Walking Mountain Page 7

  ‘Is he all right?’ Rose whispered. ‘Are you sure? Can he walk?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pema in a tight voice. ‘I can walk. Let’s get out of here.’

  They left the dark strata behind, moving faster now, in silence. Pema’s head was pounding and he felt cold and sick, but he kept going as steadily as he could. Singay watched him anxiously.

  ‘There’s no danger now,’ Rose kept assuring them. ‘See – nothing but crystals here.’

  It was true. The corridor was running now along a vein of quartz. Walls, ceiling and floor sparked light at them in every colour of the spectrum, but its beauty went unappreciated.

  ‘Let’s keep going,’ insisted Singay.

  ‘Please. It’s safe, I promise. You have to rest. I . . . I’m so sorry . . . I have to rest.’

  Singay and Pema stopped abruptly.

  ‘Rose! What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’re hurt!’

  The Driver slumped to the floor and wailed, ‘No, I’m . . . It’s all my fault! How could I have missed all that anger, and there was the blood, and . . .’ His words were swallowed up in tears.

  ‘Was it seeing Pema’s blood?’ Singay hunkered down beside him. ‘Don’t worry, it just takes people that way sometimes. Sister Yi-mala, back at the Abbey, the sight of even just a little blood makes her come over all peculiar. She almost fainted one time when Sister Grale accidentally tipped strombomble juice down her front. I couldn’t stop laughing! Just put your head between your knees for a bit. We can stay here for a few moments. Go on.’

  Rose pushed her hands away, shaking his head. ‘It was my fault – I wasn’t paying attention. It was the singing. I was so enjoying our singing, I just didn’t listen.’

  ‘Listen to what?’

  ‘To the anger. I mean, I could hear it, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t pay attention. Those rocks back there, they remembered people who dug into them and exploded and gouged and ripped them out of the earth, and they wanted to pay them back. Make them bleed. Time doesn’t mean anything to them, so they don’t understand that you couldn’t possibly be the same people. They don’t really think, you know.’

  There was a horrified pause.

  ‘So rocks don’t think, but they can hate?’ Pema’s mouth went dry and he looked fearfully over his shoulder. ‘They were trying to kill us?’

  They were trying to kill us, and then Rose stopped them, thought Singay. But she didn’t say anything. She suddenly couldn’t think straight herself. It had been too long since they’d slept and too much had happened and Pema was probably suffering from shock and Rose didn’t look much better.

  ‘No more talking!’ she announced abruptly, sounding uncomfortably like the Abbess. ‘Rose says these crystals are safe. We’re going to eat and then we’re going to sleep, and I don’t want any arguments.’

  She didn’t get any.

  When they awoke, nobody wanted to talk about what had happened. There was an unspoken desire to just get moving. Pema was stiff and aching all over, but he wasn’t going to let that slow him down. They walked briskly, until, once again, the rocks changed. The corridor opened out into a long chamber.

  ‘Pema,’ Singay whispered urgently. ‘Look up!’

  Pema flinched, fearing another rock fall, but the ceiling was still. Wiping the sweat from his hands, he squinted upwards. ‘What is that?’

  For a moment, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He couldn’t get the perspective right.

  ‘So huge . . .’ breathed Singay, and then it clicked.

  He was looking at a gigantic skeleton in the ceiling, half-encased in the rock – a sea beast longer than a huge fallen tree, with a mighty rib cage and great fluted tail and fins.

  And now that his eyes had adjusted he could see that the giant was not alone.

  ‘They’re everywhere!’

  Walls, ceiling, floor . . . everywhere he looked he saw shapes. One wall was encrusted with seashells, the other with things that curled round and round. As they stepped further into the cavern, they were walking over shoals of fish, with only the tracery of their bones to show where they’d once swarmed and swum.

  Some pieces had fallen out onto the floor, but when Pema and Singay picked them up, they felt too heavy to be shell or bone.

  ‘It’s as if they’re made of rock!’ Pema exclaimed. ‘But how can that be, Rose?’

  ‘They’re fossils,’ Rose said.

  They looked blankly at him. It wasn’t a word they knew.

  Rose scratched his head. ‘Not an easy one to explain. In a way, it’s another kind of memory.’ He talked to them about bodies buried, subjected to enormous pressure and transformed over inconceivable stretches of time. Trying to imagine so much time made Pema’s head spin. Singay walked ahead, busy looking and marvelling until, at the far end of the chamber, she paused.

  ‘Rose? Can you hear that? Up ahead?’

  Pema came up beside her. ‘What? Wait . . . Yes, I hear it!’

  ‘Sounds like a waterfall,’ said Rose. ‘A big one. Come on!’

  The noise was getting louder with every step, a deep, pulsing, roaring sound that they could feel through their feet. It pounded at them so that it was impossible to think. As they followed the passageway, it became much narrower, so that soon they were scraping through sideways. The silver light that had been with them ever since the first moment they’d crawled through the hole from the Abbey died away, until they were feeling their way in the dark.

  And then, so suddenly it made them gasp, they pushed through a screen of hanging vines and were outside.

  ‘Look!’ yelled Singay over the noise of the water. ‘We made it!’

  They had come out beside a mighty waterfall. Ahead, they could see the river snaking away into the green haze of the Jungle. Directly below, laid out in a cluster of houses and gardens and sheds, was Jungle Head. And there, tied up at the pier, was a boat.

  As if it’s just waiting to take us away! thought Singay. She led them away from the waterfall to a point where they could hear each other without shouting. ‘Time for your disguise, Rose!’

  There wasn’t much to it – a wide-brimmed hat, a shirt and trousers she’d brought from the Abbey. They were all too big for him, but the outfit hid most of his silvery skin. If you didn’t pay close attention, he looked like a little boy who hadn’t grown into his hand-me-down clothes yet.

  ‘Perfect.’ Singay gave the hat a final tweak. She turned to head down the slope. ‘Come on, you lot, we need to get the tickets bought. That boat may be leaving any minute now. Let’s get going!’

  But when she looked back, Pema wasn’t following. He was just standing there, slowly shaking his head.

  ‘What is it? Hurry up! What’s wrong?’ she demanded. ‘We need to go!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a stricken voice. ‘I told you – I’m not coming.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Decision at Jungle Head

  ‘I can’t come with you,’ said Pema. Each word hurt to say. ‘I have to go home. Please understand. Wadipa and Dawa, my grandparents, they need me. The gows . . . Jeffrey . . .’ He choked up. He hadn’t wanted to think about this moment – for so many days it had simply been a case of putting one foot in front of another – but now, inescapably, he had to face what came next.

  There was a horrible silence and then Rose was speaking, saying how of course they understood, how of course he needed to get back up the Mountain, back to his life and his work, how it had been good of him to have come as far as he had, how his family must be worrying.

  And all the while Singay was standing there with a sullen expression on her face, while her thoughts battered around in her head. You bake-brained idiot. You actually thought he’d change his mind. Just because YOU have nothing to go home to. You want him to be like YOU.

  Pema gulped hard. ‘I’m so sorry. I . . .’ His head was bursting with last minute advice. ‘Remember the fare for the boat is fixed – from what I’ve heard the Borang don’t haggle.
Make sure you stock up first on food at Zeppa’s shop, anything that will travel well. We don’t know how long the journey to River Head will take. And Rose, pick up some rocks, all right? The boat might not tie up again very soon, or it might not be rocky where it does.’

  The Driver nodded, his eyes huge and solemn.

  He looks so little. So vulnerable. Pema felt sick.

  ‘You see why I can’t come down into the town with you,’ he said, pleading with them both. ‘If anyone in the settlement recognises me and word gets back to Zeppa, he’ll be after me for answers – he’s like a dugg with a bone, always has to know everything. I’d have to lie to his face about how I got here or else tell him everything about you, Rose. I know it’s not what you want, so it’s much better for me just to slip through town when it gets dark, get back home unnoticed and tell them everything I safely can – all about how I told the Abbess what I was supposed to, about the Mountain moving backwards, but she didn’t think it was any of our business. They can’t blame me for her saying that. But then I had to stay on because of Jeffrey. And then I came away without him, because I knew they’d be worried and then I’ll go back up to the Abbey again and fetch him away. And once you get Rose back together with his friends, they can make it so the Mountain won’t be walking anymore, and after a while everybody’ll forget all about it . . .’ The words dried up, but there wasn’t really anything left to say anyway.

  Singay felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Rose just kept nodding bravely. Pema looked as if he were about to cry.

  It was awful.

  Singay and Rose sat in the barge and watched as the two Borang boatmen went about the business of preparing to cast off without exchanging a word or a glance.

  ‘They don’t talk much,’ Singay said dully.

  Rose looked at the boatmen with interest. It was almost as if he’d become the child they’d disguised him as, wide-eyed and awestruck at everything in this big new world.

  Even with her mind ninety per cent numb, Singay had managed to buy the tickets and some supplies. As it turned out, the two of them were going to be the only passengers on this trip downriver, and that suited her. The Borang never asked questions, and this way there was nobody else to, either. I won’t have to pretend to be sociable. It wasn’t something she did well at the best of times, and this felt like anything but the best of times.

  Rose watched the Borang, and the pier, and the sky . . . anything, really, seemed to give him pleasure. Tears pricked Singay’s eyes. She peered down over the side of the boat into the green water.

  How am I going to manage? What was I thinking? She fished a forgotten piece of breadcake, gone stale and hard now, out of her pocket and dropped it overboard. It sank slowly into the dark greenness and then, just before it disappeared from sight, there was a sudden flurry of motion and something frighteningly large swallowed it and flashed away again.

  Singay’s heart contracted and she reared back and turned to Rose to tell him what she’d seen, when something even larger hurtled over the railing and knocked her onto the deck. She screamed and scrabbled away backwards and only then realised that the thing wasn’t an enormous, razor-toothed monster come up out of the wet depths to rip her apart.

  It was Pema.

  She stopped screaming.

  As the current caught the boat, swinging it out into the middle of the River, and the pier of Jungle Head was left behind, the three stared at each other.

  ‘I . . .’ said Pema.

  ‘I didn’t . . .’ said Singay.

  ‘I couldn’t be happier,’ said Rose, and he reached over and patted Pema on the knee.

  ‘Me too.’ Singay sounded choked.

  ‘Thank you.’ Pema found he was grinning so hard his face hurt. Then he suddenly turned serious. ‘But I want you to know, I’m going to send a letter to Wadipa and Dawa on the next upriver boat. I’m going to tell them the truth. All of it. It’s all I can do. I can’t just say “Back soon!” – because we don’t know how long this is going to take. And, well, I’ve never really lied to them before. Even if I tried to, what story could I possibly make up that would explain . . . this?’ He waved a hand at the boat and the three of them and the darkening Jungle on either side. ‘Rose, do you understand?’

  The Driver looked at him long and hard. Then he nodded. ‘I trust you. My life in your hands.’ And then he gave Pema a wide, seraphic grin.

  ‘Anyway, they might not believe you,’ said Singay a bit huskily. ‘You realise that?’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Pema shrugged. ‘But then again, they might. They’re not Abbess Great Gow, you know!’ He gave a huge mock shudder, and added, ‘I have to let them know. I can’t leave them to worry.’

  Just then one of the Borang came over and silently handed out pallets and bedding. Suddenly the thought of being horizontal and unconscious seemed enormously attractive.

  ‘Go ahead. I’m happy to look at the night,’ said Rose. ‘You sleep now. It’s been quite a day!’

  In no time at all, Pema and Singay were in their make-shift beds with nothing but the black sky above and the black river below, sweeping them inexorably along.

  ‘Pema?’ Singay said softly.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  There was a long silence and she thought perhaps he had already fallen asleep. But then he spoke out of the darkness.

  ‘I watched you and Rose from up by the waterfall. I watched you going into the store and then coming out again, and then going down to the pier, and then disappearing onto the boat. And I found that every time I couldn’t see you, my chest would hurt. Like a stitch, you know? When you climb too fast? And it struck me that if I let you go without me, I wouldn’t be able to see you for most likely the rest of my life, and choosing to go through the rest of my life with a sore chest was probably one of the stupider things I could do. So I decided to come.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Singay, and Pema thought he could hear a smile in her voice. He smiled too, shifted a little on the hard pallet, and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Jungle

  The Borang were a strange, silent people with greenish skin and sad, soulful eyes.

  ‘Though maybe to other Borang they’re perfectly cheerful and chatty. Maybe they just don’t talk to people like us,’ suggested Pema.

  ‘There are no people like us,’ grunted Singay.

  Two Borang manned the barge: one to steer, and one to manage the rhinophant that provided the return power. These hugely strong beasts rode the Borang boats down-stream, and then dragged them back to Jungle Head again, plodding up the well-worn towpath along the eastern bank. The Borang obviously thought very highly of them. In fact they showed far more interest in their rhinophant than in their cargo or passengers.

  At first the Jungle made Singay and Pema feel horribly hemmed in, in a way that being under an entire mountain hadn’t. Perhaps it was the stillness, or the humidity, or perhaps it was the way the trees seemed to lean hungrily towards them as they passed.

  It’s like they’re trying to suck the life out of us, thought Singay.

  ‘It’s hard to breathe,’ she said.

  ‘There’s not enough air,’ Pema sighed, fanning himself.

  Singay had bought summer-weight clothes for herself and Rose at Zeppa’s store. The Borang were willing to sell a spare set of trousers and shirt for Pema and she set to with needle and scissors to adjust them to his taller frame.

  ‘What a relief!’ he said, putting them on.

  She wiped a hand across her face. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a breeze.’

  Rose didn’t care. He loved it all.

  ‘He seems like such a child,’ said Pema to Singay. ‘I wonder how old he really is?’

  ‘I wondered that too,’ said Singay. ‘But he said I wouldn’t believe him if he told me.’ She squinted at Rose with her head on one side. ‘We’ve got used to him, I guess, and the Borang don’t care, but we’re going to have to
be really careful nobody looks at him too closely once we get to River Head.’

  Worry clenched in Pema’s stomach. ‘I think I’ll go see the rhinophant.’

  Time spent with the beast calmed him down. The massive, tough-skinned, ebony-coloured, viciously-horned, incredibly muscular rhinophant had its own enclosure at the stern of the boat, and its own schedule of feeding, resting, being cooled with buckets of river water, being mucked out and groomed. Pema stood at the railing of the enclosure for hours at a time. At first, the boatmen kept a close eye on him to be sure he wasn’t bothering the animal in any way. After a while, though, they were satisfied and carried on with their work as if he weren’t there.

  ‘Need a hand?’ Pema asked hopefully.

  But they shook their heads at him, polite but firm. It was hard to argue with someone who didn’t actually talk to you.

  The rhinophant was like the Borang in that it was almost completely silent, though it did have quite expressive, mobile ears. Pema thought he could tell quite a lot of what it (he wasn’t entirely certain whether it was male or female) felt about things by watching the way it swivelled its ears.

  ‘They really are magnificent animals,’ Pema said to Singay and Rose. ‘And complex and intelligent, you know? I feel like they’re thinking truly deep thoughts.’

  Singay looked over at the rhinophant and tried to see beyond the terrifying bulk and the piggy little eyes and the nasty horn. The animal chose that moment to lift its short tail and deposit a great big steaming plop of dung onto the deck.

  ‘Deep,’ repeated Singay. ‘Oh yes, I can see it now.’

  Pema just pulled a face and ignored her. It was too hot to quarrel.

  In the course of the trip they passed two of the Borang’s boats being dragged back upriver by their animals. Pema hung over the railing for as long as they were in sight, watching the steady, powerful plodding with admiration. But neither the Borang nor the rhinophants seemed to take note of the other boat’s inhabitants, even to the extent of a nod, a trumpet or a wave. They stared a little, but that was it.

  ‘I wonder if river duty is some kind of punishment for them,’ said Singay. ‘Maybe it’s what they make Borang criminals do, with a vow of silence thrown in for good measure.’