The Princess and the Captain (25 page)

The twins let out a cry. Catabea's mouth opened, and jets of grey vapour swirled from it again, hissing, leaving the passengers on the
Fabula
pale with amazement.

‘So that is your decision!' cried the creature. ‘Then here is our Law!'

The mists surrounding her began to disperse and then, with a slow movement, she brought something out from the folds of her tunic and showed it to them.

‘This is a Nokros, a Killer of Time. Look at it carefully, for it will accompany you as you cross the Archipelago.'

The Nokros looked like a very large hourglass: two glass halves connected to each other by a narrow metal neck. On top of it was a clear alembic filled with red liquid.

‘This alembic contains morbic acid. It will flow through, drop by drop, until …'

Here Catabea broke off, and brought a brown stone out of the folds of her tunic. She showed it to the passengers on board the
Fabula
.

‘Is obsilix!' said Lei in amazement. ‘Very rare stone. I think it found only in core of volcanoes.'

‘It is indeed an obsilix,' Catabea replied. ‘More often called the Stone of Life! This mineral is so hard that it can resist molten lava.'

She disconnected the alembic, put the Stone of Life down in front of her, and let a little of the red acid trickle on it. At once the stone split in two. It smoked, blistered, and then, before the astonished eyes of the survivors of the wreck, fell to dust. Her
demonstration over, Catabea put the alembic back in its place and said, ‘There are eight of you. I will place eight Stones of Life in the upper part of the Nokros. Each of them will symbolise one member of your crew.'

In spite of the vapours that kept swirling around Catabea, Malva could see her manipulating the fragile Nokros. The tree-like woman's hands worked painfully slowly, but with surprising precision considering their size. She picked up the Stones of Life and put them in the upper glass compartment before screwing the alembic back on, without showing the slightest hesitation.

‘There,' she said at last, raising the large hourglass. ‘The eight Stones are in place. Soon a drop of morbic acid will fall on the first. The work of destruction will begin, and no one will be able to stop it until all the stones are reduced to powder. The powder will then fall into the lower part of the Nokros. When nothing is left of the eight Stones your time has run out.'

The passengers on the
Fabula
exchanged blank glances. Orpheus bit his lip before asking, ‘And what happens when that moment comes?'

‘There are two possibilities,' replied Catabea. ‘Either you have failed, in which case you will be thrown into the Immuration. Or you have succeeded, and then you can leave the Archipelago. But as I told you, no one, no ship's crew, has ever succeeded.'

‘Succeeded in what?' cried Finopico. ‘I don't understand a word of all this!'

Catabea approached the ship. She looked hard at the cook with her misty eyes, and when she opened her mouth Finopico was immersed in a cloud of vapour, and began coughing.

‘Be wise, hot-tempered Galnician!' she told him. ‘I know your irascible, hasty temperament. I know what obsesses you, for I know everything about you.'

‘This is gobbledygook!' gasped Finopico, brushing the vapours away with the back of one hand. ‘What are we to succeed in doing?'

‘What indeed!' smiled the Guardian of the Archipelago. ‘You must succeed in satisfying your wildest and most secret desires.'

Turning her head slowly, she looked hard into the eyes of Orpheus, Malva, Lei and all the others in turn.

‘I know your stories! I know your vulnerable points! You all have profound dreams, terrible flaws, devouring ambitions! You are never satisfied with your lot.'

Malva shivered. Every word that Catabea spoke seemed as barbed as an arrow, and each arrow found its target. The prophetess stopped in front of Zeph, who was still lying flat on deck with his nose between his paws.

‘Even dogs have their secrets!' she said. ‘Here in the Archipelago you will find the vast mirror which reflects your desires and fears, your dreams and nightmares. That mirror grows larger or smaller by virtue of those passing over it. It is always changing shape. Every day new islands appear or are submerged. I myself don't know their exact number. They are welcoming or dangerous, light or dark, humid or arid, deserted or over-populated, but there is a treasure hidden on each one.'

As she spoke and vapours poured from her mouth, Catabea swayed her enormous arms as if in time to some inaudible music. Her hair, thick, bushy and ashen, shook whenever she moved her head, and the trees on the hills of the island bowed or raised their tops to the same rhythm. Catabea
was
the island.

‘This is what our Law demands,' she continued. ‘In crossing the Archipelago you must succeed in fulfilling yourselves. As you sail our sea, you will be confronted with yourselves, and you
must fight your own worst terrors. If you refuse to face the ordeals waiting for you, you are lost. There will be nothing left for you but to be cast into the Immuration.'

Catabea went towards Orpheus, raised her enormous, rugged arms and handed him the Nokros over the ship's rail.

‘Captain, I entrust the Killer of Time to you. It takes the morbic acid two days to dissolve a Stone of Life. You will be responsible for the Nokros throughout the sixteen days allotted to you. If you or one of your companions should try to interrupt the process, sentence will be carried out at once. Take good care of this instrument.'

Orpheus felt cold sweat break out on his forehead. He took the Nokros in his damp hands and then, without taking his eyes off the acid in the alembic, put it down on deck and wedged it against the mast. Meanwhile Catabea had turned to the Princess and was inspecting her closely. Several clouds of vapour steamed from her mouth.

‘I should warn you, young Princess, of the danger that threatens you in particular. Another ship has come ashore here. No doubt you heard the two horn calls: each signalled that a visitor had just crossed the Great Barrier. This solitary visitor was on board a Cispazian ship, but he spoke Galnician, your language. He has made the same choice as you, preferring to risk the Immuration rather than remain a prisoner of the Archipelago. I have probed his soul. I found nothing there but hatred, and that hatred is for you.'

Malva started in alarm, her face turning pale.

‘The Archont … the Archont is here?'

Catabea's tree-trunk body swayed back and forth in assent.

‘But that's impossible!' cried Hob. ‘We shut him up in Temir-Gai's harem!'

‘Locked in a small room,' Peppe agreed. ‘And the fire spread so fast! How could he possibly have –'

‘I know everything that happens in my Archipelago,' Catabea interrupted him, ‘but nothing of what goes on outside it.'

She stepped slowly back.

‘Now I must go, and you must leave this shore. The morbic acid is already beginning to work … look!'

Inside the Nokros, the first stone was smoking slightly. Little blisters appeared on its surface.

‘Do not lose a moment!' Catabea advised. ‘Sixteen days, don't forget. That is our Law.'

And with these words she turned and made slowly for the forest.

‘Oh, please don't leave us!' cried Malva, flinging herself forward and clutching the rail with all her might. ‘We have more questions to ask you!'

But Catabea was relentlessly moving away. Her cavernous voice was already fainter.

‘There will be hidden treasures to be unearthed on as many islands as you like, strangers. Above all, be true to yourselves! Then perhaps you will find the gateway of the Archipelago.' She made a final gesture with her enormous arms. ‘And now, leave.'

Her hoarse voice suddenly stopped. Total silence descended upon the island.

Then everything happened very fast: small waves made the
Fabula
pitch, waves going the wrong way, starting from the shore and rolling out to sea. All at once, to the utter amazement of the crew, foaming breakers swept the ship away from Catabea's island. Its outline became blurred, and then completely invisible. The trees, the rocks, everything had disappeared.

Stunned, the members of the crew gathered around the
Nokros. A second drop of red acid was forming at the opening of the alembic.

‘What does all this mean?' Finopico suddenly exploded. ‘I didn't understand a word of it! A mirror, islands appearing and disappearing! Hidden treasures! Personally I don't mind digging, but where? I see no land in sight anywhere on the horizon!'

‘Catabea speak in riddle,' Lei said. ‘Treasures perhaps not really exist. She mean treasures hidden inside us.'

The twins knelt down in front of the Nokros.

‘Captain,' murmured Hob, ‘tell us what to do.'

‘We don't want to die,' said Peppe. ‘We're too young.'

They turned their distressed faces towards Orpheus. ‘We don't want to be thrown into the Immuration!' they groaned in chorus.

Orpheus sighed, at a loss. Catabea was going to put them to the test, but he had no idea in what way. All he could see was that the
Fabula
needed repairs, and its crew was in danger of dying from hunger and thirst.

At that moment, inside the Nokros, the next drop of morbic acid fell on the Stone of Life and dug a small, smoking crater in it. Everyone jumped.

‘We must find an island where we can take on provisions,' said Orpheus in a sombre voice. ‘That's all that matters for the moment.'

The sun had reached its height, and didn't seem to want to move on. It hung above the
Fabula
like a huge lamp fixed in the sky by invisible divinities. For a very long time, no one knew what to say, what to do, even what to think. Each of them felt the crushing weight of fate on their shoulders, while the Nokros mercilessly marked the passing of seconds, minutes, hours …

The
Fabula
went with the current, obeying its whims. No one troubled to steer it any particular way, and anyway, which way would they go? Without a map, without a compass, in an Archipelago of changing dimensions, no sailor, not even the most experienced old salt, could get his bearings.

So the ship drifted aimlessly, delivered up to the currents of this strange sea, which was soon covered with a thick layer of slimy seaweed. The
Fabula
slowed down. The seaweed sucked at the hull like leeches, clinging so tenaciously to the stern and the fallen rigging trailing aft that at last the ship came to a halt, mired in a green mush that now stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was getting hotter and hotter. A fetid smell rose to the nostrils of the
Fabula
's crew.

‘What's going on?' asked Finopico, leaning over the side. ‘It's as if the sea were rotting.'

A shiver passed through Orpheus, and he felt the bitter taste of fear and thirst combined in his mouth. It wasn't a sea that he saw around him any more; it was a puddle of murky mud, vast and hopeless.

‘Captain!' groaned Hob. ‘I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!'

‘Do something!' begged Peppe.

Orpheus turned round slowly, as if his mind and body were caught in the seaweed too. The twins were lying on deck beside the old St Bernard, who was panting painfully. Malva and Lei, seated on a sea chest, were staring into space with their arms dangling. Only Finopico and Babilas were still on their feet. They stood side by side, eyes lowered, hands clutching the rail. Orpheus ran his tongue over his lips, which were dry with sun and salt. He saw the day of his departure again, the day when he saw the coasts of his own country recede, and felt proud and impatient. Hadn't he sworn then to win back the lost honour of the McBotts? Hadn't he made a thousand promises of glory and adventure to himself?

‘And look at me now!' he murmured.

A sudden pain shot right through his head. He raised a trembling hand to his brow. The memory of his father's face on his deathbed surfaced in his mind, and he thought of the injury which he had been led to believe he'd suffered from since childhood. Was it opening up again?

‘No!' he cried out loud.

His companions jumped. Slowly they turned their dull, hollow eyes towards him. Orpheus sensed that they were
abandoning themselves to the putrefaction all around them, were simply letting themselves die. Panic suddenly took hold of him.

‘Babilas!' he shouted, making for the giant where he leaned listlessly on the rail. ‘Stand up straight! Come on! We have to get out of here. I need your strength, Babilas!'

When the giant still did not react, Orpheus shook Finopico. The cook swayed where he stood and fell to the deck like a broken puppet, his eyes reflecting nothing but the dismal sky.

‘Hey!' Orpheus tried provoking him, putting his face close to the cook's. ‘You promised to catch us fish, Finopico! Go on, dive in! Dive in and bring us back something to eat!'

Finopico did not reply. His chest was rising and falling in time with his breathing, but his strength had gone.

‘Princess!' called Orpheus.

Turning away from Finopico, he went towards Malva. She was still sitting on the sea chest, one shoulder leaning on Lei, but her eyes were lifeless. Orpheus knelt down in front of her and took her hands. They were cold as death.

‘Princess, speak to me! Say something! Just a word, by Holy Tranquillity!'

To his dismay, not a sound passed her lips. As for Lei, she had slipped into a profound slumber. It was no good for Orpheus to plead with her, shake her – nothing worked. He tried the twins, drew them towards him, shouted their names, threatened and cajoled them, with no result. They too had been overcome by the morbid languor that had drained them of any wish to live.

‘We're not going to die here,' muttered Orpheus, casting the Nokros a panic-stricken glance.