from her throat and heard the strings of Sinew’s harp nearby. Then Olga Ciavolga joined in, and Toadspit, and Herro Dan and Mouse, their voices no more than a whisper against the deep crash of the wild music.
Out of the corner of her eye, Goldie saw Double arguing with Ma. Pa and the others were frantically building the tables into a shelter. Broo stalked the length of the Tench and back, growling out the notes of the First Song.
Mouse sang louder, his high sweet voice sliding like a note of grace through the chaos. The wild music began to settle a little—
Frow Carrion launched her second cannonball. When it hit, Broo bellowed with rage, and so did the museum. Its bluestone walls stood firm, but inside them, cabinets crashed to the floor and the rooms shifted and shifted again. The wild music rode the keepers like a nightmare.
The third cannonball hit the Museum of Dunt.
Goldie felt as if she were drowning. Her ears rang. Her head ached. She could feel the wildness surging around her like a pack of wolves howling outside a broken window. Deep inside her, Princess Frisia howled too, demanding to be let loose.
She had no idea how long they all crouched there, singing desperately. It seemed like hours—it might have been no more than minutes. In that time, mantraps clattered down the stairs of Harry Mount like mortal creatures. The wild music swelled like an incoming tide. Death and destruction hurled themselves at the Dirty Gate. . . .
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the bombardment stopped.
There was a moment of ringing silence; then Pounce poked his head out from under the tables, banged his hand against his ear and said, “’Ave they run outta cannonballs?”
Olga Ciavolga wiped the grit from her eyes. “I fear they are only playing with us. They will start again soon.”
“Half a dozen more hits like that last one,” said Herro Dan, “and we’re done for.”
“Half a dozen more hits,” cried Double, “and we’ll all be as flat as a flounder! I say we get out now, while we can!” She turned to Ma, who still had her hands over her ears. “Grace, you have to come!”
“No.” Ma shook her head, and for a moment she looked as fierce as her sister. “I’m not leaving without my daughter!”
It took all Goldie’s will to say, “I can’t leave.” She felt bruised from head to toe, and so frightened that all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole somewhere. But the museum was on the brink of explosion, like a balloon that had been blown up beyond all common sense. Half a dozen more hits and everything in it would burst out into the streets of Jewel. Without Mouse and his ability to tame the untamable, it would surely have done so already.
“For Bald Thoke’s sake, why can’t you leave?” Double’s face was stark white beneath its tattoos. “It’s the only sensible thing to do!”
Just then, the museum shifted. “That’s why,” said Sinew, and his fingers struck his harp strings. Goldie and the other keepers began to sing again. Despite the pause in the bombardment, the wild music was growing stronger, so that even when it had settled a little, Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga
kept their hands on the wall and sang under their breath.
Sinew lowered his harp. “If we leave,” he said to Double, “then everything is lost. The city and everyone in it. We can’t let it happen. We have to stop it somehow.”
Double looked as if she were about to burst with anger and frustration. “But you haven’t even got a plan!”
“I have a plan,” growled Broo. “I will KILL the Fugleman. I will GRRRRRIND his bones to SMITHERRRRREENS!”
“Well, that’s a start,” said Double. “We could—”
“He’s surrounded by mercenaries,” interrupted Toadspit. “Goldie and I could barely see the top of his head. No one can get to the gun, and no one can get to him. Not even you, Broo.”
“He’s no fool,” muttered Herro Dan, with a bitter note in his voice.
“Hey,” said Pounce. “Where’s Mousie got to?”
Goldie looked around. The little boy had been right beside Herro Dan, but now he was gone.
“Mouse!” shouted Pounce with a note of panic in his voice.
“Where are ya? Mousie?”
He began to yank at one of the fallen cabinets, but Pa stopped him. “He’s not there. I saw him run out of the room a minute ago.”
“Where did ’e go?” demanded Pounce. He looked around wildly. “Do any of yez know where ’e went?”
Broo snuffed the air. His black coat was covered in dust, and his eyes glowed like fire. “He is in the kitchen. I will bring him.” And he loped out of the room.
“You ’urry!” shouted Pounce after him. “Don’t you lose ’im!”
Goldie crawled over to the pile of tables, where Bonnie and the Protector were wiping the grit from their faces with trembling hands. “Are you two all right?”
“It’s like drowning in noise,” whispered Bonnie.
“It is indeed,” said the Protector, dragging herself up to a sitting position. “Goldie, can you call the other keepers, please? Before the bombardment starts again?”
The keepers gathered around her in a silent circle. Sinew sat beside her and offered her his shoulder, and she leaned against him and said, “The museum must not fall. We are all agreed on that, are we not?”
