‘What is she doing?’ shrieked Jasmine. But Penn was already lifting her head, shaking it to clear her eyes.
In moments there was a swirling movement in the water around them. Then Lief, Barda and Jasmine were shouting in shock as four giant eels surged up from the depths, wicked mouths gaping horribly.
‘Take hold of their necks,’ said Penn. ‘They have come in answer to my call. They will carry us home.’
In a shorter time than Lief would have believed possible, they were back at the rafts. Never had he felt such speed. Never would he forget that journey—the spray beating against his face, the desperate clinging to the slippery neck of the eel.
To his shame, he had to be hauled off the eel’s neck and onto the platform by the guards. He could do nothing to help himself. His legs and arms would not move. His head was spinning. The children who ducked and played like fish in the water at the platform’s edge stared and giggled. The workers mending nets and weaving rope nearby sniffed in amused contempt.
Barda was in the same state as Lief himself, and Jasmine little better. Together, bedraggled, unsteady on their feet and sick at heart, they shuffled after Penn to her hut, trying to ignore the sharp-faced, silent crowd which had gathered to watch them.
The hut door was standing open. Inside, a bent figure in long robes and a tall silver head-covering stood waiting. So old, wrinkled and toothless was the face below the head-covering that if Penn had not already spoken of the Piper as ‘he’, Lief would not have known if he was facing a male or a female.
Penn ushered the dripping companions into the hut, and closed the door behind them. ‘Do not mind the water,’ she murmured. ‘This floor has been drenched more times than you could count.’
Jasmine darted at once to where Kree sat by the stove. She knelt down and lifted poor, shivering Filli from her shoulder to share the warmth. Lief and Barda took the cages containing the motionless spiders over to her, then returned to Penn’s side, trying to stiffen their trembling legs.
‘Well?’ asked the Piper. And even in his exhaustion Lief thrilled with wonder at the sound of the voice—smooth, rich and sweet as wild honey.
Penn folded her hands, then spoke flatly, as if delivering a report. ‘Tall and brave they may be, with weapons of steel,’ she said. ‘But in the water the males, Lief and Barda, are helpless as new-born babes, and the female, Jasmine, cannot swim at all. They would have no hope of taking the Arach by surprise, or evading them.’
She turned away. ‘I have done all you require of me, Piper, and it has cost me dearly,’ she muttered. ‘But you must abandon your hopes.’
The Piper closed his eyes as though in pain. ‘Did you tell them of my belief, Penn?’ he asked softly.
Lief and Barda glanced at one another, then at Penn. What was this?
Penn was hesitating. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Once I saw that they could not swim, I felt there was no need to torment them further.’
‘Tell them now,’ said the Piper. It was not a request, but a command.
Penn moved restlessly. ‘The Piper believes that if you could reach the dome, the mouthpiece of the Pirran Pipe would give you entrance,’ she said, without looking at Lief and Barda. ‘He believes that the stem of the Pipe within would call to it and draw it through the magic screen. The Piper hoped—’
‘I hoped many things.’ The Piper opened his eyes and fixed Penn with a steely stare. ‘It seems my hopes were in vain.’
But Lief had clutched Barda’s arm. And Jasmine had jumped up from the floor and hurried over to them, her face alight with hope.
‘Why did you not tell us this before, Penn?’ she demanded. ‘If we can penetrate the dome we can—’
‘You cannot reach the dome!’ cried Penn. ‘You saw the Arachs! And there are many more! Their webs net the waters of their territory. The moment you enter it, the moment you touch a web, they will sense you.’
‘There must be a way,’ growled Barda. ‘There is always—’
‘There is no way!’ shouted Penn, eyes blazing. ‘In a boat, should we be so mad as to give you one, you would last only a few moments. To have any hope at all of reaching the dome you would have to swim to it underwater, beneath the webs. And you are not capable of that! Nothing is more certain.’
‘The eels!’ Jasmine exclaimed. ‘They could surely tow us beneath the webs. We could hold our breath for that time. They swim so fast …’
Penn sighed. The Piper smiled thinly. ‘It could be done,’ he admitted. ‘If the eels could be persuaded to enter Arach territory. But they cannot. It has been tried many, many times. They will not do it.’
He shook his head in disgust. ‘We knew that you would not be able to swim as we can,’ he muttered. ‘It is written that Doran could not defeat even our youngest children in a race. But never did we consider such weakness as this!’
He glanced back at Jasmine. ‘And one of you cannot swim at all! It is—beyond belief!’
‘I grew up in a forest where the only water was a shallow stream,’ snapped Jasmine, heartily sick of being criticised for something she could not help. ‘How could I learn to swim? Any more than you could learn to climb a tree, Piper! Or Penn could learn to swing on a vine!’
Lief gave a sharp exclamation. Jasmine swung round to him, scowling. ‘I do not care what you say, Lief!’ she raged. ‘Palace manners might do for you, but they will not do for me. I will not be polite to these people any longer!’
But Lief’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Jasmine, you have it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you not see? You have told us exactly what we must do!’
12 - Suspicion
It did not take long for Lief to explain the plan that had suddenly come to him. ‘You see?’ he finished triumphantly. ‘We do not use our weaknesses, but our strengths!’
‘It is—incredible!’ the Piper exclaimed, his cold eyes shining. ‘It would never have crossed my mind that such a thing could be done.’
‘I am not surprised. A more hare-brained idea I have never heard!’ snorted Barda.
‘We can do it!’ Lief urged.
‘We can try. And it is worth the chance,’ said Jasmine. ‘Unless, of course,’ she added dryly, ‘the Piper is wrong, and the mouthpiece of the Pirran Pipe will not allow us to penetrate the dome.’
Penn buried her face in her hands. The Piper gripped her arm. ‘You must not weaken now, Penn,’ Lief heard him muttering. ‘They can do what we cannot. They could be our salvation!’
He turned to Lief, his hard, ancient face wearing a mild expression that Lief could not quite believe in.
‘We will give you what help we can,’ he said. ‘If you gain the stem of the Pirran Pipe, it will be yours to keep for as long as you need it. All we ask in return is that you use your best efforts to convince the dome-dwellers to return the light to the caverns.’
It will be yours to keep for as long as you need it …
Those words were carefully chosen, Piper, Lief thought, studying the cold face. You speak the truth, I am sure. But for how long will we need the stem of the Pipe, once it is actually out of the dome? Once it is where you can lay your hands on it? No-one needs anything after they are dead. Is that your plan?
He moved his gaze to Penn’s bent head. The Piper told Penn to make friends with us, he thought. So that we would want to help her people as well as ourselves. And of course she succeeded. In spite of herself.
Penn had carried out her orders reluctantly. That had been plain from the start. Perhaps she did not believe that the dome could be penetrated by the mouthpiece of the Pipe, and feared encouraging the visitors to go to their deaths.