The Equen Queen (5 page)

Tab opened her mouth, ready to explain to the Chief Navigator that she couldn't use her special mind-melding ability right now, but she remembered how difficult it had been to convince Stelka that she had the ability in the first place. Besides, the Chief Navigator was already sweeping towards the small craft. Tab slipped into the sky-trader's vessel behind the other magicians and they were away, drifting over the expanse between the two cities.

The clouds beneath them resembled fields of fresh snow. They looked solid, as though you could bounce on them and they would be soft, like a princess's bed, but when they passed through one it was just ordinary, everyday fog.

Seeing the clouds reminded her of the dream from the night before. The boy on the rope was the same colour as the equens she had seen. She tried to recall more about the dream, but the closer they got to the city the louder the fuzz inside her head grew. It was grating, as though someone was rubbing sandpaper inside her brain, but she tried to stay still and not draw attention to herself, so the sky-traders wouldn't notice when she slipped away.

The sunlight passing through the burgundy sails above cast an eerie pinkish glow over the streets. Rather than blocks of stone or bricks, the buildings seemed to be made from sheets of a much smoother material. Some of the buildings were dome-shaped and others pyramids. Tab peered through the childsized doorways and saw sky-traders at work – making objects, resting, cooking. She only saw a few skytraders out and about.

Above the narrow laneways were footbridges, so low that Stelka and her navigators had to crouch to get beneath them. Tab stayed at the back of the group and at one of the footbridges there was a side alley. She ducked behind a post, pretending to be curious about one of the buildings in case she was spotted. She waited until she heard Stelka's voice fade away in the distance.

It was easy to know which way to go. Tab followed the buzzing in her head as it changed pitch. At the end of the alley she turned right, then left, then right again. She saw two sky-traders heading her way and ducked into one of the dome-shaped buildings. It was stacked high with bolts of fabric – an easy place to hide.

After the sky-traders passed she followed a few more alleys until she found an odd contraption at the base of a mast that she had never seen before. After experimenting with it for a while she could see that it ran on a counterweight system, similar to the one that operated the portcullis on Quentaris's City Gate. The small platform would carry you up the mizzenmast, past the next level of lanes, and on up to the crossjack.

She pushed the lever and headed up to the next storey. Here the buzzing in her head was much louder, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain as the platform rose up. She stepped out and followed the ache over the footbridge. She stumbled along until she reached a door. Tab pressed her hand against the door, and the ache in her head thrummed.

Stepping back she looked up at the pyramid-shaped building. There was an opening about halfway up. If she climbed up there she would be able to see inside. She would have to be quick. Although there weren't many sky-traders in the streets, there were others in the rigging and it was only a matter of time before one of them looked down and saw her spying. Tab shimmied up as quietly as she could. She gripped the edge of the window, feeling all the muscles in her shoulders straining.

Inside three sky-trader magicians sat cross-legged on the floor. Between them was a metal tray full of coloured sand. One drew symbols in the sand with her fingers, while the others chanted incantations.

Tab felt her hand slip. Her other hand shook with the strain of holding her whole weight. Her foot thumped against the side of the building as she struggled to hang on. One of the magicians looked around, her concentration broken.

Tab gasped. All at once her head was filled with a sound, but it wasn't sound exactly. She let go and slid down the side of the pyramid, arms flailing. At the bottom she somersaulted twice and thumped against the base of the building opposite. Dizzy and disoriented, she crawled into a narrow space behind a nearby footbridge pylon.

One of the magicians came to the doorway, looking up and down the street.

Tab curled up into a tight ball, covering her ears with her hands. Sorrow flooded through her. It was as though the emotion was a solid thing pressing against her, and making it hard to breathe.

It reminded Tab of a feeling she had a long time ago when she had a toothache that throbbed and reverberated through her head. It gave her a fever. She had been delirious and in such pain that she hadn't been able to think of anything else. She had thought it would never end. Tab would have cut off her own head if she had thought it would have made the pain stop.

Then the magician disappeared. Soon Tab could hear the murmur of their chant begin again and the sensation went away, replaced again by the buzzing, rubbing sandpaper feeling.

Tab realised it was the sky-trader magicians who were blocking her ability, and no wonder, after what she had felt. She was about to slide out of her hideyhole when she heard muffled voices approaching.

‘… don't seem to have any uniform discipline programs for their children, schools or military training,’ a voice was saying. ‘The guilds are divided. They will be easy to subdue. The damnable thing is that they were telling the truth about their resources. Quentaris has nothing of value to us.’

‘It will be best to offload as many of the gems as we can and move on. The Loraskians are hard on our heels,’ another voice added. They sounded familiar to Tab.

‘I agree,’ said the first. ‘The Loraskians should be happy to find their useless gems here. They won't follow us once they find them in Quentaris. It will be a relief to have them off our tail.’

Tab risked a peek. It was Captain Kel, only now he didn't look so friendly.

‘It's much better to offload them in the city than on the world below. The distraction should give us time to skip through two vortexes at least.’

‘Oh, there is one thing of interest. Quentaris has a dragon,’ said the other sky-trader, who Tab couldn't see.

‘Is that so?’ replied Kel. He grunted. ‘Dragons aren't the easiest things in the worlds to move. Have you seen it yourself ?’

‘Not yet, but it is a female.’

‘You should check that situation …’ Then the voices trailed away.

Melprin! Tab thought. She hadn't seen her dragon friend for a long time. Last she had checked Melprin was hibernating in one of the towers. How did the sky-traders find out about her?

As soon as it was safe Tab rushed along the alleyways heading back the way she had come.

Stelka's instinct was right – and Verris's too. If only she could get the council to listen to her and work together. She thought about the streets of Quentaris thick with sky-traders. And those stupid mood stones. They were everywhere! Tab reached into her pocket, feeling her own mood stone nestled there. Now some angry Loraskians were coming to collect them. Who knew how dangerous they were? Tab had to hurry. There was so much to do. It may be too late already!

Drass Nibhelline thumped the table. ‘We've only just started negotiations! And it's not just this business – who knows who these people know? We could be shunned from world after world, and where will that leave us? Is this child going to fix it when we're all starving?’

‘Are
you’
? Storm challenged.

Florian said, ‘Drass is right. First we listened to this girl because she could supposedly talk to animals, and now we're listening to her because she can't. Verris, you set too much store in this …’ He waved his arm Tab's way. ‘Rift child! What if she's wrong?’

Verris ignored Florian, directing his comment to Drass.
‘You
set too much upon the weight of your purse. What if she's right?’

Tab shifted in her chair, wondering if she had made a mistake telling the council about the conversation she had overheard. Maybe she should have tried to sort it out just with her friends. She'd told the council members about the threat, but she had managed to keep the part about Melprin private.

Tab's instinct was that, with adequate warning, the dragon would be able to look after herself. Warning her was the first thing Tab would do once she got out of here, but it was taking forever! It would be dark by the time she left this chamber.

Why was it that the council wanted to talk about things over and over? It seemed to Tab the more important they thought they were, the more talking they wanted to do. Couldn't they just get on with it?

Drass snorted. ‘Has anyone else met anything other than charm and good humour from these sky-traders? Don't you think we should verify these allegations before we act on them?’

‘I have a bad feeling about them. Aside from what Tab has told us, it's nothing I can quantify,’ Stelka confessed.

‘Mere snobbery!’ Florian sneered.

Stelka's eyes burned. ‘You're a fine one. He who can't help telling all and sundry about the colour of his blood.’

Florian lifted his chin defiantly, but he didn't answer back. For a moment the chamber was silent, aside from the crackling of the timber in the grand fireplace that did little to warm the room.

‘Watch yourself, Florian,’ Verris said with a glint in his eye. ‘You might find yourself smote, and you've not proved yourself worthy of sparing, apart from the colour of your blood, of course.’

Many members of the council chuckled behind their hands.

‘Let's all just calm down,’ Storm said. ‘It seems to me the only problem we have is these.’ She rolled a mood stone across the table. ‘We have no further obligations to the sky-traders. We taught them sports, as agreed. I say we pack up our toys and say goodbye. We dump these stones on the first world we find, and carry on. Tab said that we don't have anything that they want. They should have no problem with us leaving. Isn't that right, Tab?’

Tab bit her lip and nodded. ‘May I be excused?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘No!’ Florian snapped.

‘We don't need to dump the gems, surely!’ Drass protested. ‘These Loraskians might be pipsqueaks! Why are we listening to this girl?’

Tab sighed. Here we go. Back to the beginning again!

Verris took pity on her. ‘You can go. Rest. Have something to eat, but don't go far. We'll call for you if you're needed.’

Tab smiled gratefully as she slipped out of her chair. She was tired, and she would get something to eat just as soon as she had seen Melprin.

She ran across the square. There were still skytraders sitting in the street stalls playing joy tiles and sharing a drink and a meal with Quentarans who were oblivious to the danger they were in.

Tab dashed down the alleyways skidding around corners, ducking past carts and crates as shopkeepers stacked away their wares or craftspeople took new inventory.

She reached the tower. Round and round she climbed. Every dozen steps there was a narrow opening in the wall that looked out between the rigging over the city. Through one of these openings Tab saw a group of roofies sitting cross-legged. A slender man had a lute and was singing a sweet tune, while the others swayed in time.