“You will be able to take on Ervys and Talek and Mortarow all at once if they catch up with us, little sister,” says Faro with a wicked grin.
“I’d put my money on Saph,” agrees Conor. Elvira, however, seems slightly shocked by my violence. I decide to ignore both her reaction and Faro’s.
“So what happened to you?” I ask Conor eagerly. His smile fades. Suddenly his face is weary, and there’s a look of pain and bewilderment in his eyes. He glances quickly at Elvira and then back to me. At once I know something’s gone wrong. Something important. Faro catches the glance too, and cuts in quickly.
“We must move on. We have lost days already, and these two look exhausted. We must save our strength for swimming, until we find safe shelter where Conor and Elvira can rest. The four of us are together again; that is all that matters. We can tell all our stories as we travel north.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We’re sheltering deep inside a cave in the flank of an iceberg. The iceberg is drifting very slowly south, which isn’t the right direction for us, but we had to hide because of the killer whales. Faro was the first to hear them. A few minutes later we all picked up the eerie clicking and whistling. I knew it was whales but didn’t know which kind; Faro did, though. He said, “Orcas! A big pod, and they are hunting. They sound hungry.”
“Can’t we talk to them?” I asked.
Faro frowned. “We can’t risk it. Listen to how hungry they are. They are still distant, but they are coming closer.” I listened. The clicks and whistlings meant nothing; it was just a forest of sound.
“Listen harder,” said Faro. “Remember you are Mer, little sister.” That was when I realised I was trying to pick out words, instead of letting the waves of meaning vibrate against my ears until they became sense. How many times did I have to remember to let go of the Air, let go of my human way of seeing and listening? The water was suddenly flooded with the whales’ conversation. Faro was right. The orcas were hungry and desperate.
Ferromir is starving … I have no more milk for him
Hold on, sister, we will find food for you and then you will have milk
My belly hurts, mama, my belly hurts
The whales’ voices were full of anguish, love and concern for one another. I remembered what I’d learned from Faro long ago: orcas may stay in the same pod for more than forty years. They will do anything to nurture and protect the members of their pod. Their voices swelled in my ears.
Soon we will find food …
Soon … soon …
Do you feel that vibration, my brother?
Seals! Fur seals!
Follow me, there is food! This way!
“Quick!” said Faro. “Into the ice mountain!”
We all turned as one and dived for shelter. The first cave was too big, and Faro thought the whales could get into it. The second was hard to enter, even for us. We had to squeeze through the narrow gap between pillars of ice that guarded the cave entrance. We huddled in the back. The light was so dim we could see almost nothing, but we could hear the whales questing up and down. Their echolocation had spotted us and then we had vanished and now they were savage with hunger and frustration.
“They will not hear that we are Mer,” whispered Faro.
“Or human,” I whispered back.
“Don’t talk,” muttered Conor. “Keep dead still. If they sense we’re in here they could ram those pillars of ice to get at us.”
No one moved. No one spoke. My ears hurt from the battering of the whales’ noise. They were very close, maybe right outside the cave’s entrance. One of the weakest young was in trouble: two of the orcas were struggling to support him. They were all maddened by the pain of hunger. The sound surged around us, deafening us. At long last, it began to retreat. The orcas were giving up hope. Their desperate cries grew fainter. They were gone, following the faint hope of another hunting trail. I shifted position from where I’d been cramped against a wall of ice.
“I think they’re going,” I whispered.
“They’ll come back if they feel us moving.”
We hung still in the water, waiting and listening, until we were sure that the pod of killer whales had gone.
We’ve all agreed to stay in our cave until we’re quite sure that the whales won’t come back. I’m happy with that. I like the safe feeling of being surrounded by thick ribs of ice. Nothing can attack us from behind here. If any creature tried to squeeze in through the gaps, as we did, we’d be able to fight it off.
We’ve been out in the open ocean for so long, exposed and vulnerable. This is like having a little rest in camp when you are climbing Everest. I smile to myself. The four of us are safe again, and together. Soon we’ll have to travel on, but for now I’m not going to worry about that.
“You can’t help feeling sorry for them,” says Conor thoughtfully.
“What?”
“The orcas. It’s not their fault they’ve got to eat.”
“You can think that now, because you are not between their jaws,” answers Faro. “Have you ever seen two orcas playing with a seal pup, before they kill it?”
“No.”
“They toss it high and catch it, and snap at it again, until they get tired of their game. Usually the pup is dead by then, but not always. The first thing every Mer mother teaches her child is how to convince a killer whale that he is not a plump, blubbery little seal.”
“But we can’t blame them,” says Elvira, backing Conor as always. “Hunger drives them and they must feed their young.”
“Hunger is driving me too, but I’m not about to take a bite out of Sapphire’s leg,” says Faro. Elvira takes the hint and opens the bag of tightly woven sea grass that she wears around her waist.
Oh, that bag of Elvira’s! I am sick of the sight of it. Every time she opens it I feel a faint hope that this time she’s going to bring out something different; but no. It’s always the same vile tasting compressed tablets which Elvira assures us are made of exceptionally nutritious seaweeds, and will enrich whatever other food we find on our journey. Fortunately Elvira only expects us to swallow a couple of tablets each day.
I start thinking about food, while Faro nibbles his seaweed tablet with apparent relish. It is just as well that I don’t feel hungry as there’s rarely much to look forward to here. No more sea grapes or other delicacies: we are too far north for them now. Just what Conor calls “Elvira’s pemmican” as he makes a face and swallows it whole so as not to have to taste it too much.
The long night passes slowly after the whales have gone. I think about the Mer, and food, and war. I wonder if one reason why the Mer seem to be able to live in peace most of the time is because they aren’t always fighting for food supplies, as humans are. But then there’s Ervys. He couldn’t be any more aggressive if he were starving, so the argument doesn’t really work …
Faro is restless too. He and Conor talk for a long time, in quiet voices. Then Faro turns to me and starts talking about this current that we’ve got to find. He’s sure that there’s a very strong current not far from here. Once we’ve rested, and are completely sure there are no orcas close by, we’ve got to find it and ride it northward.
“How do you know, Faro?”
“I can feel it.”
“You can’t feel currents when you’re not in them.”
“You have a lot still to learn about Ingo, little sister. Do you remember when we smelled land from far away? It is like that.”
Faro’s self-confidence can be provoking, but when you are sheltering inside an iceberg, not even knowing which way is south and which is north, it is very comforting. I touch the deublek on my wrist. We must move on. We can’t hide for long inside a cave of ice. Ingo needs us.
After a while, Faro drifts into sleep. Elvira is on the other side of him, curled up around her tail, while Conor is on my other side. So he and Elvira are as far away from each other as possible … interesting. I’ve already noticed that they haven’t talked to each other
much since they came back to us. No long intimate chats which mean nothing to anybody else. No significant glances. No ripples of laughter from Elvira. At last I’ve got the chance to talk to Conor privately.
“Conor?”
“What?”
“Tell me what really happened after you and Elvira got separated from us.” Conor and Elvira have already told us a bit about what happened. They were thrown against the wall of an iceberg – probably the same berg that nearly ran down Faro and me – and then Elvira had concussion, Conor thought, and she hadn’t been able to remember anything. They travelled on very slowly, fearing that we were dead. It was only because Elvira spotted Nanuq that they’d discovered we were alive and which way they should go to find us.
This is the story Conor and Elvira told us earlier. Every so often they glanced at each other as if they needed confirmation. The story didn’t sound quite right to me. There were too many gaps in it. It sounded like something they’d agreed on rather than the truth.
But Conor doesn’t seize the chance to talk openly. “What’s wrong, Conor? What really happened?” I have a sudden flash of insight. “It’s something to do with Elvira, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he says reluctantly.
“You can trust me, Con.”
“All right. You know we said Elvira was concussed?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t. We were both shocked and we’ve got loads of bruises, but Elvira didn’t hit her head. She just changed completely.”
“What do you mean?”
“It had started before, as soon as we headed north. I don’t know if you noticed?”
I think back. Yes, it’s true. Elvira seemed more – more real, somehow. Not calm and perfect and a little bit passive. Her eyes sparkled and she was full of energy and she didn’t seem afraid of the dangers. But what was wrong with that? “I thought she seemed … Well, better, really. More alive.”
“More alive!” said Conor in a harsh whisper. “You should have heard her. She was obsessed. It was as if she wasn’t Elvira any more. All she cares about is the North and how amazing it is. She loves it here, Saph. She says she belongs here. She kept on saying, “I’ve come home, Conor, at long last I’m home where I belong.”
“Weird.”
“She even looked different. You know how gentle Elvira is. That’s what she’s like, isn’t it?”
“You mean all calm and beautiful?” I ask tentatively.
“Yes! I mean, Elvira’s really brave and strong but she’s not pushy. At least, I always thought she wasn’t. But, Saph, suddenly she was like a different person. Even her eyes were glittering in a sort of – well, a sort of way that you’d think was crazy if you didn’t know Elvira. We were lost in the middle of nowhere and she didn’t seem bothered at all. I wanted to talk about you and Faro, and Elvira kept going on about ice mountains and the Northern Lights and eternal winter and eternal summer. It was like she’d been hypnotised. She wouldn’t let me rest for a second. She kept pulling my arm and making us keep going north. And she’s strong, Saph, she’s really strong.”
Conor sounds outraged. The idea of sweet, beautiful, bewitching Elvira ruthlessly dragging my brother along in her wake nearly makes me laugh, but I suppress it. The great undersea romance of the century certainly seems to have hit a rock. “That doesn’t sound too good,” I say in as neutral a voice as I can manage.
“The worst thing was that she didn’t seem to mind that we’d lost you. Not really mind. She just kept saying that the North would look after you and we’d all be reunited when it was the right time. It was creepy, Saph. It was as if she’d been taken over.”
“I expect she’ll change back again,” I say, hiding my anger at the idea of Elvira being so calm and philosophical while Faro and I were desperately searching for her and Conor. I also have to suppress a desire to punch the water and yell, “Yess! Hallelujah! Conor has seen the light!”
“Maybe she will,” says Conor gloomily.
“So who talked to Nanuq – you or Elvira?”
“I did.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“No. You could tell straightaway Nanuq wasn’t going to harm us,” says Conor confidently.
“I wasn’t quite so sure when I met her,” I murmur.
“Apparently I have a personal spirit guarding me, that’s what Elvira says. It’s a northern thing.”
“You mean – do you mean your Atka?” I ask cautiously.
“How do you know?”
“I had a sort of dream. And Nanuq said something like that to me too. You can’t die until your Atka stops protecting you.”
“Don’t you start, Saph,” Conor groans, then for several minutes he is completely still and silent.
“What is it, Conor?”
“Nothing.” After another long pause he says quietly, “Sorry, Saph, I was just remembering something.”
“What?”
“You know how Granny Carne got us to press our thumbs together?”
I haven’t thought of that since we came to Ingo, but I remember instantly. Think of what’s strongest for you here on Earth. Let it come to you. Don’t force your thoughts. I wonder again what it was that Conor chose to remember, but it’s not the kind of thing you can ask.
“Oh well,” says Conor, sounding a lot happier, “At least we’re together again. If we find that current Faro was talking about, we’ll be back on our way. I hate all this getting lost and not going anywhere. It’s like one of those dreams where you run and run and you’re exhausted but you’ve hardly moved at all.”
“Yes, but …” I grope for the right words. “… but maybe all the getting lost and meeting strange creatures is all part of the Crossing – just as much part of it as when we’re actually moving, I mean.”
“God, Saph, I felt so sorry for Nanuq. Swimming on and on like that and finding nothing. She can’t keep swimming for ever.”
“She might be dead by now,” I say, and in my mind I see Nanuq swimming a last few weak, jerky, desperate strokes before her sodden fur begins to drag her down. Her muzzle vanishes, and then her eyes. Polar bears can swim a long way, but they can drown too. The icy waters close over Nanuq and she sinks like a shadow into the depths of Ingo.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It’s the middle of the brief Arctic day when we first see the current. I knew that Faro was looking for a powerful current, but when I see it I am stunned. It is awesome. There is not much light. Ingo glimmers with the faintest of blues, as if it were dawn. We can’t be near the North Pole yet, because it will be dark all day long there at this time of year. Maybe that’s where this current will take us – to the top of the world, under the polar ice cap.
The current cuts sharply through the blue of the water. It shines jade green, the colour of a glacier in the highest Alps. But this is water, not ice, and it’s going so fast that anything caught in it would vanish out of sight in half a second. The current stretches wider than the widest motorway I’ve ever seen. Just to look at it makes me feel dizzy. I don’t see how we can survive inside that force. Even Faro looks shocked, but he quickly recovers himself.
“Greater than the Great Current, and we shall ride it!” he announces triumphantly, as if the current ought to feel honoured. But the current just keeps rushing past, terrifyingly sleek and strong.
“How are we even going to get into it, Faro?” I ask him.
“We’ll have to find the right angle of entry,” says Conor in the judicious voice he uses when he’s talking about a problem in maths.
“We certainly will,” I say with feeling. “How fast do you think it’s going?”
Conor assesses the speed of the current. “We’d have to throw something into it and measure how quickly it travelled between fixed points to be sure.” He smiles. “But since that’s impossible, I’d say it was travelling at over two hundred miles an hour. Maybe more. Just look at it.”
We all just look. Even Elvira’s passion for the North doesn’t seem to ex
tend to tackling this current.
“We’ll need to float parallel with it,” says Faro. “Diving wouldn’t work. The force of the water would break our necks. But if we floated at its edge, then the current would suck us in.”
“Are you sure?”
Faro shrugs. “I’ve done it with other currents when they’re too dangerous for me to dive straight in.”
But not with one like this. The same thought occurs to all of us, but nobody speaks. Maybe we’d still be there, watching the snake-like northward rush of the current as if hypnotised …
But then a dark speck floats into the corner of my vision. I blink, but it’s still there. The others are all staring in the same direction.
There’s a dark, torpedo-shaped creature way off in the distance, growing rapidly bigger. Faro tenses. Maybe he thinks it’s a shark. For a few seconds my stomach tightens with fear. But no, the shape is wrong for a shark. It must be a whale. I can’t hear any whale sounds, though, and as the creature comes nearer I realise that its shape is wrong for a whale too. The dorsal fin is too rigid as well as too far back on the body. The flippers look wrong too. The body glistens dully, but it doesn’t look alive. My brain refuses to make any sense of what my eyes see. Faro is quicker. His expression changes, and he clenches his fists.
“Metal,” he says in a voice of such contempt and fury that I flinch. “One of your human machines. That thing does not belong in Ingo.”
“It’s a submarine,” says Conor. “I recognise the outline.”
A submarine. Of course, it makes sense now. It looks like a child’s drawing of a whale, but it has its own power. Why would it be up here in the Arctic?
The submarine moves no closer. It seems to hang in the water, the way a whale does when she’s resting. It looks so alien. I glance sideways at Faro and Elvira. Their strong, smooth seal tails are the most natural things in the world to me by now. This thing of metal, engineered to slip through the water with the least possible resistance, is a complete stranger. Faro is right. It doesn’t belong in Ingo.