Maddigan's Fantasia, page 16
There was a silence.
‘I can’t,’ said Boomer.
‘Why not?’ Garland called again. ‘You can hear me, can’t you?’
‘I can see something you can’t see,’ he replied in a quavering voice.
At that moment a mocking breeze pushed in at them from nowhere. The steam around them bowed and curtseyed and shifted as if it were the curtain in a wild theatre. And there, the solitary actor on a savage stage, stood Boomer on an island in the middle of a small sea of boiling water and mud. The sulphurous smell in the air around them grew stronger and stronger.
‘How are we going to get you over here?’ asked Timon.
‘I was wondering that,’ Boomer replied.
Rags of steam were now blowing away and dissolving around them. The eruption such as it was seemed to be over. And now they could see that they were, each of them, marooned on rocks in a sea of simmering mud. And staring out across the mud Garland saw something else.
‘Look!’ she called, and even Boomer briefly forgot his danger as he stared in the direction in which she was pointing. There on a distant hillside they could see trees and among the trees the roof of house, And over there beyond the mud, just where the grasses took over again, she could make out the broken remains of a track, leading towards that distant hill.
‘Yeah, right! But how do we get onto that track?’ asked Boomer shrinking back as the mud bubbled and spat at him. Garland looked at Timon and saw that he, too, was looking unsure of himself.
‘Is it often like this?’ he asked.
‘Not often, but there are places that are famous for being sort of volcanic,’ Garland said. ‘Listen! In your time do they still play pekapeka?’
‘What?’ Timon asked, wrinkling his forehead.
‘Pekapeka!’ You can’t. It’s too dangerous!’ Boomer yelled.
‘It’s dangerous to stay where we are,’ Garland said. ‘We’ve got to try. And we’ve got to be very careful. It goes like this,’ she told Timon. Then she leapt from the safety of her rock to another rough stony surface sticking out above the mud a little to her left. She leapt again to yet another rock and then to another. It wobbled madly. Garland couldn’t help crying out in fear, flinging out her arms as she wobbled along with the rock below her. The mud steamed and seemed to lap up the rock trying to cover her shoes. But she got her balance again and leapt onwards, rock to rock, rock to rock until she reached the path. Turning, she saw Timon close behind her. Boomer hesitated.
‘I don’t want to,’ he said.
‘It’s just a game,’ Garland told him. ‘Well, imagine it is. Imagine it’s just a game.’
‘I hate imagining,’ whined Boomer. ‘You know that.’
‘But we have to check out Pokka’s Theory,’ Garland said. ‘We have to save the sick ones back there. There’s no one here to save us, so we have to save ourselves. Look! There’s a good rock quite close to you. Turn around carefully though.’
Boomer took a deep breath turned, leapt and landed … then leapt and landed again. Suddenly he seemed to be almost enjoying his game of pekapeka. He flung his arms up … flung them wide.
‘Ahhhhhhh!’ he shouted, leaping a last leap and landing safely on the track beside them.
15
The Apothecary’s Nidus
Wild bush advanced to meet them. They followed the track towards it, then pushed through leafy branches which bent obediently before them, then closed up after them.
‘Perhaps that house is actually up in the trees,’ said Garland, guessing as she scrambled. ‘If nidus does mean nest that is. Nests are mostly in trees. Of course kingfishers nest in little tunnels in banks …’
She stopped.
‘Go on!’ said Boomer, pushing impatiently at her back. ‘What is it? Let me see.’ Garland moved on through the branches and Boomer followed. Then the three of them stood in a row, staring at what was in front of them … the house … the ruined house.
At last Timon slowly walked forward. ‘Well, here it is. I suppose,’ he said, sounding rather uncertain. ‘At least it isn’t up a tree.’
‘There are a lot of ruined houses,’ said Garland, afraid to hope that they had actually found what they were looking for, but Timon half-turned towards her, pointing out a faded notice hanging down across the porch. The words were largely undecipherable but if your head already had possible words in it, you could make out the word ‘Nidus’ cut into the crumbling wood.
‘Come on,’ said Timon. ‘I mean we’ve got this far so let’s go.’ And they cautiously climbed the rotting front steps (shifting uneasily under their weight) and crossed the porch leaving footprints behind them. Garland pushed the front door and the whole door immediately tumbled inward.
‘We’ll have to be careful,’ said Boomer. ‘This whole place could fall in on us.’
‘Clever of you to notice,’ said Timon. ‘Bright boy! Big brain.’
Trying to make themselves weigh as little as possible they edged, one by one, into the room beyond the door and stared around incredulously. The walls, still standing, were set with shelf upon shelf, and the shelves were crowded with bottles, jars, tins and crumbling boxes, all labelled. There was one shelf that had collapsed and underneath it lay a pile of books. Timon moved carefully to stare down at the tattered pages while Garland studied the tins and bottles and boxes.
‘These books,’ called Timon wonderingly. ‘I think they had these – well, I think they had that green-covered one anyway – in the library back in Solis … the Solis of my time that is. It was in a glass case. No one was allowed to touch it. It was rare and precious.’
‘Someone wise must have lived here,’ Boomer said, staring at the decaying books spread across the floor.
‘Yes! The apothecary,’ said Garland, her eyes running along the shelves searching, searching for that blue bottle that had shone like a star in the silver girl’s hand. ‘But he’s gone.’
‘I don’t think so!’ said Timon in a peculiar voice. ‘Actually he’s still here.’
There was something about the way he spoke that made Garland pause and forget her search. She turned back towards Timon trying to see what he was seeing.
It was not hard. He was staring at a cot pushed against the wall and there lying on it, spread out, at ease with the world, was a human skeleton.
‘He won’t be able to actually tell us,’ whispered Boomer. ‘Unless … hey! What’s he pointing at?’
It did seem that the finger bones were pointing from the yellow sheet on which they lay towards a little door across the room from them.
‘Let’s try,’ said Timon. ‘After all we’ve got to begin somewhere. What exactly are we looking for?’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ confessed Garland, crossing the floor gingerly.
‘Oh great!’ said Timon, following her.
‘Something blue!’ said Garland.
‘Oh great!’ said Boomer like Timon’s echo.
They pushed the little door open and crowded very carefully into the room beyond … a room lined with shelves … lined with shelves crowded with jars, small corked pottery containers and hundreds of bottles. They stood there, huddled together like eerie watchers waiting for some ghostly Fantasia performance to begin.
‘We’ll start looking,’ said Timon. ‘It won’t take long … only about year if we work quickly.’
But Garland ignored him. Something was shining out at her like a single, unwinking eye set among those jars and bottles. There was a crack into the wall behind one bottle and a thin dagger of light was thrusting through and shining into the room through glass – bright blue glass.
‘There it is!’ she cried in wonder and triumph. ‘That’s the medicine we must take. I know it is.’
She almost bounded across the floor and immediately the whole room began shaking.
‘Easy! Easy!’ yelled Timon as Garland snatched up the blue jar.
‘But how do you know?’ asked Boomer, looking at the dilapidated shelves and the jars and bottles elbowing each other across them. ‘How do you know which one is the right one?’
‘I keep telling you,’ said Garland. ‘I was shown it. I was shown it in a –’ She broke off; she could not tell Boomer about the silver girl. ‘– in that sort of dream I had.’
‘What’s it got in it?’ asked Boomer, and Garland looked down at it, frowning.
‘There’s a label on the jar,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to read, but I’ll ask Goneril. She can read old writing and she’ll have some idea about what to do. Come on. Come quickly! Let’s pekapeka our way home! This is the cure.’
*
‘What will I do?’ Goneril was thinking. ‘What happens if I get ill too?’ Her head was spinning a little. She laid a cool cloth on the perspiring forehead of little Jewel. ‘Don’t cry,’ she said wearily and uselessly. ‘No more crying. I’m getting too old for crying. Too old for any of this.’
And then, suddenly, just as she was thinking about how old and weak she was … just as she was sure that she could not keep going … the door of the wagon burst open. Suddenly they were bearing down on her … looming over her … those two strange men. Those enemies who had been trailing after the Fantasia, following Timon and Eden.
‘Get out!’ she screamed, but she already knew they would take no notice of her.
‘Do as we ask you, if you want to live,’ said Maska in his grating voice, but Ozul held up his hand. He moved forward a few steps, leaving Maska guarding the doorway.
‘We don’t want trouble,’ he said, sounding kind and reasonable, holding out his hands palm upward. ‘We just want what is rightfully ours. Our – our wards. The children. Our dear children.’ But in spite of his affectionate words spoken in that reasonable voice Goneril’s expression did not change. He was an enemy and she knew it. ‘We want her,’ Ozul said, pointing at Jewel. ‘And him,’ he added, looking down at Eden. Then he bent over Eden and lifted the silver medallion from Eden’s sweating chest. ‘And that!’ he said.
Eden stared back at Ozul. Then he closed his eyes.
The van began to tremble a little. Then it began to shake. The kitchen shelves began to rattle. It began to rock wildly, and everything it held began to tumble. Pillows fell to the floor, a narrow cupboard burst open and plates and cups … knives and forks … shot out as if they were anxious to escape from their shelves and boxes. Goneril toppled sideways into an empty bunk. Ozul dropped the silver medallion, holding out his hands sideways and trying desperately to keep his balance.
‘What’s happening?’ cried Goneril. ‘Oh lord! What’s happening?’
The wagon rocked even more violently. Jewel started to scream. Goneril reached over to Jewel’s bunk and pulled Jewel over beside her, struggling to wrap her in quilts, trying hard, even in that incoherent moment, to keep her safe … safe from the tumult. And particularly safe from Maska – Maska who, for some reason, seemed ominous and more than ominous … who seemed inhuman. For all that, the sudden rocking of the van took him by surprise, and both Maska and Ozul crashed, first to one side and then to another. Somewhere at the back of the van old Shell moaned and Tane woke up out of his fever-dream, shouting wildly. And then, slowly, as if it were giving a dignified if noisy curtsey, the whole van toppled sideways too. Maska staggered, then sprawled against the driver’s seat. The van hesitated, rocked back up again, straightening though tottering, and then fell once more, but this time with a feeling of final surrender. Maska and Ozul were rolled backwards, breaking through the narrow door behind them. Though badly splintered, though suffering the impact of Maska smashing through it, the door slammed shut. As Goneril – head spinning – looked up, she saw the key turn in the lock.
‘Those men,’ she gasped, looking at Eden. ‘That door won’t keep them out. Not now!’
‘They might hesitate,’ said Eden, panting like a dog, sweat seeping from his forehead, past his eyes and running down past his nose. ‘They might wait to see what happens next. And while they’re thinking for a moment the others might come racing back to rescue us.’
But Goneril looked over at Tane and old Shell, rolled out of their covers. ‘I’ll … I’ll be back in a minute,’ she promised them. ‘I’m not leaving you. But you know what wretches babies are!’ Someone kicked at the locked door. Someone began to struggle through the hole in it, ignoring the splinters around the hole. Shivering, Goneril snatched Jewel out of her cocoon of quilts and made for the door at the back of the van … the one near Shell’s feet. ‘Babies! More trouble – more trouble than they’re worth!’ she was shouting. But, as she shouted and struggled on, a hand fell on her. She looked up into Ozul’s face.
‘I mean you no harm,’ Ozul said, smiling falsely while Maska stood behind her. ‘Just give me the child. She is ours, not yours.’ Goneril freed a trembling hand, and lifted it to deliver a vague, wild blow, but Maska moved in on her, seizing her collar and hoisting her up. Goneril held Jewel tightly and Maska held them both, dangling like dolls, kicking, swinging from side to side, Jewel screaming and Goneril croaking. Ozul pushed forward to peer down at Eden, shivering and exhausted. Around Eden’s neck the chain of the medallion blinked briefly at Ozul.
‘I think you are ours!’ said Ozul. ‘You and that Talisman you wear. I was set to find you, and I have.’
‘Gloat later,’ grunted Maska. ‘Set up the device, and report back to the Master. We will soon be at his side once more.’ He dropped Goneril, and stepped over her, leaving her lying on the ground with Jewel still in her arms. ‘Don’t move,’ he told her, ‘or it will be the worse for the child. And stop her crying or I will stop her myself.’
From the pack on his back Ozul was extracting a series of rods and little units which he fitted together rather like a child assembling a familiar toy. Once connected, the rods began to blink and tweet with a rich blue light and the same note sounding rapidly over and over again. Maska, meanwhile, had taken another power book from his pocket. He touched a button and it opened, stretched, and became twice its original size. He passed it to Ozul. The familiar greenish glow welled out of it, staining his face and chest with an unwholesome light. ‘Home!’ Ozul said. ‘We’re coming home. We have the Talisman. And we have the little child and the younger boy … the magician.’
A voice came struggling through.
‘You don’t have Timon?’
Ozul hesitated.
‘Lord, do we need him?’ he asked. ‘He has no powers.’
The light changed … became more livid. The strange voice came hissing and yowling out at him.
‘I will tell you who is important. It is not for you to try telling me. Timon is the most important and it is I who say so.’ There was the sound of hands clapping a slow clap. ‘Do not bother me again until you have all three,’ said the voice.
Ozul kneeled for a moment as if something serious had interrupted him. Slowly he turned his head, looking up at Maska. ‘The Nennog – the noble Nennog – wants the bigger boy too,’ said Ozul. ‘He says he must have the bigger boy … he must have all three.’ He peered into the green glow once more as the spitting snarling voice began again. And, listening, Ozul’s expression began to change. A curious look of resignation mixed with fury began to show itself, while the snarling voice kept on and on and on …
‘I hear voices,’ said Maska suddenly. ‘They are coming back. Sign off. Sign off.’
‘Majesty,’ Ozul said, bowing into the greenish glow. ‘We go to get the boy. We will bring him back to you. We go.’ And he closed the power book, tapped it so that it shrank back to pocket size.
Goneril watched him with a sort of limp despair as he began to disconnect his rods.
‘Hurry! They are close,’ said Maska. ‘I will go and welcome them.’
‘Don’t kill them,’ said Ozul. ‘Well, not Timon. The Nennog wants him. But you may kill the other two with pleasure.’
*
They had closed the Nidus door behind them leaving the apothocary alone once more. They had come down through the bush and along the track. Once again they approached that seething stream of mud and boiling water, staring at it with apprehension.
‘Home soon!’ said Garland, preparing to jump from rock to rock once more. Be tough! she told herself. Maddigans are famous for their toughness.
‘Don’t let that medicine steam up,’ said Boomer, watching her anxiously. ‘It might not work if it gets hot. Well, it might not work anyway.’
‘I was shown it,’ Garland said obstinately.
Once again they began their dangerous progress from rock to rock, feeling the heat beat up against them fiercely, determined to overwhelm them. Garland imagined she could feel it building up under the ground gathering its powers and preparing to spring up around them.
‘Pekapeka this way! Pekapeka that way!’ she sang, determined to keep up her courage, hopping and leaping, screaming a little as a rock shook under her, but successfully bouncing on to the next.
When they talked about it later they found that none of them could say exactly when Maska appeared, but suddenly he was there, waiting for them on the other side, a black demon shrouded in steam.
‘Back!’ screamed Garland. ‘Back!’ but Timon, veiled with steam himself, turned perilously on his rock and faced her.
‘Who do you think he wants most?’ he asked her.
‘You!’ said Garland. She suddenly realized that Timon was sharing a plan with her, and she turned on her own stone. ‘Hey, Boomer! Ready to catch?’
Boomer stared at her desperately.
‘Right!’ he said.
‘And when you catch it, head over there,’ pointing to a safe landing spot well away from Maska. And she threw the precious bottle across to Boomer. He grabbed for it desperately, skidded a little on his stone, yelled with alarm, the bottle sliding between his fingers as if it were trying to escape from him. But then he held it safely.
‘Wait for your chance,’ yelled Timon and set off again, straight towards Maska – pekapeka, pekapeka – bounding from rock to rock, taking risks with small steaming stones, jumping dangerously on slanting rocks. Garland followed him, and Maska stalked along the edge of the boiling river, keeping his gaze fastened remorselessly on Timon. As they moved away from him Boomer played his own game in the opposite direction. The mist swirled around him as if it were anxious to hold him in, but by now Boomer knew how to play this game. One last desperate lunge and he stood on solid ground.
