Pathfinder (20 page)

“One night,” she whispers, “instead of nesting I went off with Pollock. I was restless and the night was too warm. The skies were like blue glass. It was high summer when they never darken and it seemed a shame to waste such a night. Gorbals was busy as usual with a head full of poems and I—I was lonely and fed up. Pollock began telling me about a tiny island way over by the golden pod that flies up to the sky, a place we never go near because it's too dangerous. The sky people kill anyone they find there who's not from their world.

“Pollock told me he knew a hidden route to the island, over the path of an old bridge that only appears at low tide. He said we could go there and watch the ship that comes in through the great door in the wall—the door you came through. He told me the island was full of secrets and magic, the kind of magic you want on a night like that. He described a strange plant which only grows on that island, a special herb, and he made me want to try it. So I went with him to the island. I was curious and it sounded exciting.

“But the herb was strong and dangerous. It magicked me out of myself and into a dream where Pollock seemed much more than he really is. In the morning I felt dull-headed and sick, and Pollock was just Pollock again. I wanted to run away from him and forget everything that had happened. I didn't want Gorbals to know, and I made Pollock promise not to tell him. But I couldn't keep it a secret because little Clayslaps came from the magic of that strange night. And so that's what is between them.”

“He's ruined your life,” says Mara flatly. “He stole it. Gorbals is right, he
is
a thief.”

“It's not ruined,” says Broomielaw. “Clayslaps is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. It was my own fault that I lost myself in a false enchantment.”

“But you still love Gorbals?” Mara asks.

“It doesn't matter if I do,” says Broomielaw bitterly. “He has built a great wall around his heart to keep me out! A wall made of words.”

Molendinar shakes her head and sighs over the pot of herbs she is grinding. Mara puts a gentle hand on Broomielaw's shoulder. She doesn't know what to say.

“What did you want to ask Pollock?” says Broomielaw. Her gentle face is flushed with distress yet she manages a small smile.

“I want him to do some hunting for me,” answers Mara.

“Well, he's eaten a whole rabbit, so he's happy,” notes Molendinar dryly, “and he's had plenty of hupplesup too. He's more of a pest than ever when he's been guzzling hupplesup, but you're the Face in the Stone, after all, so he might watch his tongue.”

Mara looks at Pollock keenly. He feels her gaze on him and shoots a sly glance at her, frowning and fidgeting. “It wasn't me, it was Possil!” he bursts out. “He looked at it while you were away today.”

“I did not!” yelps Possil. “It was you, Pollock. You said, let's—”

Possil flinches as Pollock shoots him a venomous glare.

“You looked at my magic machine?” Mara guesses. “It has your fingerprints all over it, Pollock.”

Pollock wriggles as if he's caught in a trap.

“You mean you sneaked into my bag and looked at my belongings while I was away?”

“Pollock!” gasps Broomielaw, outraged.

“Well, I need you to help me with something,” Mara tells Pollock. “If you agree to do what I want we'll forget about it.”

“You will do as Mara asks, Pollock Halfgood,” Candleriggs declares, “to make up for your prying. I'll give you one last chance to live up to your name before I change it to Nogood. Do you hear me?”

Pollock nods sullenly.

“I want you to catch me a sky person,” says Mara.

The others gasp. Pollock sits up.

“Dead or alive?” he whispers. He looks at Mara, his pale, sullen eyes now wide and gleaming.

“Alive,” says Mara. “I just need their clothes. Then you'll let them go.”

“Difficult,” says Pollock, looking at Possil.

“Very difficult,” echoes fidgety Possil. “You see, to catch something it must be within your grasp. That's the trick. To get it in your grasp you have to sneak up on it. But there's nobody can sneak better than Possil,” says Possil.

“Or you get it to fall into your trap.” Pollock's sly smile spreads across his face and he makes a snapping sound with his fingers. “It's all about knowing what kind of trap is best for the one you want to catch. The right kind of trap, that's the trick. And there's nobody sets a better trap than Pollock,” says Pollock.

Mara hears a sharp gasp from Broomielaw.

“Think like a spider,” he continues. “A spider has the best ambush tricks I've ever seen, the most beautiful traps in the world. They never run after anyone. They get their catch to walk right into their pretty trap every time.”

Broomielaw stifles a sob, gets to her feet, and disappears into the trees. Mara can't help herself—she bounds over and kicks Pollock. He yells in shock. Then Mara grabs a mothlight and runs after Broomielaw, following the sound of her sobs. At the top of the hill behind the ruined building Mara catches up with her.

“I hate him,” Broomielaw cries. “I have his baby but I was just a bit of hunting practice. I fell right into his pretty trap.”

“He's a bigger rat than any ratkin,” says Mara. “I kicked him—hard. Do you think that's part of the stone-telling, Broomielaw? The Face in the Stone kicks Pollock the rat?”

Broomielaw giggles through her tears. Then she beckons to Mara. “Come and see this. It's secret.”

The netherworld is full of the slow moans and whispers of New Mungo's windspires. Broomielaw's owlish vision
takes her quickly and easily through the dark. Mara hurries after her through the trees, beating moth-hungry bats off the twig lantern with a stick. Owls sit among the branches like white phantoms, hooting softly, dropping from the trees like dead weights when they spy a mouse. Glowworms and fireflies are the only points of light beyond the fluttery lantern and Mara yearns to be back at the bonfire preparing to nest. Where is Broomielaw taking her?

At last they stop at a thick spread of bramble bushes. Broomielaw reaches under the thorns and berries and tugs out a large, flat, plastic-wrapped board. She unfastens the plastic and reveals a huge broken mirror. Mara looks closer and sees that it's a mosaic of tiny glass and mirror fragments that have been painstakingly jigsawed together. The light of the moonmoths makes a flickery magic upon its crazy patterns.

“Did you do this?”

“Yes,” says Broomielaw. “You see, my life is not all ruined. I have my baby and I've still held on to the dream of who I am. I just don't have much time for it these days. Clayslaps takes up all my time and energy but maybe he can help me once he's grown a bit.”

“What is it?” says Mara, fingering the massive mosaic in awe.

“Sunpower. For a long time I've been dreaming of ways to hold the sun in our world, to use its power. This mirror is my idea to catch the sun each morning and beam it straight on to our fire and light it. I don't have the settings right yet and it's not strong enough in winter and the sun changes its place a little each morning. But one day I'll get it right. I have another dream—to forge metal panels to catch the sun's heat.” Broomielaw pulls out a plastic bag, heavy with flat-hammered metal odds and ends. “That's
not even begun yet. But one day we could have fire and hot water ready for us when we wake each morning. There are other things I've thought of…”

As Broomielaw trails off into thought, Mara remembers what bothered her as she walked through the vast halls of the university, looking at the portraits of the golden names. There were no dreamswomen. Apart from the odd mythical figure or queen, not one of the golden names had belonged to a woman. All the great dreamers had been men.

Now Mara sees how it could have happened. The women might have dreamed just as hard—as hard as Broomielaw does now—but
their dreams had become all tangled up with the knit of ordinary life
, with meal making and babycare and nest building. Yet wasn't precious little Clayslaps more wonderful than anything dreamed up by those golden names?

“You must keep working on this,” Mara urges. “It's really good.”

Broomielaw looks at Mara with hope glimmering in her eyes. And Mara sees the power the girl takes from her words because she thinks it's the wish of the Face in the Stone.

“Don't give up on it.”

“I won't,” murmurs Broomielaw, fingering her mirror mosaic. “I won't ever, now. Me and Clayslaps, we'll do it together.”

As they return to the grove to nest, Mara wonders how many of those golden names in the great halls had dreamswomen as mothers—women who helped them find and follow a dream. Maybe one day, long into the future, Clayslaps would be famous for the dream of sunpower begun by his mother. But would Broomielaw be remembered too?

If I have anything to do with it, she will, Mara vows.

And what about her own dream? The plan that she is trying to dream up is beginning to take shape, bit by bit, like a great mosaic. A plan that just might save them all and find them a future. But there are still crucial missing pieces that she cannot find, that she
must
find. Mara sits for a moment at the foot of the beech tree she nests in and tries to believe that there really is a future on this drowned Earth. Beneath her, the grass is ribbed with great tree roots. She lies flat on her back and looks at the skyward-reaching branches of the tree, mirrored by the roots that reach deep into the Earth. Each tree is an explosion of life. The planet is alive! She must hold on to that belief.

She still can't believe in the stone-telling or that she is the Face in the Stone, but it's odd—this plan of hers, if she can really bring it all together, will save the Tree-nesters, just as they believe she is meant to. Just as if she really is the Face in the Stone.

Mara sighs wearily. The stone-telling prophecy is like a pebble in her shoe that she cannot shake out.

But her plan is completely practical and it's got nothing to do with visions or superstition or birds or fishes with rings or any of the other signs and statues that the Tree-nesters claim is the stone-telling. If she can just find a map and more information about the high lands of the Arctic among the paper mountains in the university, and get hold of the clothes she needs to make her look like a New World citizen—then all she has to do is find a way to access the ships that dock in the great towers. And that's the bit of the plan she hasn't worked out yet.

If only she could find the cyberfox and get him to help her…

Mara climbs into her nest and takes out her cyberwizz, recharged on snatches of netherworld sunbeams.
Later
,
she tells herself. And she feels a shiver of the old excitement at the thought of plunging back into the familiar cyberworld of the Weave. Maybe, just maybe, she will find the fox. But right now she must begin to prepare the Treenesters. She must start to tell them something of her audacious plan and get them ready.

“Treenesters!” she announces to the surrounding nests. “Listen! I have a story I want to tell you. It's the story of a people called the Athapaskans that live in a forgotten highland forest at the top of the world. People that sound a lot like you.”

Next morning Mara is awake even before Ibrox the fire-keeper—ready and eager for a full day's hunt in the book rooms of the university. She calls up to Gorbals, hoping to persuade him to come with her, then begins to gather fallen twigs to stoke the sunup fire. Pollock's small hunting axe is lying on the ground. Mara picks it up, shivering beside the paltry fire. Only the gloomiest dawn light filters through the sky city, and the netherworld is a dank and bitter place. As she raises her arms to axe a low branch of a birch tree, someone grabs her wrist, painfully. She spins around and it's Gorbals.

“What are you doing?” he demands, amazed.

“We need some more wood,” Mara tells him. “The fire's too low and I'm cold. Why, what's wrong?”

Gorbals wrenches the axe from her fingers. He stares as if she'd suggested fire-roasting baby Clayslaps.

“We do not kill trees,” he says sternly, then looks at Mara searchingly. “Maybe you're right. Maybe you can't be the Face in the Stone. Tree killing is a terrible crime.” Now he looks worried, wary. “You haven't killed a tree before, have you?”

“There weren't any trees on my island,” responds Mara.
“So I didn't have the chance. Anyway, I wasn't killing it, I was only chopping a branch or two.”

“That is killing,” Gorbals insists. “What if I chopped one of your limbs off? Tree killing is part of the story of the world's drowning. When Candleriggs was young she lived in the age of tree crime. The Earth needs its trees.” He frowns. “There were no trees on your island? Not even one?”

“I never saw a tree till I came here,” Mara confesses.