Nighthand was watching her. His eyes, red and swollen at the lid, burned with admiration.

  Petroc rolled his lip at Irian. ‘Fine. But I won’t work under surveillance. Go into the town. Return at dawn.’

  ‘Dawn is too late. We haven’t got that kind of time to waste,’ said Nighthand. He winced with pain, and Irian moved closer to him, just in case.

  ‘You’ll have to waste it. I have in my stores the bones of the chimaera and the blood of the cetus, and the sap of the red urchin. But the blood needs six hours of steaming. And the forest has a bush of long-stemmed dew-wort, but it only flowers in the two hours before dawn. So you will wait.’

  Back in the town, they looked in vain for somewhere to pass the night. There were a few cafes and bars, but they looked careless, dusty and joyless places.

  They spoke to a woman standing at a stall on the corner, her hair pulled back under a scrap of cloth. ‘Why would we have hotels, when we don’t have visitors?’ She stared at them, suspicious. ‘But I can sell you some food.’

  They bought tomatoes, small round flatbreads and some kind of dried squid. She offered a bottle of wine, stoppered with a screwed-up rag. ‘Panther-wine? I make it myself. It’ll burn the thoughts out of your head for a day and a night solid. Take your mind off that wound.’ Her eyes travelled from Nighthand’s arm – which had swollen so badly he’d had to cut the sleeve from his shirt and jacket – to his face, which was greyish white.

  Nighthand shook his head, then turned to Irian. ‘Unless you want it?’

  ‘I’ll keep my thoughts unburned, thank you, for now,’ she said.

  They agreed, in the end, to sleep in the boat, taking turns to keep watch through the night. It was not a place to take chances.

  Minutes passed, under the chill black sky. Stars shone down on the murderers’ streets. Rocking on the water, Mal and Christopher lay side by side.

  ‘Mal. Are you awake?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Mal … Have you thought about what it will be like? The potion, and afterwards?’

  She gave him a look; a look that aimed for high scorn, but landed on fear.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Have you thought about what it’ll mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ He had: he had imagined it, over and over. Sometimes he felt a spark of jealousy burn in his chest. ‘You’ll know everything. You’ll be asked by kings and dragons for your opinion.’

  ‘But have you really imagined? Properly? Hard?’ Her voice was very small, under the vast sky. ‘What I’ll have to know, and see, and remember, forever?’ She breathed out, a rough-edged tight little burr of breath. ‘I’m scared. Sometimes I think about it and I can’t breathe. I’ve never been so scared in my life. And what if I take the potion, and then I’m scared, like this, for eternity?’

  In her sleep, later, she stirred. Her face, always so vivid in waking, was screwed tight in sleep. One of her wrists was flung out from under the blankets. It was scarred, where Gelifen had nibbled and scratched at it.

  Christopher sat awake for several hours, watching over her, keeping guard.

  Christopher woke an hour before dawn. The night was still grey-blue above, and something was wrong.

  There was a clanking of hooves along the deserted waterfront. Through the empty night walked Petroc, unchained. In one hand the centaur held a glass vial.

  He stood, on the edge of the dock, and called to them.

  ‘Humans! You will take me with you, in that boat, off this island.’

  Nighthand rose up, looming at his full height. ‘You are mistaken in that. Don’t come any closer. You’ll regret it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt you could kill me. But this, right here, is the potion. It needs one more ingredient.’ He held out a palm, in which lay two leaves. ‘It’s either the heart of a viram flower, or a ferenleaf. You don’t know which. But I do. So what’s going to happen is this: you take me off this island, and when we reach your ship, moored out there by the barriers, we’ll board it, and I’ll add the final ingredient.’

  Irian’s gentle voice had a bite to it. ‘How did you unchain yourself?’

  A smile flicked at the corner of the centaur’s mouth. ‘The living gold is not an ingredient of the potion. You simply helped me forge the key to my chain.’

  They had no choice.

  Mal and Christopher pushed themselves against the sides of the boat to make room, and the centaur stood at the front, as Irian and Nighthand rowed. They reached the boundaries of the island’s water, and the centaur stiffened, but the Ever Onward moved swiftly past, untrammelled by the island’s enchantment.

  They reached the Shadow Dancer. Ratwin was perched on the prow, and as they came in sight she let out a cry of pleasure. Then she saw the centaur, and called out, ‘Nighthand? What’s this? Why the horse-man?’

  ‘Move aside, squirrel.’ Petroc heaved himself, the muscles straining in his great back, up on to the boat. Irian made to follow, Nighthand holding the Ever Onward steady against the side of the Shadow Dancer.

  Petroc unstoppered the vial. He added the heart of the viram flower, and carefully restoppered it, pushing hard with callused fingers. With what might have been a smile or might have been a grimace, he threw the vial into the water.

  Mal screamed. Nighthand made to leap into the ocean, but standing struck him with a fit of dizziness and he collapsed against Irian. Christopher dived into the waves.

  The water was ice-cold, unsoftened by the dawn sun. The glass vial tumbled downwards, and Christopher kicked desperately after it. He had only one chance – once it sank down where the water turned black and cold and unreachable, it was gone. The thought clawed at him, and he kicked harder, his muscles screaming with effort. Faster.

  He shot to the surface, coughing, his throat burning with seawater. Ahead of him, the centaur had hauled the anchor of the Shadow Dancer, and taken hold of the tiller. Ratwin leaped at Petroc, but Christopher watched in horror as he kicked her aside with one strike of his hind leg.

  ‘Bite him, Ratwin!’ shouted Nighthand, heaving himself to his feet. He plunged into the water and swam towards the Shadow Dancer, but it spun in the wind and sailed away at a vicious speed, cutting head-on through the waves. Nighthand hung in the water and roared: a wordless bellow of fury that shook the air.

  But Mal was not looking at the ship, or the Berserker. ‘Did you get it?’ she cried.

  Christopher swung out a hand above the waves: in it, tightly clutched, was the vial.

  THE STINK OF MANTICORE BREATH

  Christopher clambered into the Ever Onward, his heart racing. The sun was rising, casting the water a hundred shades of vermilion and rose, but he could see only rage.

  ‘He kicked Ratwin!’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t underestimate a ratatoska,’ said Nighthand. ‘She’ll get him in his sleep.’

  The Berserker had seaweed strung through one of his golden earrings, and he was wheezing. He stripped off his shirt – Irian looked away, and up again, and away – and Christopher saw with dismay that his arm had turned a terrible purplish-grey. Nighthand saw Christopher looking, and shook his head, a single, tight No.

  ‘Nighthand!’ said Christopher. ‘Your arm isn’t supposed to be that colour.’

  ‘Nonsense. My arm can be any colour it pleases.’ The Berserker coughed, and grimaced.

  Mal turned the vial over in her hands.

  ‘Did the seawater get in?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ It was unopened. ‘No. Look, there.’ She shook it upside down. ‘You can see, it’s watertight.’

  They sat in the Ever Onward, looking back at the Island of Murderers.

  ‘What now?’ said Mal.

  There was a pause. And then: ‘He said we need dryad fire,’ said Christopher. ‘So – I vote we go to the dryads.’

  ‘Onwards then,’ said Nighthand. He rose to his feet, struck a valiant and determined attitude, all pointing hands and jutting hips – and collapsed with a hideous thump into the bottom of the boat.

  They made a blanket from their warm clothes, and tried to make him comfortable. He half lay, with his back propped against the side of the boat, watching the horizon. He insisted they go on; and so, after much argument, they did.

  Irian guided the Ever Onward, with one eye on the Berserker. Every time Christopher turned to her, her eyes were moving steadily between the sea and Nighthand, Nighthand and the sea.

  They had been sailing in the Immortal’s boat for half a day when Irian left Nighthand, edged round the sail and came to them.

  ‘I’ve been looking at Christopher’s map. The nearest place that I know for certain has dryads is the Island of Tār; there’s a dryad queen there, Erato, who rules the forest. But the way to Tār is past the Island of Manticores.’

  Mal looked sick with horror. Irian saw Christopher’s blank face.

  ‘The Island of Centaurs,’ Irian said, ‘Antiok it’s called, doesn’t just have centaurs, any more than your England only has Englishmen. I was born there. But the Island of Manticores is the exception. They’re the only thing that lives on that island.’

  ‘Why?’ said Christopher.

  ‘Because they eat everything they see,’ said Mal.

  ‘Oh,’ said Christopher. ‘Right. I can imagine that would do it.’

  ‘Look.’ Irian pointed on the map. ‘They fly to nearby islands to get food. They lack stamina – they can’t go far – but they’re fast. We have to go past them, to get where we’re going. But here –’ she pointed to the sea – ‘are coral reefs, growing thirty feet high under the water. The coral’s as sharp as knives – nereids have died there – and the boat would run aground, dryad-wood or no dryad-wood. We could go the long way, back round the cape of Lithia, but it would take weeks.’

  Christopher thought of Kavil, and the way he had spoken of the creature in the maze. He thought of his father and grandfather, waiting, perhaps angry, perhaps terrified and panicking, for his return. He thought of Gelifen; and he said, ‘We don’t have weeks. How close do we have to pass, to avoid the coral?’

  ‘About a hundred feet. Less, if the depth gives out to the east.’

  ‘Is that smelling distance?’ said Christopher.

  ‘Yes. And they have the eyesight of lions.’

  ‘What’s to stop them,’ said Mal, ‘flying over and landing in our boat and killing us?’

  ‘Well, we have the kitchen knives, and the bow and arrow.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Our hands and teeth,’ said Nighthand. He tried to smile, but his voice was a whisper. His skin had begun to blotch with a red raised rash across his face. The skin around his lips was vivid white.

  ‘Nobody is to bite a manticore,’ said Irian. ‘And that’s final.’

  The island stank. They could smell it on the sea wind before they could see it. It smelt of what it was: not-quite-finished prey, left out by the manticores in the burning heat of the sun.

  Nighthand said something – it sounded like ‘teeters’. Irian leaned down.

  ‘He says they’re messy eaters,’ she said.

  He tried to sit up. His voice was a ghost of itself: ‘If they kill us, they will not eat us all: they will leave parts of our bodies strewn about. So somebody will probably be able to identify us – not Christopher, but the Archipelagians, at least.’ He coughed, and when the cough had passed, he added: ‘If we don’t rot first.’

  ‘Thank you, Nighthand. We’ll bear it in mind,’ said Irian. Her tone was far warmer than her words. She kept one hand on the tiller, the other on her bow. The island came into view – sandy at the shoreline, forested further back. The boat moved fast; the waves were choppy, but it rose and fell in rhythm with the water. They crouched low in the boat, peering over the sides.

  They were halfway past it. Nothing on the island seemed to see them. They sailed beyond the island’s northern-most point. They were safe.

  Christopher’s stomach, which had been iron-cold and hard with fear, relaxed. He grinned round at Mal.

  The wind picked up, and a sudden wave lifted the boat. As the boat dropped again, it thumped against the water and Nighthand was jerked from his position, sideways, landing his full weight on his injured arm. He gave a single, loud, fevered cry, swiftly stifled. It rang through the sea-salt air. Irian cried out in turn. She crossed to him, crouching low.

  ‘How bad is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Not.’ His voice was less than half what it should be.

  ‘Did you open the wound?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You did! I can see it, Nighthand.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘Yes! That’s exactly what I’m doing. We have to get you help.’

  And then his voice became suddenly sharp: ‘Look out! Above!’

  Something moved fast among the trees on the island behind them. Three dots rose and moved towards them, flapping in the air. They flew in a tight knot, their wings almost touching, and their speed was staggering.

  Nighthand stood. He lurched across the deck, and pushed Mal behind him, his good arm holding her against the side of the boat.

  She struggled. ‘Don’t! I need to see – I need to fight—’

  But Nighthand held her back. ‘It is my work,’ he said. His voice had a slur of pain in it, but no inch of fear. ‘They will have to eat me first.’

  There was a lion’s roar from the sky, and something like a thin javelin shot past Christopher and stuck into the side of the boat.

  Nighthand grunted. ‘The filth-cats come.’

  Before Christopher had time to see more than a blur of tawny skin and yellow wings, Irian took aim and fired, again and again, sweat pricking along her forehead: the air was full of arrows – some went wide, but four found flesh or wings: two manticores fell.

  ‘Christopher! To your left!’

  He twisted; it was above him, diving low, wings outstretched, clawed feet extended, lion’s mane matted with sea salt and blood.

  He ducked and Irian sent another arrow, which missed by a hair’s breadth. The creature swerved in the air, twisted to lunge at Irian, and with a great roar Nighthand hefted himself to stand in the boat, and sent a kitchen knife spinning into its flank. The manticore dropped into the water.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Mal was still pressed against the side of the boat. There was a fleck of manticore blood on her cheek.

  ‘Anyone hurt?’ called Irian.

  ‘No,’ whispered Mal. Her fists were balled, and her eyes wide.

  ‘Are there any more?’ said Irian.

  ‘I can’t see any,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Good. Because we have no arrows left.’

  ‘Over there!’ cried Mal.

  It was the largest creature of the herd; it had come not from the island but from the sky over the water. It flew, straight and fast as a propelled stone, towards their boat.

  Mal ran to the bow of the boat where Irian stood. She whispered to the wood, hands on its two sides, urging it on, but the boat could go no faster. They could do nothing: they could only watch the manticore come closer, and closer.

  ‘Mal!’ Nighthand crossed to her.

  Christopher stood alone, watching at the port side of the boat. It was awe-inspiring. Its body was leonine, but its face, furred and matted with dirt, had human eyes and a human nose and mouth. Its teeth, though, were not human. They were huge, and grey, and sharp.

  It hovered over their boat, looking down at them.

  Nighthand took the glamry blade from his waist, holding it in his uninjured hand. But he did not dare throw it and lose it: it was not a thing that could be thrown.

  ‘Humans!’ said the manticore. Its voice was rusty, as if its tongue were unused to speech. ‘You are not welcome here.’

  ‘We’re only passing through,’ said Christopher. His voice shook.

  ‘You! Your scent has the outside in it. From where have you come?’

  ‘From outside the Archipelago. From the Outerlands.’

  ‘So you have never yet seen a manticore?’ Its wings beat above his head.

  ‘No. Not until now.’

  ‘A piteous and distressful thing, then, that you will not live to return home and tell what you have seen.’ The creature swooped suddenly; Irian gave a cry, but it only landed on the deck of the boat. It turned to Nighthand, to Irian, to Mal.

  ‘If you come a step closer, I consume the boy. Stay where you are.’

  The manticore drew back its lips – pale, almost white – and bared its teeth. Its head was level with Christopher’s as he stood with his back against the boat’s mast.

  ‘Handsome thing, you are,’ said the manticore. ‘Don’t move – no – none of you – or I will bite out the boy’s eyes. We will not eat the man. He would, I think, be poison. But you – you will be a piece of culinary delectation.’

  The stink of the creature’s breath was hot and vicious on Christopher’s face.

  ‘Do you find me frightening? Are you scared-chested?’

  ‘Yes.’ And then, because if he was going to be eaten, he did not want that to be the last thing he said, he added: ‘It’s not difficult to be frightening. It’s not a talent. Any idiot with a knife could be frightening.’

  The manticore moved a little closer, its claws biting into the wooden deck. ‘You should have more respect for fear. It’s the engine in all your human history, fear. Fear, married to greed, married to power.’ The manticore licked his white lips. His tongue, pointed at the end, flicked upwards.

  Christopher reached into his pocket, to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon. There was nothing. He tensed his muscles – he would try to blind it with his hands, when it came.

  ‘Oh, yes. You are afraid of each other – oh, deeply afraid. Afraid of humiliations and laugh-and-points. Afraid of death, so you kill others before they can kill you.’

  There was a noise behind him, a retching, breathless sound – it was Mal, trying to get to Christopher. Nighthand grabbed her by the shoulder, to stop her moving.

  ‘A quivering, scratch-greed, terrified little race, humanity.’

 

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