Urchin and the Rage Tide Read online

  “Thank you, sir,” said Tod. “Fifty-four to beat, sir,” he added as he marched away down the corridor.

  “Death to—” began Mossberry.

  “Six,” muttered Padra. “It’s going to be a long watch.”

  Hunger is good, thought Mossberry. He ate only crumbs now, despising the food the tower animals brought him. Unclean. The tower is unclean. He dragged his claws down the stone walls and clutched at the bars. It all depended on him. Only he could lead his followers through the mists. The island of Mistmantle was to be destroyed, and all who did not follow him would perish with it. In spite of the flood, he was still here. There would be more storms and floods—even the defiled animals here in the tower knew that.

  There was no way of saving Mistmantle. The Heart would crush it. All he could do was to save his followers, and, of course, himself.

  Hunger sharpened him. Dreams and voices swam in and out of his head, waking and sleeping. Which was which? Anger and frustration overwhelmed him and he hurled himself screaming from the window to the door.

  “Destroy!” he yelled, again and again. “Destroy, destroy, destroy!” Hysteria carried him. “King, captain, false priest in your filthy evil tower, you will be destroyed!”

  Outside the cell, Padra beckoned Scufflen the hedgehog page. “My respects to the queen,” he said, “and please, could she send something to calm him down? Chamomile or something, but she’ll know what’s best. We have to feel sorry for him, Scufflen. I only have to stand here while it’s my watch, and then I’ll walk away. He can’t walk away from himself.”

  Exhausted, Mossberry collapsed on the floor and laughed helplessly at the ceiling. “Destroy, destroyer, destroyer, destroyer,” he muttered. Lights and colors flashed in his head. It was as if he heard his own name.

  Mossberry, destroyer! Mossberry, destroyer!

  He sat up, still laughing. It seemed so clear now. To create something was easy. Any fool could make a song, embroider a Threading, or build a home. He had never had time for such trivial things himself. This was the greatest work of all—destruction! This was his destiny! He was the chosen one! He had been wrong to think that the Heart would destroy Mistmantle! The Heart had sent him to do that!

  That was his destiny! Mossberry, the destroyer of Mistmantle! And he must start with the tower!

  When Tipp the mole had left the priest’s turret, Juniper and Tide knelt down to pray. Through the open windows they could hear the sea, swish and fall, swish and fall, steady and reassuring. Juniper imagined Sepia adrift on that sea, and the sea was ruthless. Was she alive, or was she dead? He felt that she was still alive, that her spirit still held strong. He took a deep breath, and felt a tingle in his paws.

  “Brother Juniper,” said Tide, “are you all right?”

  Juniper did not appear to hear, or even to see him. He had become completely still. Then turning his paws palm upward, he spoke.

  One must come and one must go,

  One must go and one will come,

  There must be sorrow before joy.

  Tide waited to hear if there would be any more. Most prophecies were longer than this, and more complicated. This one was very simple and Tide repeated it—but he had no idea what it could mean.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ORR TASTED THE AIR AND ROWED HARDER. He needed to catch sight of the mists again and stay on the outside edge of them. There were disturbances in the air and on the tide, and he would need to place himself in the shelter of the mists. Whatever had caused the rage tide, it had not settled. He had heard stories of the Ashfire, the fire island where Queen Cedar had lived as a little child, where the fire mountain had suddenly erupted, not into flame, but into rivers of molten fire that had poured down and spread hot ashes over the earth. It must take a long time for anything so powerful and so destroying to settle down. It seemed to him that the sea had exploded, too, in the rage tide, and it would not settle down again easily. He rowed on, past the mists, sleeping in snatches by day. At night he wrapped himself in the warm yellow-gold cloak, watched the stars, and steered south.

  A message was carried across the island, summoning the senior animals to the Gathering Chamber. The animals arriving were nodded through by the guards, who recognized them all. Ruffle the hedgehog tried to slip in among them and was stopped.

  “I’m Urchin’s new helper, sir,” she said, “since Corr went away, sir.”

  “No, you’re not,” said the guard. “You’re that hedgehog who’s been trying to see Mossberry. Off you go, now.”

  Ruffle made several more attempts to get into the tower, but discovered it was useless. Or, at least, it was today. She’d try again.

  Urchin ran up a wall and dropped through a window. He met Padra and Arran in a corridor.

  “It’s quieter today,” remarked Padra. “Mossberry must have shouted himself hoarse, Heart be thanked. I got eighty-two points yesterday.”

  “He must sleep sometimes, surely,” said Arran, and Urchin asked her how her shoulder was.

  “A bit stiff,” she said, but he guessed that it was worse than she admitted.

  “There’s Juniper!” said Urchin, and ran ahead to meet him. They had both been so busy in different parts of the island that they’d hardly seen each other since the rage tide. But there was no time to catch up with news or ask questions when the king had called them to the Gathering Chamber. Queen Cedar arrived, her fur smelling faintly of flowers as it often did when she had been making medicines.

  “Lavender, Your Majesty?” said Needle, coming down the stairs.

  “Lavender and pennyjohn,” said the queen. “I’ll need rosemary, too. Mossberry’s mind is terribly disordered. He really does believe the things he says about himself. I’ve made a distillation to calm him down and help him think clearly, but they’ll take some time to have any effect. A combination of prayer, wise friendship, and the right medicines can be very effective in some cases, but this is Mossberry. As to prayer, he thinks he’s the only animal on the island in touch with the Heart. The only friends he wants are the ones who think he’s some sort of chosen one. There are limits to what I can do.”

  “It’ll help if you can just keep him quiet, madam,” said Padra softly as they took their places. “He makes up new curses every day.”

  Without the Threadings, the Gathering Chamber walls were wide and empty, but the curtains were still there, drawn back from the long, wide windows. Apart from that, the chamber was filled with stacked-up boxes and odds and ends of furniture, moved there from the lower floors to protect them from flood damage. Fingal slipped in at the last minute, and Crispin stood up.

  “The queen and I greet you all,” he said. “May the Heart keep us and bring us through these dark times. Welcome, each one of you—Captain Padra, Captain Docken, Captain Arran, Hope, Tide, and Fingal of the Floods. Welcome, Moth of the Circle, Spade of the Circle, and you squirrels—Whittle, Brother Juniper of the Journeyings, Urchin of the Riding Stars, Catkin, and Oakleaf. Firstly, I need to ask Brother Juniper and the otters what movement they detect in the winds and tides.”

  “A sight too much of it, Your Majesty,” said Fingal.

  “There will be a second surge and a storm, but not yet,” said Padra. “We just have to wait it out. I know everyone wants to get their lives back in order and rebuild their homes, but the low-lying parts of the island will only flood again. And the seabed is still settling, so we can’t tell which direction it’s going to come from.”

  “And the other storms haven’t finished, either,” said Juniper. “I mean, the ones we can’t see. Something else is going to happen, some wild disturbance from within the island. Don’t panic. It will pass. All this will be over and we shall have peace, peace of wind and waves and hearts and minds, but I don’t know how or when. In the meantime, as Captain Padra said, we just have to do the best we can.”

  “Have there been any more casualties?” asked Crispin.

  “No, Your Majesty, and the healers are taking excellent care of those w
ho were injured when the first wave struck,” said Padra.

  “And we have no more news of the missing animals,” said the king. “Furtle and Ouch, who are on the island, and Sepia, who is not.”

  Juniper glanced at Urchin, but Urchin had lowered his eyes and did not respond. “I have knelt before the Heart for Sepia,” said Juniper, “and I still can’t be sure of anything, but I believe she’s alive. If she were dead she’d be at peace, but she isn’t.”

  Urchin looked up sharply. “Not at peace?” he repeated.

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Juniper, “but I feel a tugging, a calling, as if she’s in distress—and if she’s in distress she must be alive.”

  “Is she hurt?” demanded Urchin.

  Juniper wished he had something more helpful to say. Urchin’s pain was his pain, too.

  “I only know she’s unhappy,” he said.

  “If you feel she’s calling out, have you any idea at all where she’s calling from?” persisted Urchin. Day and night, he had hoped and prayed for some message from Corr. Knowing nothing was almost unbearable. “At least, do you know if she’s on the land or at sea?”

  “No idea,” said Juniper. “I’m so sorry, I wish I did know. But here’s some hope! A prophecy!”

  All eyes turned to him. They waited.

  “I don’t understand it,” he admitted. “I don’t even know if it’s anything to do with Sepia. But it’s this—

  One must come and one will go,

  One must go and one will come,

  There must be sorrow before joy.”

  “Repeat it, all of you,” ordered Crispin. When they all knew it by heart, he said, “We don’t understand it yet, but we must remember it. I will hold it in my heart before the Heart, and ask you all to do the same. Now, are we any nearer to finding Furtle and Ouch? Oakleaf, I understand you have no good news about the Mole Palace?”

  “We didn’t find the hedgehogs there, sir,” said the prince. “We searched every corner and every tunnel. Fingal and Swanfeather even came in and swam through the flooded ones. Tipp and Todd were going to have one last good hunt, but Hope says there’s no scent.”

  “Let’s get back to what we know,” said Crispin. “They’re very young, so they can’t have gone far from where they started. They’re either somewhere central, or in the inlets and bays where the island is narrow. Needle, has Myrtle given any more clues?”

  “She just keeps drawing an arch and a kingcup,” said Needle. “Yes, definitely a kingcup. A royal dwelling. There aren’t many of those.”

  “She’s beyond me,” said the king. “Whittle, you’re the historian. Do you know of any royal dwellings? Abandoned ones? Ancient ones? Anything?”

  Whittle became very quiet. Urchin could see that he was thinking his way around the island, and, having done that, thinking his way steadily through the histories. Finally, he said, “Your Majesty, there’s—well, maybe there isn’t. It’s too—well—it’s only a story.”

  “Animals used to think that the Mole Palace was just a story,” said the king. “What have you got for us, Whittle?”

  “Tay told me something once,” he said. “The story is that King Acorn had a playhouse cut out of a cliff for his children where their attendants could take them in summer. It was used year after year, but then the cliffs nearby started to erode and the king decided it wasn’t safe anymore, so it was abandoned. Mistress Tay thought it was just a story, because if it had really existed there’d still be some trace of it, and there’s nothing on the Threadings about it.”

  “Of course there isn’t!” said Needle. “It was a children’s play castle. Why would that be on the Threadings?”

  “Yes, and it could have become overgrown,” said King Crispin, “if it were on a cliff inland, or on the coast. Whittle?”

  “When Tay told me, I imagined it looking over the sea,” said Whittle. “But I can’t remember if Tay said that, or if that’s how I imagined it. We could ask her.”

  “How is she?” asked Arran.

  “She gets tired a lot,” said Whittle, “and that makes her grumpy. I mean, grumpier than ever, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. And she’s very deaf when she wants to be. She remembers a lot from the past, but only if she’s in a good mood.”

  “Beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” said Spade, “but if you were putting up a summer house for the young’uns, where would you put it?”

  “Good thinking, Spade!” said Crispin. “I’d build it near the tower so they weren’t too far from home. And somewhere sunny.”

  “South side, then,” said Padra.

  “And, excuse me,” said Princess Catkin, “but if it were my summer palace I’d want it on the east, where all those inlets are.”

  “I used to imagine a place just like that!” said Oakleaf. “Right on the tip of the island, beside Sword Point—you know, at the top of the deep inlet. I used to think I’d love a summer palace there!”

  “You should have said,” said Crispin. “I would have built—just a moment—no, I wouldn’t. The cliff’s been badly eroded there. Any animal falling out of a window would be straight in the sea.”

  “There probably isn’t anything there,” said Prince Oakleaf, who didn’t want them to waste time looking for Furtle and Ouch in the wrong place. “It’s just that I imagined a palace there, when I was little.”

  “Exactly!” said Juniper. “Very few thoughts are completely new. If you thought it would be a good place for a palace, it’s almost certain that somebody else had thought of it before. If it was where you suggest, it may have been abandoned because the cliff eroded, exactly as Tay said.”

  “Then the summer palace may have eroded, too,” said Crispin, “but we should look for it, all the same. Urchin, Spade, and Needle, you go. Take Hope, Tipp, Todd, and Myrtle. And you, too, Moth. They might need a healer.”

  There was a knock at the door. Crispin nodded to Docken, who opened it. A squirrel page called Grain stood outside, looking unsure as to whether he should speak at all in front of this company.

  “Here’s Grain,” said the king. “He’s been part of Mossberry’s guard today. How’s he doing, Grain?”

  Grain bowed, looking nervous. “Your Majesty, he threw his medicine out of the window,” he said.

  “Disgusting little article!” muttered Docken.

  “Anything else?” asked Crispin.

  “He said a terrible judgment is coming.…”

  “On the island, he always says that,” said the king. “So apart from that, he’s being reasonable, is he?”

  Grain looked at the ground. He clearly wasn’t enjoying this.

  “Spit it out, Grain,” said Fingal.

  “He said he wanted to fight and kill you in single combat, Your Majesty,” said Grain almost apologetically.

  “He’d be making a big mistake,” Padra said to Grain. “I wouldn’t take Crispin on. Best sword squirrel in the island.”

  “It’s beneath your dignity to fight him, Your Majesty,” said Fingal. “But not beneath mine, because I haven’t got any. I’ll fight him if you like.”

  Crispin smiled. “Thank you, Fingal,” he said, “but nobody is going to fight him. He can stay put and take his medicine. Off you go, Urchin and the search party. You’ll need tools for digging. And, Spade, tell those moles to feel for every vibration. The island seems to be falling down around us just now. Thank you, Grain, you may go.”

  There was a scream of rage from Mossberry’s cell.

  “Sounded like a six to me,” said Padra. “Add it to your score, Grain.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” said Grain, and bowed his way out of the room. Presently the meeting broke up, and only the king and queen, Padra, and Arran remained.

  “How is that shoulder really, Arran?” asked the queen.

  “It’ll do,” said Arran.

  “It’s worse than you’re telling us,” said Crispin. “All of us here know that.”

  “Pardon me, Your Majesty,” said Arran, “but your
old wound from the Raven War is worse than you’re telling us. You don’t make a fuss, and neither will I.”

  “I can’t do a thing about the king’s injury,” said Queen Cedar, “but maybe I can about yours.” But when she had pressed Arran’s shoulder at different points, and asked her to clench her paws and raise and lower her arm, she finally said, “I can ease the pain and stiffness, but it’ll never be the same again. You’ll always have problems with it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Arran. “It really is time to hang up my circlet, Crispin.”

  “Your circlet is yours until the day you die,” said Crispin. “But I know you want to be relieved of your duties as captain.”

  “I’ll stay until the worst is over,” she said. “Then I’ll help Fionn with her refuge for lost frogs, or whatever she thinks she’s doing. She seems to be adopting them.”

  “I couldn’t ask for more,” said Crispin.

  Later that day, two hedgehog guards took salad and cordial to Mossberry’s prison cell, set it down on the table, and waited to see if he would eat it, or throw it on the floor. He must have been hungry, because he ate.

  “Do you see how the Heart provides for me?” he said. “The Heart sends me all I need!”

  “The queen sends you all you need,” said a hedgehog.

  “The queen sent it?” repeated Mossberry.

  He sipped at the cordial and, when they had gone, threw it out of the window. Typical trick, he thought. It’s some foul potion that the so-called queen has sent me. She’s trying to keep me quiet because she is evil and I have found her out. The Heart is against her. Her evil tower will fall about her in flames. He imagined the queen trapped in the tower with fire roaring all around her. The thought of fire excited him, so that he wrenched and heaved at the window bars in frustration and, at last, curled up on the floor and rocked, feeding his imagination with thoughts of fire.