Motherstone (10 page)

It seemed to her Jimmy would not know; or Nick. Or Limpy or his father. They were too practical, too violent. The Birdfolk might. They belonged on O. And Ben, the Varg. And Soona – especially her. She seemed to have intuitive knowledge. And the Woodlanders. They had it too. A knowledge and a wisdom thousands of years old, bred in them by their long communion with O. She must find Woodlanders, and find Soona.

‘Thief,’ she said. The animal was waiting patiently. She projected an image of Dawn, the Woodlander girl. ‘Find one, Thief. Find a Woodlander for me. But you mustn’t kill. Do they live in this jungle?’

The Bloodcat watched, still-eyed, and gave no sign of understanding. She supposed that meant the answer was no; and she could not remember the Woodlanders talking of villages this far north. So it seemed she would have to find Birdfolk, and travel to Wildwood or the Temple. She hoped there would be enough time. Osro’s army was mobilizing. Soon he would be making his Weapon. Then it was too late.

‘Thief,’ she said, ‘take me to the coast. The quickest way.’ She pictured a beach, with small waves, yellow sand, driftwood line, and bush and cliffs at the back of it – any beach. Thief seemed to understand, and she found his own picture in her mind: a bar, a river mouth, in that uncoloured state that still did not make them seem dead. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s it,’ and took the image, placed herself in it, with Thief at her side, walking on the bar.

Thief turned. It appeared he meant to stay with her and guide her – be her friend? She wasn’t sure. Watching him amble ahead, turning a deeper red in the shade of the trees, she could not believe anything so savage could ever be friend. But he was companion, at least for the moment. She decided not to think any further than that.

She drank more water as she walked behind him, and ate a strip of meat from Slarda’s pouch. When they came to a stream she knelt to fill the flask, but Thief gave a growl. She took it as a warning and looked more closely in the water. Tiny transparent things, smaller than mosquito larvae, swarmed almost invisible. She wondered what they would have done to her stomach, and she dipped her finger in. The sting was more fierce than a wasp sting and she shrieked; and was aware, even in her pain, that Thief gave a sympathetic howl. She sucked her finger, trying to draw the poison out. ‘Thief,’ she said – or moaned – ‘you saved my life.’

The Bloodcat came and nudged her, pushed her along. There was something urgent in his behaviour. He loped between the trees and she ran to keep up. Her finger was swelling and a pain began in the bones of her wrist. Thief leaped up a bank. He stood on the top, nosing something. ‘What is it?’ Susan said. ‘Do you want me up there?’ She was feeling dizzy and the pain in her hand was worse. All the fingers were swelling. Thief jumped down. He butted her, forced her at the bank. She began to climb. It was difficult, she could only use one arm, and the pain in the other made her whimper. It had got to her elbow. Someone was squeezing it with tongs.

She reached the top of the bank and fell on her knees. She knew in a moment she would faint, her head was swinging round and round. But she saw Thief, swelling like a balloon, and by his nose a small red mushroom or toadstool. It pulsed like a tiny heart. Thief’s tongue flicked out and touched it. ‘I can’t eat that, it’s poisonous,' Susan whispered. But again his tongue went flick, pink and sharp. It knocked the mushroom’s head off its stalk and pushed it at her. She fumbled for it, felt it break in her fingers. Its smell was vinegary, and in her mouth the taste was foul. But her stomach craved and she swallowed greedily and felt at once a battle start in her. Two things were fighting for her life. Her head spun faster, she seemed to be rolling over and over, and shooting off into space. Then everything was still, suddenly. It was as though her heart, her breathing, stopped; and she gave a huge gulp and started them. The pain in her arm throbbed easily. She knew the battle was over, she was not going to die; and she crawled a little way to a bed of grass and lay curled up. She saw Thief sitting on the other side, his urgency gone. He was indifferent again.

‘It’s dangerous, this jungle,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m all right. I’ve got you to look after me.’

Thief yawned. He lay down and closed his eyes. She closed hers too, and at once she slept.

It took three days to reach the coast. Susan made do with fruit and the few strips of meat in Slarda’s pouch. Thief found safe water for her to drink. The Bloodcat hunted in the dawn. Once she lay in her fern bed and heard the hideous sound of him killing nearby. He came back heavy with meat, satisfied, and for a while she could not look at him. But later in the day they entered a drier forest, where everything was red or brown, and tough and dry. She almost lost him as he went ahead, he was invisible in the dappled shade. Here, she supposed, was his native place, and nothing that he did seemed cruel or wrong.

Her right hand was puffy, but swimming in the salt lagoon at the back of the beach made it feel better. They went down to the bar – it was just as Thief had shown her – and watched the long rollers crashing in. This was more like home than any place Susan had been and she felt a surge of longing for Earth. But she controlled it, and searched the sky, looking for Birdfolk. It was empty. A bird like a shag sat on a rock, gulls stood further out on the bar, that was all.

All that day she watched. She began to lose hope. Where had they gone? They knew she was alive, why weren’t they looking? Then she remembered the Seafolk and tried calling them. But none seemed to live on this part of the coast. There was none of the yellow weed that was their food and so no reason for them to come.

‘What am I going to do, Thief?’

She climbed around the rocks at the south end of the beach. Far away, islands smudged the horizon. She wondered how many days’ travel she was from the Temple. It seemed she would have to make it there alone – alone with Thief.

They came to another beach. It was just a few metres of sand enclosed in cliffs. ‘We’ll have to go inland. Will you come with me, Thief?’ She did not dare show him the Temple. Then, across the sand, she saw a cave. It was set halfway up the cliff, partly hidden by trees that blazed with red flowers.

‘I wonder,’ she said. ‘Do you think any Stonefolk live in there?’ She could not show pictures of Stonefolk – she had never seen them, no one had – but showed Thief an image of the cave, the blackness of a deep interior, and heard him growl. She saw the hairs prickle on his spine. She guessed that somehow he had picked up her thought of Stonefolk. He did not like it.

‘They’re our friends, Thief.’ She knew she must try to talk with them. Just as much as Woodlanders, they had that old wisdom of O. They might know what she had to do. ‘Thief, come with me.’ She jumped down to the beach and crossed the sand and climbed up through the trees to the cave. It might be just a shallow one, but if it was she would look for another. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of Stonefolk sooner.

The mouth was wide enough to let her go in side by side with Thief. He set up a rumbling growl but stepped in without hesitating. It was a long cave and soon they were in semi-darkness. Thief stopped. ‘What is it, Thief? Is something there?’ She was not scared of any animal while she had the Bloodcat. But it was a rockfall that had stopped him. She saw it as her eyes got used to the dark. It blocked the cave and left no way through. She climbed it and up by the ceiling found a place where air seemed to shift. She could see no opening but put her mouth where she thought it might be.

‘Stonefolk, are you there?’ she called. There was no reply, and she did not expect one straight away. They took their time, they would not be hurried. But if any lived in this part of O they would answer. ‘Stonefolk, I’m your friend. We’ve met before. I’m Susan Ferris. I know I’ve got to help O again and I want to know how. Can you tell me?’

This time an answer came. It startled her and made Thief howl. The voice was close, in the dark on the other side of the fall. It was younger, less furry, than other Stonefolk voices she had heard. ‘Susan Ferris?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have a beast with you?’

‘Yes, a Bloodcat. His name’s Thief. He’s my friend.’

‘No one can make friends with a Bloodcat.’

‘Well, he’s here, right by my side. And he’s not eating me. But you sound as if you were waiting. Who are you? What’s your name?’

‘I have none yet, I have not earned one. I am simply daughter of Deep Delver. But Susan, listen to me. All through Stone the Folk are waiting, at every exit into Light. We wait for you, for one who has held in her hands the wisdom and strength of Freeman Wells.’

‘Why? Why do you wait?’

‘We know of your capture and escape. There is very little Stonefolk do not know. But where you escaped to was a mystery. Now you are here. And looking for us.’

‘Yes,’ Susan said. She swallowed. It was as if she had already seen what was to happen but could not bring it into her mind. Something she was fated to do – something that would turn O upside-down. ‘Humans are killing each other again. I made a promise to stop it. But I don’t know how.’

There was a silence. Then the Stonewoman sighed. ‘It is worse than you know. It is worse than killing. And yes, you have a task. It is prophesied. I know what it is – but how you perform it, that will be told by others, not by me. Listen now. We have heard –’ she seemed to shudder ‘– that a human, one who was priest, has found a new way to make the Weapon. We thought that knowledge buried so deep it would never be found. Freeman Wells saw how it could be done – and if it was, he saw that O would die. So he banished it, cast it out, and gave the words of it, and all the bits of metal, paper, stone, the acid and the oil, all to us, the Stonefolk, and commanded us to bury it so deep it would be lost until the end of time. Susan – ’ the Stonewoman seemed to be crying now, ‘Susan, we took it all, our Wisewomen and Wisemen, we took it and carried it far, to the very deepest place on O. There lies a pit that dives even deeper. None have ever found the bottom of it. We have dropped down pebbles, boulders, and never heard them strike. It drops forever. And there they cast the knowledge – into nothing. And came away believing it would never be known again.’

Susan did not know what to say. The Stonewoman’s grief seemed excessive. But Thief understood it. He set up a trembling moan in time with her voice.

‘And now,’ the Stonewoman said, ‘it has come again. One has thought out all the words again, and all the symbols, and gathered up the parts – and he is not a man like Freeman Wells. He will use it. O will die.’

‘Why?’ Susan whispered. ‘Why will it?’

‘This Weapon will burn the hills and mountains. Burn living Stone. And …’

‘Yes, go on.’

‘The smoke will rise up and darken the sky – I do not understand it, this sky, but Freeman Wells, he said that the fiery orb that floats in it, that gives all life to those who dwell in Light, will hide itself and not be seen again, and all the darkened skies and all the seas will turn to poison. Stone too. Stone will sicken. Stone will die.’ The woman wept unashamedly. ‘And if there are two, and these Weapons meet, then a burning starts that will have no end. Everything will burn – and burn – and burn – and only dead ashes will be left. That will be O.’

Susan crouched on the rock pile. She found her arm locked around Thief’s neck. The moaning of the Bloodcat filled her ears. She whispered, ‘Why did you wait? Why do you want me?’

The Stonewoman sniffed and swallowed. Susan heard a bristly sound as she rubbed her face. ‘Freeman Wells said if this Weapon came, if men ever thought of it and put it together, then O was lost, unless –’ she sighed – ‘there was one who could stop it.’

‘Go on.’

‘One who knew the way to hold all Humankind in her hands.’

‘Her?’

‘He said her.’

‘And you think it’s me?’

‘It seemed to us – to our Wisewomen and Wisemen – that Susan Ferris was the one. Because she had the Mark on her wrist, because she held the Halves, because she stood by the Motherstone, wrapped in light. And if we are wrong – there is no other.’

Thief leaned on Susan. He seemed to agree. She tried to understand what the Stonewoman said – there was a thing in it she already knew – but fear stopped her thinking.

‘How?’ she stammered. ‘Where do I go? And how much time?’

‘Little time. The word comes now. Let me listen. Through veins of Stone the whisper comes. Ah no! No! It is made. The Weapon is made. He tries it on forests and the hills. He burns it deep, and makes the rivers boil. Little time. He will go south, and attack the army of the Freemen. And now! And now!’ She gave a cry. ‘The word comes now. The Freemen learn the secret. They will make the Weapon. O is lost.’

Thief gave a great wild howl.

‘Stop it, stop it, both of you,’ Susan cried. ‘I’ve got to think, I’ve got to know.’

Thief fell silent, and slowly the sobbing of the Stonewoman stopped.

‘You said others would tell me what to do. Where are they? Where do I go?’

‘South,’ the Stonewoman said. ‘One day south. You will find a lake, where it meets the sea. Off the coast are islands – Thousand Isles, and among them one called Furthermost. Freeman Wells had his home there. And there is the tale of what you must do.’

‘How will I find it?’

‘At the place where fresh meets salt call for the People of the Sea. They will come, they will take you.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes. Go now. Go.’

‘I will. Stonewoman?’

‘I have a name now. I am Weeper.’

‘If anyone comes asking in a cave, asking for me, and if it’s Jimmy Jaspers or Nick Quinn – tell them where I am.’

‘I will send the word.’

‘And when they come – tell them not to leave Soona behind.’

‘Soona?’

‘Yes, Soona. She must come.’ She did not know why, but she felt it was the most important thing she had ever said.

She turned and went out towards the light, with Thief beside her.

Silverwing and Yellowclaw came swooping out of the dawn light. Morning mist had dampened their wings. They landed on the shingle bank by the river and walked across to Jimmy’s fire.