Salt (16 page)

A few lights came on in the mansions, but Port and the burrows stayed dark. Then a boom sounded, rolling on the water like an iron wheel on a wooden floor.

He’s started, Pearl said.

And now he knows, Hari said.

There was a pause. Then another boom.

He’ll keep on going. He can’t be sure until he’s fired them all, Pearl said.

The bombardment went on.

Pearl counted. That’s fifty.

And no lights in the sky, Hari said.

What will he do?

Kill people. Torture them.

Hari, there’s no way he can know about us.

She was right – and yet he had heard the whisper of another voice.

A gout of flame rose between two mansions and a moment later the sound of an explosion reached them.

The army in the city’s firing back. The clerks must have bolt cannons, Hari said.

Another flame rose, another detonation sounded.

They’ve hit one of the houses. It’s House Kruger, Pearl said.

Ottmar’s stopped his cannon.

He’ll have to use his bolt cannons too, Hari said.

They’ll kill each other, Pearl said. Both sides.

She steered the boat as Hari worked the sail, but could not keep her eyes from the fires sprouting on the cliff. The sound of cannons rolled continuously and a glow rose from the city – not the green of salt, but the orange of flames at work on buildings.

House Kruger burned. Then . . .

Hari, they’ve hit my house. They’ve hit House Bowles.

They’ll hit them all. They must have been getting ready for this.

He thought of Tarl watching from the burrows – and knew he would wait. When both armies had fought themselves into exhaustion, Tarl would strike.

The burrows will win, Hari thought. It was what he had wanted all his life, what he had dreamed of. Now it filled him only with sadness. It made him afraid. Tarl or Keech or someone else would rule, but everything would stay the same.

House Kruger fell in a great explosion of fire and smoke. The small house beside it, House Roebuck, collapsed. House Bowles still burned. Pearl watched without being able to hold her memories still and find what her home had meant to her. It seemed she had spent all her life growing out of it, growing away – all that time since Tealeaf had come and turned it into nothing. Yet it had enclosed her, kept her warm, kept her fed – while Hari starved in Blood Burrow.

The top floor of the mansion suddenly crumbled and the lower walls opened like a red-petalled flower. A coil of smoke rolled up and vanished into the dark.

Gone. It’s gone, Pearl thought. I’m not Bowles any more.

Are you all right? Hari said.

Yes, I’m all right.

They’ll burn them all.

Let’s get away from here, Pearl said.

THIRTEEN

They sailed through the night, then sheltered from rising winds in a little bay. A freshwater spring beyond the beach gave them water. Hari trapped fish in a shallow lagoon while Pearl found a tree that had edible fruit.

The wind was easier the next day and blew them along. They stayed close to the coast, watching for places where they could camp and find more food. After four days, the hills, two green, one grey, raised their humps on the coastline. Hari made a wide loop out to sea so that no one at Saltport would notice their sail, and landed north of the hills at the place where he and Danatok had stopped after rescuing Tarl.

Pearl, he said, I don’t need you. I’ll go in alone.

Hari, she answered, I don’t need you. I’ll go in alone.

He grinned at her slowly, then laughed.

She frowned in reply. Don’t ever say anything like that again.

I’m sorry. And he was. The frown crease in her brow was a mark he had made. To underline his apology he said sorry again, out loud.

We should start now, she said. Get this salt inside, then get as far away as we can.

So they pushed the boat out from the beach and sailed along the shoreline of the nearer green hill. The tide was higher than when Danatok and Hari had come for Tarl. The sea on the north side of the grey hill was calm.

We’ll tie up where the cave comes out. I can’t swim with the box, it’ll drag me under.

Cliffs beetled over them, shining like coal. Pearl steered the boat in and jibed, and Hari jumped out and looped a rope around a horn of rock, leaving plenty of slack for the falling tide. If the wind turned and waves came up, the boat would be driven onto the rocks: it was a risk they had to take. She lowered the sail while he hauled up his pack and let water leak out of it. He put his hand inside to feel the box.

It’s still warm. He felt as if he had touched something alive.

Pearl took the half-burned torch from the locker and lit it from the tinder box. She thrust an unused torch into her belt. They climbed around the base of the rock hiding the cave, mounted blocks of stone and went into the jagged opening. At once they felt the touch of poisoned air, prickling yet soft.

This is why he didn’t want me to come, Pearl thought.

Let’s go fast.

Hari led, holding the torch, finding his way from a map unrolling like a parchment in his mind. They had not gone far when they heard a squeaking and shrieking like rusty doors. Eyes like red embers shone at them; wet grey snouts advanced to the edge of the light.

We’ll make a wall in front of us and keep pushing them back.

The mutant rats roiled and boiled. Pearl and Hari rolled them back like rubbish in front of a broom.

They’re hungry. They’re starving. They’ll start eating each other in a while, Hari said.

Soon he began walking slower and helping her less with the rats. She increased her pressure on them, although looking at them filled her with revulsion. Yet they would not have grown this way – naked, long furred, triple tailed – without the poison of the salt. They were twisted inside – and Ottmar wanted this twisting for his enemies. She felt a stronger revulsion for him than for the rats.

Hari?

I’m all right. This thing seems to weigh more and more.

We don’t need to go all the way.

There’s a side-cave near the light but not as close as I went last time. Danatok said there’s a pool of water at the back. It goes down and down. He tried it with a stone tied on a string and it never got to the bottom. I’m going to sink the box in there.

They went on. The rats retreated, somersaulting, squealing. Hari grew weaker. The lead box seemed to swell against his back and make a hissing sound between his shoulder blades. It almost seemed to whisper his name.

Be quiet, he whispered in reply.

How far now? Pearl said.

Not far.

The map in his mind was tearing down the middle, but he sensed, like a hidden room, the side-cave not far ahead. In a moment it opened in the torchlight. A rat that had turned in rushed out squealing. Hari kicked it away, then had no more strength. He leaned against the wall and let the torch droop.

Pearl snatched it. She scattered the rats with a cry of rage.

Hari, she cried, give me the box. Take it off.

He raised his head. Pearl, he said, Pearl.

What?

If I keep it, I can use it to frighten Ottmar.

He slid down the wall and sat on the ground.

I can use it against both sides and make them stop fighting.

No, Hari.

I can – No.

I want it, Pearl.

She saw rats creeping closer and blasted them back. She took the spare torch from her belt and lit it from Hari’s.

Then she said: Stand up, Hari.

No . . .

Stand up.

She used all her strength and saw his eyes glaze in the torchlight. Slowly he stood, sliding up the wall the way he had slid down. The pack scraped, and one of the straps unhitched from his shoulder.

Take it off. Give it to me.

Pearl. His voice came from far away, winding past obstructions, dragging a weight that strove to hold it back.

Hari, I’m not going to make you. You can give it to me yourself.

Pearl? he whispered again. It seemed like a question. Slowly, like an old man, he turned side on to her. He took the second strap from his shoulder and put the pack down on the floor.

‘Ha,’ he panted, ‘ha,’ as though finishing a race.

Thank you, Hari. Now hold the torch.

She put it in his hand, then picked up the feebly guttering one he had dropped. She took both straps of the pack and lifted it.

Keep the rats back.

She went into the side-cave. It turned left, then right, ending in a back-slanting wall. A pool of water no larger than the scented bath where her maids had soaped her gleamed like oil in the torchlight. Pearl approached, half-carrying, half-dragging the pack – and felt a tingling, worming thing inside her, at her spine, forcing its way up with a hissing that began far away, at the edge of sound, then darted at her ear and said: Keep me, Pearl.

She was enraged.

Get out, she cried, and hefted the pack one-handed, and looped it with a side-footed kick into the pool. It lay on the surface, belching air for a moment, then sank, and she pictured it going down and down, among deformed creatures, two-headed fish, and settling on the bottom where Ottmar would never find it, or Tarl, or Hari. Or Pearl.

The thing that had breathed her name was gone. It was in me, it was me, she thought. She ran back through the cave.

It’s gone, Hari, she cried.

She heard him sob. His mouth was open as though in grief. Yet he was standing, keeping the torch high. The rats milled and bit each other where the light grew dim.

Now let’s get out of here, she said.

I can’t, Hari said.

Hari. She pulled him.

I can’t. I’ve got to find if anyone’s alive.

She had not thought of that.

They won’t be.

We don’t know. If they are, we’ve got to get them out. We can’t leave them here.

The thought of going further terrified Pearl. She looked at the rats, which seemed to hump their backs and grow their snouts, and she doubted her strength to hold them back much longer.

The torches won’t last, she said.

Pearl, help me call them.

We don’t know their names. And if they answer, they can’t come to us through the dark. The rats will get them.

I want to call them, Pearl.

What shall we say?

Just, is anyone there?

So they tried, joining their voices and sending a silent cry into the darkness.

No one answered.

I’m trying to feel them, Hari said. He let his mind fly like a bat, but it flapped and circled in a green-lit cave he could only imagine, and nothing moved there, nothing breathed.

Help me, Pearl.

She tried.

Hari, they’re all dead, she said.

We’ve got to go round and open the door so they can come out.

It was Tarl he pictured – Tarl ragged, beaten, filthy, sick, feeling his way through the poisonous light.

All right, Pearl said. The iron door. We open the door. But Hari, come on. If we stay in this cave any longer we’re going to die.

They started back. The rats followed. Twice Pearl turned and drove them back like a wave sucked down a beach, but their claws scraped, their eyes advanced, their hungry chittering grew.

Pearl, we’re there. See, there’s a star.

They flung the torches at the rats and burst from the cave, breathing clean air at last. They jumped down the rocks and plunged into the sea, sank themselves, washed themselves, as the cave air bubbled out of their clothes. Then Hari untied the boat. They raised the sail and headed out to sea, as far away as they could get from the grey hill.

All I want to do is go to sleep, Hari said.

Me too.

After a while they pulled the sail down and let the boat drift. They lay wet and shivering, curled together for warmth, but slept all the same until dawn.

It took them most of the day to sail around the seaward hill and catch sight of Saltport again.

It looks deserted, Pearl said.

Ottmar’s taken all the men to fight in his war.

No, she said, there’s one. He’s coming out of that office on the wharf.

The man was a Whip. He aimed a bolt gun at them and fired, but the range was too great and the bolt hissed into the sea.

We’ll go round that headland, then walk back.

They sailed on south, and after a while the Whip turned and went into his office.

It still feels deserted, Pearl said. He might be the only one.

They hid the boat in mangroves up a muddy creek, then went into the hills until they found a freshwater stream trickling down. They drank and washed again. They still felt the salt poison on their skins.

We’re going to need more food soon, Pearl said.

Maybe we’ll find some in Saltport.

They kept close to the shoreline, although the farmhouses inland showed no sign of people. The outskirts of the town were empty too – empty houses, empty shops, an empty school. Nothing moved in the main street. Hari and Pearl advanced cautiously, feeling their way, but they found no life in Saltport until they reached the wharves. Two men sat on a bench, sharing a bottle of wine. Although they wore Whip uniforms, they were cadets, little more than boys.

Hari and Pearl crept away to the other side of the building and went along the wall to the wharf where the Whip had his office. The door was open and the man sat inside, holding a mutton bone in his fists and tearing lumps of meat off with his teeth. He dropped the bone when he saw Hari in the doorway.

Be still, Hari said.

The man froze halfway out of his chair.

Who are you? Hari said.

‘Corporal Tuck,’ said the man.

Who’s in charge here?

‘I am.’

Hari opened the man’s mind as if lifting a lid. How many men do you have?

‘Two.’

That’s all?

‘We had two platoons, but a ship came and took them for Ottmar’s army.’

Why is the town empty?

‘Everyone ran away. The men took their families and sneaked off in the night. South, they went, into the hills. They thought Ottmar would come back and take them to fight. The farmers went too. They took their sheep and cattle. There’s no one here.’

Where are the salt-mine workers?

‘There was no one to guard them. They ran into the mountains.’

Hari nodded. Most of the salt-mine workers were burrows-men. He hoped they would find their way back to the city.

How many men came out of Deep Salt?

‘Deep Salt?’ There was a stirring of something like pleasure in Corporal Tuck.

How many escaped from there?

‘No one escaped. They’re still inside.’

You left the door closed?

‘That was the order. Don’t open the door.’

So you’re still sending food and water in?

Corporal Tuck blinked, his eyes heavy, half alive. ‘No water. No food.’

You let them die?

‘My orders,’ Corporal Tuck said. ‘They were only slaves.

There are plenty more in the burrows.’

Hari, Pearl said, moving to his side.

Kill him, said a voice in Hari. It was his own.

No, he said. He picked it out of his head like a maggot and crushed it under his foot.

How long since the last food went in?

The corporal shook his head. ‘Long time. The day the men in lead suits came and took salt away.’

That long, Hari thought. So they’re dead.

‘I sent Fat and Candy to have a look. They said they heard voices calling out behind the door. When they went back – it was three or four days – there was nothing. They banged on the door, said they’d brought some roast beef and a keg of beer. Having a bit of fun. But no one answered. It’s no matter. They were slaves. And Ottmar’s clerk took away the keys anyway.’

Pearl put her hand on Hari’s arm.

I’m not going to hurt him, he said. But I don’t want to talk to him. You do the rest.

He set the man free. At once Tuck’s hand went to his bolt gun.

Be still, Tuck, Pearl said.

Ask him why he’s still here. There’s no need for guards in an empty town, Hari said.

Pearl asked.

‘To look after the cannon,’ Tuck said. ‘It was too big for the hold, so they left it. They’ll send a bigger ship when Ottmar needs it.’

Hari stepped forward: ‘Show me.’

They led Tuck out to the wharf.

First throw away your gun, Pearl said.

Tuck took it from its holster.

Into the sea, Pearl said.

He threw it, although he made a grieving sound.

Now show us the cannon.

It was in a shed – a bolt cannon, sitting on a flat-bed truck, with its batteries in a black case as tall as a man behind it.

‘Can you fire it?’ Hari said, still aloud. He did not want to go into the man’s mind.

‘Yes,’ Tuck said.

‘Then call your men.’

‘Fat, Candy, get your butts round here,’ Tuck bellowed.

Feet drummed on the boardwalk outside the building. The cadets skidded around the corner and stopped, looking at Tuck. Their hands, hesitating, went to their guns.