Legend of the Three Moons (20 page)

`Clothes make the man,' said Plus One.

The children shook their heads and Swift tucked his feet under Lem's legs to hide his broken sandals.

The sisters put their feathered hats together and the children heard whispers of, `Paid more than enough. Can't hurt. Doesn't need them. We owe them.' Then Tres called out: `Plus One - costumes.'

`Costumes make an acrobat,' said Plus One, opening a trunk and holding up a pair of diamond-patterned tights and a sequin-covered shirt. He measured the children with a practised eye and began handing out outfits to all of them.

`But they're your costumes,' said Celeste, accepting a cape and jester hat. `What if we damage them?'

`They are Quattro's. When we find her, we will buy her new ones. Now hurry and get dressed, the gates shut at eight bells,' Uno said, as Plus One turned his back so they could change into the costumes.

After they were dressed, Uno told them what to do. `When you reach the guards tell them you are performers wishing to check Belem Square for tomorrow's performance. Plus One - face paint.'

`Everyone wears a disguise or a mask during Belem fair time,' explained Duo. Plus One painted brilliantly-coloured flowers all over their faces.

`Hide your weapons under your coats and hide your dog,' advised Tres, as they stopped in front of the bridge. `Belem dogs will eat him alive. And watch out for shape thieves.'

Lem looked worried. `How can we tell who is a shape thief and who isn't?'

`Shape thieves can't eat,' said Uno.

Belem Bridge was packed with people pushing and shoving to reach the city gates. Some had climbed onto the balustrades, ornate lamp-posts and the gigantic statues that decorated the bridge. At first getting through looked impossible, but with a determined Lem in the lead, the five wriggled between the crowd, under elbows and around legs until they reached a row of guards.

`And who be you?' demanded one, blocking their way with his spear.

Lem made a pose with his arms wide and his head thrown back. The others did the same, while he announced, `We are the Ta Dum Brothers. We are performing in Belem Square tomorrow and need to see how much space there is.'

`And where will the Ta Dum Brothers sleep this good night?' demanded a second guard.

`At the house of San Jaagiin, the bird seller.'

`Pass.'

Lower Belem was a grimy and squalid city. The damp, riverside houses leant so far out over the water that their owners' kitchen water, food peelings and effluent fell straight into it. The unpainted, three and four-storey houses along the main High Street looked no better. They were built higgledy-piggledy up the hill, with each floor built wider than the one below until their top levels were so close that their inhabitants, if they wanted to, could shake hands across the tiny gap. The people in these houses tossed their rubbish into their back lanes, turning them into stinking gutters. Most people, it seemed, carried umbrellas to navigate the lanes so they didn't get showered with rubbish.

The smell around them was so bad the children had to hold their capes over their faces.

When they got to the clock tower they began to climb the street that led to Belem Square. On either side of the steep thoroughfare, squashed close together, were the tall, thin shops of the Belemite merchants, each with painted signs outside advertising the wares.

Lem and Lyla took turns asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of San Jaagiin's bird shop. Finally a man selling cat masks pointed to an alleyway ten steps up. `Go up five steps, turn first right and you'll see his birdcage sign. That will cost you half a coin.'

Lem looked surprised. `We don't have any coin.'

`Then don't waste my time, daisy face,' snapped the mask seller, holding up a cat mask to a passer by.

`But we do have information,' said Lyla, matching the sharp tone of the cat-mask seller. `Your wife was so worried that you had not returned home that she gave your fence to Edith the Oracle to use as firewood just to find out when you'd be back.'

`And Edith told her you'd be back after you'd spent the cat mask money, so she knows what you are up to,' added Swift.

They were climbing the five steps when Celeste was almost knocked down by a wolf-masked man hurrying by with the front poles of a sedan chair on his shoulders. A second man, carrying the two back poles, stamped on her foot as he ordered her out of his way.

`This is a horrible city with horrible people in it,' Celeste cried, limping up the steps.

`Wasn't always,' said a loud voice they all recognised. `Used to be clean, and the people were friendly.'

Slipping her witch's mask up onto her frizzy red topknot, the huge woman with the three chins grinned at them. Then biting into an enormous meat pie with her tombstone teeth she continued on up the hill.

`She didn't recognise us,' gasped Chad.

Swift poked his painted face out from behind Lyla where he'd ducked at the sound of Hanging Hannah's voice. `Do you think it was the face paint, Lyla?'

`No. She was eating, so she's the real Hanging Hannah. We travelled with the shape-thief, Jeg.'

They turned right, spied the birdcage sign and pushed open the shop's door where they were greeted by the twittering of canaries, the cawing of crows and the cackle of evil laughter.

`What was that?' whispered Celeste, crowding in behind Lyla and Lem.

`That is a famous laughing bird,' answered a voice from behind a chicken cage. `Which by your acrobatic garb I'd warrant you can't afford. How about a canary?'

Lyla peered through the chicken cage. `No canaries thank you. We're looking for San Jaagiin the bird man.'

`That is my good self,' said a man stepping into the lamplight. He had a yellow-crested cockatoo perched on his shoulder.

Apart from his wispy beard, he so resembled his wizen-faced sister that Lyla was sure Edith had reached Belem before them and dressed as a man to trick them.

Swift edged forward. `Your sister sent us. But first you have to tell us her full name so we know that you aren't a shape-thief.'

`A very good precaution.' The little man climbed up onto a high stool. `My sister goes by the name of Edith du Lac du Mont. Am I correct?'

`You are.' Chad held out his sock with Rosie in it. `This is Rosie. Her feathers were burnt off and we want to make them grow again.'

`We also need to know where to find a chained eagle,' added Lyla.

San Jaagiin carefully peeled back the sock to examine the scorched parrot as Swift stepped closer. `She's my bird too. I had to leave my snow leopard with Edith so I'm sharing Rosie with Chad.'

San Jaagiin smiled at the scruffy-headed boy. `A snow leopard eh? But it looks like you've lost some of your own feathers. How did that happen?'

Swift rubbed his white stubble self-consciously. `Another fire. Can you help Rosie?'

San Jaagiin nodded and then, raising his eyebrows, he asked Lyla why she wanted to know about a chained eagle.

`I have to find it before the next three moon eclipse.'

The laughing bird burst out in hysterical chuckling as if Lyla's words were the funniest he had ever heard. San Jaagiin wagged his finger at the rude bird before turning back to Lyla. `Let me show you my house, then you can tell me why.'

San Jaagiin's house had three floors. The bird-shop filled the ground floor. The first floor was rented to Eric the baker whose Belem buns were famous, or so boasted San Jaagiin as he held up his lantern so they could see the baker elbow-deep in flour. The second floor was rented to Verv Roliat the tailor. A growl from behind Verv's door warned them to keep away. The third floor was where San Jaagiin slept, and up a narrow ladder was a flat roof covered in cages, with many more tied to poles hanging over the sides of the building.

Lem stopped to look at a large cage full of purple-winged, yellow-headed pigeons. `You must have hundreds of birds.'

San Jaagiin's blue eyes glowed with pride. `Yes. Most are asleep now, but tomorrow you will hear their wonderful dawn song.'

`How did you get so many?' asked Chad.

`Some were brought to me with broken wings. Others had their beaks cropped by the bird-fighters and they couldn't eat properly. Many were starving. I feed them and keep them up here in the sunshine where it is safe, which is where I will keep you too.'

Lyla glanced at the crowded roof. `Where?'

`I have a clean cage which has an escape rope going down the back of the house, and a bell connected to my shop. If you hear the bell you climb down the rope or jump to the next roof and escape.'

Celeste, who wasn't feeling all that great with her cold, and stamped-on foot, glanced worriedly at the others. `Escape from whom?'

`Raiders, informers, traitors.' The old man sat on a pigeon box, gesturing for them to do the same. `Tell me everything. But first, what do you carry in your bags that is upsetting my birds.'

Celeste took Splash out of her bag and held him out to San Jaagiin, who muttered that he didn't care overly much for snakes. Then Lem lifted Nutty out of his bag. The pup's missing hair, burnt ears and peeling nose caused San Jaagiin to sigh with pity as he held out his hands for the pup. `Poor little morsel,' he crooned, rocking Nutty like a baby. `Poor little pickle.' Then he looked up at Lyla. `Start at the beginning.'

So four floors above Belem with the golden-rimmed moon and the silver-circled moon shining down on them, the children told the birdman of Belem everything that had happened to them so far, ending with why Lyla thought General Tulga had the chained eagle.

San Jaagiin's wrinkled face turned serious. `Indeed he does. Of all his birds it is his favourite. It remains chained to his wrist at all times - even when he sleeps.'

`Where will I find him?'

San Jaagiin stroked his thin beard while shaking his head. `You can't. He lives in Baatar on the top of Table Mountain, which is a flat-topped mountain in the centre of Tsal Peninsula. Both Baatar and Table Mountain are heavily guarded by the general's special Yellow Raiders.

`Below Baatar is Ulaan Town and nearby Ulaan camp where there are even more Raiders with many Goch and their cruel Gochmasters, and lots of ferocious Bulgogi.'

`What's a Bulgogi?' whispered Swift.

`A horrible, screeching night creature
becamed
by the High Enchanter.'

`That probably fly over Whale Island,' whispered Chad to Swift.

`What does General Tulga do with so many Raiders, Goch and Bulgogi?' asked Celeste.

`He makes war for his father, the High Enchanter of Ifraa, Sender of Storms, and Grand Ruler of Acirfa.'

All five of them looked surprised. `General Tulga is the High Enchanter's son?' gasped Lem.

`Adopted son,' corrected San Jaagiin. `How much do you know about the High Enchanter?'

`Not much. Other than he enchanted our parents before he attacked M'dgassy.'

`Then I will tell you a story,' San Jaagiin said. He settled Nutty more comfortably in his arms and began.

`High Prince Jarrimonte was the fifth son and tenth child of the Acirfa Royal family. Acirfa is a desert country with strange upside down lakes, steep rocky mountains inhabited by wolves, a non-speaking, nomadic population, and much wealth gained from mining the desert sand.

`With four older brothers it was unlikely that Prince Jarrimonte would become king so, against his parents' wishes, he took up the study of sorcery and enchantment. Over the years a mysterious illness killed his parents, sisters and brothers, but spared him. In his sixtieth year he became king and everyone expected him to marry immediately so he could produce an heir. But after Princess Elle refused to marry him he adopted Tulga the Tartar, made him a general, and then made war on Ifraa instead.'

The children looked puzzled.

`But it was Prince Yor who asked for Princess Elle's hand in marriage not High Prince Jarrimonte,' said Lem.

San Jaagiin handed Nutty back to him. `Indeed it was, but many believe that Prince Yor, High Prince Jarrimonte and the High Enchanter are the same person. It is rumoured he discovered a youth serum while studying magic. There is also talk that as he grows older his serums don't last as long as they used to.

`Even so he is still the strongest magician in the known world. Which is why all other magicians, including your grandparents and parents, were tricked into giving up their Extreme Magic. And why even with your combined magical gifts, you will not be strong enough to rescue the chained eagle.'

San Jaagiin shook himself the way a bird would, picked up his lantern and pointed to a large empty cage. `This is where you will sleep. I will fetch quilts and ointment for Nutty and Rosie.'

`We have ointment,' said Celeste, showing him the balm and cough syrup.

San Jaagiin held his lantern over the jar and bottle and read the labels. `This is Wind Horse Rider medicine. If you have been using this on Nutty then I have nothing better. But I do have feather-growing oil for Rosie.'

A few minutes later he returned with quilts, a flask of fresh water, ointment for Rosie and five of Eric's meat pies. `In the morning you can wash in the barrel by the cages. When you are ready you will find me in my shop.'

The children slept well and awoke next morning to the song of the hundreds of birds. They gazed out over the roof to see lower Belem Town still shrouded in a thick river mist. But up where they were, high on the hill and higher still on San Jaagiin's roof, the sky was as blue as the bird seller's eyes. They could see a long way in every direction; towards the source of the Shambala River in the north; to the Babylon Forest in the west; and to the far-distant Tsal Peninsula in the east.

Lyla stared at the peninsula. `Last night I dreamed that I flew over it and that there was sand everywhere.'

Lem splashed his face with water from the barrel, `Then what?'

`I flew along a gorge until I reached a swinging bridge. On the other side of the bridge there was a camp of felt gerts stretching all the way to a flat-topped mountain.'

`What's a gert?' said Swift, splashing his face.

`A big round tent with a pole sticking up from the middle.'

`And then?' asked Celeste.