Priests of Ferris (2 page)

She nodded. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nick will be here with some food in a moment.’ She saw how he shrank at the name, but said nothing. ‘Why don’t you wash in the creek? You smell funny.’

‘It’s grub-weed. I put it on so the dogs couldn’t track me.’

She decided not to ask about that either, and told the boy to wash the smell off. It was like old socks. He went to the creek and she turned her back on him and knelt by the Shy, putting her face in the flowers. The sweetness of the scent made her tremble. If it were not for the Shy she wouldn’t trust this Limpy. But he too had seemed to worship it.

Nick arrived and she showed him the plant. The boy in the creek had slunk away and hidden in the ferns. Susan called him out. He came up the bank, moving sideways.

‘This is Nicholas Quinn. Nick, this is Limpy. He’s from O. Verna says it’s time for us to come.’

Nick said nothing. The boy, in his homespun shirt and belt of flax, was proof enough. He stared at him and offered to shake hands, but Limpy jerked away.

‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘He thinks we’re special. Jimmy too.’

‘Has he seen Jimmy? Have you seen him?’

‘He thinks Jimmy’s here on Earth with us. We’d better go and find him, Nick.’ She turned to Limpy. ‘Did you use Shy to get here?’

‘Yes.’

‘So it still works.’ She knelt beside the plant and made Nick kneel. ‘You too, Limpy.’

‘We’d better take one for coming back,’ Nick said.

‘Only what we need. That’s the rule.’

‘What if we can’t find any there? Is there plenty growing?’ he asked Limpy.

‘I have never seen it. The priests call it Claw’s weed. They root it out.’

‘So we’d better take two.’

But Susan stopped him. Verna would know where the flower grew. She reached into the plant and picked a blossom close to the stem. It came away easily, bleeding a drop of moisture on her fingers. She spoke her thanks, and waited for the others, pleased to see them reverent too, and started down the creek with the flower in her palm. Nick caught up and walked beside her, and Limpy came behind, carrying his flower and eating a plum Nick had given him.

‘Do you think he’s lying to us?’ Nick whispered.

‘He’s keeping something back. But we’ve got to trust him.’

They came to the shaft and stood between the mounds. Nick rapped the timbers at the entrance. ‘This is going to cave in soon.’

‘Did you get everything?’

‘Yeah. Your Mum said be careful.’ He grinned sourly. ‘It’s no fun telling lies.’

‘I’m sorry, Nick.’

‘At least there won’t be any Halfmen.’

They went into the shaft, Nick leading. He had a pocket torch and he checked every beam. Several had rotted almost through and new falls of rock lay on the floor. ‘This is the last time,’ he breathed.

‘Dad says he’ll dynamite it soon.’

They came to the end. Nick put his torch in the pack. ‘How do we do it? What day are we going to, Limpy?’

‘The day I left. Hold my arms. We’ll come out together.’

‘I hope so.' Susan felt in the dark and put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched but she said quietly, ‘It’s all right. Nick, are you ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you ready, Limpy?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘let us go.’

They raised their Shy flowers to their faces. ‘Now,’ Susan said.

It was less painful than their first time through, when the agent had been the yellow smoke of Otis Claw, but somehow less easy than the second, when they had been returning home. The dark and the whirling frightened them, and when the motion stopped and they found themselves on hands and knees on the floor of the cave a feeling like car-sickness overcame them. They knelt a while before climbing to their feet.

‘Are you there, Nick?’

‘Yes. Where’s Limpy?’

‘I’m here,’ the boy said. They heard a sound like sobbing in his voice. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever come back.’

Susan felt for his arm. ‘You’re all right. Home on O. Have you got your torch, Nick? Let’s get out of here.’

He took it from the pack and led them down the tunnel. There were falls of rock he did not remember. And when they reached the entrance they found it half collapsed, with only a narrow opening to the plateau. But they were so eager to see O they hardly noticed. The sun was shining, the air was fresh. They ran out of the cave and saw the hills and Wildwood spread before them.

‘It hasn’t changed. It’s beautiful. It’s better than Earth.’

Far away a rough line marked the rim of Sheercliff. Beyond was the land called Darkland, but no pall of smoke lay over it. The sea gleamed and Susan’s island lay on it like a boat at anchor. The sky curved back, pure silver, pure blue, and the mountains, running north and south, shone with ice in the afternoon sun. The trees of Wildwood climbed up to the snowline, and ran into the south, turning misty blue and misty purple. Perhaps, she thought, Jimmy Jaspers had explored the southern lands by now.

The boy, Limpy, ran by her and crouched on the edge of the plateau. She went to his side but he caught her by the shirt and pulled her down. Here on O he was sure of himself. ‘There might be priests.’

She knelt in the shade of thorn trees, staring down the slope. Nothing moved. Only, far away, a bird circled lazily and made her think of the Birdfolk, Redwing and Wanderer. She hoped there would be time to visit them. Nick took off his pack and knelt beside her. ‘What are these priests?’ he said to Limpy.

‘We must find grub-weed so the dogs will not find us.’

‘I’m not going anywhere till I know. There’s something wrong here, Susan. I can’t see the path any more. And the entrance of the cave has fallen in. Look, over there, by Sheercliff. Isn’t that a building in the sun?’

She looked where he was pointing and saw a glittering light like a piece of mirror.

‘It wasn’t there a year ago,’ Nick said.

‘The Temple,’ Limpy said. ‘That is where the High Priest lives. And where the Miracle will take place.’ He looked at Susan as if he hated her.

She felt it like a blow. More than anything he had said, more than talk of priests and dogs and Temples, it told her O was changed. ‘Why does he hate me?’

Nick picked up his pack. ‘Don’t worry about him. We can find Shady Home by ourselves.’

‘You will die,’ Limpy said. ‘The priests will get you.’

‘What priests? From the Temple?’

‘Yes.’

‘When was it built? We didn’t see it there a year ago.’

‘It has been there all my life. All my father’s. And his father’s. It was built in the seventh turn from the Mending.’

‘What’s the Mending?’

‘If you are Nick, and you Susan, then you know.’

And Susan did know. Everything began making sense to her. She felt the blood draining from her face. ‘Nick,’ she said, ‘I put the Halves together. That was the Mending.’

She saw Limpy nodding, and said to him, ‘How long ago?’

His answer came as no surprise to her. ‘Ancient times. In thirty days it is a hundred turns.’

She heard Nick arguing, but she did not argue. With the Shy you passed through time and space – five minutes or five years, a hundred years. Limpy had brought them into his own time. It made no difference to their going back, but here, now – she saw what it must mean.

‘Nick,’ she sobbed, ‘oh Nick.’ She leaned against him. Tears ran down her face. ‘They’re dead. Brand and Breeze and Jimmy. Jimmy’s dead.’

When evening came they reached the edge of the forest. Exhausted from their scrambling on the hills, they made beds of fern and slept till dawn. Nick took food from the pack and handed it round. They drank from a creek, then Limpy scouted ahead and found the way safe. They pushed on till midday and reached the forest floor. Grub-weed might be found there, Limpy said. He went off with his knife and Nick and Susan sat on the roots of a tree, listening to the sounds of Wildwood. The wind made a soughing in the trees, the stream tinkled, birds chirped and fluttered in the undergrowth or made soft bell-notes higher up. But for Susan the magic was gone. Once before O had been grey to her, before Breeze had given her the Shy, and now it was grey again. She tried to tell herself death was natural, time had passed, nothing evil had happened to Jimmy and Brand and Breeze. They had simply grown old and died. But she could not make herself believe it.

‘He still doesn’t like us,’ Nick said.

‘Who?’

‘Limpy. I wonder what this stuff about priests is. He could be making it up to scare us.’ When she made no answer he patted her knee. ‘Cheer up. I’ll bet Jimmy had a ball before he died. I wonder if he named a mountain after me. Here, have a plum. I’ll tell you what, I’ll plant the stone. Then they’ll have plums the way we have Shy.’

But he could not lighten her mood. O was no longer her world and she wanted to be out of it, on Earth. It seemed dangerous, and the thought of the priests frightened her. Without her friends she was lost and afraid. She would go to Shady Home and talk to Verna – a new Verna, not the one she knew – then go home. There was nothing here she wanted to do any more.

Then, oddly, for a moment, she was happy, something comforted her, she could not tell what. An Earth sound. Then she had it: far off, the barking of dogs. It was a sound that meant home to her – the dogs on the hill with her father, Ben the huntaway turning the sheep.

‘Listen,’ Nick said.

‘Yes.’

But he was on his feet, staring round. And she remembered: dogs on O were the dogs of Otis Claw, the black man-killing hounds he had used for his sport in the underground throne-hall long ago. She remembered the sounds they made as they attacked. Claw was dead, but now, according to Limpy, the dogs had new masters, the priests.

Nick was struggling to get his pack on. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. If those dogs get our scent … ’

‘Maybe they’ve got Limpy’s.’

‘That’s his bad luck.’

‘We can’t just leave him.’

‘He knows his way round. Hurry, Susan. They’re getting close.’

The sound was a hunting cry – hungry, eager – and suddenly it increased, as if the pack had come round a hill. Shouts of men were mixed in it. Yet they could not tell its direction and their running seemed to take them closer to it. Then Limpy came bursting through the fern, running lopsidedly, and he gave a shout of rage when he saw them.

‘Where are you going? I was leading them away.’

‘Where are they?’

‘You’re running straight at them.’

‘How many?’

‘Too many. I couldn’t find grub-weed. They’ve got my scent. Now they’ll get yours.’

‘Can we get away?’

‘No chance.’

‘Can we walk in a creek? We’ve got to do something.’

The baying of the dogs swelled in volume and the harsh cries of men, and women too, took an eager note.

‘Take off your pack. Scatter the food. Scatter everything. That will delay them.’

Nick tore off the pack. He threw clothes, cheese, chicken legs, peanuts, in every direction. He hurled the pack away into the ferns. They turned and ran, heading downhill in the direction of a creek they had crossed in the morning. Limpy went along in a kind of scuttle, swinging his bad leg wide, but he kept ahead of Nick and Susan with no trouble, and called them on when they seemed to tire. The slope became steeper and they slid down between worn boulders, braking with their feet. The noise of the dogs faded away, but as they reached the creek a squealing and a yelping came through the trees.

‘They’ve found the pack,’ Limpy panted. ‘The priests will lose control. But then they’ll let the hunters go. They’ll be running free. Each priest has a tracker and a hunter.’ He set off up the creek, wading thigh-deep. ‘Our only chance is to find a place where dogs can’t climb.’

‘We’re going the wrong way,’ Nick said. ‘Our scent will flow down the creek.’

‘The hills are this way.’

‘Then let’s get out and run. This is slowing us down.’

It made him feel better when Limpy obeyed. They scrambled out on the far side of the creek and ran along the bank. Soon the water ran in noisy rapids, but even so the sound of the dogs came again.

‘They’ve got to the place where we went in.’

‘Ten minutes,’ Nick said, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve got about a kilometre on them.’

‘They’ll take a while to pick us up again,’ Limpy said.

But they could not keep their pace up. The creek came tumbling out of a gorge. They had to climb through water and haul themselves over slippery stones. Moss broke away in handfuls and slid under their feet. White water pressed on their thighs. Their only comfort was that dogs would find it hard here too.

They climbed for twenty minutes. The gorge levelled out. They stood listening at the head of the rapids but the noise of the water drowned everything. It tumbled out of sight round a bend, and down there somewhere dogs and priests were coming. Ahead, boulders the size of houses choked the gorge. They began to run between them, and climb along their sides. Several times they had to go back and start again. Then the creek turned, and a waterfall blocked the gorge.

It was like being caught in a bottle, Susan thought. But Limpy was scouting about. He ran, half swimming, through the pool at the base of the fall and disappeared in ferns by a shingle bank. ‘Here,’ he cried. A tiny stream trickled from a side gorge. It was so narrow they had to turn sideways to get in. It widened out a few steps on and gave them room to scramble three abreast. But as they climbed they heard the barking of dogs.

‘Why are they chasing us? Why?’ Susan cried.

‘Everything that moves they hunt. The whole of Wildwood is their enemy.’

The gorge had sides leaning in. It stretched on and on like a road. The afternoon sun shone down the length of it, lighting up the stream, bringing half an hour of warmth to plants growing in the rocks. It seemed wrong to Susan that she and Nick were running for their lives while the sun shone so cheerfully. This was the place for a picnic, not for death. She felt she should turn and wait for the priests, try to talk reasonably with them. Then she remembered the Halfmen of a hundred years ago, just one of her years, and knew this hunt was real, these priests were the inheritors of Otis Claw’s world. Breeze had said there was no knowing which way men would go, they had their chance for good or evil – and they had chosen evil a second time.