The Unknown Spy (26 page)

D
anny stood up. Nala regarded him warily, but Danny ignored him. He was more concerned about Dixie. She was shivering already, and when she tried to stand her legs gave way beneath her. A flurry of snow blew down from the high peaks. Danny shivered.

“We can’t stay here. There could be another avalanche. Can you walk, Dixie?”

She shook her head. Danny tried to help her to her feet but it was all he could do to get her upright. He looked around helplessly. They would die on the frozen mountain, either from avalanche or from cold.

“I’ll carry her.” It was the first time Danny had heard Nala speak. Without waiting for a reply he stepped forward and threw Dixie over his shoulder, then set off down
the mountain, moving quickly on the soft snow. Danny, caught by surprise, took off after him.

As the night grew darker and colder, Danny walked in Nala’s footsteps. On and on they went, but the mountains were high and they still had not gotten to the lower reaches. The wind rose and the moon disappeared behind swirling cloud. Nala was tireless, but Danny didn’t know how much farther he could go.

It began to snow. A few flakes at first, then heavier, until, in a few minutes, they were walking in a full-blown blizzard. Danny kept losing sight of Nala and after ten minutes had lost him completely. A Cherb, he thought. And you trusted him! He forced himself onward, though all he wanted to do was lie down in the snow and go to sleep. Ice had formed on his eyelashes and in his hair, and he could barely see, so when a red glow appeared ahead, he had to rub his eyes several times to make sure it was real.

He made his way toward the glow and saw that it was a fire, lit in the partial shelter of a huge boulder. Nala had laid Dixie beside it and he was busy digging in the snow for furze branches he was feeding into the blaze.

Danny slumped gratefully beside the fire. Nala jerked his head at Dixie.

“The girl needs shelter,” he said. “The fire isn’t enough.” He fed more branches into the fire, then sat down a little way off, looking out into the blizzard. Danny’s eyes went to Dixie, who was already half covered in snow. He tried to think, but the day’s traumas had drained him. He realized that he was still wearing his coat. At least he could cover Dixie, he thought, starting to take
it off. Then he remembered how when he’d first met McGuinness, the detective had laid the coat on the ground and shown him what it could do.…

Danny threw the coat on the ground and started pulling at the buttons. Strong metal rods appeared. He quickly worked out how to bend each rod and stick the ends in the ground, putting the rod through belt loops and epaulettes. Within five minutes the coat had formed a tent—a surprisingly roomy one. Danny looked at it in astonishment. He coaxed Dixie up and got her inside. Nala was still staring out into the storm.

“Come in,” Danny said. “Get out of the blizzard.” Nala looked at him as if surprised to be asked, then got to his feet.

Inside the tent it was warm. (How did that work? Danny thought.) The wind howled against the stretched coat, but it held firm. The pockets were on the inside, and Danny was able to fish out the torch and a few bars of chocolate. They sat in silence, a silence that couldn’t be described as companionable, considering that one of the company was a Cherb and that loss and betrayal haunted them. But despite that, first Dixie fell asleep, then Danny, and finally even Nala slept.

D
anny woke to sun streaming through the tent flap. He looked out to see Nala staring down the valley. Dixie was still asleep. He crawled out. The blizzard had ended, but the tent was half buried and there were mounds and hills of soft snow everywhere.

“Not good,” Nala said. “Too deep.”

“I have to get back,” Danny said. He had to warn Wilsons that the Treaty Stone was broken. The Ring might already be moving against them! Dixie stirred and stuck her head out of the tent.

“Morning,” she said. “Have they stopped serving breakfast?” She grinned at Danny and he knew that things would be all right. He would have to explain himself to her, but the glint in her eyes told him that she would forgive him. Dixie’s loyalty pushed all thoughts of cunning and treachery from his mind. He would get back to Wilsons and warn them. But how?

He leaned back against the exposed side of the tent. It was frozen taut as a drum, and his hand slid off it so that he fell in the snow. Dixie laughed, but Danny got up and stared at the tent.

“Get up!” he said.

“What?”

“Get out of the tent, Dixie!”

Working frantically, Danny pulled the ends of the steel rods from the ground. He was glad to see that when Dixie got in his way she was able to disappear and reappear several yards from him.

He lifted the whole tent out of the ground and turned it upside down on the snow. He grinned to himself. It looked like a little cloth boat, with the steel rods forming the ribs and the coat fabric the hull. It was stiff with frost and rocked gently when Danny touched it.

He hauled it out onto the snow and looked down the mountain, picking out a route.

“Hop aboard!” he said.

“What?” Dixie said. Nala eyed him dubiously, then walked forward and lowered himself gingerly into the boat.

“Hurry up, Dixie,” Danny said. Dixie disappeared and reappeared beside Nala. Danny pushed them to the edge of a downward slope, then tipped the coat-sled onto the slope. He shoved as hard as he could, and the sled started to pick up speed. Danny had misjudged it. The half-frozen canvas made a perfect surface for sliding over the powdery snow, and the sled’s momentum carried it away from him. He stumbled, almost lost his grip and stretched out his hand. Nala looked at him, his strange brown and blue eyes impossible to read. Now would be the moment, Danny realized, for his enemy to shun his despairing hand, to leave him floundering in the snow. Nala looked at Danny for what felt like an eternity, then reached out and grasped his hand. With one effortless pull he hauled Danny on board.

“All is paid,” Nala murmured. “You save me. I save you. All is paid.” Danny didn’t know if that meant that they were now enemies again, but he didn’t have time to think about it. As a sled, the upturned tent was almost too successful. They were hurtling down the mountain at a ferocious rate, crashing over hidden rocks, one minute airborne, next minute plowing through a snowdrift.

“Where’s the steering wheel?” Dixie yelled, but Danny was too busy clinging to one of the metal ribs to avoid being thrown out of the frail craft and did not answer. Down the mountain they plunged, fine arcs of snow
flying from either side, deadly crags everywhere they looked. Danny’s hair was flattened to his skull and his hands ached from holding on, but a wild exhilaration was growing in him. He looked at Nala crouched at the front of the sled and saw his teeth bared in a grin. He met Dixie’s eyes. She threw back her head.

“Yeeeehawww!” she yelled, and Danny, for the first time in what felt like years, laughed out loud. But almost instantly a jagged rock loomed in front of them. Danny threw his body weight to one side. It was enough, if only just. Nala turned his head to avoid being split open by the rock face. Another rock loomed. Dixie disappeared from one side of the sled and reappeared at the other. Her weight wasn’t quite enough to change their direction, but Nala flung himself to the same side and the sled almost capsized as it rounded the rock.

The three careered down the mountain, steering the sled with their body weight, inches from disaster at every turn, yet Danny had never felt so alive, Dixie was whooping, and even Nala showed his teeth in a fierce smile. It was perhaps three miles to the foot of the mountain, and they covered it at an incredible rate. The ground began to level off, but the sled showed no sign of slowing down. Buildings started to appear, some of them just rooftops sticking up from the snow. They narrowly avoided having the bottom of the craft torn out by a road sign. There were more and more buildings as they approached the town, and they had no way of stopping.

“There!” Danny shouted. They steered toward the bed of the river that flowed through Newcastle. Once
they hit the ice on the surface of the river, their speed picked up. Bridges flashed by overhead; the buildings of the deserted town were a blur.

“We’re going out to sea!” Dixie yelled. Danny’s mind worked fast. Sea would be the best way to travel, but they had no way of propelling themselves. He looked down the river. In the distance he could see a riverside restaurant, its collapsed canvas awning lying over the tables and chairs.

“Dixie,” he yelled, “could you get that for me?” Dixie’s eyes narrowed as she judged the distance; then she was gone. Danny and Nala sped toward the restaurant. They could see Dixie struggling with the awning. She was still struggling as they flew past. Danny gazed back anxiously. The restaurant was almost out of sight when Dixie reappeared breathlessly on the sled, the canvas draped over her head. Danny snatched a loose fence post as the river suddenly widened and they slewed out of control, turning round and round and hitting the open water with a huge splash. The craft came to rest and bobbed about on the gentle swell. Dixie looked around her in admiration.

“That’s some coat,” she said. “What did I get the canvas for?”

“A sail,” Danny said.

Danny set about rigging up the fence post as a mast. The pockets of the coat yielded up scissors and a needle and thread, and Nala and Dixie started creating a sail. Dixie was useless at sewing, but Nala worked like lightning, and within an hour they had a makeshift sail rigged. Danny found a drifting plank and made a rudder from it.
A fresh breeze had sprung up, and soon they were scudding along toward the northeast.

“We’re cutting straight across the bay toward my house,” Danny said. “It’ll save us half a day.” And indeed the far coast was getting clearer by the minute. Danny felt his heart sink. Would Stone and Pearl still be alive? One part of him longed to see them, but in a dark cold corner of his mind, a sly voice wished them dead. In the distance he could see church spires now, and the masts of boats in the harbor.

The hours passed. Danny looked in the coat pockets for food, but even the coat had its limits, and they were tired and hungry as they approached the town.

“We’ll land on the beach,” Danny said. “We’d look a bit odd sailing into the harbor in an overcoat.”

They ran aground on the deserted strand close to the pier. Danny undid the buttons, and the steel poles withdrew into the buttonholes. Within a few minutes there was no sign of the little boat. Danny slipped the overcoat on again. It had been cold in the boat, but not as cold as it had felt before Morne had gone, and there were signs of a thaw: water dripping from a tree, the ice in rock pools melting.

“First we need to get something to eat,” Danny said. They walked up toward the town. Danny could hear traffic and the sound of music from the amusements on the seafront.

“What are we going to do about him?” Dixie said, pointing to Nala. “Those eyes are a dead giveaway.”

“So’s disappearing,” Danny said, but it was too late.
Dixie had disappeared and reappeared beside a souvenir shop. She picked out a pair of sunglasses from a display and reappeared right beside Danny.

“That’s better,” she said as she fitted the heart-shaped pink sunglasses to Nala’s face.

“Dixie,” Danny said despairingly, “you’re supposed to pay for … Never mind. Let’s get some food.”

Danny bought pizza and they walked through the town eating it. Danny was silent and moody. He kept seeing Lily’s face as she disappeared in the avalanche. The wrenching pain of having had a family and losing it would not leave him alone.

Dixie marveled at everything, pointing to mannequins and television sets in shop windows. She went into ecstasies when an airplane flew high overhead. Beside them Nala stomped along in the pink sunglasses.

If the Ring has any spies here, we’re in trouble …, Danny thought. Then he looked back at Nala. Could he be working some double cross? Perhaps leading Danny into the hands of the Ring? Sly thoughts filled his brain, threatening to overwhelm him. How could he and Dixie dump Nala? Perhaps Danny could break a window or steal something and throw the blame on the Cherb so that he would be arrested. He remembered how Nala had saved him but pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

It was getting late. The shops were beginning to close. Danny didn’t want to be caught out on the deserted streets at night, so he made Nala and Dixie wait in a bus shelter, then went into a phone shop, where he bought a cell phone.

“What is it?” Dixie said when he returned.

“A phone,” Danny said.

“What’s that?”

Danny looked at her, but she wasn’t joking. She still had no idea what a phone was. He explained it to her. She looked at him, half disbelieving.

“When we were walking down the street there were plenty of people talking into phones,” he said. “Didn’t you see them?”

“I thought they were just talking to themselves,” Dixie said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be walking around talking to yourself. She looked on in awe as he turned on the power and, taking a deep breath, entered Stone’s number. Dixie took several steps back when she heard Stone’s voice coming through. The agent sounded tense.

“Did you succeed?”

“No,” Danny said flatly, “the Treaty Stone is broken.”

“Then the Upper World is open to attack from the Lower. I had no idea your mission was so important,” Stone said. “Do you still have the Land Rover?”

“No.”

“Then walk to the edge of town. I’ll pick you up there.”

“What … what about Pearl?” Danny asked.

“Alive,” Stone said tersely. “We were well trained, Danny. She’s alive.”

Danny ended the call and put the phone into his pocket. Dixie looked at him curiously.

“Danny,” she said, “your eyes—the brown is coming through again. Doesn’t that only happen when—”

“Come on,” Danny said, cutting her off roughly, “it’s starting to get dark.”

There were few people around, and by the time they walked to the suburbs, they were on their own, the icy conditions making driving dangerous and keeping the roads empty. Nala was uneasy and kept glancing upward.