Legend of the Three Moons (23 page)

`Place parchment in a bowl before a singer whose voice makes walls cry, and capture her tears. These will turn the parchment into a powder, one pinch of which will melt stone or metal. Store in a leather pouch.'

`How intriguing,' said Dulcinella.

`A singer who makes walls cry. Is that you Dulcinella?'

Dulcinella shook her head. `No. Only Cristalzee can make walls cry. When General Tulga tired of her sad Whale Islander songs he gave her to the Ulaan Tavern keeper in return for a gert full of beer. Not that the tavern keeper had a choice.'

`Does Crystalzee still sing?'

`Yes, for the profit of the tavern keeper but only after he places a bowl of seawater in front of her.'

Lyla's shoulders sagged. `Where will I get a bowl of seawater?'

`The tavern keeper keeps a cask of it behind his bar for those who pay to hear Crystalzee sing. Many do. Her songs remind them of their wives and children and the ruined homes they left behind before they became Raiders.'

Lyla rolled up the parchment and stood up. `Can we go to the tavern now?'

Dulcinella looked nervous. `I'll show you the tavern but I will not go inside. If you are caught I don't want anyone to know I helped you. Do you have four coins?'

`I have no coins but I have this.' Lyla held out a pink garnet the size of her little fingernail. `Will you exchange this for four coins, a soup bowl, two leather pouches and one favour?'

Dulcinella could not take her eyes off the garnet that she knew, if given to the right guard, would buy freedom for herself and her daughter. She emptied her pockets and handed Lyla four coins.

The tavern's beer hall was full of brown-uniformed Raiders betting on the cockfight that was going on in the stables.

Dulcinella pointed through the diamond-glass window to a fragile-looking woman lying on a couch pushed into a corner. One glance at her silvery-blonde hair and elfin face and Lyla knew she had found the mother of Clarissa the stilt-girl.

Lyla thanked Dulcinella, took a deep breath and pushed open the tavern door. She swaggered over to the tavern keeper, placed four coins on the counter and, in a low voice, asked if she could hear Crystalzee sing.

The tavern keeper snatched up the coins, carried a bowl of seawater over to Crystalzee and roughly pulled her into a sitting position. He dipped his finger into the water and placed a drop of it onto her lips.

The woman's large pansy-brown eyes, so like Clarissa's, snapped open. She shrugged off the tavern keeper's hands and leant over the bowl to breath in the saltiness of the water.

Then Cristalzee began to sing. The honey-sweet melody was so beautiful that the Raiders stopped talking or bickering, and all eyes turned towards her as she sang of her lost love, her distant island home and her beautiful sea.

Lyla placed the parchment in Dulcinella's soup bowl, and held the bowl out to catch the tears running down Cristalzee's face as they dropped from her chin. No one stopped her or questioned her - all eyes were closed as they listened. And when Lyla left the tavern she saw tears running down its stone walls.

Back in Dulcinella's cookhouse she divided the powder between two drawstring leather pouches. She handed one to Dulcinella and asked if she knew the building where the Whale Islanders were imprisoned?'

`Yes.'

`This is the favour which is part of our bargain. Go to the barred window and give this pouch to a boy called Chii and explain what the powder does. But first, before the Bulgogi are freed, tell me how to reach the spring cleft.'

`Go west to the spiked palisade. Behind it is the Western Battalion's camp. Go through the camp until you reach the trees that block out the stench of the Goch enclosures. No matter what happens - a Bulgogi or a Raider attack - do not go inside a Goch enclosure. And you must run all the way.'

`Is it safe inside the spring cleft?'

`I don't know. I have never seen it.'

It took Lyla half an hour to reach the palisade, a minute to melt the metal poles, fifteeen minutes to creep through the empty Western Battalion's camp, and another ten to jog through the trees that blocked out the smell of the Goch. She didn't like the trees. They were dark and foreboding and she kept wondering if they would change as the snake trees had, or attack her as the Babylon pines had attacked Swift and Chad.

She was sneaking past the Goch enclosures when a high-pitched screech made her look up. Silhouetted against the gold-rimmed moon was a huge winged monster hovering over the Goch cages. Remembering how Dulcinella had said that the Bulgogi ate everything alive or dead, she belted around the base of Table Mountain in search of a place to hide. Breathless and with a stitch in her side she was already ankle deep in the spring pool at the base of the cleft before she realised she'd found it. She splashed through it and ducked behind a shoulder-high waterfall, just as a large swooping body blocked out the moonlight.

The hairy-bellied Bulgogi circled overhead but was unable to spot Lyla in her hiding place. Eventually, spying movement amongst the trees it flew off. Lyla counted to a thousand before poking her head out. The night was full of panic-filled booming and the hoarse shouts of the Gochmasters trying to calm their Goch.

`Imagine having to do that every time a Bulgogi flew over,' she muttered, turning to examine the cliff wall and the spring cleft.

They both looked impossible to scale - unless she was a fly. Then she remembered Edith's peppermint root. She opened the packet and put three pieces of root into her mouth.

`Make me as light as a feather,' she told it as she chewed the spicy hot mint. `Or so light that I can cling to the cliff like a bat or a spider.' Then she felt for her first foothold.

The cleft was wet and the cliff sheer. Her foot slipped twice, making her heart lurch, as she was sure she'd fall into the pool. Instead she simply floated down to her last foothold. It was an odd, scary feeling and not at all comforting.

Higher up, the cleft widened and was so smooth there was nothing to grip, so she had to climb out onto the cliff face. She did so as if she weighed nothing.

She wished her own magical gift worked as well. Dream-flying might be able to tell her about the future, but it couldn't get her to the top of a cliff the way real flying could. It wasn't like she believed she'd ever really be able to fly. Even in her dreams, when she'd flown effortlessly over the beach and M'dgassy Royal Palace and that horrible Babylon Forest, she had always been waiting to fall. Always sure that she would fall in the end.

After an hour of climbing, her arms and legs began to ache. She was so high that she dared not look down for fear of becoming dizzy and falling.

Then the unwelcome sound of flapping wings and an upsurge of air told her that the Bulgogi was back. In an instant she squashed into a crevice that only seconds before she would have thought was too narrow. She squeezed in as far back as she could go and drew her dagger.

The three moons' light was blotted out a second before a scaly limb with sharp curved talons slid into the crevice searching for her. Lyla knew that if it reached her it could hook her out, so she stabbed it.

With a shriek the Bulgogi snatched back its claw but then, with beating wings to stay aloft, it began furiously scratching at the cliff face.

When the scaly limb inched towards her again, Lyla severed a claw but, even with blood spurting from the wound, the creature continued to attack her.

Minutes later Lyla heard a second, then a third screech as two more Bulgogi joined the attack.

Certain that three together would be able to dig her out, Lyla stabbed at each claw that reached inside, until the claws withdrew and a large baleful and unblinking yellow eye peered in at her. A moment later the eye was gone and a long, thin beak full of pointed teeth began probing the space inside. But the Bulgogi's head was too wide, and its snapping beak couldn't quite reach her.

`Get away!' Lyla yelled, thrusting her dagger into its beak. The Bulgogi withdrew its head so fast it took her dagger with it.

Again all three Bulgogi viciously attacked the cliff. The noise of their scratching claws and flapping wings against the rock was deafening. Suddenly, there was silence.

The quiet was actually scarier than the flapping and scratching because Lyla had no idea what they were doing. Were they just hanging there waiting for her to poke her head out? Were they perched above the crack, ready to pounce?

After a long wait she crawled forward and, knowing what she was about to do was perilous, took a deep breath and peeked out. She smiled with relief. The beautiful dawn sky was streaked with pink. There wasn't a Bulgogi in sight.

Lyla scrambled out of the crevice and climbed the rest of the cliff with less fear than before. She finally crawled over its upper edge and collapsed, with shaking arms and legs, into the long grass.

When she eventually raised her head to see where she was, her mouth fell open in surprise. The entire plateau of Table Mountain was covered in thousands of yellow felt gerts. Between the gerts were compounds of goats, sheep and horse stables.

In the centre of the flat mountain plain stood a huge platform supporting an enormous orange tent, with four broad avenues, running north, south, east and west. Each avenue was flanked by hundreds of flagpoles, each ending at a staircase leading up to one of the gert's four entrances.

Worried that the grass she was lying on might be whispering grass, Lyla jumped to her feet and raced to the nearest horse path, where she waited with her back to a small gert. She wished that she still had her dagger. But as it seemed no one had seen her, she brushed down her messenger's uniform, straightened her cap and set off for General Tulga's grand gert.

The yellow uniformed Raiders that she passed took no notice of her. They were too busy with their morning tasks of wrestling, sword and double-headed axe fighting, spear throwing, or archery while galloping at top speed, to notice her.

Once again she wondered why, apart from the Bulgogi attack, it had all been so easy. Even her plan to find the talisman was easy. All she needed to do was to get close enough to the chained eagle to ask it where its talisman was, find the talisman, then escape down the spring cleft before anyone realised she wasn't a Raider's messenger. And, even if she was questioned, she had San Jaagiin's message to Master Wan-rast.

Lyla walked between the flagpoles of the Northern Avenue until she reached a crowd of Yellow Raiders who were staring up at a cage hanging from the beams of the platform. Inside the cage was a python, its head raised to ward off a pair of attacking hawks.

`Twenty coins on the snake,' shouted one.

`Don't waste your coin,' argued another. `The snake kills by crushing. The hawks will peck out its eyes first.'

Lyla moved away in disgust, wishing she could speak to animals like Lem could, so she could warn the snake to hide its head.

She stepped back onto someone's boot, and a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. `Where are you going, messenger?'

Not trusting her voice to sound like a boy's she pointed to the southern side of the Grand Gert.

The Yellow Raider looked at her suspiciously. `Why are you going there? The wolves are not fighting today.'

Lyla lowered her voice. `I have a message for Master Wan-rast, General Tulga's bird trainer.'

The Raider nodded his head in recognition of the bird trainer's name. `Master Wan-rast's eagles are beside the wolf and bear cages. But now is not a good time to visit, as he'll be preening General Tulga's golden eagle to win tomorrow's fight.

`And as you know if the eagle doesn't win, Master Wan-rast's skull will end up with the other bird and animal masters, and the Whale Islanders,' the Raider smiled, and gestured upwards.

Lyla's eyes followed the line of his pointing hand to...

Hanging from the Grand Gert's flagpoles were bunches of human skulls clacking together in the wind.

`We call them skull trees,' he chuckled. `Our General has a great liking for their fruit.'

The awful fight between the hawks and the snake was over, the hawks had won, so the crowd was on the move to a second cage.

Lyla slipped away and hurried around the platform to the southern staircase. The space beneath the platform was crowded with cages full of wolves and bears, alongside which sat a worried-looking man grooming an enormous golden eagle. The eagle wore a silver leather mask and silver metal claw-shields attached to its talons. It looked incredibly fierce.

The man looked up. `Why are you standing there, messenger?'

`I was overcome by the beauty of your eagle.'

The man smiled his approval at the compliment. `She is beautiful. Not even a fully-grown wolf can beat her. But to ask her to fight two black bears with thorns embedded into their paws to make them twice as angry, is too much. And all because those Whale Islanders escaped. The general is angered beyond belief. So if my lovely bird doesn't win tomorrow, both our heads will end up swinging from a flagpole.'

`That's so wrong, and very cruel!' burst out Lyla.

`True,' said a deep resonant voice behind her. `But only a disloyal fool wishing to take the bears' place would say so.'

The fear in the bird master's eyes told Lyla just who it was standing behind her. She swung around.

General Tulga was so tall that his head almost touched the platform's rafters, and his shoulders were as broad as those of the mountain bears rearing up in their cages behind him. His hawkish-nosed face was handsome with black eyebrows arched over deep-set golden-brown eyes. His long moustache and shoulder-length hair were braided with golden threads that matched his threaded jerkin and gold-studded kilt. Over one shoulder he wore a cape of bear and wolf pelts decorated with eagle feathers, and from his belt swung a gold-hilted sword in a golden scabbard.

Aware of her scrutiny, he stepped from the shadow into sunlight that lit up the beautiful blue-black eagle perched on his gloved wrist.

The eagle's beak and talons were painted gold. Around its wings and chest hung a fine web of gold chains. Its right leg was attached to a leather leash that was fastened to a bracelet of gold, inset with precious stones, worn on the general's left wrist.