Salt (6 page)

She slept on and the dream faded and nothing disturbed her for good or bad during a time that, when it ended, seemed to have lasted her whole life. Then she turned – turned over in the shade of the rock – and dreamed again – and now suddenly the fish were torn and the birds had blood on their beaks, and here, suddenly too, people were running on the beach and falling on their knees, and horsemen with lances galloped after them and over them. People fell. Women and children fell. The sand turned red. She writhed in it, screaming as a black sword fell on her. It seemed to strike, but turned into a hand that rested on her brow. She heard a voice murmur: Easy, child – Tealeaf’s voice. Sleep without dreaming. She obeyed, but felt too, before the black sweet nothingness came down, that she was obeying herself.

Stars were shining when she woke, and fading as the moon came up. Tealeaf was sitting by a small fire, with the dog sleeping beside her. A pannikin of water steamed on the embers. Pearl watched, remembering her dreams. She did not think Tealeaf had given them to her, but suspected Tealeaf knew.

‘Where did you get the wood?’ she said.

‘They’re twigs from the ironwood tree. They burn for hours.’

‘You must have been here before.’

‘I’ve been many places, Pearl. Come and drink some tea.’

‘I didn’t think we brought tea.’

‘We didn’t. It’s from the ironwood, from the leaves. You’ll find it bitter at first but sweet later on.’

Pearl sipped it and made a face, but found a faint honey taste after a while.

‘Did he have dreams too?’ she said, nodding at the sleeping boy.

‘Worse ones. He’s seen worse things, Pearl.’

‘Do we have to wake him?’

‘Soon. He’ll be hungry. The dog was hungry.’

‘He talked to the dog. He talked to me.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Is that why we have to keep him?’

Tealeaf sighed. ‘Wait a while, Pearl. I’ll tell you later. Finish your tea. I’ll cook some food.’ She pulled her bag towards her and lifted out a handful of white grubs, some as long as her thumb.

‘What are those?’ Pearl cried.

‘Muggy grubs, from the Muggy moth. They grow in the ironwood roots. We’re lucky it’s the season for them.’

‘I’m not eating grubs.’

‘Then you’ll go hungry. I’ve taken off their heads and squeezed the poison out. The dog likes them.’

Pearl wondered if she had killed them while she was having her dream of birds tearing fish apart. She watched while Tealeaf placed them carefully in the embers, and soon a smell like roasting meat reminded her how hungry she was.

‘Help yourself, Pearl. I’m not your maid any more.’ Tealeaf tossed a raw grub to the dog, who snapped it hungrily out of the air.

Pearl hooked a grub from the embers and put it to cool on a flat piece of rock. She tasted it and found it more sweet than savoury, and with a spicy after-taste.

‘How do you know about these things, Tealeaf?’

‘Eat some more. I want to wake Hari, then I’ll tell you.’

‘Who’s Hari? Oh, him. Do you expect me to forget he killed my brother?’

‘I expect you to remember that your brother was going to kill him. Now eat, and leave some for him. And, Pearl . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘When I do wake him, remember your dream.’

Pearl ate another grub.

Which part of the dream, she wondered, the good part or the bad?

Hari’s dream took him to places so dark and violent and bloody that even he, used to violence and blood, closed his eyes and wailed in terror. He tried to turn and run, but the dream was on his back, and bursting from the ground at his feet and swooping from above – things that crawled and killed, things that flew and killed, in humped and clawed and crooked shapes, yet with men inside them. They had faces that he knew, and all of them a second face, hiding behind. He tried to turn his eyes away, but everywhere the creature sprang into life, advancing, locked into itself, wearing its contorted face, and his face too. He wept and wailed and turned and ran, but met himself everywhere. He cowered and fell to his knees and hid his eyes. A weight came down and crushed him. And slowly, under it, his terror faded until a tiny squeak of pain was all he could make. That sound faded too, the pain faded, and a thin whisper took its place: Hari, Hari, Hari, there are places still to go. It sank into blackness, and Hari sighed and rolled over, and nothing was the sum of all he knew.

He slept a long while without dreaming.

Then a whisper started: his name again, but this time with a friendly sound. It raised him from a stillness so deep and so enfolding he felt it rolling off like water, and he was walking on grass, among trees – grass greener than he had ever seen and trees so tall they touched the sky. A stream flowed by. Sand gleamed silver on the bottom. Small fish swam. He wondered how he was able to recognise things he had never seen. The voice said: Hari, there are many things to know. He stood still. For hours he stood still, among the trees, by the stream, with his hands easy by his sides and his eyes seeing without knowledge or thought, and a space opening inside him . . .

A new voice spoke in his ear: Hari, wake up. It’s time to eat.

He woke and sat up, and looked at the woman and the girl by the fire.

‘Who are you?’ he said to the woman.

‘My name is Tealeaf,’ she said.

‘What are you?’

‘Another person, but from another place, and so a little different from you.’

‘The girl is Company. That’s why I’ve got to kill her.’

‘Not now. Not ever. Come to the fire, Hari. Come and eat.’ She smiled. ‘Perhaps you had bad dreams because you’re hungry.’

‘I had another dream – and not a bad one.’

‘Perhaps that too came because you’re hungry.’ She threw something to the dog, who snapped it and swallowed. ‘Muggy grubs. There are plenty left.’

‘Come here, dog,’ Hari said.

The animal rose, whining.

‘Go on, dog,’ Tealeaf said. ‘You’re with him.’

The girl said, ‘You can’t kill me without your knife.’

‘I can do it with my hands,’ Hari said.

‘No more talk of killing,’ Tealeaf said. ‘Come and eat. Then we’ll decide what to do.’

Hari stood up and went to the fire. He sat down opposite Tealeaf.

‘There are grubs roasting. Help yourself,’ she said.

Hari took a stick and hooked one out of the embers. It burned his tongue and he spat it into his hand.

‘Manners,’ said the girl.

‘What’s her name?’ Hari said.

‘Ask her,’ Tealeaf said.

‘I don’t talk to Company.’

‘I’m not,’ said the girl. ‘My brother was. You killed him.’

‘Was he the one on the horse?’ He put the grub in his mouth and chewed with enjoyment.

‘What did you tell the horse?’ Tealeaf said.

‘I told him to watch out for the spitting snake.’

‘So he shied, and Hubert fell. Where did you learn to talk to horses?’

Hari took another grub from the embers and tossed it from hand to hand, letting it cool. ‘I need some water,’ he said.

Tealeaf handed him a leather bottle. ‘That’s the last. I’ll show you how to find more.’

‘Show me too,’ the girl said.

Hari saw she was jealous. He grinned at her. ‘Your brother was a fool. Company men are easy to kill.’ But as he spoke something jagged at him, like a thorn catching his skin. He could not tell whether it came from the woman, Tealeaf, trying to control him, from the look of pain in the girl’s eyes, or whether it started in himself, from his dream. He drank from the bottle, hiding his confusion.

‘It was a fair fight,’ he said.

‘Horses,’ Tealeaf said. ‘And dogs. How did you learn to talk to them?’

‘Easy,’ Hari said.

‘And people? You could speak with me if you wanted to. You spoke with Pearl.’

‘Is that her name? A Company name.’

‘How?’

Hari looked into her eyes. The slitted upright pupils made him blink. He handed the bottle back into her three-fingered hand. Lo had told him once . . .

‘You’re a Dweller.’

Lo had never met one; had not even been sure they existed, any more than salt tigers existed. None had been seen in the burrows. But Tealeaf was real – eyes and hands, and skin red in the firelight – and Hari knew she could take whatever knowledge she wanted from him. He tried to remember if there had been Dwellers in his dream.

‘We’ll talk about me later on,’ Tealeaf said. She reached into the bag at her side. ‘Take your knife.’

‘No,’ Pearl cried.

‘Quiet, Pearl.’ Tealeaf handed the black-bladed knife across the fire. ‘He needs it. You don’t feel whole without a knife, do you, Hari?’

‘No,’ Hari whispered, taking it. He had not expected to see the knife again.

‘Especially this one. Why this, Hari?’

‘It was my father’s.’

‘Did you know it’s a Dweller knife? See the ridges in the handle. They’re made for three fingers. Where did your father get it?’

‘He found it one day in Blood Burrow.’

‘It’s very old. Dwellers visited the city when it was called Belong. After that, after Company came . . .’ She shrugged and fell quiet.

Hari fingered the knife, felt the balance, tested the blade. A single flick would send it across the fire into the girl’s throat. But the thought came without energy and turned back on itself and was lost.

Tealeaf sighed. She put another handful of twigs on the fire and pushed more grubs under them. ‘Eat some more, both of you. Then we’ll find some water.’

‘I learned by myself at first,’ Hari said. ‘Then I learned from an old man called Lo. He was blind. But he had lived a long time and had a long time to learn.’

‘Were there any others?’

‘Just me and Lo. I can talk to dogs and cats and rats. Horses too. And sometimes my father could hear and whisper back. No one else, until her. Until . . . Pearl.’

‘I’m better at it,’ Pearl said. ‘I stopped you killing me.’

‘I would have got you, if she hadn’t come,’ Hari said. ‘But you needn’t be scared, I’m not going to now.’

‘I’m not scared.’

The dog whimpered, and Tealeaf said, ‘Children quarrel. I don’t want children with me. There are mountains to cross. Tell me, Hari, where are you running to?’

‘I’m not running. Company took Tarl, my father. I’m going to set him free.’

‘Where did they take him?’

‘Deep Salt.’

‘Ah,’ Tealeaf said. She smiled at Hari. ‘Do you know where that is?’

‘Lo said north. So I’m going north.’

‘So are we.’

‘To Deep Salt?’

‘In that direction. Travel with us, Hari.’

‘Nobody asks me,’ Pearl complained.

‘I think we’ll need each other, Pearl,’ Tealeaf said. ‘There’s dangerous country ahead, and danger behind. And much to learn. The first is . . .?’

‘Water,’ Hari said, and he grinned as Pearl, not to be left out, repeated it.

They ate the last grubs, then, as the moon came up, threw dirt on the fire. When they set out, Hari and the dog came last. He saw it made the girl nervous having him behind her, but he wanted to stay at the back and see how Tealeaf found her way. His dreams still troubled him. He did not think they had come by accident, but wasn’t sure that the woman, the Dweller, had put them in his head. Perhaps she had simply opened something, unlatched a door and let hidden things come out. Or perhaps it had been the girl, his struggle with the girl. She had got inside and bossed him, and that had set something free so he could fight back, and now there was a huge new place to explore. He must hang on to these two until he knew more about it. He was weaker than the woman but as strong as the girl. He wanted to be stronger than them both. Then he would know how to save his father. And he would know what the Dweller woman wanted him for. He did not think she meant to harm him, but she probably thought she had captured him. She was wrong. He had captured her.

He gave a little snigger and Pearl said, ‘What’s amusing you?’

‘The way you walk. You’re like a Company clerk with piles.’

‘I’ve got sore feet,’ Pearl said.

‘Maybe you’d like it if I carried you?’

She turned and faced him angrily. Her face was lit by the moon, and he stepped back as she slapped at him, not with her hand but with her mind. He half parried the blow. His head rang.

‘I’ve seen you,’ he said – a face gleaming in the light of candles. ‘Eating with – what is it? – forks and spoons. Men with cut-out tongues putting meat on your plate.’

‘Where?’ Pearl said.

‘In a tree, outside your house. Was that the one I killed sitting next to you?’

‘You watched us? You spied on us?’

‘Not just you. All the houses. I could have sneaked inside and killed you all.’

‘You talk too much about killing,’ Tealeaf said.

‘I had to eat the scraps out of your rubbish tins. But I pissed in your fountains.’

‘Be quiet, boy,’ Tealeaf said.

Pearl was panting. ‘There are no men with cut-out tongues,’ she whispered.

Hari shook himself. Where had his burst of hatred come from? It had rolled over him, and rolled him over, but suddenly he stood free of it. He looked at Tealeaf: had she gone inside his mind and freed him?

No, her voice said in his head, you’re in charge of yourself. I don’t want to look inside until you’ve got all your hatred out.

‘That will be never,’ Hari said aloud.

‘Then I’m sorry for you,’ Tealeaf said.

‘Yes,’ Hari said. ‘But I never wanted to be in their house, sitting at their table. I’d rather be hunting king rats.’

‘I don’t sit at their table any more,’ Pearl said. ‘It’s me my brother was hunting, to take me back and turn me into a slave.’

Hari supposed it was true. He didn’t know how to answer and didn’t want to argue any more. He had said he would never be rid of his hatred, and the Dweller woman had said she was sorry for him. He wanted to think about that.

‘I’m thirsty,’ he said.

‘Then let’s find water.’

They walked again. After a time Hari moved closer to Pearl: ‘The earth’s soft here. If you take your shoes off, your feet will feel better.’

‘No,’ Pearl said.

‘Try it, Pearl,’ Tealeaf said. ‘We need to go faster.’

The girl sat down and untied her boots. Hari could not believe how small and white her feet were. They reminded him of the grubs they’d eaten. But she walked more easily after that, and more easily still when the soil turned sandy.