Authors: Maurice Gee
Dawn led them through the village. They gathered a train of Woodlanders, who touched Nick and Susan and called out their names wonderingly. Verna’s house was on the hill, where the creek broke from the valley. She waited by her door: an ancient Woodlander woman in the cloak of age and honour. She touched them with her dry hands, and led them into her house. She gave them food and drink and told them to rest before they talked. But they were too excited for that.
Susan said, ‘I knew another Verna once.’
The old Woodlander smiled. ‘She was my mother. She told me many tales of you.’
‘And your father …?’
‘He was Walt.’
‘Ah,’ Susan said. This world was the O she knew at last.
She told Verna how she had planted the seed and how the Shy had grown on Earth, and about their journey, how Limpy had led them down from the cave, and how the Stoneman Seeker had saved them. Then Verna told the lives of Brand and Breeze and Walt and Verna. And she told them how the Temple had begun. It was as Nick had guessed. There was a time of lawlessness after the Halves were in balance. Men seemed lost, they seemed to be waiting for someone to rule them. But some left the lowlands and settled in the forest, and others travelled north and south and set up villages on the coast and lived from fishing. They were the lucky ones. In the cities people starved and preyed on one another, and everywhere cults and superstitions grew up. Then one grew stronger than the others – the cult of Susan. It made a holy book, it set up rites and doctrines and invented enemies, and people flocked to it, and soon it ruled.
‘Who were the enemies?’
‘The Woodlanders. The Birdfolk. The Seafolk. All who were not human. It was never a religion of love. Hatred and power were its attractions. That way the people were kept in order. The Temple ruled.’
‘In my name,’ Susan whispered.
‘In your name.’
‘I must stop it. Soona dreamed I would face the High Priest.’
‘Yes. But listen. Once, long ago, Jimmy Jaspers came to Shady Home. I was a child, not five turns old. I remember him. An old man with a strange weapon, an axe. And he travelled with a Varg, the great blue bear that lives in the south.’
‘Blue?’
‘Sometimes he is blue and sometimes white, as the sun shines on his fur when he moves. Jimmy Jaspers stayed with Brand and Breeze, and the Varg lay sleeping at the door. They stayed one night. When morning came Jimmy Jaspers lifted me up and sat me on the bear’s back for a moment. I have never forgotten. Then he said goodbye and went away south, and he was never seen in Wildwood again. But Susan, he left something for you.’
‘He knew I would come?’
‘He must have known.’ She went to a little alcove by her bed and felt in it and came back with a small wooden box. ‘I have never opened this. Brand and Breeze left it with my mother and she with me.’ She put the box on the table. ‘Now it is yours.’
Susan looked at it. There was no ornamentation. It was the size of a lunch box, with a hasp of twig. She shifted it into a patch of sun. Nick came to her side.
‘Open it.’
The hinges creaked a little. When the sunlight reached inside they saw a roll of parchment in the box. It was mottled grey and brown and tied with plaited flax. Susan lifted it out. ‘Nick, this is nearly a hundred years old.’ The flax broke in her fingers and the parchment crackled as she opened it. They held it flat on the table and looked at the pale marks on it.
‘A letter, Nick. It’s a letter from Jimmy.’
Deer Susan and deer Nick,
I’m not much good at letters but heer goes. I just cum up from Darkland by the citty theer and sum funny things is hapnin I can tell you. Theers sum geezers cashin in on what you dun yung Susie. They reckin your pritty speshul well you are but not that way. Bad times is cummin thats for sure. Odo Cling was a boy scowt compeered with sum of these blokes.
I dont go much on dreems but I had wun the uther nite. I reckin its becorse Im frends with Ben. We got a way of talkin him and me. Anyway I dreemed that you was cummin back to O. And I seen that youd be needin me and Ben. So wen you get heer cum and get me. It dont matter how much times gone by. Ill be down south at Mount Nickolis. Wen you get theer arsk the Vargs weer to go. Dont let them sceer you theyr not as bad as they look. Tell them who you are. Just sort of make a pickture in your hed.
Thats enuff. This writins bloddy hard werk.
Love. Jimmy.
P.S. Dont go tryin to do nuthin without me. I saw in me dreem that Id be theer. Wissel me fayvrit tune wen you cum.
‘He named a mountain after me,’ Nick said.
‘Ben must be the bear. Was that his name, Verna?’
‘That was it.’
‘Read the letter out,’ Limpy said.
Susan read, and when it was finished he said, ‘It was a hundred turns ago. I don’t see what good it does us now.’
‘We’ve got to trust Jimmy. He says it doesn’t matter how much time’s gone by.’
‘He’s dead,’ Limpy said. ‘Unless he went to Earth, like you.’
‘We’ve got to go and find out,’ Nick said. ‘And I want to see Mount Nicholas.’
‘My sister will be dead by the time you get back.’
‘How many days have we got?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘We can do it. If there’s a chance of finding Jimmy we’ve got to take it.’
‘What chance is there?’
‘Verna …?’
‘You must trust him. If he dreamed he would be there then he’ll be there. He dreamed you would be coming back, remember.’
‘Yes. Limpy, will you come? Please. We need you. We’ll save your sister, I promise you.’
‘You must travel into the land of the Birdfolk,’ Verna said. ‘If I send a messenger they will be ready to help you. You will be at Mount Nicholas in five days.’
It took them a while to persuade Limpy, but when he had agreed Verna sent out the messenger. She rolled the parchment and tied it with new cord. ‘There is something else in the box. You did not take it.’
They looked where she was pointing, in the corner. Nick thought it was a pebble, but Susan knew at once what it was. She picked it up reverently. ‘My stone-silk gloves.’ She rolled them out and smoothed them on the table. ‘I gave them to Brand. He’s given them back.’
‘He must have thought you would need them,’ Verna said.
Susan drew the gloves on. She felt them enclosing her hands, fitting like skin, and she shivered as she remembered her climb across the stone ceiling in Otis Claw’s throne-hall. Nick ran outside and brought in a stone. She held it in her hand, then turned the hand over. The stone remained where it was, fixed on the silk.
Let go
, Susan thought; and the stone fell. Quietly she peeled off the gloves and rolled them up. She put them in her pocket.
‘Thank you, Verna. I’ll look after them.’
‘Use them to pull the Temple down.’
‘Yes,’ Susan said. But the thought of Jimmy gave her more confidence than the gloves. If somehow Jimmy was alive, she would manage. If he was not … She would not let herself think about it.
They slept that night in Verna’s house. Susan dreamed of great white bears, and climbing, and falling, and a figure that would not come out of the shadows. Was it Jimmy? Or was it a priest, dressed all in black? In the morning they changed their clothes for Woodlander cloaks. They said goodbye to Verna and shouldered their blankets and packs of food and started out. Dawn was their guide. She would travel to Mount Nicholas with them.
They went south and east through the forest and climbed through the hills cutting Wildwood off from the Yellow Plains. At midday on the second day they filed through a pass and saw the plains burning white in the sun. Far north, beyond the dust and haze, lay Morninghall and Mount Morningstar. But they were going south, across the tundra to the frozen tip of the continent where a block of mountains stood against the sky. They saw a white gleaming in the cold air, and turned towards it, travelling along the side of the hills, then breaking down into a plateau above the plain. Rivers tumbled from it but they turned their backs on them and pressed on south. The land rose gradually, covered with spiky grass and trees lying close to the ground, smoothed into cobblestones by the wind. They made their evening camp in a hollow. Nick and Susan lay in their blankets watching the strange constellations and inventing names for them. Then Limpy told their real names, and Dawn pointed out a yellow star Woodlanders said was the sun of Earth. ‘Children sometimes call it Susan’s star.’
Limpy shivered. ‘The priests would say that was heresy.’
‘And they would kill these friends who come to help us,’ Dawn said. She pointed in the northern sky and they saw a flickering on the field of stars. Limpy cried out, but she said, ‘It is Birdfolk coming to our fire.’ She threw dry branches on it, making it flare. Soon they heard the beating of wings, and out beyond the light a voice cried sternly, ‘You are in our land. Say your names.’
Susan stood in the firelight. ‘We are Susan Ferris and Nicholas Quinn. And Dawn the Woodlander. And Limpy from Stonehaven.’ She grew aware of shapes wheeling round the hollow, round and round, a giant circle, closing in. Their wind lifted her hair and flapped her cloak. The fire flattened out and sent flames darting at her legs. Then the Birdfolk landed, with a leathery flap and a creaking of bones. They stood beyond the firelight, ten dark figures ranged about the hollow like stone angels. One of them came forward and colour seemed to burst from him – from wings and breast and legs. He was red and gold. A second followed – a Birdwoman, green and blue and silver.
‘Your messenger reached us,’ the Birdman said. ‘But it is past belief Susan should come. A hundred turns have passed.’
‘I am Susan. Only a year has gone by for me.’
‘Show me the Mark.’
Susan put her arm out and he looked hard at her birthmark. ‘It proves nothing,’ he said to the Birdwoman. ‘Human girls burn this mark on them.’
The Birdwoman came close and looked in Susan’s eyes. ‘If you are Susan, tell me the gift my ancestor gave you. Tell me her name.’
‘Her name was Brightfeather. She was the daughter of Redwing and Wanderer. She gave me a brush for my hair. And I lost it on the Lizard Path, when the Bloodcat chased us.’
‘What was the colour of the feather you chose?’
‘Red and blue. Brightfeather dried my clothes for me. She nearly lost one of my socks.’
The Birdwoman laughed and said to her mate, ‘Only Susan would know that.’
‘Yes. You are Susan. Welcome to our land again. Welcome, Nick. And your friends. I am Yellowclaw.’
‘And I am Silverwing,’ the Birdwoman said. ‘We come from Morninghall. And our friends are from other Halls of our land. We fly the borders, on patrol, to keep out priests. But tell us why you have come back.’
‘We’re looking for Jimmy Jaspers. He left a letter for us saying he’d be at Mount Nicholas.’
‘Jimmy Jaspers? The one the priests call the Terrible One? He came to us, many turns ago. A hundred turns. He told us what you had done. And he forged a weapon in our workshops – an axe. He wore your feather at his throat. Red and blue.’
‘I gave it to him. It belonged on O.’
‘It was well given. But surely he is dead now. No one lives so long.’
Susan told them about the letter. They nodded their heads wisely. Wonders were not unknown on O. And she told them she meant to destroy the Temple.
‘Yes, it is evil. Priests come over the passes and shoot us from the sky with their cross-bows. And we cannot follow when they run back to their land. The Prohibition holds. We cannot fly west or south of the mountains, we tumble from the sky. So the Temple goes on.’
‘I’m going to stop the Temple. That’s why I’m back. To see this High Priest. But first we’ve got to get to Mount Nicholas.’
‘We’ll take you as far as we can. The messenger told us to bring nests. Remember Susan, how Wanderer carried you in a nest?’
She remembered, and warm in her blankets, by the fire, with Birdfolk sleeping like tall statues, she remembered the flight; and half awake, half sleeping, imagined she was making it again, but this time to Mount Nicholas, far away in the south, where Jimmy was waiting.
In the morning they saw the Birdfolk properly. There were ten of them, eight giant warriors, standing three metres tall, and two Birdwomen. In the dawn sunlight their colours gleamed. Silverwing was the most beautiful, Susan thought. She looked as if she had been cast in some shining metal, then studded with sapphires and greenstone and lapis lazuli.
When they had eaten and put their gear in their packs they climbed into the down-lined nests Yellowclaw and the warrior birds had brought. They were used for carrying young before they could fly and were more like shopping bags than anything else, Susan thought. She made herself comfortable, with only her head peering out, and watched while the others climbed into theirs – Nick with a grin, Limpy nervously. The Birdman carrying Nick would need to be strong. He had grown a lot, and looked twice as heavy as Limpy. Dawn, light as an elf, would be no trouble.
The unladen Birdfolk sprang into the air and beat their way up easily, leaving the four with the nests labouring and creaking. But they won height gradually and set their heads at the distant south. Behind, the plains lay in a haze, like a yellow puddle, and the western hills and the tongue of forest beyond made strips of dark brown and dark green, and the sea stretched endlessly, silver and white. The land rose ahead, climbing in easy steps, with creeks wandering down, marked as though in snail-slime, and waterfalls brushed-in, and hollow lakes and black thorn groves. Far ahead the tip of the continent gleamed like a cloud.
The Birdfolk took turns carrying, and for two days they flew south. They beat into a wind off the mountains. At night Nick and Susan slept by the fire, and the Birdfolk came close, fluffing out their feathers. They huddled shoulder to shoulder like love-birds on a perch.
‘Tomorrow you will see Mount Nicholas,’ Silverwing said.
‘But we must stop before we get so far,’ Yellowclaw said. ‘We will set you down at the pass. Then you must go down, and climb the glacier on the other side. But through the pass it is Varg country.’