Priests of Ferris (12 page)

In the dawn of the following day they passed the mouth of the river Susan had travelled up on her way to place the Halves. The city rose on the plain beyond, with its towers dark over the morning mist. Susan strained to see, but could not make out Otis Claw’s palace.

‘They say it has fallen,’ Kenno said. ‘The city was evil and men abandoned it. Now it is a ruin where no one lives.’

‘What about the Motherstone? What about the Halves?’

Kenno did not know. But Susan thought if the palace had fallen they would be buried under thousands of tons of rock – lost forever. Safe forever. Men would never interfere with the Halves again.

They sailed on and passed Susan’s island. She saw the beach where she had landed on her glider and where she had been rescued by the Seafolk. She would have liked to go ashore, and she turned to ask Limpy if there was time. But the fierce look on his face stopped her.

‘What is it, Limpy?’

‘Look behind.’

She looked but could see nothing. Kenno came to her side and pointed. She saw two scraps of sail, like tiny pointed hats, far away south.

‘Warboats,’ he said.

To her they looked like yachts out for a sail. She found it hard to believe they were dangerous. It was only when she realized she could not see their hulls that she understood how large they were. But that also meant they were far away.

‘They’re too far back to catch us.’

‘In two hours they will be in bow shot. And see how one is heading off. They will trap us before we round the cape.’

One of the warboats was heading out to sea. Ahead the coast curved north-east and disappeared in a haze.

‘Part of it is an island,’ Kenno said. ‘There’s a way between.’

‘Deadman’s Channel.’ Limpy had gone pale. ‘There is draft enough for us and not for them. But what about the other side? The Gut?’

Kenno smiled. ‘I have always wanted to see it.’

Jimmy had come close. ‘I’ve heard about this Gut. If it’s as bad as they say I don’t like our chances.’

‘Would you rather face the warboats?’

Jimmy looked at them. Their hulls were starting to show over the horizon. ‘I reckon not.’ He ‘spoke’ with Ben, and Susan had an image of a tunnel in the sea, spinning and bottomless. The bear raised his head and seemed to shrug.

‘It don’t bother him. But what about Susie, here? She gets a vote.’

‘It’s simple,’ Kenno said. ‘If we stay to fight, we die. If we risk the Gut, we have a chance of living.’

‘Is the Gut a whirlpool?’ Susan asked.

‘Yes,’ Limpy said. ‘But sometimes it is worse than others. Fishermen have risked it and got through.’

‘Then we’ll risk it.’

‘We haven’t got away from them warboats yet. They’re comin’ fast,’ Jimmy said.

One of the boats was heading towards the far curve of the cape, but the second was making straight for them and seemed to grow larger every minute. When she strained her eyes she made out the spread-wing emblem on the sail. And soon she saw oars along the sides, working evenly and fast, like a centipede’s legs.

Limpy kept their boat pointed at a hump in the coastline. The wind stayed southerly and they ran before it. Details on the land became clearer: thorn trees, isolated goats. And on the warboat a towering foredeck, a bow-wave like a sneering white moustache.

Kenno and Jimmy made a shelter for Limpy with hatch-covers. Then they sheltered in the deck-house. Kenno strung his bow. Looking out the front window, Susan saw the channel between the mainland and the island. It ran straight as a suburban street. She saw that Limpy would have only a metre or two on each side. If he got through his father would know he was a real sailor. She decided not to watch. She would sooner watch the warboat.

It was close enough for her to see priest bowmen leaning on the forward rail. She saw their Ferris bones like necklaces. The white close-fitting leather of their suits, their chalky faces, turned them into walking skeletons.

‘See,’ Kenno said, pointing out a tall priest on the point of the bow. ‘It is our priest, from Stonehaven.’ Even at that distance Susan saw the burning in his eye. A cry of command rang out from the warboat. The priests raised their cross-bows.

‘Down,’ Kenno said. ‘Limpy, take care.’ The boy was crouching in his shelter, with the tiller grasped through the opening of the hatch-covers. Susan heard a second shout from the warboat. She made herself small at the base of a wall. A second later a rapid thudding sounded as bolts struck the deck-house and the shelter. Several came through the window and smashed into the wall across the room.

‘Pray that none take our rigging,’ Kenno said. He looked out the door. The first row of bowmen stepped back and a second took its place. Again the commands were shouted, and another volley of bolts struck the boat. They seemed stronger. The warboat was closing every minute.

Susan risked looking out the door. She hoped Ben was all right, forward of the deck-house. Limpy was crouched in his shelter and he gave a pale grin. But his eyes were focussed beyond her, on the channel entrance. She saw rocks flashing by on either side. Kenno jerked her back and a bolt whistled by her face. ‘They have snipers in the rigging. But we are in the channel. They will have to haul to or run aground.’

He strung an arrow in his bow. Then he ran from the door and joined Limpy in the shelter. Susan risked another look. She saw him kiss the arrowhead, and offer it to Limpy. The boy kissed it. Then Kenno stood suddenly, drew back the string, released the arrow, all in one motion. Susan did not see it fly, but she watched the Stonehaven priest, and saw the shaft stand in his chest like a branch. He looked at it as if it were unbelievable. Then he toppled slowly into the sea. A shout of rage went up from the cross-bowmen. They released another volley, and it struck the boat. Kenno ran back to the deck-house.

‘That was for Soona. And my wife.’

Limpy shouted, ‘They’re stopping.’ The warboat threw about.

‘They will put men ashore in boats,’ Kenno said. ‘We must go through quickly.’

The rocky walls of the channel were speeding by. Susan went on deck. Cross-bow bolts bristled everywhere. She saw holes in the sails where they had gone through. Kenno and Jimmy threw the hatch-covers overboard. Behind, the warboat closed the end of Deadman‘s Channel like a door. Priests swarmed down rope ladders into boats. But the trimaran raced on, with its outside hulls almost clipping the rocks. The wind rushed down the channel and lifted it through, and they burst into the open, into a widening lake, with cliffs towering round it. On the other side was a shorter channel to the open sea.

‘We go through there,’ Kenno said. ‘But the Gut is outside. We must go round the edge and hope it doesn’t suck us down.’

The boat raced over the lake. Kenno broke out another sail. The greater their speed the better chance they had of passing the whirlpool. But the strange colour of the rocks caught Susan’s eye, and she saw they were thickly overgrown with the yellow weed used as food by the Seafolk. She watched closely and saw movements in the rocks. Then Limpy shouted, and she had no more time. They were at the exit, and a hissing, a hollow booming from outside, told them what they must face now.

They sped under cliffs and saw the Gut. And Susan knew at once they had no chance. The whirlpool was worse than anything she could have imagined. The speed of it, the smoothness, horrified her as much as the size. It was as wide as a football field, and sloped in steeply. Cliffs of water raced down and out of sight. It looked as if it should roar, but it only hissed and boomed. And over beyond a black reef, a kilometre away, a mountainous yellow bubbling in the sea showed where the stolen water burst up again from the sea floor.

Kenno shook his head. She had trusted him. He was square, grizzled, sure. But he seemed to shrink. And Limpy, at the tiller, seemed a dwarf. Even Ben was no more than a toy, and Jimmy a ragged old man who should be somewhere else, digging a garden.

Limpy pointed the boat at the cliffs where a road of water led along the edge of the whirlpool. The hull scraped the rocks, he kept her as far clear of the Gut as he could, and they sped along in a storm of wind. But already a steady tugging had begun, a gravitational pull, and the boat began to lean and curve away from the face of the cliff.

Jimmy came back to Susan. ‘We’re not going to make it.’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry, Susie. It don’t matter so much fer me and Ben. We’re old, we’ve had our fun. But you young ones is startin’ out.’ He gave a laugh. ‘What we need now is Nick and them Birdfolk.’

The boat passed the side of the Gut and reached the place where it must break free and head out into the open sea. The wind roared and tugged, Limpy leaned on the tiller. But nothing helped, the pull was too great, and the boat curved round, crossed the front edge of the funnel, and leaned in towards the yellow rocks at the foot of the opposing cliffs. And Susan stared. The yellow rocks! The movement! She saw it again. The rearing up of an inquisitive head. She had a wild hope.

She ran to the rail of the boat, she grasped it with her hands, and leaned over the green racing sea.

‘Seafolk,’ she screamed. ‘Help us! I am Susan Ferris. Help us again.’

‘Susan’s cry was no stronger than a seabird’s call. Yet the rocks were suddenly alive with seals. They slithered down and slid into the water and a moment later, as the boat sped on, their heads appeared along the waterline, and the rippling iridescence of their bodies made a shining carpet deeper down. They kept pace easily, and one, with head raised higher than the rest, called in a voice at once melodious and painful, ‘It does not matter who you are. We help all those hunted by the priests.’

‘Can you save our boat?’ Kenno cried.

‘No. You must jump when I say. Do not swim, we will swim for you. But the Varg can save himself.’

The boat curved back to its starting point, and Susan glimpsed priests scrambling along the sides of the channel on the other side of the lake. Then the boat was racing on the water road along the side of the whirlpool, but leaning further in, sliding deeper into the funnel. The seals kept pace, on its outer side. They went across the seaward edge and the yellow rocks came in sight, over a lip of water.

‘Now,’ cried the seal. ‘Jump!’

‘Off you go, Susie,’ Jimmy said. He and Kenno took her arms and legs and flung her far out over the side. As she turned in the air she saw Ben diving, and Limpy rushing from his tiller. Then she struck the water and it jerked her like a hand, tumbling her along in a flurry of spray. But she felt something under her, lifting, checking her rush, and she grabbed at it and felt her hands sliding on the slick skin of a seal. She felt others, two, three, buoying her up, running her across the pull of the whirlpool. She was on a raft of seals angling out towards the yellow rocks. She could not see Jimmy or Kenno or Limpy, but Ben surfaced ahead, and swam powerfully, and she knew he would not be saving himself unless Jimmy was safe.

The force of the water fell away and soon they were in the rocks. The seals slid out from under her, letting her scramble up by herself. Ben went ahead, and Limpy was at her side. She heard Kenno grunting and Jimmy cursing, and knew they were safe.

‘Further up. Hide in the rocks. Priests are coming,’ a seal voice said. They scrambled up out of the sodden weed and crouched out of sight among dry boulders. The seals hid themselves, they slid into crevices, became as still as the rocks. From her hiding place Susan looked across the Gut. The boat was deep in it. Only the top half of the sails showed, flapping wildly, making it seem the wings were struggling to fly. One more turn and it was gone. She saw priests appear at the exit from the lake. They stood high on rocks, hauled themselves up the cliff, for a better view down the slope of the whirlpool. A crunching, a snapping of timber, came from deep in the Gut. The priests made no sign.

‘Wait,’ whispered a seal close to Susan. She saw he was looking at the mound of water beyond the reef and she watched too. A long time passed. Then pieces of timber, fractured planks, reared up in the mound and bubbled there. She heard a faint shout from the priests and saw them rattling their Ferris bones. Then they turned and ran back towards the lake.

‘They think we’re dead,’ Limpy whispered.

‘We should be dead,’ Kenno said. ‘I’ll never try the Gut again.’

‘It’s like goin’ down a plughole,’ Jimmy said. ‘You got some pretty handy mates, young Susie.’

Susan turned to the seal. ‘Island Lover saved me a hundred turns ago. Now you have saved me and my friends.’

‘Are you really Susan Ferris?’

‘Yes. I’ve come to end the Temple.’

‘If you can do that you will have our thanks. The priests hunt us. The clothes they wear are made from our skins. There are not many of us left now, Susan.’

Susan felt she could not bear the gaze of those sad brown eyes. ‘And they call themselves my priests,’ she said.

‘How will you destroy them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It must be done. Soon there will be no Seafolk. No Woodlanders. Only the Temple. Only the High Priest and his humans. And most of them will be slaves.’

Kenno stepped forward. ‘We will not be slaves. The time of the Temple is ending. Everywhere people know the teaching is a lie.’

‘Yet the priests are strong. You will not overthrow them easily.’ The seal looked at them sadly, letting his eyes go from each to each. ‘We cannot help you. But if you return to the sea, call on us.’

They filed along through the rocks and left the booming of the Gut behind. The Seafolk came with them round the headland and showed them the way to go. Ahead, the cliffs flattened out and a wide sea-marsh ran back towards the wall of Sheercliff. A pale mist lay on it, a salty exhalation that seemed to stir thinly in a breeze from the sea.

‘You must go into the swamp,’ the seal said. ‘We do not know what lies beyond.’

‘The Temple,’ Kenno said. ‘We will go there.’

They left the Seafolk in the rocks and walked along a beach that slowly changed from sand to mud. Kenno believed Sheercliff was only a day’s travelling away. They would have to spend a night in the swamp, but the next morning would bring them to the Temple. The swamp would be dangerous, he said. There were bogs and poisonous insects. But at least they would not be hunted by priests.