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  Osro made a signal and a man unpicked the knots at her ankles and wrists. Her hands took a moment to come alive, then she untied Nick, tearing her nails on the cords. His head lolled but when she rubbed his hands to warm them he half opened his eyes. He made a warning tilt of his head at the man beside them. She knelt closer and pretended to support him on her shoulder.

  ‘I’m not as bad as I’m making out,’ he muttered.

  ‘Nick – ’

  ‘Don’t say anything. Get me down to the water to drink.’ He raised his eyes piteously to the man and croaked, ‘Water.’

  ‘Please,’ Susan said, ‘can I take him down?’

  The guard looked at Osro. She could not see the leader’s face, even though men had a fire of twigs burning at the base of the cliff.

  ‘Do nothing foolish. If one of you tries to run I’ll kill the other.’

  She helped Nick up and they went the few metres to the creek, sliding in the shingle. The guard stood at the top of the bank, watching them. They knelt at the water and drank and washed. Then Susan bathed Nick’s face. She ladled handfuls of water on the cut on his cheekbone. ‘Hurts,’ he winced.

  ‘It needs a stitch.’

  ‘Too late now. Listen, I’m not bad. I’m pretending. But I don’t think they’ll keep me alive very long.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Runaway priests. They’ll use you as hostage to get away. And sell you for ransom. To Kenno.’

  ‘Osro – the leader – he calls himself king.’

  ‘There’s probably lots of people playing king. They’re only crooks. But they’re dangerous.’

  ‘You’ve got to get away.’

  ‘I know. One’s got a better chance than two. I’ll bring the Birdfolk. And Jimmy. And Ben.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve got my Shy. I only said I lost it. It’s in my pocket.’

  ‘When will you try?’

  ‘Not tonight. I’m not fit enough. My head aches. Pretend to help me up.’

  She supported him up the shingle bank. Osro, silhouetted against the fire, watched them come. He turned into a shelter of stakes and blankets and Susan saw food taken in to him. They crept close to the fire. No one offered coverings but the woman Slarda thrust strips of meat at them and they ate hungrily. Susan had two strips and tried to share with Nick, who had only one, but Slarda knocked him away. She drew her finger across her throat. They were aching to kill him and Susan wondered how long it would be. Not tonight or they would not have fed him.

  She looked at the women. Apart from Slarda, who was long-boned and stringy, the other three were not much older than her. They might have come from Earth, they would have looked at home on a beach, or counting out money in a bank. Ordinary-looking. Until you saw their eyes. There was one who looked like Susan’s phys. ed. mistress at school, but when she turned the likeness vanished. Her eyes were deadly, with pointed flames reflected from the fire. She hated Susan and wished her dead, and her lips gave a savage curl, and she felt for the bones that had hung on her breast and clenched her fist to find them gone. There would be no help from the women, and the unnaturalness of it turned Susan cold. She huddled against Nick.

  ‘Sleep,’ Slarda said, but offered nothing to lie on. They lay down side by side on the stones, as close to the fire as they could get, and tried to rest. They dozed and turned and dozed through the night, and woke in the dawn stiff and cold. The priests – ex-priests, outlaws – were packing for the march, but Steen came from Osro’s shelter and told them to wait. ‘The Master has much to plan.’ So they ate again and sat waiting under the cliff. Rain still fell in the gorge and the creek was higher. Steen walked down and watched it, and came back with a worried face. ‘We’ll be trapped in here if we don’t move soon.’

  ‘Good,’ Nick whispered to Susan.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Dizzy. If I’m going to get away I’ll have to go soon.’

  But they sat there all through the morning and he found no chance. Slarda had put the fire out. The air was warm and the rain fell thick and straight. Sheets of water streamed from the cliff, closing the hollow like a room. Steen broke through it now and then and looked at the river. It moved stones on the shingle bank, making them grind like teeth. But still Osro gave no order to move. The guards sat watching Nick and Susan. They had the priest habit of not blinking and spoke in the voice trained for temple chants and striking fear. Slarda filed heads for crossbow bolts. She tested them on her thumb.

  There had been no breakfast for Nick and Susan but lumps of bread were handed them at noon. Again Nick got less than Susan. They drank water from the sheet streaming from the cliff and she managed to give him a crust she had saved.

  ‘I’ll have to get somewhere with just one guard,’ Nick whispered.

  ‘Will the Shy knock him out?’

  ‘It better. It worked with the Halfmen.’

  ‘These aren’t Halfmen, Nick.’

  ‘They hate the Shy. They call it stinkweed. So maybe it smells different to them.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Slarda jerked them back to the base of the cliff and thrust them down. They had settled only a moment when Steen came out of the shelter and said, ‘The Master will talk with them.’ He led them to the opening in the blankets and pushed them in. It was darker inside and the man called Osro was like an animal squatting at the back of a den. He had no trouble seeing, for he worked at papers on his knee, making tiny marks with a charcoal stick. Steen forced them down. ‘Kneel,’ he said.

  They stayed on their knees while Osro worked. He made more marks and gave a laugh. ‘Do you know what I am doing, Susan Ferris?’ He looked at her suddenly, with eyes pale in the gloom.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Each of these marks is a part, an ingredient, and when I have gathered them all, in the right measures and right weights, and bring them carefully face to face I have a Weapon. A Weapon like none that has ever been. With it I shall rule, O is mine. So you see, it does not matter that the Temple is finished. I would have torn it down anyway, with all its foolishness of painted faces and sacrifice. I need only this. No Susan Ferris. Or priests, or bones. But still, you are useful for a time.’

  Susan wet her lips. She felt the power locked in him, the belief in himself. ‘Who are you?’ she managed to say.

  ‘You don’t know me? Even yet?’

  ‘No.’

  He smiled. Then he raised his hands in front of his chest and let them dangle from the wrist. He loosened his mouth and made his eyes roll. He set up a tuneless nasal humming. And Susan knew him.

  ‘You. The Candidate. The one who was mad.’

  Osro laughed. He let his hands fall. ‘Good, good. You’re a clever girl, as my friend the High Priest said.’

  ‘You weren’t mad at all.’

  ‘I was sane. The High Priest was mad. I acted my part for seven years, and stayed alive while the others died. Do you know how long they lasted? Two, three turns. Three was the longest. Except for me. I flattered him. He looked at me and saw the extent of his power.’

  ‘But we saved you. We saved you from that.’

  ‘You interfered. I need no help. I was ready to have him killed. Then I would have been High Priest.’

  ‘But the guard. The one behind you with a sword.’

  ‘He was mine. I controlled him. Look at me Susan.’

  She did. She saw his cold pale eyes. ‘You can hypnotize.’

  ‘I can control, at least a mind as simple as the guard’s. But I was waiting. I waited until I had my Weapon. I had done the calculations. All that was left was to get the parts. Then you came along with your Birds, with Jimmy Jaspers and his Varg – and interfered.’

  She felt the anger in him, but felt his control of it. That was what made him terrifying: control. She knew he was more dangerous than the High Priest, more dangerous even than Otis Claw. He was colder, more ambitious, and less concerned with cruelty and revenge.

  ‘What are you g
oing to do now?’

  ‘There are tribes in the Hotlands. I have dealings with them. I will raise an army and march south.’

  ‘You can’t win.’

  ‘Do you think your Birds will stop me? Or your army of Freemen?’ Osro smiled and tapped the paper in his hand. ‘You forget my Weapon.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The army will burn like a field of dry corn. And the Birds will flare in the sky like paper kites.’

  ‘It’s some sort of ray gun,’ Nick said.

  ‘Ah, the boy. He speaks. You will never see it, Nicholas Quinn. And you, Susan Ferris, I need you only until I reach my tribes. So,’ he turned to Steen, ‘take them away. I will work another hour. Then we will go.’

  ‘The river is rising, Master.’

  ‘Tell me when we are no longer safe.’ He dismissed them with a flick of his hand.

  Outside, the rain had thinned to a drizzle. It filled the gorge like smoke. The river was bucking and surging. It beat on the cliff opposite and turned with a writhing twist fifty metres down and vanished round a bend as if something swallowed it. Logs and trees floated by and a drowned animal like a moose rammed into the cliff and turned over slowly with its stiff legs at the sky. The children watched until it went from sight.

  ‘The river turns west. It heads for the sea.’

  ‘When you get away, follow it,’ Susan said. She looked at him and tried to smile. She did not think he would get away.

  ‘I’ve got to tell Kenno and the Birdfolk about this Weapon.’

  ‘Yes.’ But she wondered if Osro had hypnotized her. She did not believe the ex-priest could be beaten.

  The guards made ready to start. At last Osro came out of his shelter. Two men packed the blankets and tied them on their backs. Everything was ready.

  ‘Master,’ Steen said, ‘we will cross this shingle bank and turn up the hill away from the river. Then we can strike across the uplands to the Belt.’

  ‘Lead, then,’ Osro said. ‘But first, kill the boy.’

  ‘Yes, Master.’ Steen started towards Nick, where he stood with Susan in the back of the hollow. But a young woman sprang in front of him. ‘Steen, let me. Let me do it.’

  ‘No, me,’ cried another, pushing foward. She drew her knife and ran at Nick. Steen knocked her aside. He gave a shout of anger.

  ‘The Master spoke. He ordered me. Will you disobey?’ He stood in front of Nick and Susan, facing the guards, who leaned at them, almost panting in their eagerness. Steen held them off, and Osro watched, smiling, stroking his chin. Susan had a moment to think. The order for Nick’s death had come so suddenly it had frozen him. But she remembered his plan of getting alone with a guard. Steen turned at last and looked at Nick, and she flung herself at him, clutched his shirt. ‘No, please, I don’t want to see. Take him somewhere else. Please. Please.’ She felt tears running on her face, but she heard Osro laugh and heard his voice: ‘Do what she asks. We must keep her happy for a time. Take him back along the path.’

  She saw Nick’s face, white, dark-eyed. He had time only for a glance at her before Steen gripped his collar and forced him away, but the nod he gave was a way of thanking her. Steen pushed him through the guards and dragged him along the shingle bank. They went behind a rock leaning over the river. A moment passed. Another.

  ‘He takes his time,’ said the girl called Greely.

  ‘He is too old,’ grumbled another.

  The water roared and the shingle growled, but no sound came from behind the rock.

  ‘Master?’ Slarda said.

  ‘See,’ Osro nodded.

  There was no need. Steen crawled from behind the rock, his faced raised, mottled red and white, and his eyes blind. He tried to stand, but fell and rolled on his back, clawing at the sky. His voice howled above the sound of the river.

  Guards ran to help him. Others darted behind the rock.

  ‘The boy had stinkweed,’ Slarda cried. ‘He used it on Steen. He is gone.’

  ‘Find him.’

  They were so busy with Steen and so headlong in their search along the path they did not see Nick. Susan saw him. He had gone the most unexpected way. She saw a tree come bucking down the river, its green head billowing like a sail, and there was Nick hidden in the branches, riding past not twenty metres away. He clung like a possum as the tree rolled. It slammed into the cliff opposite and the force of the water made it rear. It was as if the tree was growing again, lifting Nick with it. Then it plunged and was buried and the roots showed in the air, pink and brown. Still Nick clung in the branches. She saw his face flash white. Slarda saw it too. She had climbed on the rock to scan the path and saw Nick as she turned to cry to Osro. She gave a yell and unslung her crossbow. The others saw where she was looking. The tree had turned again and was racing away from the cliff towards the bend in the river. But Nick was exposed in the branches and could not move for fear of losing his hold. Slarda levered back the cord of her bow and slammed a bolt in the groove. Susan saw her grinning fiercely. The shot was forty metres, easy for her. Nick watched helplessly. Holding on with arms wide, he seemed to offer himself.

  No one watched Susan. She moved behind Osro and picked up a stone the size of a cricket ball. She was no good at throwing but knew that Nick was dead if she missed and the knowledge swelled Slarda’s face like a balloon, brought it close. It was as if she had simply to reach out and push the stone. Osro saw too late what she was doing. He lunged at her and knocked her down and put his foot on her. But the stone was gone. It curved in the air, slow as a football. Susan saw Slarda sight her bow. And that was all. A cry. The twang of a bowstring. Then a glimpse, a last one: the green tree sailing on the river, and Nick riding high, going from sight, going to safety.

  Osro ground her with his foot. Slarda stood over her with bleeding face. ‘Let me kill her, Master.’

  ‘No. Take one other. Hunt the boy. See him dead.’

  ‘Master,’ someone said, ‘he has taken Steen’s knife.’

  ‘It does not matter,’ Slarda said, ‘I have my bow.’

  ‘And later, when I have no use for this,’ Osro kicked Susan, ‘she is yours.’

  Slarda’s eyes shone. She gave a short quick bow, called harshly to Greely, and they were gone.

  ‘Now, Susan Ferris. Stand and walk,’ Osro said.

  She obeyed. She walked between two guards along the shingle and climbed a track leading into hills, away from the river. Osro led. Two men came last, carrying Steen in a litter made of blankets. They went on through the drizzling rain, through the afternoon into night. She felt as if she was going deeper and deeper into a nightmare and the only thing that kept her in touch with the normal world was the thought of Nick riding to freedom on a tree.

  She ate. She drank. She lay down to sleep; and did not know whether she dreamed Slarda standing in the dawn with Osro, and her voice saying, ‘It is done. The boy is dead.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Use yer loaf’

  He saw Slarda reel from the impact of the stone and the bolt from her crossbow flash across the river and rebound from the cliff. Susan was down, under Osro’s foot, and he screamed at the man to let her go. Then the tree bucked and almost threw him. It swung round the bend in the river and he saw water beating on rocks ahead. The tree gathered speed. He yelled with fear and burrowed into the branches. The roots struck the rapids as though crashing into a wall. The blow ripped one of his hands from the branch. The tree made a half turn, slamming into a boulder, lurching away. But a weight of water pressing on his back kept Nick in place. He got his hold again and rose on his legs to ride the tree. He must be part of it. He must bend with the branches.

  The gorge went on and on like a chute. Hidden rocks made dragon-backs, whale-backs, rearing horses, in the water. The tree rode some and slouched through others. Nick moved his grip and jumped from side to side to keep his weight even. Water broke on him and punched and stretched him. He did not think he could hold on much longer.

  The gorge opened
out and hills sloped up on the left and right, covered with bush. Trees leaned into the water and broke it into eddies and back-currents. Nick tried to steer at the left-hand bank – away from the side where guards would be coming with their crossbows – but the tree would not answer. It kept in the middle, turning over with a corkscrew motion. The hills began to close in. Another gorge, another chute, was coming. Its narrow hungry mouth was full of spray.

  Nick rode through. He was beaten with water, half-drowned. The branches of the tree were stripped of leaves and the bark on the trunk was shredded. Then another stretch opened up, between low hills. The water seemed to gallop along, rising and falling. A rock standing up from the surface turned the tree left. It sped near the bank, roots first, running easily with its foliage gone. Nick sat in the branches like a helmsman and watched for a chance to jump ashore.

  Then a third gorge showed its mouth, round a bend. It was blacker, deeper, and breathed out spray like smoke from a forest fire. It seemed to draw Nick in as though it were a mouth sucking in breath. It boiled and rumbled. Great twisting melon-shapes and tongue-shapes grew in it. Cables writhed and lashed, slugs of water bounced into the air, and into it the river slid as smooth as oil running from a spout.

  Nothing could survive. Nick must take whatever chance he had, take it now. He climbed out of the branches, ran three steps along the trunk, and threw himself at the bank ten metres away. He hit the water as though running into a wall. It bounced him off and turned him over and over. Then it swallowed him. He clawed for the surface, and had a glimpse of the reeling sky, a lungful of air, then was down again. A boulder struck a club-blow on his back. He flung his arms at it but found no grip, and was tumbled into the hollow, the boiling pot, on its down-river side. Something came to join him. He thought it was alive and gave a cry. But it was the tree, pushing him with roots splayed like fingers. It freed him from the hollow but pushed him at the gorge, then turned away. He swam with fierce over-arm strokes, but felt he was falling down the river as though down a cliff. Bushes flashed by, out of reach. A smooth rock wall curved into the gorge and he slid on it as though on ice. He hooked his fingers, trying for a hold, but they ran like glass marbles on a floor.