Night Gate (12 page)

“Well, it is,” the ferryman said, apparently mollified. Maybe he had decided they were not spies, for now he said, “The keepers had cause to clamp down hard on the witch women, what with them draining the wild side of the river of magic. Folk supported the laws, which said they must come to the city and give up magic, but the witch women refused to leave Wildwood. So the keepers formed the blackshirt brigade and set them to hunt down the witch women and bring them in to be banded. But of course they still had woodcraft enough to evade their followers. All but a few escaped, but they have a price on their heads.”

“How exactly does banding stop the witch women doing magic?” Billy asked lightly. “I’ve always wondered.”

The ferryman shrugged. “Don’t rightly know myself. It’s something about iron. Once a girl’s hands are banded, she can’t draw the magic up into her mind for the working of it. Welded on, they are, and there’s no way of removing them, save with the same heat that sealed them. The first couple of bands are only lightly welded because they have to be replaced as the wrists grow. But once girls become women, the weldings are made to last.”

Rage felt sickened at the thought of the heavy bands she had seen on the arms of the baker’s sister being welded onto the arms of the little girls in the cart. “If all the magic is gone from the wild side of Valley, I don’t suppose the witches will bother the keepers for much longer.”

The ferryman shrugged. “There are still a few pockets of magic left, but the fact that the witch women have begun sending the wild things to beg for keeper mercy tells how desperate they have become. Mercy is as scarce in Fork as magic is on the wild side of the river. The keepers won’t stop until all wild things have faded and all witch women are dead or in chains. That female wild thing and her faunish friend we’ve got aboard don’t look too bad, but most of the creatures that come over the river to plead are pale and hunched in their bits of rag, and near faded away.”

Despite her own worries, Rage’s heart went out to the wild creatures she had met—the centaur, the laughing sprite, and the winged lions. All her life she had loved to read of such fabulous things, and here she was in a world where they existed, only to discover they were dying. Not that they had looked sick to her, but perhaps she had been too dazzled by their beauty to notice. She felt a surge of anger. Her desire to find the wizard had been for her own reasons, but now she thought that she would ask him why he did not help the wild things, since it was his magic that had made Valley and everything that lived in it.

“You can’t help but pity the poor things,” the ferryman said. “But cold as the keepers are, I don’t see they have any choice. If the witch women were allowed to use up the magic on the tame side of the river to feed their pets, they’d die soon enough anyway, along with the rest of us.”

“Die?” Billy echoed, sounding as confounded by this as Rage felt.

The ferryman gave a great snort. “That village leader of yours ought to be whipped for your ignorance, lad. Of course all of us. What do you think holds Valley together but magic? What is left is barely enough to keep Valley intact. The River of No Return is nibbling at the edges of Fork even now. I don’t wish harm on the wild things, but like I said, if they don’t die now, they’ll die later when the magic runs out. But we have a choice. We don’t need to use the magic up.”

“What has the river to do with anything?” Rage stammered.

The man gave her a look of disgust. “Valley was taken from the bottom of a great and terrible river. The River of No Return is a small part of that river, bound to flow through Valley by magic. If the magic is used up, Valley will return to the bottom of the river. Everything here will be engulfed by the waters from which the wizard took it.”

“The wizard could stop it, couldn’t he?” Billy asked.

When the ferryman spoke, he was blunt, as if they were too stupid to be spies. “The witch women claim he could restore magic to Valley, but the keepers say he won’t return until the wild things are all gone and there are no more witch women. My own opinion is that the wizard left for his own reasons. Who knows what moves a wizard to do anything? It is said that he loved Valley above all things, yet he abandoned it. Why should we imagine he means to return?”

His words gave Rage a peculiar feeling. Here was another man who had gone away, leaving those behind to suffer.

“Why would the witch women use up the magic if they will die when it is gone?” Billy murmured. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The ferryman glared at them and said loudly enough to make Rage jump, “Do you accuse me of consorting with the witch women? I did not say I spoke to them. Nor do I know their business. I have heard rumors, is all.” He turned away, muttering about work to be done. Several crewmen cast furtive looks at Rage and Billy.

“Look!” Elle cried, distracting them. Rage turned to see the other bank materializing out of the mist. It was immediately clear that this side of the river was vastly different from the wild side. A stern promenade of black cobblestones ran in a wide path alongside the water. Beyond this lay an enormous, dark city. In the distance, stone skyscrapers were swathed in mist. Between the skyscrapers and the river were a higgledy-piggledy mass of small black-roofed houses and twisting streets. There was not a spot of green anywhere—no trees, no flowers, no grass. The air smelled of wet stone and rust.

Rage went to the edge of the ferry and stared out in disbelief. She had known Fork was a city, yet this was so huge and uniformly dark that it seemed less a collection of streets and buildings than some vast, slow, cold creature. Unlike Leary City or even Hopeton, there were no lights in windows, no flashing neon signs, no helicopters, and no traffic noise. No ambulance or police sirens. No music. No sign of life despite the fact that most of the population of Valley lived here.

Rage shivered, thinking how hard it must have been for children to come from their pretty, sunny villages to this gloomy metropolis. She did not wonder that Fork left its mark on those who dwelled there. She wondered if the wizard had created the city, and she shuddered at the thought of a mind that could spawn such a place. Not for the first time, she tried to guess what they would do if the wizard turned out to be evil or indifferent. But he was their sole hope, and so she must go on searching for him. She didn’t believe the ferryman’s suggestion that the wizard had left Valley altogether, and wished that they had asked him about the Endless Sea. Too late now.

Just then it came to Rage with a little shock that the lines of verse on the hourglass might actually refer to something other than the real shore of a real sea. After all, the verse spoke of a door. How could there be a door on a beach? It was far more likely that there was a tavern or a shop called the Endless Sea, maybe even named for the children’s myth the woman in the cart had mentioned. The wizard might be living there under another name. Though why he would stay hidden when Valley was in danger, she could not imagine.

Unless he planned to appear at the last minute to save his creation.

Goaty and Elle had shifted closer. Rage didn’t have the heart to tell them they ought to keep their distance. The city, looming ever nearer, drew her eyes again. It was like Mam’s imaginary city without cars and roads, but it was also without light and brightness and greenness.

“Where are the people?” Elle asked in a surprisingly timid voice.

“It’s too early for humans to be up from their beds,” Billy said.

All too soon they were approaching a wall of blackened boards that formed a solid barrier between the bank and the ferry. There was a metal gate in the barrier, and through it Rage saw a group of men in black trousers, boots, and shirts. Her skin rose into goose bumps at the sight of them. Blackshirts! Mr. Walker had been right about people who made rules needing soldiers.

The men she glimpsed had a grim resemblance to the visitors from the child-welfare department who had come to talk to Mrs. Johnson after the accident. One was a man and the other a woman, but they had been alike, even down to the dark suits they wore. When Rage said she could look after herself and had often done so before, it was as if she had not spoken. If Mrs. Johnson had not insisted on having her, she would have been taken away and put who knew where.

The iron cables drew the ferry with a thud against fat rubber bolsters alongside the barrier. An authoritative voice called through the iron gate, “Any passengers, riverman?”

“Aye. Humans and wild things,” the ferryman answered.

Rage leaned forward in time to see surprise register on the flat features of a blackshirt. Perhaps it was unusual to have passengers so early in the day. The surprised man’s shirt had a thin red line down the front, and she guessed he was the leader of the group.

The ferryman told Goaty and Elle that wild things had to disembark first. Then he asked, “Where is the bear?”

Only then did Rage realize that Bear was nowhere to be seen.

There was no place that a creature of Bear’s size could be hiding aboard the ferry. Even as Rage saw how Bear had solved their dilemma, Billy gave a howl of anguish and rushed to the edge.

Rage ran at him and caught his arm, afraid he might hurl himself over. “You have to stay calm,” she told him fiercely. “We still have to get off this ferry.”

“But Mama—”

“Can swim,” Rage said, squeezing his arm desperately. Fortunately, the gate was narrow enough that they were hidden from the blackshirts. Billy was pale as milk, and she could feel him trembling. She turned to find the ferryman watching them.

“The bear went overboard,” he said in a queer, emotionless voice. “Keepers won’t like that. I’ll be blamed for it.”

“You needn’t tell them,” Rage said, abandoning any attempt to pretend they were not traveling with Bear.

“Maybe not, but the crew won’t keep quiet without reason for it.”

Seeing he wanted some sort of payment, Rage’s heart sank. There was only one valuable thing she possessed apart from the hourglass, and that was Mam’s locket. One day it was to be Rage’s to give to her own daughter, just as it had been given to Mam by her mother. It was precious because it was a link between all of those mothers and daughters. But if the ferryman told the blackshirts about Bear, they might never get home. Mam would have given the locket up in a second for Bear.

In the end, things are just things. They don’t care about you. They don’t love back,
Mam’s voice whispered to Rage.

Rage dug the locket out, took the photographs from it, and slipped them into her pocket. Then she held the empty locket so it dangled on its golden chain and glimmered in the light of the ferry lanterns.

“A pretty trinket,” the ferryman said, making no move to take it.

Rage saw that he was trying to make her offer something more. “I have nothing else,” she said desperately. She could hear Billy’s teeth beginning to chatter with the strain of controlling himself.

“That bear is old,” the ferryman said. “Why take her to Fork? You could have let her live out her life on the wild side of Valley.”

“We had to come,” Rage said desperately.

The blackshirts shouted to the ferryman to lower the ramp so that the passengers could disembark. Rage took a deep breath and did something she never would have dared do before. She reached across and dropped the locket into the ferryman’s pocket.

“Say nothing of the bear,” she said.

She feared he might fling it back at her or shout out to the blackshirts, but he only gave the whey-faced Billy a final, penetrating look before turning to instruct his crew to let the ramp down. Elle and Goaty went down it and through the gate in the barrier. Rage moved so that she could see what happened. Her heart was in her mouth as the blackshirts inspected them, but the men made no attempt to touch or even speak to either of them. It was as if they were afraid of being contaminated. One of the blackshirts was pointing away from the river, and Rage guessed the animals were being directed to the High Keeper.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that wild things might be escorted directly to the High Keeper. “Three to go,” she muttered, praying no one would search her. It had seemed simpler to hide Mr. Walker. But if he had pretended to be a wild thing, he would be safe now. Beside her, Billy was rigid with tension.

“You’d best make haste,” the ferryman advised, coming to stand beside her. “The bank is steep this side of the river.” He said all of this without looking at her, without expression.

Thinking that she had taken such risks that another scarcely made any difference, she said, “I am not banded. Will they take me away immediately?”

There was a short silence. The ferryman asked in the same quiet voice, “Are you from the witch women?”

“No,” Rage said, startled. “The bear is my friend.”

“Then it must be great need that brings you all here. You might not be taken to a banding house if you can convince the blackshirts you have family or relatives to stay with. Go ashore now, lest they grow suspicious.” The ferryman turned away.

Rage gathered her wits and whispered to Mr. Walker, who had begun to wriggle, that he must be still now or see them all thrown into the River of No Return. Steeling themselves, Billy and Rage made their way across the ramp, through the metal gate in the barrier, and onto the bank. The blackshirt with the red stripe stepped smartly forward and asked Rage’s name. He had thick, powerful arms and small, cold green eyes.