The Cloud Road

  There had been other metal objects in the chamber, but the guide had not shown him what they could do, if anything. Bily had felt quite dazed as they continued on their way down the tunnel into the burrow system, for he had never considered that the metal objects might have a use. The objects on the plain had lain where they fell, untouched from season to season. Sometimes an object had split open and Zluty had brought back a small piece to use as a knife, but he had done no more than sharpen or reshape it on a stone.

  Bily could hardly wait to tell his brother about the flame maker.

  Bily himself was more excited by the discovery that not only did the diggers decorate all of their vessels with wondrously vivid dyes, they had wholly paved many of the main tunnels in little polished coloured stones. Here and there larger metal tiles were set, and these had been polished to such smooth shininess that his own face looked back at him. In other places, the colours and shapes were not just patterns but pictures of the real world. Here were storm clouds gathering darkly over a plain, and there, he saw a glimpse of the mountains through mist.

  On another section of wall, the blue moon shone down from a star-specked sky, and elsewhere a bright fire lizard perched on a jut of stone, its spiked scales shimmering with colour. Bily could have spent hours studying the patterns and colours if his guides had allowed it.

  It made sense to line the tunnels because it made them warmer and stronger and cleaner, but there was no practical reason for making them beautiful. Which meant the diggers got the same pleasure out of beauty as he did; maybe even the same delight out of creating beauty as he did.

  The pattern in one tunnel reminded Bily of a creeper that had climbed up the wall of the cottage, and his mind lit up with the realisation that he could make patterns of the flowers and birds back home when they built their new home, so that they would not be lost forever when his memory of the cottage garden faded. He could make the tiny stones in his kiln and maybe Zluty could even get some small bits of metal from the objects and they could polish them until they shone and use them as well. In the meantime he could try out some patterns if the diggers could be persuaded to to show him how they made their dyes. Of course, they would have to stop long enough for him to make some paper from the bale of fluffs they carried with them.

  Bily had been promised a meeting with the diggers who did the dying, and he was looking forward to learning as much as they could teach him in the short time they would remain in the settlement. He must remember to find out how they made the tiles stick to the walls, and how they created the lovely bright blue dye for the mug in which he had been given sweetened digger milk.

  How wonderful that had tasted! The diggers had also offered him tiny salty balls of yellowish, crumbly stuff they made from the digger milk, which he had found especially delicious. He would love to know how they made that, and where they got the moss that they used as beds for the hot embers. There was so much to learn that he was determined to convince Zluty to stay a few days in the settlement. And besides, the longer they stayed the more chance the Monster would have to heal.

  In return Bily could give the diggers some of the broken clay pots containing the plants he had taken from the desert rift. He had learned that the diggers grew nothing themselves, and so they spent a great deal of time and effort on foraging for food, when they might produce some of what they needed themselves. How lovely to be able to stay long enough to witness their delight when flowers grew, and to show the diggers how to harvest seeds and tend their garden. But the Monster had been insistent they get beyond the mountains before winter. So he would have to do his best to explain how to care for a garden. Fortunately the diggers were quick-witted and clever.

  He wondered suddenly if it was cleverness that made these diggers want things to be beautiful. It was a strange thought and one he set aside in his mind to be pondered over later.

  His thoughts returned to the Monster, his anxiety for it dimming his delight over all that he had seen. He had been very relieved to learn the diggers could make something to numb its pain. But it had taken a long time to make the salve and it had been impossible to hurry the digger making it, for it had been a difficult and intricate business.

  While he waited, a younger digger, obviously the helper, had shown him dozens of ingredients stored in holes and niches. In between getting ingredients for her master, she explained the uses of a few of them, giving Bily a pinch of this and a nip of that to take with him. It . . . she had reverently shown him the tiny, pungent black bulbs that she said grew in mossy niches near the stream that ran at the foot of the mountain, explaining that these were the main ingredient in many of the healing potions her master prepared.

  Bily asked if they had ever thought to make a big batch of the numbing potion and store it against future need, but the helper had explained that the potions had to be freshly made and used at once on the wound to work. Indeed, the moment the potion was completed, her master had urged Bily to take it to the Monster immediately. He had promised to come and check on the paw as soon as preparations had been made for healing its metal.

  When at last they emerged into the bright day, Bily was startled to see from the position of the shadows that it was past midday. No wonder he felt hungry. Zluty would certainly have prepared some food for them by now and this thought made his stomach rumble loudly enough that his guide gave him a startled look.

  He made his way to the wagon where the Monster lay sleeping restlessly. The digger helped unwrap the paw and Bily began gently smoothing some of the gleaming black salve over the wound. The Monster stirred and hissed, but then it gave a deep sigh and lay still again. Continuing to work the salve in as he had been instructed to do, Bily was pleased that it worked as quickly as he had been told it would. But as he slathered the last of the ointment on the paw, the Monster’s blazing yellow eyes opened. Before Bily could muster the wit to speak, its lids drooped closed again. Bily set the pot aside, realising that he still thought of the Monster as it, even though the diggers called it he. In truth, he would not feel comfortable doing so until the Monster agreed that was what it wanted.

  Only then did it strike Bily to wonder where Zluty was.

  Coming around to the other side of the wagon, Bily saw that although everything they would need to camp had been taken out of the wagon, no food had been prepared and the cooking things were still piled in a heap beside the bedding.

  ‘Where is Zluty?’ Bily muttered to himself as he straightened the bedding.

  He was not truly concerned, for half his mind was still tangled up in wondering if the diggers got all of their ingredients for cooking and healing by foraging at the foot of the mountains or if there were pockets of fertility somewhere out there in the black, barren-looking plain. Yet as he set about making supper, he thought how unlike Zluty it was to have gone off foraging without setting up the camp properly. He smiled to himself. No doubt his brother had expected to be back soon enough to set the camp up before Bily returned, and then he had got distracted exploring.

  He carried the pot of food he had prepared to one of the communal fires and set it in the ashes at the side, and then he turned to the little group of diggers that had gathered to watch him in astonishment. He asked them where Zluty was, but none of them seemed to know anything. Finally one said timidly that the other unplanned one had left the settlement.

  Liking this new name as little as the others, Bily said almost crossly, ‘His name is Zluty and I am Bily. And he is probably foraging.’ He looked around distractedly. ‘Which way did he go?’

  None of the diggers answered, and Bily’s slight anxiety turned to apprehension.

  Before he could speak, however, one of the diggers elbowed the one that had guided him, and it – she – said carefully, ‘The Zchloo-tee went westering. Two diggers follow to doing watchfulness.’

  A cold shiver of alarm slid from the top of Bily’s ears to the tip of his tail.

  ‘He has gone back to look at the Monks,’ he said with certainty.


  He was trying to be calm, but he could tell by the way the diggers looked at one another that they had not understood him. He tried to think sensibly. If Zluty had left right after he went into the burrow system, then he had been gone for hours. Easily time enough to get to the foot of the mountains and return. But perhaps Zluty had forgotten the time in his eagerness to observe the Monks and the mists had hidden the sun so that he did not have it or shadows to remind him how much time had passed.

  Bily decided to ask Redwing to go and see where he was, but when he looked for her, she was not perched in her usual place on the side of the wagon.

  ‘The redwinged-lastling went with diggers to see the flyway,’ said a small he digger.

  Anxious as he was about Zluty, Bily was touched to hear the little creature so carefully add Redwing’s name to the name the diggers gave her. He sighed and looked at the wagon. The wisest thing would be to wait. That was what he had always done when they had lived at the cottage. Zluty had gone striding off into danger and Bily had stayed behind, working at his pots and the garden and trying not to worry as he waited. And Zluty had always come back.

  Bily felt almost ashamed for doubting his intrepid brother. Yet so much had changed since the arosh had come. The cottage had been destroyed and they had been forced to set off in search of a new land where they could build themselves another home. Bily no longer stayed behind. He travelled alongside Zluty, sleeping out under the stars and the moons and rolling up his bed in the morning to set off into the unknown day.

  A digger interrupted his muddled thoughts with the news that a burning smell was coming from the pot he had set at the edge of the fire. Even as Bily hastened to rescue his supper, the old potion-maker arrived with two diggers daubed with bright smudges of colour. They were the promised dye makers, Bily realised, but before he could greet them, a digger came racing into the settlement uttering a low hooting noise that caused all of the other diggers to turn and stare.

  Aware that it had come running in from the direction of the mountains, Bily suddenly felt so frightened that he could not understand anything the diggers were saying. He had to fight his fear to quiet his mind enough to question the digger. Nothing in his life had ever been harder. At last he managed to ask her what was happening, but she was too agitated to be able to explain to him. At length, the old potion-maker held out his hand and Bily took it gratefully.

  ‘She says the Zchloo-tee was taken by Monks,’ the old digger said, his whiskery face full of pity and regret. ‘He went alone from the camp but two diggers did following. At footling of mountains they did hiding together with the Zchloo-tee to watching Monks coming. Then the Zchloo-tee sending she digger to telling he can’t escape until Monks going away. She going but seeing a Monk catch the Zchloo-tee. He digger escaped and together they decided one to do waiting and one to do telling of sorrowfulness.’

  ‘Where did the Monk take Zluty?’ Bily asked, frantic.

  ‘Up,’ the she digger answered with a terrible finality.

  The word struck Bily’s heart like hammer, and his head rang with anguish. He must go after the Monks and rescue his brother, but how to make the climb up those mountains, and with an injured hand? He could ask the diggers for some pain-numbing ointment, but if the bone was cracked it would never bear his weight. He felt as if all of his thoughts were flying inside his head like a flock of frightened birds. He fought off a great smothering wave of fear and grief to ask, ‘What will they do to him?’

  The old potion-maker said dolefully, ‘Monks taking the Zchloo-tee to Stonehouse to do turning of head to metal.’

  ‘I don’t understand!’ Bily cried, and realised he was weeping. He brushed the tears away. ‘I must save him.’

  ‘Cannot do saving,’ said a new voice. Bily turned to see the clan leader approaching. ‘Once head turned to metal, the other unplanned one is living only to do serving of Monks. Bee-lee must doing forgetting.’

  ‘No!’ Bily cried. ‘Zluty would never give up on me.’

  ‘Once diggers felt samely for taken beloveds,’ said the clan leader gravely, kindly, sadly. ‘Many good diggers following after stolen beloveds. One only stole back beloved, but nothing left inside head. Not love or laughter or tears.’

  Hearing this, Bily’s tears dried and a great chilly calm filled him. ‘Then I must find Zluty before they do anything to him,’ he said. ‘My hand is hurt but I have rope. If some diggers can go up ahead of me and tie it, I can use it to help me climb.’

  ‘Rope not needful,’ the clan leader said. ‘Can using Monks’ device for up and downness. Diggers to show using of it, but Bee-lee must do waiting until darkness when Monks inside Stonehouse.’ He glanced at the sleeping Monster, then added, ‘Must to leaving broken listener here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bily whispered. He told himself the diggers would take care of the Monster. For all their wariness of it, they clearly honored it, though not in the warm way they revered Redwing.

  ‘Now to preparing for journey,’ the clan leader said. ‘Very coldly on clouded mountain. No food to eat or water to drink there. Must do carrying much of everything needful. If blizzards coming maybe needful to doing days of hiding before safely to coming down.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bily said, trembling at the thought of facing blizzards, let alone climbing up into the clouds. But his fear for Zluty was greater than his fear of anything else.

  The diggers filled Bily’s pack with food and gave him a sturdy gourd full of water. They gave him a blanket with ties that could be fastened around the neck. He could not imagine needing to wear a blanket. Perhaps the wind was strong atop the mountain and the ties would keep the blanket from flying away as he slept.

  At least it was big enough to share with Zluty.

  Every time he thought of his brother, a wave of sick fear flowed through Bily, but as he had discovered when trapped in the flooding cottage cellar, it was impossible to remain very frightened for very long. He made himself concentrate on preparations for the journey and refused to let himself consider that he might be too late to save Zluty from whatever it was Monks did to their captives. As he prepared, he asked questions of the diggers, and his heart sank when he learned the only digger rescue of a stolen beloved had taken place many many hundreds of moons ago. Not a single living digger had been up the mountain! This meant all their knowledge came from the memory songs of their ancestors. It made the courage of the diggers that volunteered to accompany Bily on his rescue mission all the more impressive, but it also meant they might be wrong in what they told him.

  Bily heard many story songs as they waited for the afternoon to pass. There was much in them he did not understand, and which the diggers could not explain, but he did learn some important things. Monks lived in a place called Stonehouse on a wide plateau atop the mountain. It lay at the sheltered foot of high peaks that bore the brunt of fierce winds that blew from the North. A path ran directly to Stonehouse from the top of the device that would carry them up the mountain – the same device used by the Monks to bring down metal objects. They need not fear being seen using either the device or the mountain path as long as they travelled at night and did not come too close to Stonehouse.

  But there was much in the songs that seemed nonsense. For one, the songs claimed the Monks’ captives were bound until their heads were turned to metal, whereafter they were set free because there was no longer any danger of them trying to run away. They simply did not want to. Asking questions did not always help. When Bily asked if the Makers dwelt in Stonehouse with the Monks, he was told they lived in a sky crack into which the Monks threw giftings when they were not fixing things.

  Bily wondered if this meant the Makers lived in a rift in the mountains, like the horrid desert rift. Perhaps a Maker was like the Grey Swallower that had so nearly devoured Zluty. He could easily imagine how such a creature would strike fearful awe into the Monks so that they might try to placate it with gifts of food.

  But when a digger said the Monks’ greatest des
ire was to free the Makers from their sky crack, Bily decided they could not be giant slugs for why ever would the Monks want to free such terrifying creatures?

  Unless . . . maybe there was something in the rift they wanted, and they could not get it until the slugs were got out.

  A small he digger told him that before a captive had its head turned to metal, the Monks used metal rings fastened around their ankles and attached to a metal ring embedded into the stone floor of the cell to keep them from escaping. Bily despaired, until the digger produced a short, sharp-ended metal wedge and a hammer and showed him how the metal rings could be broken. The digger said that they used these tools to get metal that was still alive from dead metal objects, and that the digger who rescued his stolen beloved had used them to free her.

  Bily did not understand how metal could be alive. When he asked, the digger told him that all metal objects were thrown from the sky crack by the Makers. The Monks took those objects that lived to their Stonehouse and carried the dead ones down to the foot of the mountains. They ­valued them still, because sometimes bits of the dead metal objects could be removed and used.