The Princess and the Captain (40 page)

‘It's my fault!' howled Peppe, burying his face in his hands. ‘Hob was honest! He dared to reveal our secret, and that counted as a test! But I'm not capable of anything. I'm the one responsible! Take me and let the others go!'

He flung himself on his knees and crawled towards the Patrols. But Hob caught him by the collar, and hauled him back with all his might.

‘There's nothing to discuss!' one of the Patrols snapped. ‘Catabea doesn't decide piecemeal; the whole crew of a ship suffers the same fate. That is the Law.'

At this moment another bird cried, ‘Tow her away!'

In perfect unison, the Patrols unfolded their metal wings and took off. Some closed their claws over the break-head rail, others clung to the poop taffrails, others again to the shrouds, the foretop, the capstan, the stays, the davits. They were everywhere. The ship bristled with the strange shapes of the Patrols like enemy arrows.

‘All over now,' murmured Lei. ‘We die in Immuration.'

Babilas wrapped his huge muscular arms round the twins, as
if to protect them, but deep dismay could be read in his eyes. His astonishing strength had not helped him to save his fiancée in the past, and it was still no use to him today. All he hoped for was to help the two boys endure the shock and pass from the world of the living into the Immuration without too much pain.

Malva drew Lei towards her with her right hand, while her left hand held Orpheus's. She remembered the peaceful shores of the island of Elgolia, the soft meadows, the white sand … Orpheus bent his face over hers. She saw her own reflection in his blue eyes: the image of a young woman with inky black hair who had surely never been so beautiful before. Orpheus's lips touched her forehead. A thrill passed through her. And suddenly the
Fabula
took off.

Clutching her in their claws, the Patrols carried the ship through the air, their long necks straining with the effort. They flew rhythmically, like machines. The ship flew through the sky, through the clouds, casting her shadow on the waves.

Down below, far beneath the hull, lay a huge whirlpool. Leaning against the bulwarks, the passengers of the
Fabula
saw the terrifying vastness of the Immuration beneath them: at the centre of the whirlpool, a black and gaping mouth opened on a void. The waters were pouring into it in a resounding cascade that seemed to flow on for ever. It was like seeing the real frontiers of the Worlds. That obscure, disturbing eye seemed to be swallowing up the sea with an ogre's greed. And in a moment it would swallow up the
Fabula
too.

‘What's down there?' cried Malva to Orpheus, as the wind blew her hair backwards.

There was absolute terror in her wide, amber eyes. Orpheus felt his throat contract.

‘I don't know. I've no idea what's down there. Stay with me!'

The condemned crew were huddling together, trying to overcome the fear flooding through them. They exchanged desperate glances, a few words came out, cries and moans, and Babilas held the twins so tight that he almost choked them. Two tiny pieces of the Stone of Life were left in the Nokros, and a great deal of powder.

When the Patrols were right above the eye of the Immuration, and the dreadful noise of the whirlpool prevented anyone from speaking, they all knew that the final moment had come. The birds beat their wings in reverse to slow the flying ship.

‘May the Law of the Archipelago be kept, may sentence be carried out!' pronounced all the Patrols together.

They abruptly opened their claws and folded their legs. The
Fabula
instantly dropped sheer into the eye of the Immuration.

The six passengers felt their stomachs rise to their throats. There was a deafening whistle and a great gust of wind.

At that moment Peppe escaped from Babilas's arms. The giant had no time even to move. Peppe rushed forward, leaped over the ship's rail – and jumped into the void before the
Fabula
's hull had even touched its rim. His small, disjointed body plunged straight into the darkness, ahead of the
Fabula
, whose sails, spread in the wind, slowed her fall slightly.

He did not utter a single cry.

The others hardly had time to realise what was happening. Only Hob immediately sensed his brother's death in his own body. He thought his guts were tearing apart, his heart exploding, his soul was ablaze. And suddenly the Nokros broke to splinters, scattering the brown powder.

‘Peppe!' shouted Hob, collapsing on deck.

The shock that followed almost threw him overboard, but the halyards tangling with the sheets caught him. The others clung
as best they could to anything within reach. The
Fabula
was sucked into the Immuration like an insect being swallowed up by a toad.

Then there was nothing but a great black silence. The silence lasted for a very long time, and was so dense that the ship seemed to float in it, weightless.

The sudden calm allowed Babilas, Lei, Malva and Orpheus to pluck up some courage. They crawled towards each other, feeling their way. Their gasping breath was misty in the dark. They felt empty, as if an explosion had blasted them apart. But when they realised that they were still alive their fingers intertwined again.

Now and then the darkness was illuminated by bright flashes which left temporary imprints on their eyes. Jolts threatened to throw them off balance. But they stayed there, lying on the ship's deck, their stomachs flat against its wooden planks, linking hands.

Suddenly, brighter lights lit up the dark. It was as if torches were flaring on the walls of a grotto. But when they looked more closely, the four survivors of the fall saw that these were no ordinary torches. Humans were being slowly consumed by fire as they hung from the sides of the Immuration.

The hair of some of them was in flames, the arms or feet of others were burning. There they hung in the middle of nowhere, twisting in pain, lighting the way for passers-by. It was such a terrible sight that Malva, on the verge of nausea, could not bear it and closed her eyes.

The
Fabula
went on falling, slowly and steadily now. She passed the successive levels of the Immuration, showing the terrified passengers the torments in store for them. Some prisoners were chained to pulleys, dying slowly of hunger
and thirst. Others, buried in earthen cavities, were waiting to die of suffocation. They were in convulsions, opening their gap-toothed mouths like fish out of water. Others again were covered with insects, were being quartered, boiled alive, lacerated by daggers, were bleeding, contorting themselves, praying aloud for death.

Orpheus looked down and rested his forehead on the deck of his ship, stunned, unable to take any more. So this was the Immuration: a prison to torture souls and bodies until Death came at last. A nightmare, an abomination, a horror.

The
Fabula
's funereal progress went on for a long time, and no image was spared the travellers, who hardly dared breathe, nauseated and brimming over with pity as they were. They waited, still holding hands, for the fall to end and for the worst to be inflicted on them too.

But suddenly they saw broad daylight.

Orpheus, Malva, Lei and Babilas raised their heads. Above them, the black hole of the Immuration suddenly closed and disappeared as if it had never been there. Instead, the sky was bright blue, the ship's sails flew in the breeze and water lapped against the
Fabula
's hull.

Orpheus stood up, supporting Malva as well as he could. He frowned, dazzled by the reflection of the sunlight on the water. Babilas and Lei rose too and turned, limping.

What had happened? Why this sudden bright light, this sunny day? Was it a hallucination? Yet they had all seen the same thing: the Immuration had suddenly disappeared. Not knowing what to think, they searched the sky for some sign, some kind of clue.

Then they saw Hob at the top of the mast, his legs caught in the rigging. The poor boy no longer even had the strength to call out or struggle free.

‘
Yneb dawl!
' exclaimed Babilas, scrambling quickly to his rescue.

‘He alive!' sighed Lei.

When Babilas had brought Hob down, and the two of them had joined the others on deck, they gave way to their emotions. Tears flowed, but they smiled too, and all their hearts were overflowing like rivers in spate. The Immuration had obviously let them go at the last moment, and all they had done was pass through it from end to end.

‘It was Peppe,' said Hob in a shaking voice. ‘He … he so much wanted to show that he was brave.' The boy gagged, stopped breathing for a moment, and went scarlet in the face. Then he burst into tears. ‘He thought it was his fault,' he cried between painful sobs. ‘He couldn't bear the idea! He threw himself … he jumped …'

Hob stammered, wept, stuttered out confused words for some time, while the others, mute and helpless, witnessed his grief and couldn't comfort him.

Finally Hob sat down on the capstan, exhausted.

‘He did that … he did that …' he kept repeating, his cheeks stained with dirt and tears.

At last Babilas knelt down in front of him and hugged him. ‘
Yvn Peppe oiraim an bardan
,' he whispered. ‘
Alch islu gwelchan mabeut. Cosgoaim danrh pobaim
.'

Lei, who had come closer to them, translated, though she was shaking all over. ‘Your brother Peppe save life of you and us. He jump when last drop of acid reach Stone in Nokros. Now we must live to thank him.'

Hob let the giant rock him in his arms, still murmuring words in his incomprehensible language, and gradually his tears dried up.

When they were all calm again, Orpheus went over to the battered rail and looked at the ocean stretching out ahead. Malva joined him. She was in a state of shock, but her eyes shone again when they rested on Orpheus. He felt his heart beating violently.

‘I think we've left the Archipelago,' he said in a neutral voice, still numbed by too much grief. ‘Peppe did a terrible thing, but thanks to him we're back in the Known World.' He fixed his eyes on Malva's, and took a deep breath before he ventured to go on. ‘What do you want to do, Princess? Now that we've survived so many trials, I suppose anything is possible.'

‘Anything?' repeated Malva. She sighed. No doubt Orpheus was right. After seeing some of their friends die and others suffer, after feeling such fear and urgency, the travellers' natures had probably become harder. Their priorities were not the same as before. Some things that had seemed important now appeared derisory. Etiquette, politeness, the demands of a comfortable life – none of it seemed to have any point now. So yes, anything really was possible.

Malva put her hands to her temples. The blood was beating in her skull. At that moment her decision seemed obvious to her. She raised her head.

‘I would like,' she said, looking steadily at Orpheus, ‘I would like to go back to Galnicia with you, Captain.'

When night fell, Orpheus stood on deck to observe the sky. The stars were back in their familiar places: Proximedes shone in the east, Aldebagol in the west, and at the zenith Orpheus saw the constellation of Oriopaea.

‘Come and look,' he told Hob, who was still looking helplessly at the bowl of food that Babilas had brought him. It had gone cold long ago. However, he raised his head, hesitated briefly, and then joined the Captain. He lay down on deck beside him, looking up at the vast night sky.

‘See that?' said Orpheus, indicating a luminous point in the heavens. ‘That's Alphius, the brightest of them all. And there's the constellation of the Allicaitor. You can see the stars Betelrig and Vegeb beside it.'

Hob followed Orpheus's finger, more interested than he had expected by the beauty of the firmament. Each star was like a flower. And to Hob, who had never been taught anything at all, knowing their names was like possessing a treasure. Orpheus
told him all he knew: the names of Altares, Ichab, Tolimuk, Hyperades. It was as if he were singing a lullaby. Finally he pointed to two stars, very close to each other and shining brightly.

‘Those are twin stars,' he explained. ‘Their names are Astor and Olux.'

Hob shivered. Twin stars? Were they really identical?

‘From Earth,' Orpheus went on, ‘they look almost stuck to each other, but they're really thousands of kilometres apart.'

‘Like Peppe and me, then,' the boy murmured. ‘We're thousands of kilometres apart, yet we'll always be together.'

Orpheus nodded, and there was silence. Hob's eyes were fixed on that part of the sky where the twin stars shone.

‘Every time I want to think about my brother,' he said, ‘every time I miss him badly, every time I need to talk to him, I'll talk to those stars. It will be as if Peppe were there looking down on me.'

A faint smile touched his lips, and at that moment Orpheus knew that sooner or later Hob would manage to live his own life, and Peppe's absence would not be too much of a burden on him in his passage through the world.

‘Do you really think the fortune-teller was making fun of us?' Hob suddenly asked. ‘Peppe believed that story of being princes so much. He really thought we could marry Mal—I mean the Princess.'

‘What about you?' asked Orpheus gently. ‘Did you believe it too?'

The boy's mouth drooped slightly with disappointment. ‘You're the one she loves, though, aren't you?' he sighed. ‘You're the one she'll marry.'

Orpheus could not repress a wild leap of his heart. He didn't
know exactly what Malva felt about him, but she had flung herself into his arms, had let him kiss her several times without objection, and then there was that intensity he felt between them when they looked at each other. He didn't know anything about women, but intuition told him that they had forged a very strong bond. He skilfully dodged Hob's question.