The Girl of Ink & Stars (14 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY~ONE

T
his tunnel was different.

The rock seemed the same kind as in the rest of the maze, but the air was thick with a strange fizz of energy. It sparked up through my feet and made them tingle, as if I walked on a bed of upturned pins, not stone.

The noise grew threatening as I followed the path, the channel narrowing. A now-familiar sensation of claustrophobia began to cloud my mind. I would have given all the stories in the world for one breath of cool, clean air. Before all this, I didn't think I was afraid of anything. Now the dark was only one fear on a long list.

The way the tunnel continued to turn without spitting me back out where I began could only mean that it was coiling, like a shell. The ceiling got lower and lower, until I was forced on to my hands and knees.

Then the sparks started.

At first they were tiny, but as I followed the tightening coils, gaps opened up in the floor of the tunnel, blazing with heat. I put the wood-light in my belt so I could pull myself forward faster. Sparks flew through the cracks, occasionally landing on my clothes. A small flame caught on my sleeve. I fumbled for the water flask and poured a few drops over it.

A wonderful coolness rushed over my skin. Thin bands of blue danced across the fabric where the liquid had landed. I knew it was not normal water – the map's transformation had proved that – but this was something else. I looked at the flask, shaking it slightly. It sloshed, nearly full.

Arinta entered through a tunnel behind a waterfall, drenching herself in the water to protect herself against the flames
.

I poured a small amount on to my arm, waited for the blue to spread, and held it out to one of the flames. It licked at my skin harmlessly as a breeze. I crouched and carefully rubbed more water over my skin and clothes, until only parts of my back were left unprotected. When I continued it was as if I was doused in ice.

Da once told me about an iceberg that drifted down from the Frozen Circle when he was six, two decades before the Governor arrived. It came out of the Joyan night like a ghost ship, bumping into Gromera's bay with such force that it gouged a piece of land right out of the earth. It was why Da became fascinated with seeing new places, and with charting them. Because of the ice, he was a cartographer.
It's odd how things are connected.
He always said that. Da
did not believe in fate but in each decision affecting the next, like a shout starting a landslide.

How many connections had brought me here? The possibilities made my head spin as the tunnel got lower, the cracks in the floor wider. My hip bones scraped painfully along the uneven surface, knees chafing as the space got smaller and smaller, closing around me…

Soon the tunnel was sloping downwards at an impossible angle, and the weight of my body dragged me forward faster than my arms could brace against the sides. The thought came too late that I should have gone feet first. I tried to wriggle around, but could not fold myself without getting stuck.

As I tried to manoeuvre back again my palm hit a loose rock. It was too late to find something solid to hold, though I tried, nails scrabbling for a crack, anything to stop me falling. Finally I managed to wedge my bare foot into a crack, wrenching my ankle. Something gave in the soft pad of my foot and I bit my lip until the throb eased.

Ahead of me the tunnel fell away in an almost vertical slope. I brought my knees up to my chest to lodge myself in place, and craned my neck. At the bottom, it opened out – on to what I could not see – but smoke was billowing up, starting to fill the tunnel. I coughed as a rumbling noise funnelled up with greater ferocity than ever before.

I slip-skidded down to the opening, and gasped, drawing acrid smoke into my lungs. Below me, a gigantic, fiery mouth gaped at the centre of a pit, opening and closing,
spitting out molten rock. A fire pit. Ledges ringed the walls, flickering with heat that struck me like a blow.

The skin on my cheeks was blistering, and my insides felt as raw as my skin. My head swam and I heaved myself backwards, cramming my legs across the tunnel to keep from falling, coughing and shaking uncontrollably.

Though it felt like for ever, it could not have been more than a matter of minutes since leaving Lupe in the cave. Yet here I was, wedged inside the very rock of Yote's lair. Like Arinta, a thousand years before.

I thought of all the people I had not been able to say goodbye to. Da, in the thick dark of the Dédalo. Pablo at the riverbank. Lupe, sleeping trustingly above. What would happen to her? Would she survive this?

Enough
. I had to get closer to Yote. I may not be Arinta, but I had to try to save Joya.

I lowered myself carefully, so my legs dangled down to the ledge below. It was a long drop. I was about to let go when the shaking started again. But it was not the same as the tremors in the crystal cave or the Tibicenas running. This was deeper, more menacing even than a Tibicena's howl. Just as I tried to pull myself back, my hands slipped, sending me hurtling, feet-first, into the abyss.

My hips hit a ledge with a crunch, breaking my momentum, and I found myself hanging from my forearms. Legs swinging uselessly, kicking out over a searing nothingness, my body shook worse than ever. I clawed at the gritted rock, tearing my nails. It was no use. I did not have the strength
to lever myself up.

But now it came to me, strong as a voice in my ear: I did not want to die.

Lupe was right. I was not Arinta. I was not special. I wished Lupe were here now, pulling me up with her long arms. But she was asleep, still trusting my lies. And now I could not even do what I came here to do. I could not save her, nor Da, nor Joya.

My grip gave way. As the ledge shuddered with another violent shake, I fell.

I landed hard on the ledge below, breath knocked viciously from my lungs. My back felt broken in two, white-hot pain sizzling across my legs and the nape of my neck. For a moment – maybe a minute, maybe more – I could not move. My body was full of molten sand, the ground was not beneath me, though I could feel it solidly there.

Liquid blackness behind my eyes, in my ears. Quiet, at last.

Then, bright stars pricked the air as the rumbling tremors grew. I could feel them, a persistent ripple moving as though the earth itself were water, rolling waves around me. I
could
feel them. I was sure. But still there was nothing beneath me, as if I was hovering. Part of my brain was all pain, all noise; the other was nothing, nowhere, not there.

Something was very wrong. Though I was sure I could not, I sat up – didn't I? – I peeled away, coming free, my body dropping behind me like a cloak. I did not look back at it, slack on the ledge. I felt it left there, and the me now
crawling to the edge felt rock gritting my knees as I peered over.

Yote hung before me.

He was not the writhing mass of smoke and molten rock that had filled the pit, but a form that was close to human, only huge, emerging from a column of fire that raged beneath his six limbs, spreading from a torso that swirled with ash clouds.

He spoke, in a voice that brought smoke rushing up from beneath him and sent it tumbling around until I choked. The voice rattled and rasped, like the death throes of a Tibicena. But inside me, the me kneeling on the edge of the ledge, a point of pressure opened up near my eye, and from this place I felt his words burrow into my brain.

What do you want?

To stop you, as Arinta did
.

My voice was lost, fluttering desperately from one self to another, caught between throats. I was on my knees, I was on my back. But Yote seemed to hear me. Again pressure pinched my skull.

You're too late
.

Fingers closed on my shoulders. I shut my eyes, ready to fall.

CHAPTER
TWENTY~TWO

‘
W
hat are you doing?'

I was rising, my body pulled upwards.

‘What the hell do you think you are doing?'

It was Lupe, shouting at me, dragging me, my arm across her shoulders as heat sent the air roiling around us. Cracks were opening in the walls and she squeezed us through, my head knocking on the rock.

Now I could feel the pain, all of it, through my back and shoulders, cutting across my legs, tearing at my head. It did not matter that Ma's map of the Forgotten Territories lay in shreds in my pocket. It was like carrying a map of the journey on my skin, each scrape a path that drew us further on, each bruise a reminder. And Yote's words, burnt into my brain, a line of white-hot beads threaded deep inside.

You're too late
.

The ground gave an enormous wrench, and I felt Lupe carrying us forward even as a chasm opened beneath her
feet. We curled ourselves into a tight tangle of limbs, and dropped like stones.

I wished for the end to be quick, to smash us against rock, or into fire. But instead we clattered painfully downwards. The labyrinth would not release us. Yote wanted us in the depths of his maze, where no light beyond his could reach.

The rocks grew smooth under my back. A roaring sound filled my ears, like water and fire and wind all mixed up together. But the shaking had stopped. I stopped rolling.

I turned on to my side so I could see Lupe, my head spinning, the wood-light jutting painfully into my hip. We seemed to be in another cave, but this one stretched high, the ceiling out of sight.

‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm getting used to falling down things.' Her face was pale. ‘I wish the ground would stop moving.'

‘How did you get to me?'

‘I shifted the rocks.' I noticed her hands were covered in cuts, her fingernails shredded, her thin legs scraped. How had she carried me?

‘Isa, what happened back there? I thought you were dead.'

‘So did I,' I joked, but I could not tell her about the peeling away, the two selves, speaking to Yote. She would not believe me. I did not know if I believed myself. ‘I think I must have fainted—'

But I was saved from coming up with an explanation,
because Lupe was no longer paying attention. Her eyes were fixed behind me. ‘Isa, turn around.'

She looked as she had in the crystal cave. I followed her gaze, and felt my jaw drop.

Behind me, inches away, a black fire was cascading. A waterfall, a firefall, held in place by an invisible barrier. But the fire was not only travelling down. It was also pushing upwards, outwards, swirling this way and that. As if we had fallen beneath the sea, were watching it churn through glass.

Glass. I crawled forward.

‘No!' Lupe shouted. ‘What are you doing?'

‘It's all right,' I said. ‘Watch.'

I pressed the wood-light slowly into the black fire. Lupe gasped as the surface gave slightly, like the skin on milk. Then she pulled herself forward, so that we lay side by side on our bellies. ‘This is incredible! What is this stuff?'

‘It's glass,' I replied.

‘Glass?' She frowned. ‘Like the windows in my house?'

‘Yes.'

‘But how is it here?'

That roaring sound, the sound like the sea.

‘It's molten sand. Da—'

‘Da told you, of course, but how does it work?'

‘It's sand. We must be under a beach. When you melt it, it forms glass. I'm not sure how exactly. This is black because of the bits of shell in the sand.'

‘Isn't sand always bits of shell?'

‘And other things, like crystals.' I frowned at her. ‘I thought you wanted me to tell you.'

‘I do.'

‘Da said that if you looked at glass close up, it would look like everything it's made of, melted together. Sand, too. Sand would look like tiny shells.'

‘How does he know?'

I flushed. ‘He's just guessing. But it would make sense.'

I waited for her to mock me, but she only said, ‘I'd like to see sand close up.'

We watched the fire churn, silent a while. Then Lupe asked, ‘Does glass melt, then?'

I knew what she was really asking.

‘I suppose it must, if it's made by melting.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Doesn't seem fair, does it? To be so close to the sea and not reach it.'

‘A bit like being back in Gromera,' I said.

Her grin faded. ‘I suppose.'

We watched the glass. Not long left now. Soon it would shatter, or melt, and there would be nothing between us and Yote's flames.

‘What happened, then?' Lupe asked, in that way she had of picking up a conversation long dropped. ‘Did you fall, or…'

‘I don't know,' I said quietly. I was sure I had heard Yote, sure I had left my body, but it wasn't possible. It didn't matter now. Nothing mattered, nothing would matter ever again. ‘I don't want to talk about it.'

Lupe took my hand. ‘How about I tell you a story?'

‘A story or a myth?' I asked slyly.

But she only put on a serious face and said, ‘Definitely a story.'

‘All right.'

She cleared her throat theatrically.

‘Once there was a girl. This girl was a map-maker's daughter, but she insisted on everyone calling it cartography or something, and she thought her stories were the best and didn't want anyone else to tell them—'

I jabbed her hard in the side.

‘That wasn't really the story!' she spluttered.

‘I guessed.'

The glass made a grinding sound, and we jumped. There was no crack yet, but the shift and slide was more obvious now.

‘Better hurry,' I said.

We sat cross-legged in front of each other. Lupe began again.

‘Once there was a country where a kind king and queen reigned. One day, the queen decided to go on a tour of her lands. She set off alone on a horse, for she was a strong rider. But a couple of days later, the king received a message from the village she was expected at first. She had never arrived.

‘The king rode for days, visiting village after village, enlisting more people to help him search for her. A week passed, and the king collapsed, exhausted. They could not
find his wife.

‘The loss turned the king mad. The trees stopped bearing fruit, and the rivers turned brown in their beds. The people wilted, grey as the sky. But this was not enough suffering for the king. He ordered higher taxes, and organized troops of soldiers to visit other nearby lands and bring back map-makers. He became obsessed with charting his country.

‘Map-maker after map-maker came, but they were never good enough. The king wanted the maps to be bigger, more detailed. Then his men brought him a cartographer from the East, a clever, kind man, who realized how much pain the king was in and vowed to do his best to help him. The cartographer came up with an idea. He proposed making a map without a scale, or rather, a map to the exact scale of the land—'

‘How do you know what a scale is?' I couldn't help myself.

Lupe regarded me wearily. ‘I do listen, you know.'

As if on cue, the glass creaked. I spun around, but before I could look, Lupe grabbed my arms.

‘It's better not to look. Trust me.'

I nodded, holding her gaze. She took my hand again, and continued, talking faster.

‘The first things a map-maker needs are paper and ink, and to read the stars. While the cartographer made star charts, great nets were set out across the forest to catch each insect. They were crushed to make different colours, and soon the cartographer had a hundred vats of ink to use.
Then the forests were felled to clear the view of the sky. Tree after tree was mashed with gallons of river water to make the paper. All the animals died, and people began to be poisoned by the soiled river water, but the king did not care. He only wanted to find his wife.

‘The cartographer began. He started at the western shore, laying down the paper and marking it with where the houses and roads and rivers were. When he covered the crops with paper, they died from lack of sun, but still the king did not care. His subjects began to leave the land and sailed to other countries, to be ruled by men less mad and cruel.

‘Soon only the king and his cartographer remained. The map was almost done when the cartographer found the skeletons of the queen and her horse on a remote stretch of coast. He rode across the paper miles to tell the king.

‘The king was so overcome with grief that his heart began to burst. The doctor had fled the place long ago, so there was nothing to be done. He died in the cartographer's arms.'

She stopped. I shuddered.

‘What happened to the map?'

Lupe let out a bark of laughter. ‘Only you would ask, “What happened to the map?”.'

I waited. ‘But what did?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't know. The rain broke it to pieces, or the cartographer made it into a paper ship and sailed out to sea.'

‘Really?'

‘You know it's just a story?'

‘Yes,' I paused. ‘It was the best story I've ever heard. Who told you it?'

She grinned broadly. ‘You did.'

‘No, really.'

‘You,' she repeated, softer this time.

My smile faded. ‘What?'

‘You made it up for my birthday. Three years ago, when we first became friends. You made me a map to the rabbit warren and we sat by it while you told me. I liked it so much I wrote it down when I got home. You really don't remember?'

I shook my head slowly. I only remembered realizing too late that I didn't have a present for Lupe, and telling her the first thing that came into my mind. I had no idea she liked it enough to memorize it, let alone write it down.

‘I read it all the time at home. It has your favourite things. Adventure, maps…'

‘And a sad ending,' I added.

‘And that.'

The glass creaked, and this time Lupe was too slow to stop me looking. Near the top, where the glass was thickest, a crack had split the pane like a fissure in rock. A flame licked the centre of the line and the glass bubbled.

We broke away from each other, throwing ourselves backwards. The flames had not yet come through, but whole swathes of the surface were sliding down, bubbling
into a threatening pool at the bottom.

I backed right up against the opposite wall of the glass-fronted cave. Something jabbed into my head.

‘Ouch!' My fingers came away sticky with blood.

Lupe staunched the flow with her raggedy dress.

‘What happened?'

‘I hit my head.'

‘What on?'

I snatched the wood-light from my belt and held it up to the wall.

Jutting from the surface was a shadowy shape. It looked like an irregular piece of rock, only lighter. But when I held the wood-light closer, it glinted.

It was not rock at all. It was metal.