‘You are right,’ murmured Sharn, impressed and moved by the girl’s courage.
‘So there is a spy in our midst,’ said Marilen. ‘A spy who has somehow discovered that I am here.’
She glanced at the body on the floor. ‘I thought it was Jinks, but plainly that is not so,’ she added coolly.
Sharn swallowed. She felt almost timid, facing this girl who seemed to have changed into a strong woman in a matter of days.
‘You suspect—Ranesh?’ she asked quietly.
Marilen coloured to the roots of her hair. It was as though, in a moment, she had become a young girl again.
‘Oh, no!’ she gasped. ‘How can you say such a thing? Ranesh would never seek to harm me. On the contrary, if he was to find out my life had been threatened, he would … he would do something foolish, I am sure of it. So he must not know.’
She turned quickly away, pretending to straighten the tie at her waist.
Ah, thought Sharn. So that is how things stand. Well, this complicates things even further.
A wave of immense weariness washed over her.
Lief, where are you? she thought. Oh, where are you?
10 - The Dome
Lief was paddling towards the island of Auron, his mind filled with music. His shoulders were aching, but he was no longer aware of it. He could only think of the sound, which was growing stronger every moment.
‘Lief, what is the matter?’ asked Jasmine. Lief glanced at her. Her familiar face wavered in front of his glazed eyes like a face in a dream.
‘He feels the magic of the Pirran Pipe,’ Penn said from the front of the boat. She leaned forward and tapped Lief sharply on the knee. ‘Lief! Wake!’ she commanded.
The tap, and the piercing voice, went some way towards cutting through the dreamy haze that clouded Lief’s mind. He blinked and murmured. Penn put her hand over the side, scooped up some water and threw it at him.
Lief gasped as the cold drops spattered over his face. Suddenly he was fully conscious again. Conscious, but confused and furiously angry.
‘Why did you do that?’ he shouted, glaring at Penn and roughly shaking off Jasmine’s restraining hand.
‘It was necessary,’ said Penn calmly. ‘I have not brought you all this way to have you miss your first sight of Auron.’
Breathing hard, Lief wiped the water from his eyes. Slowly his wild anger died. He realised where he was, and what had happened.
‘I am sorry,’ he mumbled, filled with shame.
‘The fault is mine,’ said Penn, still in that same calm voice. ‘I should have warned you, but I was taken by surprise. The Pipe’s spell is more powerful than I have ever felt it, no doubt because of the mouthpiece you carry. I have been struggling with it myself.’
Only then did Lief see that her own face was wet, and that her small, tattooed hands were bleeding where she had driven her sharp nails into the palms.
‘There is something ahead,’ Jasmine exclaimed, pointing into the gloom.
For a few moments there was silence. Then Lief and Barda cried out at the same moment as they saw what Jasmine had seen. A faint glow showed through the dimness.
‘That is Auron,’ said Penn, her voice trembling a little. ‘Go gently, now. We must not cross the line.’
‘The line?’ cried Lief. ‘But can we not land? Penn, we must land. We must see …’
‘You will see enough, do not fear,’ Penn muttered.
The boat crawled forward. A strange, unpleasant odour began to creep into the companions’ nostrils—a thick smell of decay that seemed to stick to their clothes, to sink into their skin and cling to their hair.
Then they began to hear the gentle sound of lapping water. Other sounds, too. Soft, squelching sounds, and a sort of clicking, like the creaking of stiff joints.
The glow grew a little brighter. It spread until it was almost filling their view. Lief squinted at it, trying to see through it to the island. He saw nothing but a vast, high dome of dim light. And, to the left of the light, just where he would have expected to see it, a rugged cavern wall jutting out into the sea.
‘There is the line,’ breathed Penn. ‘Stop!’
The companions tore their eyes from the light and looked down at the water ahead.
A broad band of bright pink and yellow seaweed floated directly in front of the boat. The band stretched away to left and right, curving to encircle the glowing dome and the odd, milky sea that surrounded it.
‘You plant this weed as a warning?’ exclaimed Barda. ‘Ah, if only we had known this before!’
But Penn was intent on Jasmine and Lief. ‘Turn the boat so its side faces the island,’ she ordered. ‘And, for your life, do not let it drift into the warning zone.’
So urgent was her tone that Lief did not even think of disobeying her. And the glaring pink and yellow of the weed, clearly visible even in the gloom, brought back memories that were their own warning.
‘Now, look,’ Penn said quietly. ‘Look carefully, and understand.’
Lief stared. And as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, as they searched vainly for the shapes of rocks, hills, or anything he could recognise, his spine began to tingle.
There was nothing to be seen beneath the dome. The dome was a barrier of shimmering energy that hid everything beneath it.
Oily, shallow water, lightly steaming, lapped the dome’s base, where pitted lumps of some thick substance moved sluggishly in the tide and unseen things squelched and chewed. Everything seemed covered by a milky haze, like mould. The foul smell rolled over Lief in waves.
He heard Barda curse softly, and Jasmine murmur in disbelief. Despair settled over him like a dull grey cloud.
He twisted in his seat to look at Penn. She was staring fixedly at her hands folded in her lap.
‘The dome is sealed by magic,’ she muttered. ‘It cannot be penetrated.’
She raised her head. ‘Do you understand?’ she said softly. ‘We of the rafts are exiles. Our ancestors were expelled from the dome long, long ago.’
‘Why?’ Barda asked bluntly.
Penn hunched her narrow shoulders. ‘They were dangerous. They were sick of pretence,’ she muttered, speaking haltingly as if every word was being forced from her. ‘They wished—to make a life outside, in a place that was not what they were used to, but which had its own savage beauty.’
Lief, Barda and Jasmine looked around uncertainly. It was difficult to understand how anyone could find beauty in this overwhelming gloom.
Penn looked around also, her eyes glazed with sorrow. ‘When first the rafts were made, the cavern walls shone like stars of a thousand different colours,’ she whispered. ‘The eels danced in a glittering rainbow sea. The writings say that it was beautiful beyond words.’
She sighed deeply. ‘Even when I was a child, it was still a shadow of what it had been. I well remember the colours. But now, they are gone.’
Lief, Barda and Jasmine thought of the exquisite opal beauty through which they had sailed when first they left the territory of the Plumes. The dazzling colours that had faded as the Plumes’ light failed.
Then, they had thought that the Aurons had dimmed their own light for some evil purpose. Now they knew differently.
‘What happened?’ Jasmine asked.
Slowly, almost unwillingly, Penn took out the two scraps of parchment she had brought from the hut. She handed them to Lief, with the lantern.
‘Part of the story is here,’ she muttered. ‘I wrote it, in simple form, for the children of the rafts. I brought these because—because I knew you would have questions, and it would give me pain to answer them.’
Again she looked down at her hands. Her body was rigid, and her mouth was pressed into a hard line.