Motherstone (18 page)

‘The priests called it the place of desecration,’ Soona said. ‘There is a pit. Sinners go that way to eternal punishment.’

‘I’ve heard that one before, or somethin’ like it,’ Jimmy said.

‘The pit’s the way to the Motherstone,’ Susan said.

‘You will reach it by dark. You must find a place there to pass the night.’

They ate, and Jimmy led them out of the square, leaving the fire sinking to ashes by the fallen statue. ‘Poor old Claw,’ Nick said. He thought of the statues of Susan and himself at the Temple. They were broken too. His fame would not live in this world any longer than Claw’s. He found the thought oddly comforting. More and more he had the sense of not belonging on O. It was as if he and Susan had been called to do a job – like carpenters or plumbers – and when it was done they would go back home and be forgotten, and their work would be just a part of things. Susan’s work, he reminded himself. She was the important one. He did not have much to do any more.

They went through streets in an old part of the city. Shops and houses leaned over alleys too narrow for carts. In places their upper storeys touched, and here and there they had fallen in, making barriers of brick and stone and timber. Creepers twisted everywhere like snakes, and trees were getting a foothold, standing up at shoulder height wherever there was light and space for them. In the shade, in places the sun never came, everything was slimy, fungus-grown. The cobblestones spat water on their ankles. Black pools lay in hollows, with tufts of pale weed at their edges. Insects bit, and Dawn brought out her paste again. It was easy to believe fevers and diseases lived in these alleys. Old yellow bones, rib-bones, pelvis bones, lay half-in half-out of a pond. Jointed fingers gripped a stone. Teeth grinned in a broken jaw. Susan stopped. She shivered.

‘I came down this street. There was a murdered man over there.’

‘Take it easy,’ Jimmy said. ‘We must be gettin’ close.’

‘It looks like thick jungle up ahead,’ Nick said.

‘That will be the park. There was a creek. A ditch. The palace is on the other side.’

Silverwing shouted from overhead. She led them out of the alley into a clearing where it seemed people had lived recently. Dead fires made patches all about. Jimmy felt one. ‘Cold. I wonder where they’ve got themselves holed up.’

Silverwing landed. ‘They are behind, in a half-circle. It seems they like the direction you’re going.’

‘They’re herdin’ us,’ Jimmy growled. ‘How many of ’em?’

‘Seventy. Eighty. With clubs and spears.’

‘They must want us to go to the palace,’ Susan said.

‘I don’t like it. I’m for havin’ a bash at them.’

‘We’ve got to go. Why fight?’

They started into the jungle again. No light came in. The tree-roots were moss-grown and the ground spongy. Soon they came to the ditch Susan remembered but now it was twenty metres wide, stagnant and slimy, and the trees were too thick for the Birdfolk to fly down and lift them over. ‘We’ll have to swim.’

‘It’s full of leeches,’ Jimmy said. ‘They’ll ’ave yer sucked dry before yer know it.’ He scraped one out with his boot – a slug the size of a match-box, grey, with a patch of yellow gut. ‘Get one of these on yer skin, yer wouldn’ burn ’im orf with a blow torch.’

‘What will we do?’

Jimmy looked at Ben. The old Varg nodded.

‘Hop on ’is back. You first, Susie. Don’t worry, they won’t get through ‘is fur.’

Dawn was already on Bess’s back, and the younger Varg stepped easily into the water and started swimming, head held high. Jimmy helped Susan up. ‘Don’t fall orf. There’s millions of ’em.’

She knelt and gripped the fur at Ben’s neck. His back was as broad as a sofa and though he walked with a rolling gait, in the water only the joints of his shoulders moved. The leech-filled slime slid by close to her knees, but her only worry was that the creatures would find a way through Ben’s fur. She glanced back. The others were in a group close to the water. Thief had gone back into the trees. She saw what he meant to do, and though it looked impossible she knew that for him it was easy. He ran to the water’s edge and his leap took him soaring over her head, elastically stretched and light as a bird, and down in an arc, over Dawn and Bess. His forepaws splashed in the ooze. A single bound took him clear. He snapped at his leg, where a leech had fastened, and spat it out; then stood waiting for Susan, mewing anxiously. Dawn jumped clear of Bess and the younger Varg turned back. Then Susan was on the shore; and Thief rubbed her once, then prowled the trees.

Soona and Aenlocht came next. Susan saw men moving in the undergrowth, hunched to the ground like animals that searched the mud for food. They darted from tree to tree, dark and dwarf. Jimmy faced them with his axe, but they stayed back, making a soft whistling, a kind of signal. It could be the singing of birds, Susan thought; but coming from the men it was horrible.

Nick and Jimmy came over. Under their weight the Varg struggled to keep their mouths clear of the slime. On land, they shook themselves, and Dawn and Jimmy took their knives and cut leeches from their fur. One had got into the split between Ben’s toes and the old Varg watched stoically while Jimmy dug it out. Dawn doctored the cut and they went on. It took another half hour to bring them clear of the jungle.

The space was man-made. Beyond, a wall of stone blocks rose to a shattered top, with an entrance at the end, and half a barred gate, ten metres high. It leaned inward on one hinge, resting on stones, mason-cut, that rose in a tumbled hill towards the sky.

‘There, that’s it, the palace,’ Susan said. Nothing was left of the beehive shape or the chimney that had poured out Otis Claw’s poison smoke. It was the gate she recognized. Nick was at her side. ‘The ramp must be under all that rock.’

‘We’re not goin’ lookin’ ternight,’ Jimmy growled. ‘Grub’s what we need. An’ some shuteye.’

Silverwing glided down and hovered. ‘We have found a broken place in the wall. It makes a room where you can be safe. Dark is coming. Build a fire. You must be quick. These jungle folk are gathering.’ She flew ahead of them along the wall. They were on a kind of beach, Susan thought, with the jungle as the sea and the stones of the fallen palace a kind of land. The trees were full of flitting shapes, and man-made bird-calls. They came to the hole in the wall. Beams had crashed on blocks of masonry. Sections of wall had tumbled in, and a cave was made – cave more than room – head-high, as large as a double garage.

Thief went in and made sure it was safe. Nick and Jimmy lit a fire at the entrance, building it high with timber from the rubble. They made a barrier half over the door so spears could not be thrown into the cave, but no move came from the jungle, although men watched, some in the open, taking no heed of the Warrior Birds, or Thief, or the Varg.

‘They’ve been herding us, all right.’

‘They’re a scruffy-lookin’ bunch,’ Jimmy said.

Nick stood for a while watching them. Men, the whole gathering, not a woman there. Crooked, half-naked, stringy-fleshed. The spears and clubs they carried seemed too large. He supposed they barely kept alive, scavenging and preying on each other in these ruins. Yet there was something dreadful about them. Not their numbers, not their weapons – but their silence, their discipline. It was as though they were engaged in some rite.

He looked into the sky. The Birdfolk were there. Ben and Bess were at the fire, one facing the jungle, the other the mound, so no surprise attack could come. And Thief was in the cave. But still he could not feel safe.

‘Nick, come and have some food,’ Susan called.

He went in. ‘They want us here.’

‘At the Motherstone?’

‘Yes, maybe.’

‘We’ll find out tomorrow. If they want us it means there’s a way to get down there.’

That did not bring him any comfort. He lay awake thinking of what Susan must do. And Soona. And Aenlocht. He wished there were a part for him to play. If he had guessed right, their task was terrible – the burden of it, the hugeness, made him weak. The threat of the men in the jungle shrank to nothing. He looked at Susan sleeping in the flickering light. It astonished him that she had the strength for tomorrow. And those two, Soona, Aenlocht, sleeping side by side, with her black hair making their pillow – their strength was even more terrible. He dreamed about them spreading out their hands to cover O. He could not tell whether it was life or death they brought.

It was dark in the cave but outside the unrisen sun lightened the sky. Susan sat up in her blanket and shivered. Aenlocht lay with open eyes, watching her. He spoke a word in his dialect and she guessed it was, ‘Good morning’. Soona was still sleeping, with a strand of hair caught in her mouth. It was so childlike that Susan reached out and stroked her cheek. Aenlocht made no move, he seemed to smile, and Susan whispered, ‘Look after her.’ She threw off her blanket and went outside. Ben was by the fire, almost in the ashes, and Thief was walking back and forth halfway to the jungle, with the untamed regular motion of a tiger in a cage. He stopped and came to her and she scratched him under his jaw.

Jimmy came out yawning and stirred the fire. ‘Where’s our neighbours?’ There was no movement in the jungle, but Susan had no doubt eyes were watching.

‘No mist. Are the Pollies keepin’ watch?’

They turned in the sky like hawks; but Yellowclaw wheeled north and flapped away, and Silverwing folded her wings and tumbled like a pigeon towards the fire. She braked at tree height and settled lightly.

‘Sundercloud is coming. He flies at the end of his strength.’

Nick and Dawn came out, and Bess jumped down from the mound, and they all stared at the sky. Sundercloud came into sight, with Yellowclaw at his side. They made a long, flat landing between mound and jungle, and Sundercloud almost tumbled into the fire as he stopped.

‘Today,’ he panted. ‘They meet today.’

‘What time?’

‘Osro is on the plain. They must have hauled the Weapon in the night. Widd comes up the valley. Before midday they will be in sight. Already the scouting parties skirmish.’

‘So the Weapons will meet.’

‘Osro has cleared a line of fire. He will burn Widd’s Weapon as it appears. But Widd can make a detour and take him on the side. I cannot tell who will have the advantage.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s the same in the end.’

‘We better get movin’, young Susie. Whatever yer gotter do, now’s the time.’

‘Yes. We’ll go.’

‘My father?’ Soona asked Sundercloud. ‘And my brother? Did you see them?’

‘They live. But they walk in chains.’

‘All Humankind is in chains,’ Yellowclaw said.

‘Sure,’ Jimmy said, ‘but save that fer later. Our cobbers in the bush want us ter move.’

The ragged army was creeping into the open: bare-footed, stringy-haired, with filthy wrappings on their loins and shoulders, and weapons of sharpened wood and scavenged metal. They should have been pathetic but they made Susan’s blood run cold. They crept like grey tide-water, bodies bent, faces still; and even Thief did not know what to do.

‘They’re not going ter clobber us. I reckon they just want us ter move along.’

‘Where to?’

‘That gate, I reckon. No time fer breakfast. Grab yer things. You Pollies start flappin’. There’s nothin’ down here you can do.’

They gathered their gear. The Birdfolk leaped into the air – though Sundercloud lumbered – and beat up in circles to where Snowflier still kept watch. The others began their walk to the gate in a tight group, with jungle folk closing in behind. They lined the wall of jungle all the way – hundreds: they had gathered in the night – and others appeared from holes and crannies in the mound. They stood beyond the gate, closing the way.

‘Only men. Where are the women?’ Susan said.

‘Home gettin’ the stewpot ready.’

‘They’re more like priests than cannibals,’ Nick said.

‘I wish they’d say something.’

‘They’re sayin’ it, in their way.’

‘I wonder if they worship the Motherstone,’ Susan said. It seemed crazy to be herded, pushed along, to a place they were desperate to reach.

At the gate Ben and Jimmy went in. The others stood by the portal and faced the jungle folk. They stood as though just across a road, and watched without curiosity, but with their weapons forward and bodies crouched. A mouldy kennel smell came from them.

Susan raised her voice. ‘You can go away. We’re going down to the Motherstone.’

They did not know the word; but stirred and raised their weapons when Jimmy and Ben came back. They sent whistling signals back and forth.

‘She’s clear inside. They’ve got a kind of tunnel goin’ down.’ He looked up at the Birdfolk. ‘Keep watch,’ he shouted.

‘O goes with you. Life goes with you,’ Yellowclaw shouted.

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy muttered, ‘that’s a big help. Let’s go, Susie. Keep in the middle, like before. Me an’ Ben first. Bess in the back. But I don’t reckon anyone’s gunner stop us.’

He led them past the gate and through a canyon in the rubble. It ended in a tunnel shaped like an O. ‘Like a bloddy mouth. We’re bein’ swallered.’

Soona and Aenlocht joined hands. Susan laid her palm on Thief’s neck. We’re a cell, she thought, the four of us. She had no thought for Jimmy up ahead, or Nick behind. They were going down to the Motherstone, nothing else was real. She did not worry about the jungle people, or anything that might wait in the tunnel. She, Soona, Aenlocht, Thief, had come together by some law, and nothing could get in their way.

‘Torches,’ Jimmy said. ‘They must’a’ lit ’em in the night.’

They were set in rusty brackets on the wall, and made of slow-burning rushes that gave out an evil smell. The light barely spread from one to the next, and became even dimmer when the tunnel sloped and began to turn.

‘The ramp,’ Nick said. ‘Remember, Susan?’

She did not answer. She could think only of getting to the Motherstone. She hardly took in her surroundings, but passed from torch to torch as though each marked a step. But Nick, near the back, was aware of the jungle folk pressing. They never came in sight but their feet rustled, their weapons scraped, and their shadows came creeping on the walls. Their silence still seemed ritual and he was certain now they worshipped something in the pit. Perhaps the Motherstone was guarded by some beast. Anything was possible on O.