Phoenix Burning (26 page)

Summer stood and raised her arms, making a sun sign, as Arthur curled himself into a moon pose.

“Praise the Sun,” Summer called.

Toby blinked. Arthur and Summer were tongueless – they had to be.

Again he struggled weakly.

“Infirmary,
now
!” Mother Hesper snapped. “We cannot have two Suns out here.” She pressed her index finger to
Toby’s forehead, forcing his head up. “I’m not sure what happened here. Perhaps you
were
rejected by the Sun for being unworthy.” She tilted her head. “But don’t worry, once you are sufficiently recovered, we will still be staking you out for the blinding.”

She turned her back on him and Toby blinked tears from his eyes. How had everything gone so wrong?

As Toby stared, still frozen, his father and Simeon were hauled to their feet and dragged before Mother Hesper.

“True pilgrims don’t attack members of the Solar Order. Take them to the cells,” she said. Then she reached out and plucked the cloth from his father’s pocket. “You don’t deserve
this
.” As she tugged it free, Toby could only watch in horror as the precious inverter tumbled out of the folded cloth. It bounced on the packed earth and rolled to a stop.

Mother Hesper’s eyes flashed and she turned to stare at Toby. “Forget the infirmary. Take him straight to the cells.”

“He’s sick. I’m the medic. Let me through.”

Perhaps an hour had passed since Toby had been dumped on the floor of his old cell, unable to answer the shouts coming from his father down the corridor.

Finally his door was thrust open and Hideaki rushed in. “The silent attendants have placed Ayla on the beach to await the tide. She’ll be fine, so long as your shipmates are waiting as they promised,” he whispered. “When I last treated her we arranged a meeting point – your boat should be waiting to pick me up outside the maze. I’ll go there now and tell them to wait for you. There has to be a way to get you all there. I just need to
think
.” His face fell. “What happened, did your pills not work?”

Toby shook his head.

Hideaki frowned. “Strange. But the symptoms should wear off soon.” He lifted Toby’s eyelids one by one and checked his pupils, then pressed his paired fingers against
his wrist. Toby’s pulse fluttered against the pressure.

Weakly Toby caught his hand. “You said
pills
,” he rasped. “You mean
pill
right? Just one pill.”

“No…” Hideaki said slowly. “Blue Death is a paired set: two pills. If you only took one…” He looked at Toby’s useless limbs. “It looks like you had the paralytic, but no respiratory depressor.”

Toby flopped backwards. Ayla had only given him a single pill … hadn’t she? She
wouldn’t
have betrayed him, not after all they had been through … would she? His heart began to calcify.

“My inverter,” he said. “Did you see what happened to it?”

Hideaki nodded. “Mother Hesper returned it to the Reliquary.”

Toby groaned. “Ayla’s is locked away with Simeon, ours is gone. This was all for nothing.”

Hideaki pressed a wet cloth against Toby’s forehead. “They’ll be coming for you as soon as I tell them you’re sufficiently recovered. I’ll hold off as long as possible, but you know they spy on these cells.” He leaned closer. “So don’t move if you can help it.”

Toby caught Hideaki’s sleeve. “If you can, get Simeon’s inverter from him. You can take it to the
Phoenix
when you’re picked up.”

Hideaki nodded and Toby closed his eyes. He
imagined Ayla being rescued from the beach by Theo and felt ripped in two – part of him wanted her safe despite her betrayal.

Why had she done it? They had stolen an inverter for each of them; the
Banshee
would have ended up with exactly what they needed. Why not stick to the original plan?

Hideaki moved Toby’s arms and legs until they tingled. Life was returning to his body. He coughed and Hideaki held water to his lips. After a few sips, Toby felt up to raising his voice. “Captain?”

“
Toby!
” The reply was immediate. “Are you all right?”

“Save your voice,” Hideaki snapped. “Do you want them to know you’re better right now, or do you want a bit more time with your eyes?”

Toby clamped his lips together.

Hideaki gathered his things. “I’ll try and find a way to get you out of here. Just hold tight.”

The captain had given up shouting for Toby and the corridor was quiet apart from a monotonous thumping from Simeon’s cell. Toby pictured him hurling himself against the thick plastic door, over and over again, trying to break it down.

How long did they have before Mother Hesper came
for him? He knew she would come before sundown, and time was rolling on.

Suddenly there was a thud against his cell door and it shuddered. Toby sat up.

“I’m getting you out.”

“Hideaki?” Toby whispered.

There was something wrong with Hideaki’s voice, it sounded thick and strained.

“Where’re the uncles?” Toby stood on wobbly legs.

“Drugged.” Hideaki pushed Toby’s door open and turned his back before Toby could see his face. “I’m going for your captain.”

Toby staggered to the doorjamb and leaned against it. The slanting light in the corridor told Toby it was afternoon – maybe three hours since midday.

Suddenly his father rushed towards him and wrapped him in his thick arms.

Simeon followed.

“At least we have the chance to get one inverter out of here,” Toby murmured. But the look on Simeon’s face petrified him. “What?”

“I don’t have an inverter.” Simeon didn’t meet his eye.

“Ayla gave it to you, I saw her.”

Simeon nodded. “She gave it to me. I don’t have it now.”

The captain loosened his hold on Toby. “Did you drop it during the fight?”

Simeon shook his head. “It was secure in my pouch. But—”

“I
wasn’t
dreaming.” Toby breathed. “It was Nell. She was right behind you.”

“Nell?” Barnaby asked.

Simeon hung his head. “She pickpocketed me…”

“Ayla set us up?” Even as he asked the question, Toby knew the answer.

“She used us all.” Hideaki stepped into a beam of light. His face was pale and his eyes red. He had been crying, screaming perhaps. “I’ve been to the meeting place. There’s no one there. She’s left me behind.”

Toby stared at the hem of his robe. “She promised on her sister’s grave that she wouldn’t betray me…” He tailed off.

“If the ship wasn’t at your meeting point,” Simeon said to Hideaki, “how are we going to get off this island?”

Toby looked at his father. “Where’s the
Phoenix
? Can we swim?”

The captain frowned. “Certainly not. We have two fools on board who already tried that. They’re half dead. Uma isn’t sure she can save them.”

“Cezar and Bianca,” Toby whispered. “They made it!”

“If you can call it that.” Simeon nodded. “Theo pulled them out of the bay. The girl was dragging the boy and they were going under when I spotted them. The last thing she said was your name, so we took them on board. They were both still out when we left this morning.”

“At least let’s get out of here,” the captain said. “Someone will be trawling the coast on
Birdie
, looking for us.”

“Unless Ayla told them you were dead,” Hideaki grunted.

“You want to give up?” Toby asked. “I’m not waiting around to lose my sight. The rear courtyard’s our best bet – we have to get over the wall and along the cliff.”

Simeon nodded. “Let me go first.” He strode past Toby to reach the bottom of the staircase.

“I knew you weren’t working alone, thief,” Mother Hesper announced as she stepped from the shadows. Uncles stood behind her. Simeon glanced at the captain, ready to fight, but the captain shook his head. There were too many of them and nowhere to go. “You tried to make a mockery of us. You tried to steal a holy relic. Worse, you seem willing to risk another cataclysm! I cannot imagine what you meant to achieve.” She looked at Hideaki. “And you, of all people, should know that there is
always
someone listening.”

Father Dahon moved into view at the top of the stairs,
his pale eyes gleamed. “It’s time,” he said.

The captain stepped forwards. “I won’t let you blind my son.”

Father Dahon blinked. “Your son was chosen above all others to be the Sun. He
will
be converted through blindness – as I was … and as you will be.”

Toby was going blind.

He had long since lost edges. If Toby turned his head against the rope that held his forehead, he could see the blurred outline of the cathedral roof; nothing more than a smudge against a lighter background. Soon the sun would steal even that.

His vision would have been lost already, except that a cloud had built in the sky as they were being tied down, the first cloud he had seen on Gozo; maybe it was a sign. He wondered what it was a sign
of
.

Toby had no idea how much time had passed. They had removed his golden robe before tying him down and abandoning him to ‘think on the Sun’ and the prickle of sunburn that was re-emerging on his peeling chest and scarred legs was all he had to go by.

That irritation was nothing, however, compared to the itching of his eyes. He would have given anything to have
been able to blink.

At first they had shouted at the attendant uncles guarding the path; pleaded and begged, but they had received no answer. Perhaps they were silent attendants.

Beside him Arthur and Summer lay in their own bonds, quietly murmuring prayers. They had started off with hymns, but their throats had dried out as quickly as their eyes.

The captain coughed, his throat full of dust. “How’re you doing, son?”

Toby had to swallow before he could answer. “I’m OK.” But all he could think was that Ayla had betrayed him and he was going to go blind.

“We’re going to get out of this.”

“Sure.” Toby didn’t even try to look at his father. He was staked out just the same as Toby and the others: his forehead tightly bound, his eyes taped open and his hands and feet stretched out to either side.

They weren’t getting out of this.

The tape above Toby’s left eye was peeling slightly. Among the pain of sunburn, cramping muscles, biting insects, grit, sand and the agony of his vision being flayed from him, the peeling tape seemed the worst. He knew that if it would just loosen a little more, just a tiny bit, he’d be able to close his eye.

The skin on his cheeks was tight where his tears had dried. His ducts were empty now; not even the swimming of tears could protect his vision.

“Is Simeon still unconscious?” Toby strained against the ropes again and managed to gain a slight tilt to his chin. A trickle of blood wormed its way down his right temple.

“Must be,” Hideaki croaked. “He’s lucky. When he wakes up this’ll all be over. It won’t be long now, and if that cloud cover clears…”

“It’ll be seconds, I know.” Toby ground his teeth. After all he’d been through in the last few weeks, to end up like this. “Where do you think Ayla is?”

The captain didn’t answer, but at the end of the path, where the silent attendants guarded them, there came the sounds of a struggle: grunts and thuds, but no shouts.

Toby strained for a second, but soon gave up. Whatever was going on, he could not see.

A cool shadow fell over Toby’s face and he gasped, relief surging through him at the momentary respite from the glare. The shadow moved and he whimpered, as if he could get the darkness to remain.

Then the captain roared. “You! Leave us the hell alone.”

Simeon groaned his way to wakefulness and began to fight his bonds.

Toby managed to move his head just enough to
see a blurry pair of legs. He frowned. Something about the outfit was familiar. He sagged back into position. “Who’re you?”

When the figure bent over Toby, he recognized the woman from the festival, the one who had caught his attention with her intense slate-grey eyes. She put a cool hand over his eyes.

“Get away from him!” Toby heard the ropes around the captain creaking as he strained harder than ever, but all Toby could think was how wonderful her palm felt on his face.

Toby groaned as the woman shifted. “Don’t go.”

“I won’t.” There was a brief second of light as she replaced her hand with a strip of cloth.

“What are you doing?” Summer shouted suddenly. “Somebody help!”

Ignoring her, the woman carefully peeled the tape from Toby’s eyelids and rolled the rope from his forehead.

The captain was still ranting, but the woman, whoever she was, had come to save them. What was the problem? Shouts from the end of the path told Toby that the uncles were on their way and he held his breath as the stranger sawed through the knots that held him. Finally Toby’s arms sprung loose and his hands slammed over his eyes.

“Free the captain,” Toby choked. “I’ll be all right.”

“Can you walk?” The woman’s voice was hard.

Toby nodded. “I will. Just get the captain and—”

He was pulled to his feet. “Then let’s go.”

“Wait.” Toby had no plans to open his eyes; he stumbled as she caught his elbow and propelled him forwards. The shouting was louder, Arthur and Summer’s yells merged with those of the approaching guards.

“No time,” the woman said. As Toby’s feet faltered she adjusted her grip and started to drag him.

He struggled. “We can’t leave without the others.”

“You want to go back there?” The woman’s voice was a growl now.

“Stop, in the name of the Sun!”

Abruptly the woman released him and Toby stumbled, still blind, but managed to keep his feet. He heard the hum in the air as she swung a blade.

Toby staggered away from the fight, but didn’t dare go too far: they had been tied near the cliff edge and he had no idea how close he was. He tried to prise open his eyes, but his lashes were glued together and filled with grit.

“Wash your eyes out.” It was the woman’s voice again. A warm bottle was pressed into his hand then she vanished once more.

Toby tipped his head back. Somewhere in front of him, she was fighting.

Tepid water ran over his cheeks and Toby opened stinging eyes. He blinked until his lids no longer felt like sandpaper and tried to see. The world had narrowed; his peripheral vision was white and there were blurry spots dancing in front of him. Still he could see the shape of the woman as she held off two guards. His father, Simeon, Hideaki, Summer and Arthur remained tied on the ground. Simeon was roaring his frustration. Toby started to stagger towards them, but hesitated as he saw a dozen more uncles pounding down the path from the sanctuary.

“Run!” the captain yelled. “Don’t wait for us. Get back to the
Phoenix
.”

“No!” Arthur screamed. “Come back, you have a destiny.”

“He’s coming with me, Barnaby.” The woman spun and slashed. There was a gurgle and the last of the guards she was fighting fell at her feet, blood pooling.

From beyond the cliff edge someone else called out, and Toby spun. “Dee?”

Marcus climbed over first and ran towards Toby. Dee was right behind him, silhouetted against the sky.

His rescuer took his arm and pulled him towards the beach path but Toby dug his heels in. “We have to save the captain.”

“He’ll be fine,” the woman spat.

“Toby?” Marcus skidded to a stop as the woman raised her sword.

“Don’t! He’s on our side.” Toby twisted, but her grip was like stone.

Dee glared. “
She
won’t hurt him, Marcus.”

“What—” Toby began.

“Are you blind yet?” It was Father Dahon. Toby squinted and saw the robed figure gliding down the path behind the uncles.

His skin prickled and he shuddered, unable to stop the thrill of fear that gripped his heart. “Did you see the Sun?” Father Dahon sang. “Spots in front of your eyes?”

Mother Hesper was at Father Dahon’s side, screeching at them to come back.

Dee’s mouth flattened into a line and she touched Marcus’s arm. “If we don’t get the captain right now, he’ll be blinded or killed.” Hatred flared in her eyes. “If you do anything to hurt Toby, Judy…”

“Judy?” Toby whispered.

Dee and Marcus turned and raced towards the captain.

“I’ll hold them off while you cut the ropes,” Dee shouted. “Cover their eyes.”

“Come on!” The woman – Judy – dragged him on to the trail. Toby wanted to join Marcus, Dee and the captain, but confusion and shock had turned his limbs to wood
and he couldn’t make them obey. Could this woman really be his
mother
?

His legs were stiff from being pegged out and the dose of paralytic he had taken still coursed through his veins. Judy pulled him on, but he looked back. The captain was on his knees and Marcus was untying Simeon.

Barnaby lurched to his feet. “Judy!”

“Say goodbye,” she yelled, “because you’ll never see our son again.”

“What?” Toby froze, but Judy shoved him forwards.

The captain tried to follow, but a cry from Dee made him turn. The uncles had surrounded them. Dee swung her staff in wide arcs to hold them off.

“Ignore the pirates, get the false
Sun
!” Mother Hesper screamed.

“
Now
will you run?” Judy hissed.

Toby nodded. They had a head start, but Mother Hesper was catching up. Her face was a mask of grim determination.

“Judy…” Toby was horrified to hear the whimper in his own voice.

“Don’t worry.”

Sharp blades of dune grass sliced Toby’s shins and stones skittered under his toes as he ran.

“There.” Judy pointed.

A small grey skiff floated on the tide. Toby hurled himself into the sea and leaped on board.

Judy jumped down by his side. She grabbed a long string from the floor and shoved it into his hands. “Pull it.”

“What?”

“Do it,” she snapped.

With his eyes on Mother Hesper, Toby pulled. As he tugged he felt resistance, then smoke puffed and an engine sputtered and died.

His eye widened. “Petrol? How did you—”

“Again!” Judy held her sword in front of her.

Toby pulled once more. The engine choked, then growled, then roared into life. Slowly, then with increasing speed, their little grey boat pulled away from the sand.

Mother Hesper and her guardian uncles had reached the shore. As they waded into the sea, their robes floated around them.

The uncles pulled poison-soaked robes from their chests and lurched back out of the salt. Mother Hesper raged at them, but they wouldn’t return to the sea.

Toby stared as she splashed on alone.

“Stupid cow,” Judy muttered.

“You’re burning,” Toby called. “Stop.”

“Traitor!” Mother Hesper screamed. “Liar!” She waded forwards, knocking aside plastic bottles and rusted tins,
her mouth screwed up with agony.

“You can’t go any further.” Toby pointed at the rising waves. “Give up.”

Mother Hesper ignored him – the water was up to her shoulders now and her hair was lifting into the poisoned currents like seaweed.

Finally Mother Hesper stopped. The water lapped at her chin. Then she started to wade forwards once more. As she walked she spoke. “My death curse upon you. May the Sun burn you all the days of your life. May the Moon never shine on your nights. May you suffer the loss of the thing you hold most dear. May you die in agony.” She kept talking, getting louder and more crazed, until her words turned to bubbles. Soon all that Toby could see were her eyes, then a wave covered her head and she was gone.

He sat down, staggered and looked at Judy for an answer. “How could she do that?”

Judy shrugged. “Insanity? This religion takes people – blindness, starvation, death.”

“Silence.” Toby said quietly. Then he gasped as a dark shape floated up beside the boat. Mother Hesper’s robes were tangling in the waves and her pale hand floated, bone-like, pointing at Toby as if reinforcing the curse she had put upon him.

“May you suffer the loss of the thing you hold most dear…”