The Girl of Ink & Stars (12 page)

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

T
he next instant I was hugging Pablo so tightly I heard the breath whoosh out of him.

‘Isabella? What—'

‘You're here! How?' The relief flooding my body felt like eating all the dandelion root in the world.

‘Don't sound so disappointed,' he said, returning the hug so awkwardly I felt my cheeks flush and I stepped back. ‘But how are you here? I saw you taken by the Banished. I tried to follow but I lost you in the dark.' His voice had a husky tone to it. ‘I thought I wouldn't see you again.'

He looked around, catching sight of Lupe. She was standing by the riverbank. I could not read her expression.

‘Is that the Adori girl?' said Pablo. ‘Where's Adori?'

‘He stayed behind with the Banished,' I said carefully, aware that Lupe could hear us. ‘To fight.'

‘Fight what?'

‘The Tibicenas. What they call demon dogs.'

Pablo's eyebrows disappeared beneath his fringe. ‘Demon dogs? Like in the myth?'

I nodded.

‘I see.' Pablo's tone was mocking. He caught sight of Miss La splashing around on the bank like a suffocating fish and again raised his eyebrows. ‘What is happening here?'

‘We don't have time for this,' Lupe exclaimed impatiently.

‘She's right,' I said. ‘We have to get to Gromera.'

‘Agreed,' said Pablo. ‘If we follow the river—'

‘Isa knows,' interrupted Lupe. ‘She's been directing us fine so far.'

She picked up Miss La, who sat docile in the crook of her arm, and began striding down the river.

‘What's wrong with her?' Pablo jerked his head at her retreating back.

‘She's been through a lot,' I said, wondering what the letter had said. Pablo fell into step beside me.

‘What really happened?'

I told him about waking up at the Banished camp, about Ana, and Marquez trying to take the Governor's place.

‘So Adori was there? I saw him running away when the men got attacked.'

‘Well, he came back.'

‘Unlike me, you mean?' Pablo said sharply. ‘I did try to follow, but they took the horses and—'

I shook my head. ‘I'm not saying that. I'm saying he tried to make it right. When the Tibicenas attacked… what's so funny?'

‘That you can even say that word with a straight face—'

‘They are real!'

‘What did they look like?'

I tried to explain.

‘Sounds like a wolf to me.'

‘It's the way they make you feel. Doce says—'

‘Doce?'

‘One of the Banished – Ana's daughter. She says they drive you outside yourself. You feel them coming. Your insides go funny, like a storm in your stomach.'

‘What's that meant to mean?' said Pablo, smirking. “‘Storm in your stomach”? Sounds like what happens after eating your da's cooking.'

‘You wouldn't be laughing if you'd been there,' I said, flatly. I suddenly felt exhausted. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to get home and see Da. Not even my half-finished map made me want to stay in the Forbidden Territories any more.

‘You tired?' His face was kinder now. I shook my head even as I yawned. ‘You sure? I could carry you for a bit.'

I looked at him sharply in case he was teasing, but he was holding out his arms. Attaching the Governor's keys to my belt, I checked Lupe was not watching, then hesitantly wrapped my arms around his neck. He lifted me and under the smell of sweat and blood there was lavender again, fainter than ever.

Breathing it in, I listened to the rhythmic sloshing of his feet. I could not believe he was here. And Lupe was ahead,
chattering away to Miss La. If I let myself forget what lay behind, it almost felt all right. Almost.

I closed my eyes and floated on a deep, black ocean that sparkled and shone, reflecting a clear night sky full of stars. Across the water came a boat made of glowing wood, so light it barely skimmed the sea's surface. As the boat approached I saw swirling carvings on its sides, and in the shallow hull stood my family. Not just Da, but Ma and Gabo too. All three were pale as moonlight, and glowed with an aura as wondrous as the vessel they sailed in. Gabo stretched out his fingers and, as the dream-night shone around us, I took his hand.

‘Isabella, look!'

I blinked blearily into the midday glare. ‘What is it?'

I felt suddenly awake. Ahead, the ground seemed to drop away into nothing. Except I knew it was not nothing – it was Arintan. We were coming to the edge of the ridge the expedition had followed on its outward journey.

Pablo set me down, steadying me as the blood prickled back into my legs. ‘Nearly home,' he said.

I walked to the edge of the waterfall and peered over. ‘It's a long drop.'

Lupe looked too, then passed Miss La to me and without pausing scrambled halfway down the rocks. She tucked her skirts up and jumped lightly down, landing with a quiet
splash. I gaped at her as she climbed back up simple as a cat, barely panting. ‘Not so bad.'

‘Show off,' mumbled Pablo.

It was as I turned to tell him off that I felt it: the pushing away, my insides twisting. Pablo's face creased and he held his stomach. ‘What is that?'

‘Oh, no,' said Lupe frantically. ‘Oh, no, no, no!'

‘Run!' I shouted, just as a huge shape materialized behind Pablo.

But there was no time. Pablo turned to see the Tibicena, its hackles raised along its spine, the slash of its mouth opening into a booming roar, like a thousand rocks smashing down a cliff.

‘Help me!' I yelled, heaving at a boulder by the waterfall's edge.

Pablo lifted it, waiting until the creature was within range and then hurling it easy as a skimmed pebble. It hit the Tibicena hard, trapping its leg.

‘Go!' I shoved Lupe towards the lip of the ridge and threw a squawking Miss La to her as she landed at the bottom.

I chanced a look back. The Tibicena had freed itself but seemed to be struggling to stand, its back leg hanging oddly. Pablo grabbed my arms and half pushed me over, crouching on the slippery surface to lower me.

Then I was falling the last few metres, landing on the soft mud of the riverbed next to Lupe. Pablo splashed down beside us, sounding like Gabo falling into the clay mine. For
one, wonderful heartbeat I thought we had done it, had escaped.

But then the Tibicena loomed over the ledge, readying itself to jump.

Pablo urged us forward. ‘The path's over there. Run!'

I sloshed after him but Lupe stumbled, going down hard against the rocky side of the waterfall. Miss La was off and scrabbling to the trees. I wrenched my arm from Pablo's grip and ran to try to help Lupe to her feet, but she was a dead weight in my arms, her terrified eyes fixed on the dark shape above us.

Pablo's momentum had carried him further downstream, and he spun around to come back for Lupe and me. Too late. I felt the Tibicena's shadow thunder over like a wave as the creature threw its broken body down between us, reeling around to face the waterfall. To face Lupe and me.

Pablo searched for a weapon. He picked up a stone and threw it at the Tibicena's flank but it only glanced off the matted fur.

‘Go!' I shouted desperately as Lupe and I backed away. ‘You have to warn Gromera!'

The Tibicena drew back its lips in a snarl, black saliva stringing down to the ground.

Pablo's face was set. ‘I'm not leaving you!'

He grabbed a pointed stick from a pile of branches – the firewood we had helped collect only days before – and jabbed it hard into the Tibicena's injured leg. The beast
roared as it rounded on Pablo, lifting an enormous paw. Its claws slashed through the air, catching Pablo across the face.

I saw his eyes go blank, and he fell back against the riverbank, motionless. Blood blossomed across the water towards me. Pablo's blood.

The Tibicena reared as if to strike again. I began to scream.

I screamed Pablo's name, I screamed at the Tibicena to stay away from him, and Lupe screamed with me. He was not dead. He could not be dead.

We started throwing slick pebbles from the riverbed and splashing our feet, trying to get the Tibicena to leave Pablo, to turn towards us.

It worked.

Lupe and I fell silent, our breath coming in tight gasps. The Tibicena was preparing to attack, taking its time. Beyond it I saw Miss La's tracks in the dusty ground by the trees, but for Lupe and me, there was nowhere left to go.

I took one last look at Pablo. Was that movement in his chest? A rise and fall, barely a whisper, rippling his white tunic?

‘Isa,' squeaked Lupe. ‘Now what?'

I pulled her backwards blindly, through the thin stream of water and into the cave. We backed right up inside the large chamber I had reached on my first visit to Arintan. I felt the horizontal striations of the rocks against my back, and tried to summon Gabo as the Tibicena appeared at the mouth of the cave.

The smell was rot and rage and sweat. My insides wrenched and turned. I wanted it over. Lupe found my hand.

It sprang, and Lupe pulled me down. I heard the rush of air as the Tibicena launched itself at us. I cringed, bracing myself for its weight to crush us, for its claws to rip into us—

But it never came.

There was an ear-splitting
crack!
as the rocks behind me gave way. The force of its leap had carried the Tibicena straight through the wall, and a few seconds later we heard a sickening crunch.

Hollow. The back of the waterfall was hollow.

We crouched, frozen to the spot.

‘Are you all right?' I croaked.

‘Never better.' Lupe's voice was high and small.

I hiccuped out a short laugh. My belly and ribs ached and I felt dizzier than ever as I looked around.

‘We should go.' Lupe's face was graver than I had ever seen it. ‘Pablo.'

I shuddered, remembering how still he had been, his barely-there breath. Cold spiked through my chest.

I took Lupe's outstretched hand and pushed against the shattered wall to stand up.

A mistake.

A grinding sound rose through the silence. The base of the wall gave way behind me. As I lost my balance, I tried to let go of Lupe's hand, but she held fast.

Together, we plummeted into dark.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

C
an you stand at the point you are at, in any room – your room, say – and accurately remember it? Could you walk outside into the yard and make me a drawing of it in the dirt? It's only a small, simple room. You've lived there ever since you could walk. Two beds, probably a sleeping cat on one, a chest full of clothes
.

What about scale? We can't draw it the size it is, even a small room like that. We need to scale it down. Would you give me a matchbox bed under a tiger cat? Could you remember the size of everything in relation to everything else? This relationship is more and more important the larger we go. A tree in its place in a forest, an island tethered in the sea. In Ma's map, the only one we have of the Forgotten Territories, each kind of tree is marked. The detail matters. Even in mapping your bedroom
.

Landmarks next. A circle for rest and comfort: the cat and the bed. An
X
for danger where the loose nail sticks out
of the chest. A snaking line for the voice line between your bed and Gabo's
.

Perhaps this is it. This simple square, marked in the dirt. This is a map you could go and buy from any map-maker, anywhere in the world. If they'd seen the room, this is what they would give you. An accurate measure of itself. But could it show the feel of the place?

This is what a cartographer does. We make the maps come alive. Your room would have the quality of home. You would look at it, and know it not as a room, but as
your
room, where you have spent your childhood. And we can make maps of places we were years ago. Here, on Joya, I could make you a map of Afrik that would have you breathing the incense of the markets until you were dizzy with it. My map of the Frozen Circle could have you reaching for fur socks and running from a white bear! Well, almost . . .

That's a way off for you, little one. But this is a start! You have drawn your first map. Write your name across the top. Here, you can use my peacock quill
.

I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A
.

Perfect
.

I shifted. Dark rushed in, along with the echo of my own heavy breathing.

Crack!

Something broke close to my ear. I tried to move, but Lupe had landed across my leg and arm. She was unconscious, chest rising shallowly.

Crack!

This time, something broke beneath me. I put my free hand out and a wave of nausea rippled through me as thick, stinking fur met my fingertips. That noise . . . the ribs of the Tibicena were giving way beneath our weight.

With a final glut of cracking, I heaved Lupe off and scuttled away from the two shadows until I hit a damp wall of rock. The last moments before our fall were coming back: Pablo trying to save us, being struck down. His blood spreading through the water.

I closed my eyes.

‘When I count to ten,' I murmured to the blackness, ‘everything will be all right. One, two, three…'

But by ‘ten' the world was still as cloaked as ever. The satchel was pressing into my back. I pulled it out and felt inside for the wood-light. Its glow dispelled the darkness and I looked over at Lupe, who groaned and sat up gingerly.

‘Are you all right?'

She opened her mouth to reply and blood spilt down her chin.

‘You're hurt!' I gasped. ‘Ith's fine. I bith my tongue.' She stuck it out for me to see.

The bite wasn't deep. I gave her a gulp of water, and she
swilled it around her mouth, spitting out red.

‘What happened?'

‘We fell.' I pointed up to where the gap was, at least five metres above us, rock dust still streaming down.

‘We fell all that way? And nothing's broken?'

I shook my head. ‘You can thank our friend.'

Lupe followed my gaze and yelped, dragging herself away from the broken body of the Tibicena, tar-like blood still leaking from its muzzle.

‘Ugh! It's… it is dead?'

If it wasn't before we landed on it, it was now. Lupe did not seem to want to get any closer to it than I did, letting out a long breath. I looked up towards the hole from which we had fallen. It was barely visible.

Lupe craned her neck. ‘Do you think we can climb it?'

I ran my hands over the rock wall. The rock was slimy and crumbled at my touch. My fingers came away damp.

‘We can try.'

There were no hand-holds to speak of, so I tried emptying the satchel, climbing on to Lupe's shoulders and throwing it, hoping for the strap to hook the ledge. It did not get close. We piled the rocks from the collapsed wall on top of each other, and this time Lupe climbed on to my shoulders, stretching towards the gap, but even without my shaking knees it was still an impossible distance away. All the time we called for Pablo, but there was no answer. I tried not to think what that meant, even though I knew he would come if he could.

Lupe sank to the floor, burying her head in her hands. For a moment it sounded like she was laughing, but then the gulps resolved into stifled sobs. I reached out to help her up but she shrugged me off. Her nose was running.

I slid down the rough surface of the rock wall and sat on the damp ground next to her, repacking the satchel as I faced the thick darkness of what I was sure was a tunnel. If it was, I could not ignore how we had found it.

Through the waterfall. Just like Arinta did, on her way to fight Yote.

Think
.

Doce said the Tibicenas came from below – this tunnel, and others like it, must be what she meant. The Tibicenas could not be reaching the surface from here. We had only just broken through the back of the waterfall's cavern and there was no way up. That meant there must be other exits.

Lupe quietened, her breathing still irregular. I stood and helped her to her feet.

‘We're going.' I pointed into the darkness.

Lupe shrank in on herself, shaking her head. ‘No, I can't… I hate the dark.'

‘We have to.'

‘I don't have to do anything.'

‘There must be a way out.' I said, more certainly than I felt.

‘But you don't know that!'

‘We'll make it, we will. I…' I trailed off.

Lupe glared. ‘What? You promise? You don't know the way out. You don't even know there
is
a way out.'

‘The Tibicenas had to come from somewhere. The Banished said they came from below.'

Lupe glanced over quickly to where the wood-light illuminated the slack shadow, then at the tunnel mouth. ‘Maybe the horse boy will wake up soon. If we just wait…'

I didn't know what to say. I could not tell her what she wanted to hear, and could not say why I did not think Pablo would come. I could not think he was—

Stop thinking it, then
.

But I also could not stay here and wait to die, any more than Lupe could stomach entering the darkness. If only I had a map, I'd feel safer facing the unfathomable black ahead.

‘A map!' I gasped as I remembered: Ma's map changing, the lines appearing and vanishing as I watched. The satchel floating in the Arintara …

‘What are you doing?' Lupe asked as I emptied the satchel on to the floor, inks and ripped star charts tumbling.

The map was at the very bottom. I unrolled it and smoothed it out on the damp ground, holding the wood-light over it.

‘What's—' started Lupe.

‘Shhhh!' I stared hard at the paper, but nothing happened. I sat back on my heels, rubbing my eyes with frustration. Then—

‘Look!' Lupe was pointing at the map.

It was changing. The trees and villages were retreating,
sucked into the surface, a new landscape developing slowly.

‘Why is it doing that?'

‘The water…' My heart was thumping too hard, too loud. ‘It was the wrong water.'

‘What?'

I wished she would be quiet. It was clear now. The first time the map had changed, it had been drenched by the river. The river at Arintan. When I tried to recreate the change, I used water from the flask filled at home. Now the ground was again damp from the waterfall. The map had to be wetted with water from Arintan to reveal this hidden layer.

I snatched the map up and waved it around. As the corners began to dry the original images reappeared.

I held the map against the dripping rock wall. The lines regrew and intersected, covering the outline of Joya in a mesh of what I now realized were tunnels. Dotted across the network were circles. One was positioned above the place where the waterfall had just faded. My breath caught. The circles were exits.
Thank you, Ma
.

‘What is it?'

I looked up, smiling broadly.

‘It's our way out.'

I measured the distance to the next exit with my fingers. We would have to walk miles along the tunnel to it. I was not
happy about venturing so close to the red circle that crouched at the centre of the map, but we had no choice.

I did not tell Lupe what I thought this circle meant. If she didn't want to go into the dark, I didn't think mentioning a fire demon would be much comfort. I had never hoped so hard I was wrong. For now, our only concern was getting out of the maze. Even the black forest would be a comfort. Anything above ground would do.

We drank from the rivulets trickling down the wall. The water was grainy but it tasted fresh enough. We drained our flasks of their stale water and refilled them. I soaked the map through and we set off, the way illuminated by the wood-light.

It was difficult to keep track of how long we walked, each step reverberating off the walls, the heat growing all the time. I tracked our location by moving my finger along the lines on the map, tracing our progress from corner to corner, bend to bend.

It took all my concentration, so I did not speak except to direct us left, right, straight ahead, or to ask Lupe to dampen the map. The air stank.

Lupe wrinkled her nose. ‘Smells like off fireworks.'

Whatever it was stung my lungs, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue, but I could not waste water washing the feeling away. The downward slope of the ground increased minute by minute, and soon we were sliding down a steep channel. I hoped it would not take us too deep.

Da's stories spiralled through my mind, one joining up
to the next. But it was the myth of Arinta that returned again and again.
She entered through a tunnel behind a waterfall
. I cast a sideways glance at Lupe, wondering if she had been listening any of the many times I told her the story. But her face was set in a grimace, pulse going fast in her temple.

As we scrambled further into the depths of the island, the heat intensified. Sweat ran down my face, steam lifting off the map as it dried. Soon Lupe had emptied one of the flasks of half of its water.

We reached a crossroads, four tunnels intersecting. I squinted at the mesh of lines, trying to work out which one we should take, but they vanished.

‘It's drying out too fast.'

Lupe groaned in frustration. ‘We can't use the water like this, we need to keep some to drink.'

‘I'll try to sketch the route,' I reached into the satchel for the map-making materials. My hand closed on nothing but the blade, and my half-finished map. Along with the keys and water flask on my belt, they were all I had. With a sinking heart I remembered emptying the bag, the pile of inks and paper stacked where we had fallen with the Tibicena.

‘I left everything behind. I'm sorry—'

Lupe made a hushing sound, ‘Shhh!'

‘I said I'm sorry,' I sulked.

‘No, seriously, Isabella.' She held a finger to her lips, taking the wood-light from my hand and burying it in
the satchel.

Then I heard it: a shuffling sound, echoing down the tunnel to our right, followed by a low growling. I pulled Lupe into the shadows of the left-hand path just as the pushing away started in my stomach. I felt the walls blindly. They were pitted with cracks and gaps.

A handful of moments scattered as the Tibicena approached, Lupe moaned, creased over, and I dug my fingernails into my palms as we heard it stop at the point where we had just been, sniffing the air. Then it let loose a horrible sound, sharp, with a rattling undertone that shook dust from the tunnel ceiling. I swallowed, tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.