Salt (10 page)

‘Where,’ Hari said – said with a snarl – ‘in Blood Burrow? Where would I see plants and fish and birds? And breathe air that didn’t stink of piss and shit?’

‘Hari, Hari,’ Tealeaf said.

‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I never drank any mother’s milk. She never had any, she was too starved. My father had to trap a bitch who’d lost her pups. I had dog’s milk or I would have died.’ He kicked the dog lying at his feet, making it yelp. ‘But that doesn’t make them my brothers. I kill them or they kill me.’

‘There’s no blame, Hari. Gantok isn’t blaming you.’

‘He’d better not.’

Gantok was smiling. No blame, he said. And no praise for Dwellers. We’re the way we are by good fortune. The old story says we were mistaken many times, but heard the voice and learned to know through times that began when we lived in the trees, and we’re learning still, and no doubt, Hari, remain mistaken about many things.

‘Company came,’ Hari said. ‘That’s all I know. That’s what Lo taught me.’

‘I don’t want to hear about Company,’ Pearl said. ‘I want to know why you brought us here.’

‘Gantok will tell you,’ Tealeaf said.

But, said the old Dweller politely, let me finish what I was saying first, otherwise I’ll lose my thread. His silent voice took on its singing notes, but in a less pronounced way, perhaps out of nervousness that Hari would burst into another snarl.

The land is vast . . .

‘You told us,’ Hari said.

When you stood on the mountains on your way here, Tealeaf – her name, you know, is Xantee, but let it pass – Tealeaf showed it to you, stretching away north and east. It goes on to the shores of the Inland Sea, then on again to another great sea, but if you tried to walk there, Pearl, through the jungles, over the plains and over the mountain ranges, it would take you as many years as you have been alive.

‘If she didn’t get eaten by fangcats on the way,’ Hari said.

Beyond the sea, which no boat we know of has ever crossed, the voice tells us of another great land, and beyond that another and then another sea, with all creatures, human, animal, bird and fish, living there. Northwards there are ice lands, glaciers and rivers, islands of ice floating in the sea, and creatures again living there. Humans too. Not Dwellers. Not your races, Pearl and Hari. And south, far south, beyond many lands burnt by the sun and other lands of jungle and mountain and desert, there is ice again. That is the world.

‘You’ve left out west,’ Hari said. ‘Where Company comes from.’

And everywhere, Gantok went on, sing-song still and unperturbed, everything is in harmony, and all races know the thing we know, that all is one – land, sea, air . . .

‘Rats, dogs, Company clerks,’ Hari said.

Gantok fell silent. After a moment he said: Yes, Hari, you’re right. Company clerks. And men with hands that burn other men. So, let us turn our eyes over the sea that lies beyond our beach to the land in the west where they come from. But remember your own race too, Hari, that built a city before Company came, and learned greed and how to take too much, and remember Cowl who would be king.

‘Lo told me all that.’

Lo, yes, one who could speak?

He taught me.

You have told Xantee – Tealeaf – about him?

Yes, Tealeaf said. A speaker. And there must have been others.

He showed me how to talk with rats and horses. And dogs. I’m sorry I kicked you, dog.

The dog, off in a corner, thumped its tail on the wall.

And Lo knew the story of Company and Cowl, and the return of Company?

All that. But he didn’t know about where they came from.

A great land, a vast land, Gantok said. (He seemed to like saying vast, Pearl thought.) And the people there, the humans, ambitious to be rich and to rule. All other races must bow down and serve. There were no Dwellers there, and no Dwellers, not even Sunderlok, ever travelled over that wide sea, but we have learned much of the place from Xantee, who lived in your city quietly, hidden away, for many years, Pearl, before she met you and became Tealeaf, your servant.

Tealeaf, were you a spy? Pearl said.

I was sent to learn and send word back. It was time we knew, Tealeaf said.

Company, Gantok said, she taught us Company. And now we have learned that its greed has destroyed it, over the sea. It has fallen apart; the laws and structures have crumbled and are gone, according to this boy, Kyle-Ott, who hunted you on your way. Too much oppression. Too much misery. The people rose up and destroyed it. Centuries must pass before some new order takes its place. A thousand petty rulers, a thousand creeds, so I would guess, all set on greater conquest and greater wealth, until some new Company rises again, and so it will go on in the way your races, Hari and Pearl, seem to desire.

‘Are you blaming us?’ Hari said.

Unless, Gantok said, ignoring him, someone there can learn and someone hear the voice.

‘What, land and sea and winds and sky? That voice?’ Hari said.

Some hear it whisper, Hari. One or two amongst us. And the people with no name, in the jungles, they hear. But although Company lies in ruins over the sea, the cycle will come round again and there will be huge armies, and conquest and massacre again and fleets on the seas with their cannons, and riches again, and starvation again, and factories pouring out smoke that kills the air, and poisoned rivers, poisoned seas and a dead land.

‘We’ll have that here,’ Hari said. ‘With Ottmar and his son. He’s not going to close his factories just because he calls himself king instead of Company. He’ll be worse.’

We know that, Hari, Tealeaf said. Already the forests outside the city are gone. Company has done that. And south, for hundreds of leagues, trees are felled. There will be a pause now while this Ottmar makes his rule secure, but then he’ll start again. As you say, he is king and Company too.

But there’s a greater danger, Gantok said.

I don’t want to hear it, Pearl said. She felt forlorn. She felt lonely – all this talk of armies and destruction seemed like a storm raging around a house in which she sat huddled in a corner, feeling windows shake and walls heave. Yet she was expected to do something about it, when all she had asked for was an answer to her question . . .

She spoke aloud, and was comforted by the sound of her voice. ‘Tealeaf, how did you find me? And what do you want me to do?’

Ah, Pearl, nothing yet. In a little while . . .

‘Did you come to the city to see if there was someone like me?’

I came to read the danger more closely. But also, yes, to see if there might be someone of your race who had taken the step Dwellers have taken . . .

‘How to speak?’ She repeated it silently: How to speak?

Yes, that. And then perhaps taken the step beyond. It seemed to us that if the seed was there, even a tiny seed, even with just one of you, then there was hope. Your race might be ready for the next step, and might hear – well, Gantok has told you what you might hear. So I waited and I listened and heard nothing for many years.

She was chosen for this task, Gantok said, because among Dwellers Xantee is the one who hears best.

Tealeaf shook her head to silence him. I lived in the city, she said, among the workers, with people like Tilly, and then in the mansions as a kitchen maid.

I’ll bet you didn’t come to Blood Burrow, Hari said.

No, Hari, not there.

Or the port. You might have heard Lo. He could speak.

I wish I’d met Lo. But instead I worked as a street sweeper in the fashionable part of the town. I was sweeping the gutter one day outside a milliner’s shop when a carriage drew up. The coachman struck me with his whip to move me out of the way. Then a footman lowered the steps and helped a lady and a child down. They went into the shop. Something about the child attracted me – the way she moved, the way she would not let her mother hurry her. I waited, nursing the welt on my cheek the coachman’s whip had made. When the woman and the girl came out, a beggar girl was passing. Beggars, as you know, Pearl, are forbidden in that part of City. She was slinking along by the wall, but the child saw her. You saw her, Pearl, and you told your mother to wait, and you felt in your purse for a coin. Your mother scolded you and told you to come, and you said: Wait, mother, and she stood still. I heard you speak, and you did not know it. You did not know you hadn’t spoken aloud. You gave the beggar a coin and followed your mother into the coach, where she scolded you properly as you drove away. And a Whip came by and burned the beggar girl with his gloves and moved me on too. But I had read the emblem on the door of the coach – House Bowles. So, Pearl . . .

You came to our house and told me to choose you as my maid.

Yes.

You taught me. You saved me from marrying Ottmar.

‘If you’d married him you’d be a queen by now,’ Hari said. He grinned at her. ‘You’d be boss.’

Be quiet, Pearl ordered, making him wince, then finger his knife. She turned to Tealeaf: Now I’m here, what do you want me to do?

I don’t know. The council doesn’t know. You’re safe. And I found Hari on the way . . .

‘I found you,’ Hari muttered.

So, there are two, one from each race in the city. And there was Lo, Hari tells us. So it seems – it seems as if something is beginning. There’s hope. But what we do, I don’t know.

‘I know,’ Hari said. ‘I get my father out of Deep Salt. Danatok, can you show me this boat we’ll sail in?’

Yes, Danatok said. My father’s boat. I’ve sailed with him since I was able to stand. Come with me. I’ll teach you.

They left the house and went down to the creek mouth and along the beach to where the boats were drawn up.

Can you swim? Danatok said.

Better than you, Hari said.

He helped Danatok pull the little boat down to the sea, and watched and listened as the boy, moving with agility and sureness, hauled up a small square sail and guided the boat out through the waves. They sailed back and forth between the headlands, then out to sea until the village shrank to a cluster of grey huts. Danatok taught Hari to set the sail and steer with the tiller.

You learn quickly, he said.

In the burrows you learn or die, Hari said. Does Company come here?

No. There’s no profit for them. They sail past. Once a war boat stopped and fired guns and knocked down houses. They planted a flag on the beach to show we belonged to them. Ottmar’s flag. The same that flies over the salt mines. The salt mines are south. But one day, when everything is poisoned, in Ottmar’s time or someone else’s, they’ll turn their eyes this way.

Danatok shivered. Hari shivered too, but told himself it was because the wind was springing up. They guided the boat back to the beach, where the dog was waiting.

Can he come with us when we go? Hari said.

Why not? There’s room.

They pulled the boat up on the sand.

We’ll sail again tomorrow and leave at dawn the next day, Danatok said. Now I’m tired. I’ve got to rest.

He walked away, small and frail, like the burrows-children who never grew. Hari wondered what the sickness was and if it had struck Tarl yet, and why Danatok risked so much to save a man he had never met. He wondered if he risked getting the sickness himself.

EIGHT

They sailed at dawn on Hari’s third day in Stone Creek, with Pearl and Tealeaf watching from the beach and the dog shivering in the bow. A waterproof sack held food for five days. A small skin of water was tied to the mast. They would go ashore and take more from streams when they needed it, Danatok said. His mother did not come to see them off, but Hari heard the silent murmur of their goodbyes.

On the first night they slept under trees at a river mouth, wrapped in thin blankets Danatok pulled from a locker in the bow. They had sailed past headlands and cliffs and the lumpy end of a mountain range but seen no villages or people. The second day took them by taller cliffs and black reefs. Danatok kept them closer to shore, saying that Company scows were sometimes driven this way by unfavourable tides as they tried to make the harbour at Saltport.

‘Where’s the mine?’ Hari said.

‘See the big mountain that looks like a shaved head? It’s high up there, half a day’s journey inland. There’s a railway running down to the port. The miners bring the salt out, trucks carry it down, the full ones pull the empty ones up. The miners live in huts at the mouth of the mine. Other workers load the ships in the port. They stay until they’re too old to work. I don’t know what Company does with them after that.’

‘They die,’ Hari said. ‘No one ever comes back. Where’s Deep Salt?’

‘Deep Salt.’ Danatok shivered. ‘It’s not part of the salt mine. It’s something different.’

‘Further away?’

‘No, closer. See where the mountains touch the sea? There are three hills, two of them with trees and one in the middle, bare.’

‘A grey one,’ Hari said. It was scaly and crusted, and hurt his eyes where sunlight reflected off sheets of rock.

‘That’s Deep Salt. House Ottmar has worked the salt mines since Company first came, but no one went near the bare hill. All they knew about it was it made men sick. No animals went near. No plants grew there. But Ottmar, this Ottmar who calls himself king, grew curious, so he sent slaves to mine it. It didn’t matter how many died. They tunnelled in and found what they found.’

‘Salt tigers,’ Hari said.

Danatok smiled. ‘Not salt tigers. They don’t exist. And no deep pit to the centre of the world, sucking down the souls of men. They found what poisoned the hill. That’s what they dig for now.’

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. None of the slaves we’ve brought out have a name for it.’

‘What does it do to them?’

‘It turns their skin white. Their skin will tear like paper. It makes them bleed, with blood like water – so thin, once it starts it never stops. Their bones burst through their skin and break like rotten branches on a tree.’

‘But Tarl has only been there a day or two. How long does it take?’ Hari cried.

‘I brought out a man who had been there half a year. He died before we got home to the village. Another – half that time. He lived, then died.’

‘So Tarl should be all right?’

‘I hope so, Hari. We’ll see. Now, pull that rope and trim the sail. It’s three hours till dark and I want to be tied up by then.’

‘By Deep Salt?’

‘Close by. Pull harder. The wind’s getting up.’

They sailed on, as close to the reefs as Danatok dared, then turned into a bite in the land, sailing in shadow as the sun sank low. The mountains angled east and south, with wind-flattened trees clinging to rocky faces, then stepped back, exposing the inland one of the trio of hills. It was round and green, an ordinary hill rimmed with pebble beaches and white breaking waves. They went past on a softer breeze. The middle hill butted into the sea. It looked, Hari thought, like a head covered with warts and scabs, and sunken scars that shone silvery although no light reached them, and sockets where eyes had been gouged out. Danatok sailed hard, urging the boat past. They came to the seaward hill, which seemed to waft clean air from its trees, and Hari breathed a sigh of relief as the boat glided into a little bay with a stony beach. The dog jumped out. Hari followed and held the bow steady as Danatok lowered the sail. He tied a loop of rope round a tree branch. They ate a quick meal, then Danatok said, ‘I want to go over the hill and see what’s happening on the other side.’

He took a torch of bound twigs from the locker, struck sparks on it from a tinder, and soon it burned softly, a small fist of light. They set off through the trees at the back of the beach, leaving the dog guarding the boat. Hari, who liked to lead or else be alone, followed the Dweller boy, who knew so much more than him and had abilities he would never equal. But, he thought, wait till we have to fight someone. He smiled to himself. They climbed through tangled ferns and tree trunks for an hour, and slowly a rumbling sound grew and the sky lightened beyond the hill. Without noticing it, they began to speak silently.

The port’s working. They’re loading salt, Danatok said. But usually it’s noisier than this. He pushed the torch handle into soft ground. We’ll leave it here. They might see.

They crept on, and soon the hill flattened, then sloped down. They crouched in the ferns and looked at Saltport. A long wharf jutted into the sea, with sheds at its base and a cluster of buildings – houses, a few shops and offices – further inland. A double railway line ran over a plain, then up a low hill rising at the base of the mountains. It climbed almost sheer to a plateau where huts for miners stood in rows. The mouth of the mine opened beyond, glowing with light.

There were no trains on the railway, but at the port men pushed carts along the wharf to a ship flying the Ottmar flag. The wheels made the rumbling they had heard. A steam crane lifted the carts and poured white salt into the ship’s hold.

Danatok frowned. There’s usually two or three ships, he said. And the mine isn’t working. There are no trains coming down.

Because, Hari said, guessing, there’s fighting back in the city. Ottmar probably hasn’t made himself king properly yet. And there’s nowhere to send his salt, not with Company over the sea broken up. I’ve seen his salt ships leaving Port three at a time.

Then I wonder if Deep Salt’s working, Danatok said.

Where is it?

In answer, as though he was afraid of speaking, Danatok pointed into the night, round to their left, where the light from the lamps alongside the railroad failed to reach, and Hari saw a white fuzz, like a puff of smoke held still and lit from behind. It came from a single light on a post beside the stumpy end of the grey hill he had seen from the sea. A small hut stood below the light, with a watchman sitting in front of it, seeming to sleep.

That? Hari said. Just that hut?

Look at the hill.

Hari strained his eyes at the stumpy shape and in a moment saw a deeper greyness, not large at this distance, no larger than the watchman’s hut.

A door? he said.

An iron door. That’s the way into Deep Salt. It’s wide enough for one man, and they never open it except to let new workers in. Nothing comes out. No workers, ever again. And nothing they mine in there comes out. There must be a rail inside, going into the hill. They open an iron shutter and put food and water on a trolley and push it in. Then they close the shutter. And that’s all.

How do I know if Tarl’s inside?

Twenty days since he was taken. He’ll be there. But if we’re lucky, he hasn’t been long.

Long enough for the sickness? Hari whispered.

I don’t know.

Let’s go then. I’ll fix the guard. Hari loosened his knife in its sheath.

No. That entrance can’t be opened except by a clerk from Saltport with two keys. We go back over the hill.

Then what?

You’ll see.

They went back to the torch, which still burned softly in its knotted twigs, and made their way down to the beach, where the dog, whining and writhing, welcomed them.

Stay here, dog. Look after the boat, Danatok said. Follow me, Hari.

They clambered over rocks at the end of the beach, wading here and there, then climbed partway up the cliff and down again.

Now we swim, Danatok said. I hope your father can swim.

He sank into the water and swam on his side, with one arm holding the torch out of the sea. Hari followed. They came to a hollow in the cliff, with water booming faintly inside.

The back way into Deep Salt, Danatok said. There are caves and pits all over the place. It took us a long time to find it. Only one passage leads to the mine, where they dig for whatever it is.

How long to get there?

Half the night. The other half to bring him out. Hari, wait here. There’s no need for you to get close to the light.

No, I’m coming. I told Tarl I would. He’s my father.

You might get the sickness too.

Then I’ll get it. Come on, let’s go.

He was more afraid than he showed, but he would not let this boy take all the risk – and if Tarl died, then Hari wanted to die. No I don’t, he thought, I want to kill someone, I want to kill Ottmar.

The wish was so strong that Danatok recoiled from him.

I thought Xantee said you had a dream about not killing, he said. Anyway, there’s no one here to kill. You might find rats, though. Save your knife for them.

He held the torch high and led Hari into the cave. They climbed on ledges, swam across the mouths of narrow caves leading into darkness. Danatok was quick and sure. The way became easier but did not always follow the widest path.

When Hari asked where the side-caves went, Danatok did not know, but said there were pools in some that went down forever. He watched the torch anxiously and blew on it several times to ignite another in the tangle of iron-hard twigs in its core.

What happens if it goes out? Hari said.

We die.

I can find my way back. I’ve memorised it.

The rats won’t let you.

Yes, I can feel them. Hear them too – a rustle of claws on stone, a sliding of greasy fur along stone walls. He saw too, in a moment, a flashing of red eyes, half a dozen pairs, beyond the torchlight.

The light keeps them off. They hate the torch because of the other light, in the mine, Danatok said.

Why don’t they die like the miners?

It works on them another way. It makes them grow in strange shapes. I’ve seen a rat here with two heads. And one with ears all along its back. Ah, a new skeleton, he got a long way.

Danatok held the torch over the white bones of a man.

When they die of the sickness, he said, the other miners carry out their bodies for the rats to pick clean. Others wander away and lie down and die, like this one here, and the rats eat their flesh. You’ll see more skeletons soon. Come on, Hari. We’re nearly at the centre of the hill. My torch is half burned. We’ll have to hurry.

They passed more skeletons, some yellowed with age. Skulls, hair, rags of clothing lay scattered on the stone. Some of these men, Hari thought, had come from Blood Burrow. He might have known them. Then the darkness grew less intense. Light, faintly green, made a thin dilution of the black.

Far enough, Danatok said. This is where I call those who can hear.

I want to see, Hari said.

You can’t. I’ve never seen. Even this much light makes my skin feel as if ants are crawling on it. Do you feel it?

Hari did – a prickling and itching as though a wind was blowing chips of glass against his skin.

The place where they dig is another ten minutes’ walk. I have to stand and listen for a while before I can hear someone’s name inside his head. Then I call him. Sometimes there aren’t any. But we know Tarl, if he can hear.

Say his name, Hari said.

Hold the torch.

He gave it to Hari, closed his eyes, turned up his face, concentrated. Hari heard the name chime out, making no sound, and move like a wind blowing into the dark: Tarl! Tarl!

They waited.

He doesn’t answer, Danatok said.

Keep trying.

Danatok held himself still, and spoke again. Hari saw how all his strength was concentrated into the cry: Tarl! Say your name, Tarl.

No, I feel nothing. Unless he hears, he can’t follow. Hari, the torch will die if we don’t start back soon.

Let me try. I can make him hear, Hari said.

Yes, try. Be quick.

Hari gave Danatok the torch. He stepped a little forward, away from the boy, and thought for a moment: his father in Blood Burrow, hunting king rats in the ruins, with Hari, two years old, clinging to his back, and the pair of them sitting in a shattered room, under broken beams, roasting rat legs on the embers of a fire, and Tarl tearing tender meat from the bones and feeding it into his son’s mouth – my mouth, Hari thought, my father; and he drew the memory into the shape of Tarl’s black-bladed knife and hurled it towards the green light; and followed it with a shriller, purer cry: Tarl, my father, I am here. Follow my voice.

Nothing for moment. Then a whisper, far off, in the dark: Hari? My son?

Tarl, I told you I’d come. Follow my voice. Come quickly. We don’t have much time.

Keep calling, Hari, Danatok said.

Quiet, Hari said, concentrating.

Tarl, he repeated, I’m here. This is your name. Follow it. Close your eyes. Walk along your name like a path. Tarl. Tarl.

He kept up the call, making it ring like a bell from him to his father. It began to exhaust him, but Danatok put his hand on his shoulder, feeding his own strength into him, and soon they heard a shuffling of steps and saw a faint movement, like a shadow, in the light.

Hari raised his voice in a shout: ‘Tarl!’

‘Hari, Hari,’ came the whispered reply. Tarl came limping, shuffling, into the torchlight: Tarl barefooted, with outstretched arms and wild eyes, wearing only a scrap of cloth round his loins.

Hari ran forward and caught him in his arms, and thought for a moment that sickness had shrunk him, but it was Tarl sinking to his knees. His tears soaked Hari’s doublet. Soft choking cries came from his mouth.

‘Hari, you can’t be here. There’s no way. I had – no hope. When I saw the place – and felt the filthy light inside me – crawling like worms . . .’

‘Tarl, there’s a back way out. Danatok showed me. Stand up. We’ve got to go. There are rats all around us. If the torch goes out . . .’ He raised his father: ‘Come on. Walk.’