Drowned Ammet (36 page)

“Bence,” said Al, “how did they get here? Him particularly.”

“I don't know!” Bence said, blustering a little. “They were on that boat again—
Wind's Road
.”

“Then you can go by this road,” said Al. He brought Hobin's gun up, over his forearm, and fired at Mitt.

Mitt shouted out Libby Beer's lesser name as he saw Al's finger move.

With unbelievable speed, an apple from the table was in the air between Mitt and the gun. The bullet hit it. The apple burst all over the room, showering everyone with pulp, pips, and skin. The deflected bullet clanged into one of the lamps and broke its glass cover. Navis and his two guards put their arms up against a cascade of broken glass. After a stunned moment, everyone shook themselves and dusted off apple and glass.

Al looked from the gun to the broken lamp. “What did that?”

“I did,” said Mitt. “And I can do it as often as you've got bullets. We came here to fetch Ynen and his father away North, and you might as well let them come. You ready?” he said to Ynen and Navis.

Ynen and Navis were already standing up. They might have left then, in that shaken moment, had not Lithar cried out. “Oh lovely! How pretty! You
do
do tricks then! Look at this, Al. Isn't it pretty?”

Everybody looked. It was irresistible. Lithar had a little apple tree growing on his knee. Its roots spread visibly over Lithar's trouser leg, sucking up the moisture from the apple pulp on it. Its leaves turned from spring green to summer dark as they looked. There was another growing on the table, and several more coming up on the floor. Lithar was delighted.

“Do another trick,” he said. “These are beautiful.”

Mitt almost agreed with him. Hildy agreed entirely. She leaned over the tree on the table and watched it grow in astonishment.

“Very pretty,” said Al, giving Lithar's knee a cursory look as he passed. He took Hildy by her arm so suddenly and hard that she yelled. “Now get out,” he said to Mitt. “You and your tricks. I give you a count of five before I break her arm, and a count of ten before I strangle her. One—two—”

Mitt could see Al meant it. He could see Hildy was too frightened to say the name he had told her. He could see Bence standing aside from the door to let him go. He could see Ynen staring at him helplessly.

“Four,” said Al.

“A larger apple tree?” Navis suggested. “Heavy apples?” Mitt looked at him and saw that he was as tense and helpless as Ynen.

If he's that fond of Hildy, why does he try to hide it? Mitt thought irritably. He said Libby Beer's great name, before Al could come to five. It was a name that rang and reverberated, and became more awesome after it was said. It swelled inside the stateroom.

The result was nothing like Mitt expected. The
Wheatsheaf
shook from stem to stern as if she had hit a rock. They all staggered. There was a creaking and a hard rending. Bence, as soon as he heard it, turned and dived out of the door. The two guards hastily followed him, dragging Ynen and Navis with them. Lithar said, “What's happening?” and ambled out past Mitt with his tree flapping on his leg. But Mitt had to stay where he was because Al, though he was hanging on to the table with one hand, still had hold of Hildy's arm.

There was a huge creaking, followed by the sound of planks snapping and splintering. The end of the ship with the stateroom in it tipped, so that Mitt had to hang on to the door.

“This ship's breaking up!” he shouted at Al, through the din. “Let go of her!”

Al seemed to forget that he intended to strangle Hildy. He dragged her to the door and stared out. He, Mitt, and Hildy all ducked back as a mast as big as a tree, shrouds, sails, and all, crashed down on their end of the ship. The ceiling above them began to cave in under it. Mitt took hold of Hildy's other arm and Hildy pulled. Al was so bemused that he let go of her. Mitt and Hildy struggled over broken decking to an amazing sight.

There was an island growing through the middle of the ship. It was a wet shiny hump covered with shells and weeds and smelling like the waterfront on a hot day, and it was growing steadily. Navis, Lithar, Bence, and the guards were all on top of it, being carried upward as the island grew. Ynen was slithering anxiously down to them. Mitt stared round, weak with awe. The poor
Wheatsheaf
was in two shattered halves, on either side of the new island, and the surge and disturbance of its growth was rocking the ring of boats where the crew sat watching. Farther off,
Wind's Road
's mast beat to and fro.

“What's happening?” said Ynen. “Hildy, what did he do?”

Grass was already springing on the wet hump. It grew faint and far apart at first, but it thickened as quickly as the apple trees had grown. The muddy mound grew greener as well as larger. Some grass seemed to be rooting on the timbers of the
Wheatsheaf
as well.

Navis shouted and pointed. Mitt and Hildy both turned round to find Al close behind them, in the act of grabbing for them. Hildy threw herself to one side and Mitt to the other, where Mitt sat down with a wet
smick
which reminded him nastily of the dikes by the West Pool. As he landed, he saw Al grab Ynen instead and drag him by the leg down the muddy slope. The gun was still in Al's hand. Ynen put up a useless arm against it.

“Hildy! Help!”

“Mitt!” shouted Hildy. She pointed. She meant simply to shout that Ynen was in danger, but it came out with a stammer of terror. “Yn—ynen!”

The rough water round the new island spouted up into a point. A wing shape of water whipped across Al and Ynen, knocking them sprawling. Hobin's gun was flung against Mitt. Mitt had barely time to pick it up, before the new island was a hurricane of wind and water. Huge yellow waves crashed over what was left of the
Wheatsheaf
and broke halfway up the newly green hump. One wave, sluicing down, left Ynen clinging to the grassy mud between Mitt and Hildy. Though none of them could hear, or even think, Mitt hung on to Ynen, and Hildy leaned over him screaming, “It's all
right
!” until her throat was sore.

Then it was over. The sea was rippling and calm. The island had gone on greening in spite of the waves, and it was now as green a hump as the Ganter Islands. There was little of the
Wheatsheaf
left—just a few spars floating nearby. Nor was there any sign of Al. But where he had been there was a curiously shaped patch of green corn, growing and ripening, and crackling like fire with the speed of its growing.

The crew of the
Wheatsheaf
called remarks to one another and began rowing in to look at the new island. Navis stood shakily up at the top of the mound and shouted through the twilight to know if Hildy and Ynen were there.

Mitt shook the water out of his eyes. Ye gods! he thought. What happens if you say his big name?

A desperate thrashing in the water just below him caught his eye. He slid carefully down to look. Lithar's young-old face looked up at him imploringly. Mitt knelt on the salty turf, holding out a hand, and Lithar struggled toward it.

“You should learn to swim,” Mitt said, catching hold and heaving him to land.

“Never could,” said Lithar. “No more tricks, please.”

The nearest boat arrived then, and Jenro leaned out of it. “I will stir you over to
Wind's Road
, you and the two other little ones and their father.”

“Thanks,” said Mitt. “And then you take Lithar home and look after him for me.” He looked at Lithar, but Lithar was not attending. He was looking woefully at his knee. His apple tree had gone. “He's a bit in the head,” Mitt explained.

“We know that he is,” Jenro said, without expression.

“Do what I tell you,” said Mitt. “You look after him. You. And don't let anyone else get at him.” Jenro still looked expressionless. Mitt was exasperated. “You've got to have someone until I come back,” he said. “And he needs looking after.”

“Until you come back,” said Jenro. He smiled. “Very well. Will you all five climb in and I will stir to the
Wind's Road
?”

Riss leaned down to help Navis, Ynen, Hildy, and Mitt aboard
Wind's Road
. As soon as they were up, he slid down into his own rowing boat and untied it.

“I think I'd better take first watch,” said Navis, rather wearily, looking at the three tired children.

“You do that,” Mitt said. He felt exhausted. He had barely strength to wave to Jenro and Riss.

They waved back. “Go now on the wind's road and return sevenfold,” said Jenro. The island men sat in their boats and watched
Wind's Road
lean away North in the brown tag end of sunset, carrying Libby Beer behind and Old Ammet in her bows.

 

 

When I was small, I always thought Stallery Mansion was some kind of fairy-tale castle. I could see it from my bedroom window, high in the mountains above Stallchester, flashing with glass and gold when the sun struck it. When I got to the place at last, it wasn't exactly like a fairy tale.

Stallchester, where we had our shop, is quite high in the mountains, too. There are a lot of mountains here in Series Seven, and Stallchester is in the English Alps. Most people thought this was the reason why you could only receive television at one end of the town, but my uncle told me it was Stallery doing it.

“It's the protections they put round the place to stop anyone investigating them,” he said. “The magic blanks out the signal.”

My Uncle Alfred was a magician in his spare time, so he knew this sort of thing. Most of the time he made a living for us all by keeping the bookshop at the cathedral end of town. He was a skinny, worrity little man with a bald patch under his curls, and he was my mother's half brother. It always seemed a great burden to him, having to look after me and my mother and my sister, Anthea. He rushed about muttering, “And how do I find the
money
, Conrad, with the book trade so slow!”

The bookshop was in our name, too—it said
GRANT AND TESDINIC
in faded gold letters over the bow windows and the dark green door—but Uncle Alfred explained that it belonged to him now. He and my father had started the shop together. Then, just after I was born and a little before he died, my father had needed a lot of money suddenly, Uncle Alfred told me, and he sold his half of the bookshop to Uncle Alfred. Then my father died, and Uncle Alfred had to support us.

“And so he should do,” my mother said in her vague way. “We're the only family he's got.”

My sister, Anthea, said she wanted to know what my father had needed the money for, but she never could find out. Uncle Alfred said he didn't know. “And you never get any sense out of Mother,” Anthea said to me. “She just says things like ‘Life is always a lottery' and ‘Your father was usually hard up,' so all I can think is that it must have been gambling debts. The casino's only just up the road after all.”

I rather liked the idea of my father gambling half a bookshop away. I used to like taking risks myself. When I was eight, I borrowed some skis and went down all the steepest and iciest ski runs, and in the summer I went rock climbing. I felt I was really following in my father's footsteps. Unfortunately, someone saw me halfway up Stall Crag and told my uncle.

“Ah, no, Conrad,” he said, wagging a worried, wrinkled finger at me. “I can't have you taking these risks.”

“My dad did,” I said, “betting all that money.”

“He
lost
it,” said my uncle, “and that's a different matter. I never knew much about his affairs, but I have an idea—a very shrewd idea—that he was robbed by those crooked aristocrats up at Stallery.”

“What?” I said. “You mean Count Rudolf came with a gun and held him up?”

My uncle laughed and rubbed my head. “Nothing so dramatic, Con. They do things quietly and mannerly up at Stallery. They pull the possibilities like gentlemen.”

“How do you mean?” I said.

“I'll explain when you're old enough to understand the magic of high finance,” my uncle replied. “Meanwhile…” His face went all withered and serious. “Meanwhile, you can't afford to go risking your neck on Stall Crag, you really can't, Con, not with the bad karma you carry.”

“What's karma?” I asked.

“That's another thing I'll explain when you're older,” my uncle said. “Just don't let me catch you going rock climbing again, that's all.”

I sighed. Karma was obviously something very heavy, I thought, if it stopped you climbing rocks. I went to ask my sister, Anthea, about it. Anthea is nearly ten years older than me, and she was very learned even then. She was sitting over a line of open books on the kitchen table, with her long black hair trailing over the page she was writing notes on. “Don't bother me now, Con,” she said without looking up.

She's growing up just like Mum! I thought. “But I need to know what karma is.”