“Even if you’re right,” said Rosie, Even if you’re all right, and frankly, I don’t believe that even—er—the person we have to find can have conquered the sky, how would we get there?
Jump, said Fast.
Rosie stared at the castle, which looked more and more like a castle the more she stared at it. She was beginning to get a crick in her neck. The hole works both ways, she thought. We might be able to get out. Or Pernicia might be able to get in. “But—” said Rosie.
“I don’t think that is the sky, you know,” said Narl.
“Yes,” said Rosie. “It—it feels like that to me, too. I’m not even a fairy, and it makes me feel stupid, and as if everything is about to come to bits.”
She thought for a moment, but there wasn’t much to think about. Where would she rather meet Pernicia? Here? Or somewhere else? Not here. Not with Katriona and Aunt and Barder and the queen and the king and the princes and the Prendergasts and Ikor and I suppose Sigil asleep and unrous able, protected only by a few thorns. “Fast says we can jump,” Rosie said.
“That’s as likely as anything,” replied Narl.
The best jumpers will jump, said Fast. That’s Gorse and me and the hounds. The others must ride. The cat has to go in a sack. Cats always use their claws, even when they promise not to.
I will jump, said Flinx with scorn. I jump better than any huge ugly beast with bones that are too long and whiskers that are too short and hard flat feet.
Narl was absentmindedly rubbing at a rose scratch on his cheek. “Wait a minute. We are all tired, hungry and thirsty. Tired and hungry we can go on with a little longer, but I think we have to try the water in the water butt before we—er—try anything else.”
“We don’t dare,” said Rosie. “If we fall asleep there’s no one left to—”
Spear said, I will drink the water. I am too old to jump and too big to ride. If it sends me to sleep—well, at least I will no longer be thirsty.
Spear, began Rosie, distressed.
He was already walking toward the water butt. And, he added with the dispassionate tranquillity animals assumed so easily and human egotism found almost impossible to bear, if I am asleep, I will not have to see you leaving me behind.
Everyone watched as Spear reared up and put his forefeet on the rim of the water butt, bent his long neck and drank. The sound of his lapping in that silent courtyard was as loud as thunder. He had a long satisfying drink, and the watchers all jealously swallowed dryness and tried not to stare too fiercely for signs of drowsiness as he dropped to all fours again. He sat down, had a scratch, yawned—
Everyone held their breath.
—finished yawning. Stared back.
One minute, two minutes. Three minutes. How long do we have to wait? thought Rosie. Four minutes. Five.
I believe, said Spear, that this water is just water.
There was a general rush for the water butt. Rosie found the grooms’ cup for herself and Narl—No drooling, said Rosie, shoving Fast’s nose aside just in time. Flinx paused in his dainty sipping to give Fast a glare worthy of the Prendergast majordomo facing a footman who has just dropped a tureen.
Then they organised themselves to leap into the sky.
Gorse took Narl and Zel; the hounds—all but Spear—ranged on either side of Gorse, waiting for Rosie. Rosie knelt down in front of Spear, and put her hands on his narrow shoulders. He licked her nose. It is all right, he said. I will wait for you.
We will be back soon, said Rosie, knowing that this was the sort of useless, pretending thing that humans said; but Spear had pity on her and said only, Yes.
Rosie stood up, turning away from her old friend; gently patted the pocket that again contained Throstle and two mice; she could feel them trembling. She patted the pocket with the spindle end to give herself courage, and then looked at Fast. I don’t know how to ride, she said.
I know, said Fast. Hold on to my mane, and let Sunflower sit within your arms. You may fall off on landing but you mustn’t fall on takeoff.
Narl looked perfectly at ease on Gorse’s back; Rosie, trying to figure out how to scramble up on Fast’s, wondered how he got there. The bigger, more muscular horse perfectly suited the bigger, burlier rider; Zel’s nose over Narl’s arm and brush under it slightly spoiled the effect, but they looked as if they might be off one of the tapestries in Woodwold’s Great Hall, illustrating the noble deeds of Prendergasts through the ages. It only then occurred to Rosie that Narl—like everyone present last night—was dressed in fine clothes (if by now a little the worse for wear and thorn rents). She didn’t know he had any fine clothes. She hadn’t noticed before, she thought, because he looked so comfortable in them—rather as he looked on Gorse’s back—unlike herself, who in three months of wearing ladies’ clothes hadn’t once felt at ease in them. Oh well, she thought. Who cares? But she did care. Narl’s clothing, black and brown and grey and mostly of leather, fitted him too well to be borrowed; on the proud golden Gorse, he could have been anyone. Only the smith’s chain gave him away.
She thought of Peony, who always looked graceful and serene and unwrinkled, and considered, for about the space of an inhale but before the exhale, if she could possibly learn to hate her friend; and decided she could not. I wonder if Narl is hoping that if he rescues Peony. . . . She spent a moment trying to imagine Narl as the romantic lover, kneeling at his beloved’s side, taking her hand reverently in his and covering it with kisses. . . . To her own dismay, she started to laugh.
Narl turned his head at once, amusement bright in his eyes. “It’s harder on a slab-sided beanpole like the one you drew,” he said, thinking that she was laughing at her attempts to climb astride; “but there’s a barrel just there, which is what I used. You don’t think I’m one of these crack jockeys that vault from the ground, do you?”
Fast followed her and stood quietly as she eased herself on. Fine. Now let your legs hang down as straight as they’ll go, and get your seat bones out of my spine. Rosie hastily shifted her weight forward, and beckoned to Sunflower, who bounced from barrel to Rosie’s lap with too much enthusiasm and nearly hurtled off the other side as consequence.
She overheard a quick consultation between the two horses, flick-flick-flick, of bunched muscles and aiming; they weren’t bothering to lay it out for any human that might be listening in. Flinx was ignoring them all, but Hroc added something that had to do with the shorter legs and lighter weight of the hounds—since there wasn’t actually much vocabulary, in the human sense of the term, in beast-speech, cross-species communication, so long as the topic was mutual, was feasible if a bit rough—and then they lined up, facing in the same direction, looking at the castle above the briar hedge. Fast gave a sort of wriggling sway, like a cat readying himself to pounce, and Rosie felt his hind end sink as he gathered himself together. She grabbed as much of his mane as she could round Sunflower, and tried to squeeze her legs in the little hollows behind the swell of his shoulders: and then he sprang into the air.
CHAPTER 21
They were flying like birds. The great thrust of the horses’ hindquarters was long since spent, but something drew them on, faster and faster, as if they were sliding down a slope, except they were far from the ground, and going up—and up—higher and higher, and the air was thin and icy cold. But—were they going up? There was something wrong with Rosie’s sense of direction, and the world, or the sky, or both, were spinning round her.
She closed her eyes, but that was worse, so she opened them again, opened them to see the purple-stained castle clearly in front of them. They seemed to be hurtling toward it. . . . “No,” she said, or gasped; “this isn’t right; too soon, not now.” And she threw herself off Fast’s back, Sunflower leaping clear, and hit the ground—some ground—with a bone-jarring smack, not daring to roll on account of the little creatures in one pocket and the hard knob of the spindle end in another. The wind was knocked out of her and she lay dazed for a moment, unable to get up.
Everyon
e else struck the earth just beyond her. Fast lost his own balance and fell; Gorse staggered and lurched and remained upright, while Narl half slithered and was half thrown off his back, Zel also leaping clear; most of the hounds did somersaults. Rosie didn’t see Flinx land, and only saw him a minute or so later, nonchalantly walking toward the rest of them, but he was wearing several small heathery-looking twigs behind one ear and a long dust-smudge down one flank. Zel was the only one who seemed never to have lost his poise; Sunflower had none to lose. She sat down next to the half-stunned Rosie and licked her face. Throstle and the two mice crept out of Rosie’s pocket and lay panting as she was still trying to pummel air back into her own abused lungs. Flinx sat down and began to wash.
Rosie shook her head, and levered herself upright. Fast was walking toward her, a little stiffly. Anyone hurt? she said. Fast tossed his head. No, said Gorse. Only a little rubbed backward.
They were standing at a kind of boundary between a scraggy sort of wood behind them and an almost-barren landscape with a little low scrub before them. There were standing stones scattered about, strange unwelcoming shapes at strange menacing angles.
The castle itself rose from the scrubland like the biggest standing stone of all.
It was twilight, but of dawn or sunset or something else they could not tell; the low lavender-grey clouds hid the motion of the sun here, too. It was a heavy, drab sort of light that did not feel like any sort of daylight any of them were accustomed to—worse than the glarey grey light of the briar-shrouded Woodwold—and instinctively they drew closer together.
Rosie looked first at the wood behind them, wondering if it had any relation to the briar hedge round Woodwold. These were trees, not rose stems, even if they were no sort of tree she knew, and she thought they were not friendly; they seemed a kind of vegetable version of the heavy, unnatural light. She could sense nothing beyond them, neither building nor hill. She looked at the darkness among the trees and was sure it was not unoccupied, and that they were being watched, although she could see nothing, and the only rustles she could hear could be explained by the roaming breeze round them.
Narl said softly, “This place is—sticky with magic. I can almost feel it on my skin, like blown sand, and it coats your tongue when you open your mouth. I think no Foggy Bottom housekeeper’s charm could shift it. It’s why neither the light nor the ground—nor those trees—look or feel right. You know we are being watched from the wood?”
Rosie nodded.
They stood, huddled together, a little longer. Rosie turned away from her contemplation of the low ominous wood and stared at the tall malevolent castle. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the first eyes, blinking at her from the shadows; they, too, were violet-grey. She did not attempt to speak to their owner.
“Come on, then,” she said in a voice she was pleased to find steady. “We have an appointment elsewhere.”
She stepped forward, Narl beside her, and the animals followed. She had taken three or four steps when she knew she had crossed some boundary; as her leading foot took her weight, the foot tingled, and briefly the sky, or the castle, or whatever bit of midair Rosie had been looking at, gave a great writhe, and became Pernicia’s face; she was smiling. And then the smile was only a gaunt wisp of cloud, and Rosie’s other foot moved itself forward and planted itself on the ground, and it tingled, too, although Pernicia did not reappear. Rosie felt Throstle and the mice rearranging themselves as if the pocket had grown suddenly smaller.
Narl said nothing, but as the animals crossed the boundary, the horses snorted and bobbed their heads, Flinx hissed, and there was a faint grunt from Narl a step or two later as Zel landed on his shoulders, scrabbled briefly, and then bestowed himself round his neck like a collar. Sunflower made a little yip; the hounds were silent, but suddenly there was a dog head under Rosie’s hand again, and she was glad enough to bury her cold fingers in the longer fur on the back of Hroc’s neck.
She thought the journey across the barren land could not have taken very long, for she seemed no hungrier at the end of it than she had been at the beginning, and, now that she was no longer thirsty, she was beginning to count everything in terms of her hunger; or perhaps she was now so hungry she would not feel any hungrier. The light had not changed either, growing neither brighter nor darker, but she felt that the light in this place was an even worse indication of the passage of time than her stomach. It had nonetheless felt like a long journey, and dread of the ending will often make a journey short.
But here they were.
There was a moat round the castle, but there was no water in it. Standing beside it, looking down, Rosie thought it was hard to see just what was in it; it seemed to be a long way down, and weren’t those . . . rocks? . . . of some kind? Something greyish-brownish-purplish and lumpy, something that cast some kind of shadow; but they were weirdly blurred somehow, and weren’t they . . . moving?
“I would not look into the moat any more,” said Narl in the same gentle voice he had used earlier, but Rosie jerked her eyes up as if he had shouted at her.
They turned away to walk round the moat and the castle; but the strange, pushed-pulled, unbalanced, something-just-behind-you-that’s-always-moved-when-you-turn-to-look feeling was suddenly very much worse, and they were all tripping and stumbling, although the ground was not that rough, and jerking their heads round to look at things that weren’t there. The horses blew repeatedly through their nostrils, raspy, rolling, I-don’t-like-this snorts, and the dogs made little grunting noises that were neither barks nor growls. Sunflower and Tash, the youngest of the hounds, forgot themselves so much as to whine, but everyone else pretended not to notice.
Flinx rematerialised from the outskirts of the company and began winding himself round Rosie’s ankles. His fur was full of sparks, and they bit painfully through Rosie’s trousers, which then clung to her legs and chafed. What do you want, Rosie said, too tired and hungry and worried and impatient to bother remembering that this is a bad question to ask anyone, and worse yet to ask a cat.
Flinx stopped dead, so that Rosie nearly tripped over him, and Hroc gave a little woof of annoyance. Flinx ignored the dog, but gave Rosie a resentful look. Rosie pressed the heel of her hand to the bridge of her nose, as if trying to push undesirable thoughts further in. I’m sorry, she said to Flinx. I have never been any good at—At random, she said, The sky is very violet today, isn’t it?
Her impression was that Flinx was more amused than mollified, but he stopped rubbing against her legs, and trotted beside her for a time. Rosie could feel him thinking, but he was silent for long enough that she had the opportunity to notice that he was the only one of all of them who was not blundering over his own feet. She felt him notice her noticing—there was a certain sense of “at last” about it—and then he said: The things that aren’t there are not there in different ways. Some of them are almost there and some of them are nearly not-there.
She could feel that Flinx was making a supreme effort to communicate plainly, but she could think of nothing to say in return but thank you.
“I think,” said Narl, “that something is changing.”
Rosie could feel something pushing against her left side, something lumpy, as if a bag full of rocks were being driven into her; but there was nothing there, though she had to lean forcibly against it to avoid being shoved into Gorse. Gorse himself was walking diagonally, as if something were pushing at his left hip; and Froo was bent in a half circle, as if a very narrow something were bearing against the midpoint of her right side. None of them, except Flinx, was walking normally. At Narl’s words they came to a ragged halt. Flinx sat down and began unconcernedly to fluff up his tail.
“Flinx says that the—the things that aren’t here aren’t here in different ways,” she said.
Narl said slowly, “Yes. This seems to be a—neither here nor there sort of place. And the things here are neither here nor there either.”
“Only they don’t seem to—upset Flin
x’s sense of balance,” said Rosie.
“Perhaps cats are neither here nor there all the time,” said Narl, and Flinx, picking up the gist of this through Rosie, gave Narl a thoughtful look before returning to his tail.
But he paused again mid-fluff to stare searchingly at a particular portion of blank air. Rosie, nervously, looked where he was looking, and, more or less reluctantly, so, too, did everyone else.
Rosie couldn’t decide if it was more as if an invisible door opened and let them out, or whether they merely formed themselves out of nothing. Whatever they were, they made you sick to look at them; not sick because of their horrible-ness, but sick like a person who doesn’t like heights looking down a very long way. Looking at them made you dizzy and gave you a headache, and you suddenly felt you no longer knew which way was up and which down, and you wanted something to hold on to, except that there wasn’t anything to hold on to, except each other, and that wasn’t any good because all the rest of you felt exactly the same.
Except Flinx. Rosie dragged her blurred, aching eyes away from them—whatever they were—and looked at Flinx. Flinx was still sitting, but sitting to attention, watching the things come (if come was quite the right word) closer, for closer they undoubtedly were; and when they came right up to them . . . Flinx said suddenly: Tell that foot-hammerer to mind his other makings. He says he bends air as he bends iron; let him do it now.
And then he leaped to his feet and all his hair stood on end, so he was a super-Flinx, large as a wildcat, and he screamed, the several-octave range of a cat about to plunge into a cat fight, and then he shot off . . . toward the upside-down-making things that approached them.
He says he bends air—? What? There were often cats at the forge, Rosie remembered, perched here and there, staring at nothing; but cats stare at nothing wherever they are. That’s something a seer can do: give other people visions as false as his own. “Narl,” Rosie said with difficulty. “Can you—can you make—can you make lots of Flinxes?”