Sonia was curled up beside him, breathing evenly. Once she had helped him into shelter she had quickly fallen asleep. Somewhere very near, a barge worker on night watch was softly playing a mouth organ. The plaintive tune drifted on the breeze, mingling with the sounds of creaking wood and lapping water.
By the light of the crystal, Rye had tried reading more of the Three Brothers book, but far from relaxing him, every word had made him more anxious, more desperate to be gone.
Determined to find proof that the disc in the gold casket was what he thought it to be, he had flipped through the book looking only for passages about the Fellan. He had marked those he had found by slipping shreds of straw from the barge’s deck between the pages. Now he restlessly opened the book at the first of these markers and read the lines again.
Gripped by the same feeling of unease he had felt the first time he had scanned these lines, Rye snapped the book shut and tied it up in the red scarf again. He closed his eyes and ordered himself to sleep, but still sleep would not come. Thoughts were flying around his mind like frantic birds trapped in an empty house.
Chieftain Farr was certainly in Riverside—Rye and Sonia had learned that much by listening to the workers who were lifting great barrels from cart after cart and stacking them onto the decks of the barges tied up at the docks. Most of the army had already marched upriver, it seemed, though some of the last troops, leaving late in the day, had made the journey in barges that had been fitted with slay shields.
Those barges were long gone. The barge on which Rye and Sonia were hiding had no shields, and would not leave until the danger of running into a slay attack in the inland had passed.
The delay would not have seemed so bad if Rye had been able to learn anything more of Farr’s plans while he waited. But plainly none of the barge workers knew any more than he did.
None of them seemed to know anything about the pipeline, either, or at least no one mentioned it. It was clearly visible on the other side of the river, a great silver tube mounted on stone pylons that held it clear of the ground. Perhaps the dock workers had grown so used to it that they barely saw it any more.
The place where the pipe seemed to end—a humped shape rearing up on the shore—had been clearly visible too, despite the darkness, when Rye and Sonia boarded the barge. No doubt it was a huge tank, Rye thought. He wondered fretfully why Farr had not had it built further back, where it would not spoil the beauty of the shoreline. In Weld, such ugliness would never be allowed.
Then he smiled weakly at his own foolishness.
You are not in Weld now, Rye …
No, he thought. The Warden of Weld had actually forbidden the building of Tallus’s light columns on the grounds that the columns would clutter the city’s tidy streets! It was hard to imagine anyone here, even Councillor Manx, valuing tidiness above a test that might save countless lives. Farr certainly would not. Farr would stop at nothing to protect his people.
Slow footsteps sounded on the deck. The mouth organ stopped.
‘I’m thinking it’ll be safe to cast off now, Jacko,’ a rough voice said. ‘It’s half after midnight, and the danger area’ll be well clear before we get there. With this load on we won’t make any speed at all.’
‘You’re right there, Skip,’ another voice grumbled. ‘We’re terrible low in the water.’
Rye pressed the light crystal to the barrel in front of him. Through the misty window that appeared around his hand, he saw that the speakers were standing very close by. One was a wiry old man in a striped jersey, a mouth organ in his hand. The other was heavily built, with a closely shaven head and several gold earrings.
‘Have you looked in any of these here barrels, Skip?’ the old man asked. ‘Nothing in them but junk, that I can see. It’s beyond me why Farr wants them taken upriver.’
‘That’s up to him,’ his companion replied. ‘He knows what he’s doing, don’t you worry, and we’ll find out what’s in his head soon enough. He’s making his move the day after tomorrow, they say. Stand by, then, Jacko.’
‘Aye aye, Skip.’
The day after tomorrow, Rye thought in relief, settling back as the footsteps paced away. I can still get to him in time.
Slowly his tension drained away. The bell tree stick and the bundle containing the gold casket and the book were safe in his belt. The little bag of charms hung around his neck, beneath his shirt. Above him, the velvet sky was scattered with bright stars.
There was a hiss of steam and a soft chugging sound began. The barge began to move. And almost before it had left the dock, Rye was asleep.
He slept deeply, for once untroubled by dreams. And so it was that when at last he woke with a start, the loud hooting of the barge ringing in his ears, he opened his eyes on bright day.
He sat up, confused and blinking. He peered through a narrow gap between two barrels, over the side of the barge.
The riverbank was slipping by. There was the pipeline, snaking along beside the road. There were fields of brilliant yellow, and green fields where plump, placid beasts grazed. There were houses, halls, shops and paved streets all surrounding a tower that seemed to reach to the clouds. There were people, waving. And there was a broad, weathered dock, and a proud sign facing the river:
The barge had slowed to a crawl, but to Rye’s surprise and dismay it showed no sign of stopping. In moments it had laboured past the sign and the people who had been waving on the bank had begun turning away.
Frantically feeling in the brown bag for the red feather, Rye glanced round at Sonia. Plainly she, too, had only just woken. Despite her long sleep, she still looked very tired.
‘Sonia, we must get to shore—now!’ Rye whispered, gripping her arm and scrambling to his feet, pulling her with him. He made sure the hood was in place, held up the feather and thought of flying.