City of Lies
Authors: Lian Tanner
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Lian Tanner
Jacket art copyright © 2011 by Jon Foster
Interior illustrations copyright © 2011 by Sebastian Ciaffaglione
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Allen & Unwin Pty. Ltd., Sydney, in 2011.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and
the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tanner, Lian.
City of lies / Lian Tanner — 1st American ed.
p. cm. — (The keepers trilogy; bk. 2)
Summary: Twelve-year-old Goldie, impulsive and bold, relies on her skills as a liar and a thief to try to rescue her captured friends from the child-stealers running rampant in the City of Spoke.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89696-5 [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.
2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Robbers and outlaws—Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.T16187Cit 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010048579
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment
and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
T
he ancient tale of Frisia, crown princess of Merne, is a curious one. There was a time when people knew it only as a children’s story. Now, of course, it is famous, because it played such an important part in the life of Goldie Roth, Fifth Keeper of the Museum of Dunt
.
Frisia was a warrior princess, a brilliant archer and swords-woman and a natural leader. She lived in what was, at the time, one of the most dangerous places in the world—the royal court of Merne
.
In those days, the court was full of plots and vicious intrigues. At the center of most of them was the king’s physician, an ambitious woman who was secretly in the pay of Graf von Nagel, the rebel warlord. This physician, helped by members of the royal guard, carried out several assassination attempts on Frisia and her father, the king
.
Frisia survived these plots to lead a tiny army against von Nagel and his followers. The result of the ensuing battle has never been clear. Some say that von Nagel was defeated, and died with Frisia’s sword through his heart. Others say that it was the princess who died, and that her body was carried away by the beasts of the field, who had risen up to fight beside her
.
No one knows what happened to the physician
.
—from
The Museum of Dunt: A Hidden History
T
he scream woke Goldie Roth from a deep sleep. She sat bolt upright, thinking for a moment that she was back in the terrible events of six months ago, with the city of Jewel on the brink of invasion and her friend Toadspit about to be murdered in front of her eyes.
Then she heard Ma’s quiet voice in the next room, and she knew that Pa had had another nightmare. She slipped out of bed, threw a dressing gown over her shoulders and hurried into her parents’ room. “Pa?” she said. “Are you all right?”
Pa smiled weakly up at her from a knot of bedclothes. “Sorry to wake you, sweeting,” he mumbled.
“Your father had a bad dream,” said Ma. “But it’s gone now.” And she too smiled, though her knuckles were white and her fingers trembled.
It pierced Goldie to the heart to see them trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. She unknotted the bedclothes and tucked them around Pa’s shoulders, wishing there were something more she could do.
“Were you dreaming about the House of Repentance again?” she said.
Pa flinched. He and Ma glanced at each other, and a world of pain and sorrow passed between them.
It was a little more than ten months since the two of them had been thrown into the dungeons of the House of Repentance. They had never told Goldie what had happened to them there, but she could see the scars that were left behind.
Pa had dreadful nightmares. Ma had a cough that sounded as if it would tear her lungs out. They were both too thin, and even now, long after their release, they had an exhausted look about them, as if something was gnawing at them from the inside.
Goldie wished that they would talk to her about it. But they never did. Instead, they sighed and changed the subject.
“A—a message came for you today, sweeting,” said Pa,
struggling to sit up. “Where did I put it? It was from the Museum of Dunt.”
This time it was Goldie who flinched, although she hid it so well that her father didn’t notice. Memories flooded through her.
Toadspit—his whole body plastered in mud—turned toward her and laughed. A warm canine tongue swept across her face, and a deep voice rumbled, “You are as brave as a brizzlehound—”
With an effort, she dragged herself back to the present. Pa was fumbling for a scrap of paper that lay on the table beside the bed. “Here it is.” His forehead creased. “It’s from Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga. It seems that they want you to be the museum’s Fifth Keeper!”
Fifth Keeper of the Museum of Dunt …
The familiar longing welled up inside Goldie so suddenly and so strongly that she could hardly breathe.
She said nothing, but Pa must have seen some echo of it on her face. “Do you—do you
want
to be Fifth Keeper, sweeting? Because—”
“Because if you do,” interrupted Ma, “we wouldn’t stop you.”
“We wouldn’t dream of stopping you!”
“It’s just—”
“It’s just that it’s such a big responsibility,” said Pa. “We’re worried that it might be too much for you.”
“And—” Ma gripped Goldie’s hand. “And you’d have to be away from home such a lot.” She began to cough.
Goldie patted her gently on the back and tried not to think about the Museum of Dunt, and how much—how
very
much—she wanted to be Fifth Keeper.
“Of course,” said Pa, chewing his lip, “it’s possible that Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga really need your help. If they do—”
“If they
need
you, then you mustn’t hesitate,” said Ma. She tried to let go of Goldie’s hand but didn’t quite manage. “Your father and I talked about this earlier.”
“We did,” said Pa. “And we both agreed. If they need you, you must go!”
Goldie could hardly bear it. They were doing their best to be fair, but she could see how much they hated the thought of her being away from home for even a little while.
And so she forced every scrap of longing out of her voice and said, “They don’t
really
need me. They’ve got Sinew and Toadspit to help them.”
Pa frowned, wanting to believe her. “Are you sure?”
“You’re not staying home because of us, are you?” said Ma, still clutching her hand. “You mustn’t do that. We want you to be happy.”
A warm canine tongue swept across her face—
Goldie smiled. “I
am
happy,” she said. And because she was a trained liar, she sounded as if she meant it.
She sat with her parents until they drifted off to sleep again. Then she tiptoed back to her room, pulled on her smock, woolen stockings and jacket, and slipped out the front door.
Ten months was not such a long time really. But to Goldie—hurrying through the silent Old Quarter toward Toadspit’s house—it felt like a lifetime. Ten months ago she had worn a silver guardchain that tied her to her parents or to one of the Blessed Guardians. She had never been anywhere alone, and was almost as helpless as an infant.