Ilse Of Illusion

11 - Arach

Without hesitation, Lief caught Jasmine in his arms and tumbled with her into the weed-filled water.

Surfacing, he heard Barda splashing and shouting somewhere behind him. He shouted back, then, holding Jasmine tightly against his chest, he struck out, kicking aside the sodden cloak that clung around his legs, fighting his way through the weed.

Jasmine was gasping, choking, trying to speak.

‘I know what you want to say, and you can save your breath,’ Lief panted. ‘I will not leave you.’

Barda came up beside him. Supporting Jasmine between them they clawed through the matted growth, struggling forward with painful slowness.

‘What are you doing? Make haste!’ screamed Penn from the dimness beyond the weed. Then, amazingly, she was leaving safety, plunging towards them, cutting through the water and weed like a fish.

Her head bobbed up in front of them, pale eyes wide with terror. She reached for Jasmine.

‘Where is she injured?’ she demanded.

‘Not injured. Cannot swim!’ Lief panted, and saw the history-keeper’s jaw drop in stunned amazement.

Then she was swimming away, pulling Jasmine expertly along with her. And Lief and Barda were thrashing behind, hearts pounding, chests aching, through the weed and, at last, out into the open sea.

There Penn stopped and turned, treading water, supporting Jasmine easily with one arm.

‘Why have you stopped?’ gasped Barda.

‘We are safe here,’ said Penn. ‘Arach do not hunt beyond the weed. The dome waters are their territory.’ Then her face twisted with pain. ‘Ah, no!’ she wailed. ‘Ah, what wicked waste!’

There was a sound like crackling dry leaves. Panting, the breath rasping in his lungs, Lief turned himself around in the water.

The Arach had halted at the edge of the seaweed band. One of them had seized the boat. It was lifting it high into the air, crushing it like paper. The other was fighting for a share, tugging at the frail craft, scrabbling inside it, looking for prey.

Lief stared, dumbfounded. The Arach were like vast, deformed spiders. Their bloated bodies were covered by glossy black shell, as though plated with armour. Their long, thin legs looked like wires of steel, prickling with spurs and spikes. Their armoured heads seemed nothing but greedy red eyes and dripping fangs.

With a dull, angry roar, the second Arach jerked violently, tearing the boat in half. Provisions, buckets, the lantern, and two small objects that Lief realised were the cages of the fighting spiders, sailed high into the air, scattering and falling with dull splashes.

Fury’s cage plunged into the water just in front of Lief. Fury was scrabbling desperately inside. Lief grabbed for the cage and lifted it up, gasping as he worked at keeping himself afloat with one hand.

This is madness! he thought. I cannot save myself, let alone this spider. But he could not bring himself to let the creature drown before his eyes.

Neither, it seemed, could Barda leave Flash to his fate. Barda was floundering towards the other cage, reaching out for it as though his life depended upon it.

‘The Arach have had enough,’ muttered Penn.

Lief looked up and saw the monsters creeping back to the dome. The shredded remains of the boat lay scattered on the weed bed.

Without warning, Penn plunged her head under the water. Jasmine, still clasped firmly in her arm, spluttered in panic. Bubbles rose in a great stream around Penn’s head and Lief thought he could hear a strange, muffled cry.

‘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!’