PathFinder (25 page)

A huge sofa, lavishly upholstered
in pink velvet and awash with a sea of tiny blue silk cushions, had been placed a few feet in front of the door. It took Ferdie and Oskar some seconds to understand that they were actually in someone's bedroom. It was a very large, round room clad in dark wooden panelling above which were painted vibrant blue and pink stripes with a row of tiny windows far too high up to look out of. A big four-poster bed hung with shining blue silk stood opposite them. There were two large painted wardrobes on either side of the bed, and the rest of the room was taken up with tiny chairs with bendy legs painted in gold leaf. Ferdie shuddered; there was no doubt in her mind as to whom this room belonged.

Oskar hardly noticed the contents of the room – to him it was just a stuffy old room full of weird furniture. However, he did notice a metal door identical to the one they had just come through, leading off from the other side of the room. He had no doubt that it, too, led to a cellblock. Oskar was about to suggest they check it out when Ferdie grabbed him and pulled him down behind the sofa.
“There's someone coming,”
she hissed.

They heard a sharp
click
of a concealed door opening in the panelling beside the bed, and then Ferdie heard something that made her go cold – the trilling voice she had grown to loathe during her time aboard the
Tristan
.

“How many more does he want, for goodness' sake?” the Lady was demanding.

Ferdie and Oskar heard the rustle of silk as the Lady swept across the room. They heard footsteps hurrying behind her and a voice said, “My Lady, he has asked for twenty.”

The voice was shockingly familiar.
Aunt Mitza
, Oskar mouthed to Ferdie.

Ferdie opened her eyes wide in astonishment.

“And we are sending him
thirty-five
,” said the Lady. “So what is his problem?”

Aunt Mitza sounded unusually conciliatory. “My Lady, as you know, these thirty-five are not regular workers. They have other … er, skills. Well, maybe three or four of them do – if we are lucky.”

“So he can use the other thirty-one.” There was a crackle of silk, the sigh of overstuffed upholstery and Oskar and Ferdie felt the joints of the sofa sag as the Lady sat down. The sickly sweet smell of powder took Ferdie right back to the
Tristan
. She felt panic beginning to rise. Oskar looked at Ferdie in alarm; he knew she wanted to run. He gave her the PathFinder “OK?” sign with his left hand. Ferdie gave Oskar a strained smile and returned his sign using her right hand.

Aunt Mitza was a changed woman. Her grating, impatient tones had been replaced by a conciliatory wheedle. “But my Lady,” she said, “by the time we discover which three or four are the useful ones, the other thirty-one may not be very, er …
employable
. Ha-ha.”

“Humph.” Oskar and Ferdie felt the Lady give an irritated wiggle on the sofa. “Then send the creatures out to get some more. There are settlements on the other side of the Far.”

“With the waxing of the moon, every night becomes brighter, my Lady,” Aunt Mitza replied uneasily.

“I know what the moon does,” came the snappy response.

“Indeed, my Lady. You are an accomplished observer of the heavens. But it is not advantageous to use Garmin past half-moon. Their paleness gives them away.”

There was a sudden movement and the sofa upholstery groaned in relief. The Lady had got to her feet. “Tell me something I
don't
know, Mitza,” she snapped.

“Er. I cannot, my Lady. Your immense knowledge far exceeds my own small sum of learning.” Oskar rolled his eyes at Ferdie.
What a creep
, he mouthed.

They heard the Lady sigh. “How I wish my little pet had not left me.”

“Your pet, my Lady? Did you have a little dog?”

“No, Mitza. The girl from the test run on the village. The girl who sewed so nicely and was too good to send to that awful pit.
She
spoke plain and simple.
She
looked me in the eye, unlike you, Mitza. Or anyone else, for that matter. I am surrounded by a tribe of sycophants.”

Aunt Mitza did not know what a sycophant was, but suspected it to be related to an elephant. “We do our best, my Lady,” she murmured. “And like those magnificently determined, great grey beasts, we, too, will get there in the end.”

“What a lot of tosh you do talk, Mitza. Perhaps I should send
you
along to make up the numbers.”

“No, no, my Lady! I beg you!”

“Oh, give it a rest; you're safe for the moment.” The Lady sighed wistfully. “But my little pet, she would have stared me down and dared me to send her. She had such spirit. And she never
did
tell me her name.”

Suddenly Oskar and Ferdie heard a swift, light footfall approaching. They looked at each other in panic – anyone coming through the door would see them at once. They crawled very carefully towards the end of the sofa, hoping they could take cover behind its overstuffed arm. They didn't make it. The door from the cellblock swung open and a young woman hurried in. She had long, brown hair worn in two plaits tied together; she wore a tired-looking dress with the remains of a few ribbons woven through the cuffs of her sleeves and a pair of scuffed but sturdy brown boots. Her face was thin and there were deep, dark circles beneath her eyes. Ferdie thought she looked haunted.

The young woman gave a quick curtsy and began to speak. “Those in Block One have gone through, my Lady, but there is some trouble with Block Two. The guards ask for permission to get reinforcements from the tower.”

“No. The tower must be kept secure. Trouble? I'll give them trouble. I will be down directly.”

“Yes, my Lady.” The young woman did not move.

“Well, go on, girl. Go and tell them.”

“Oh, my Lady …”

“What?”

“It – it is so harsh to send a whole village. The little ones are so upset. Can't you let the children go free?”

Ferdie and Oskar exchanged glances.

The Lady's reply was not a surprise. “No.”

“But
surely
–”

“Madam, you forget yourself. We had a deal. If you want your boy back you will do as you are told.”

“But I never thought that I'd be doing
this
.”

The Lady laughed. “What did you think you'd be doing – making fairy cakes? Wise up, girl. Come, Mitza. We will go below and sort out the troublemakers.”

Oskar and Ferdie froze. They saw the Lady sweep out of the door, with Aunt Mitza scurrying behind. The young woman stared after them and burst into tears.

“Madam!” came the Lady's shout.

The young woman rubbed the tears from her eyes and hurried to the door. As she was about to go through, something caught her eye. She stopped and stared.

Ferdie and Oskar froze. They had been discovered.

Madam

“How did you escape?”
the young woman hissed, glancing around to check the room was empty.

Ferdie sized up their opponent. The young woman’s brown eyes were friendly and she was nervously twisting one of her long plaits through her bitten-to-the-quick fingers. Ferdie liked her.

“We haven’t escaped,” Ferdie whispered. “We’ve broken in. We’re trying to find our parents and our little brother.
Please
don’t say anything.”

The young woman sighed. “It’s OK, I won’t tell on you. But take my advice: get out of here while you can. She’ll get you, too. Like she gets
everyone
.”

“But we
have
to find them,” Ferdie said stubbornly.

The young woman shrugged. She seemed defeated. “OK. If they are from that shiny-hair village, then they’re here.”

Oskar looked amazed. “Really?”

“They’re downstairs. Where I have to go.” With that, the young woman hurried out.

Ferdie and Oskar scooted after her just in time to see her push open a door on the left and disappear inside. They quickly followed and found themselves at the top of a flight of spiral steps, lit by lanterns that gave out a dull red light. Halfway down the young woman realised they were following.

She waited for them to catch up. “You’re crazy,” she said in a low, urgent voice. “There’s nothing you can do to help them, got that? Just go.
Get out of here
.”

“Madam! Where are you?” The Lady’s accusing voice flew up the spirals of the stairs.

“I am coming, my Lady!” The young woman hurried down, flapping her hands at Oskar and Ferdie in shooing-away movements.

But Oskar and Ferdie were too close to give up now. They tiptoed down the steps, picking their way carefully. The air was cold and damp, and smelled of fear. They heard barked commands of the guards:
“Move! Move! Move!”
Then a sudden scream … someone sobbing … the frightened wailing of a child. Oskar looked at Ferdie in dismay. The child was too young to be Torr, but the sobbing could so easily be their mother.

They reached the last twist of the stairs and a shaft of white light glanced up from below. Oskar and Ferdie wrapped their night cloaks around them, pulled their hoods further down over their faces, then peered gingerly around the last twist of the stairs. They saw a large, round chamber, with twelve archways leading off from it. They saw the sheen of PathFinder hair and the shining steel of the spikes on the guards’ helmets and elbows as, prodding with long red-tipped sticks, they herded the villagers into one of the archways.

Ferdie peered around the last spiral, straining to see. She could name every person there, but she could not see her parents and little Torr. A wave of desolation ran through her –
she was too late
. Suddenly a guard who had been obscuring her view stepped to one side and Ferdie saw her mother.

Ferdie didn’t care any more. She took off down the steps, yelling, “Mum, it’s me, Ferdie. I’m OK! Mum, Mum! I love you, Mum!”

Rosie Sarn whirled around, and Ferdie saw that she had Torr clasped tightly to her.
“Ferdieeeeee!”
Rosie screamed.

Feeling as though he were in a nightmare, Oskar crept down a few more steps, watching in horror as the scene unfolded before him.

“Mum!” Ferdie was in the Hub now, running headlong towards the guards. Her sudden appearance confused them, and Ferdie was able to plunge into the throng unhindered. Desperately Rosie Sarn tried to push her way back towards her daughter.

A piercing shriek came from the shadows on the far side of the Hub. “My pet! My pet!”

Oskar saw a flash of shimmering blue, like a giant kingfisher diving for its favourite fish, and the Lady plunged after Ferdie.

It was pandemonium. The guards stood, uncertain what to do. They were unwilling to act without orders and their commander was running amok. The chamber echoed with competing shouts.

“Mum, Mum!”

“My pet! My pet!”

“Ferdie, Ferdie!”

And then, suddenly they were together – Ferdie, her mother and Torr hugging one another as though the world were about to end. And then it very nearly did. A pair of soft white hands with an iron grip wrenched Ferdie from her mother’s arms. Her mother landed a punch on the Lady’s nose and Torr began to scream.

But the Lady screamed louder. “Guards! Guards!” she yelled. “Get them off me!”

The guards waded into the group, which scattered before the fearsome red-tipped sticks. Some villagers ran voluntarily into the arch to escape; others were pushed. With the Lady’s long nails digging into her arms, Ferdie watched her mother and little brother being herded through the archway, and then suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, Torr’s cries stopped.

Sticking to her resolution never to cry in front of the Lady, Ferdie bit her lip. She gave a quick glance at the stairs but all she could see was the young woman with the faded ribbons dangling from her sleeves standing on the bottom step. She had her hands over her face and her big brown eyes were staring through her fingers in shock.

The Lady dismissed the guards and turned her attention to her new prisoner. “You were so naughty to leave me,” she told Ferdie. Her face dimpled into a frown and her fat, white fingers tightened around Ferdie’s wrist.

Ferdie was thinking fast. The tears in the Lady’s eyes told her that all was not lost. If only, she thought, Oskar had enough sense to go back up the stairs and get out, she could talk the Lady round, if she played it right. Ferdie hated lying, but she forced herself to speak. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I’ve come back because … I missed you.”

The Lady’s expression melted. She let go of Ferdie’s wrist. “Did you really?” she asked. A movement on the stairs made the Lady look up, and Ferdie was spared having to answer by the Lady’s shout of, “You, Madam! Come here!”