CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

1. The Finalists

2. The Three Ports

3. The Reading Room

4. Maris

5. The Warning

6. Undercurrents

7. Two Moons

8. Word of Honour

9. Master Mull

10. Kaja

11. Fear

12. The Battle of the Giants

13. The Clearing

14. The Bargain

15. The Intruder

16. Moonlight

17. Surprises

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ALSO BY EMILY RODDA

Copyright

1 - The Finalists

Beneath the morning sun, the Silver Sea was gleaming as if it had been newly polished. Sea serpents coiled in the waves of the north, hunting flying fish that skimmed over the surface like slivers of rainbow light. Giant turtles paddled lazily in the warmer waters of the south, where seabirds circled the enchanted Isle of Tier.

Within the ring of glittering black sand, the trees of the island were deep, lush green. Orchids with petals like pale, speckled flesh clustered at the trees’ roots, clung to their rough trunks, trailed from their forked branches.

The orchids’ scent was faint now, but as the day warmed it would grow stronger and richer, rising to wreathe the island in a haze of dizzying sweetness. By then the wisest birds would have risen higher, or broken the spell of the place and flown away. Those that lingered in the vapour would be overcome and would fall from the sky. The island would welcome them. No matter how often it fed, it was always hungry.

The being who called himself the King of Tier sat in the jewelled splendour of his cavern, clutching the ancient Staff that was the source of his power. It came to him that he had not stirred for a long time—he could not tell how long. The hand that gripped the Staff was as stiff as if it were carved out of wood. He willed the fingers to move, to flex, and at last they did. The wraiths that clustered about him sighed, pressing closer.

Larsett, they whispered. Master of the Staff. Larsett … They never tired of the words. They loved the warmth that flowed from the Staff whenever they breathed the Master’s name. In the grey chill of their half-life, that warmth was their only comfort.

But the whispering was fainter than usual. The King slowly pondered this, and then remembered. The wraiths were fewer than before. He had sent some of them away, to spy for him in a place he could not go—would never see again. He had sensed the beginning of a train of events that boded ill. He had ordered the wraiths to seek out the girl who had been in his thoughts.

Yes. The King began to relax. Then, with a tiny start, he recalled that the wraiths had in fact returned not long before—only hours before, perhaps. They had found the girl, and the news they had brought of her had troubled him. What was more, they had learned who she was, and were excited by the knowledge. He had not expected that. It had displeased him. Angrily, without thinking, he had sent them back to learn more.

Slowly it occurred to him that perhaps he should not have done that. Perhaps, indeed, it had been a mistake to send the wraiths to find the girl in the first place. The thought was strange. The King of Tier had grown unused to the idea that he could be in error.

He caused a crystal bowl to fill with sugared dates. He was not hungry, but he ate. He knew that if he did not eat he would waste away and die like the pirate Bar-Enoch, who had perished with the Staff that could grant eternal life in his hand.

As the King tasted sugar on his tongue, it came to him like a dream that once he had had another life. Once he had sailed the Silver Sea in a great ship with white sails. Once he had felt wind and spray on his face, and talked and laughed with other men. Once he had counted the years and feared growing old.

That was before the magic Staff became his. That was before he fled with it to Tier, the haunted place of its creation, felt the wraiths twining about him in welcome, and stepped out of time. How long ago?

Not so long, surely, he thought. But long enough, it seemed, for a fierce, eager, dark-haired child to become a young woman and tear herself away from the bonds of home. Time had not stood still for her—for Britta of Del.

Old memories were rising from the depths of his mind, bringing with them disturbing feelings. Dazzled by dreams of glory, he had not thought of the future when he had taken the Staff for his own. He had thought only of the present when he had betrayed his trust, sacrificed his crew, abandoned his ship. He had feared nothing.

He had brought the fabled Hungry Isle back to life. He had rejoiced as it began to prowl the Silver Sea again, hiding itself when concealment was useful, preying on everything that fell in its way. Tier was his kingdom, and in it he was all-powerful. It was for others to fear him, not the other way round.

And so it had been—until now. The Rosalyn Trust contest—the contest to become Apprentice and heir to Mab, the Trader Rosalyn … he had forgotten all about it, as he had forgotten so many things. Yet—another dank shred of memory drifted to the surface of his clouded mind—there had been a time when he had thought it very important.

He could still taste the rage he had felt when he learned that by the will of the first Trader Rosalyn, the contest was open only to girls. Yes. He had resented that bitterly, once upon a time. And now …

Memories of the flickering pictures the absent wraiths had brought to the cavern rose before his eyes. Little Britta, grown up. Britta of Del, buttoned tightly into a demure white shirt and dull blue skirt, her rippling hair bound in a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

She looked so different that at first glance he might not have known her, but her dark eyes snapped with a light that was all too familiar. Britta had been tamed only on the surface. Her spirit still burned as brightly as ever. Her fierce longing to become the sea-going trader she was born to be had not lessened with the years.

She was still the same Britta. Daring enough to seize her only chance to fulfil her dream. Strong enough to conceal from Mab and everyone else that she was the daughter of a man they hated and despised. Clever and determined enough to be one of the four finalists who were now setting sail with Mab on a trading voyage, competing for the glittering prize.

Your daughter, Larsett! the wraiths twining about him murmured lovingly. Bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh. Child of the Staff …

The King felt a twinge of panic. He had been careless. They had shared his visions. The thought filled him with nausea.

‘Be still!’ he ordered, the last traces of sugar turning bitter in his mouth. ‘My daughter is no business of yours! Get back! Give me air!’

The wraiths moaned and retreated, but only a little.

He tried to calm himself. The absent wraiths would return when they learned where the girl’s ship was to go. Perhaps what they told him would relieve him of the cloud that brooded over him, robbing him of peace. The Star of Deltora might carry Britta far from the Silver Sea.

And if it did not? Given the chance, would Britta try to seek him out? Would she somehow find a way…?

The King of Tier felt the Staff quiver. Its tip was buried deep in the island’s heart, but still it trembled. Or was the trembling his?

He caused a cup to fill to the brim with wine, and drank deeply. He tried to shut his ears to the yearning whispers of the wraiths.

Larsett’s daughter. Child of the Staff. Britta. Britta. Britta …

At that very moment, far across the waves, Britta’s heart was singing as the Star of Deltora surged from the safety of Del harbour into the open sea. Soon, very soon now, she would know where the ship was bound. She would know the three ports where she and the other contest finalists were to match wits and trading skills.

A twelve-week voyage had been planned—three glorious months of freedom! There would be no news of home in all that time, for messenger birds did not fly over the sea, but Britta found that this did not trouble her at all.

The fears and shocks that had racked her as she strove to become a finalist in the Rosalyn competition seemed strangely distant now. Images of the people she had left behind—her hurt, angry mother, her tearful sister, old Captain Gripp, who had started it all by entering her in the contest—even Jantsy, waving his red scarf from the shore—were no longer sharp and compelling. It was as if she had folded them and put them away at the back of her mind, like sheets stored with lavender in a carved wooden chest.

Her rivals, standing beside her now at the ship’s rail, seemed far more real to her. Jewel of Broome, Sky of Rithmere, Vashti, the Del trader’s daughter—all so different, but all, Britta was sure, feeling the same elation as she was, and the same powerful hunger to win.

It would have been easy to feel a kind of affection for them at this moment. Easy … except that one of them was more enemy than rival. One of them had struck her down and locked her in a cellar to try to stop her winning a place on the Star of Deltora.

Trader Mab, like everyone else, seemed to assume that the attack had been a coincidence. She thought that Britta had taken a foolish risk, wandering alone in the Del harbour back streets after dark. It had not seemed to occur to her that one of the other finalists in the contest could have been the culprit.

But Britta was certain that her instinct was right. She had not been robbed, or even badly hurt. Someone had just wanted her out of the way. She glanced sideways at her companions, wondering which one was more ruthless than she seemed.

Vashti was the obvious choice. Her wide blue eyes and sweet smile did not fool Britta for an instant. Still, it was hard to imagine the kittenish Vashti actually hitting someone. Sly trickery was more her style.

Sky? Perhaps. With her lean, olive-skinned face, her shabby trousers and tunic and her long hair jingling with tiny ornaments, Sky seemed cool, and scornful of pretence. But there was a reckless twist to her mouth, and her dark eyes were veiled so that it was impossible to guess what she was thinking.

And then there was Jewel, towering over them all, her shaved head stained with swirling red patterns, a hunting knife at her belt and a pouch of spears hanging from one shoulder. Jewel came from a wild, rough part of Deltora. She would not hesitate to use force to get something she badly needed. And yet … Jewel seemed to be the sort of person who preferred a fair fight to winning by stealth.

Seemed. Britta shook her head. That was the problem. How could she guess which of the other finalists was her enemy? One of them was skilled at deceiving. One of them was not what she seemed.

Any more than I am what I seem, she reminded herself grimly. I would not be here now if anyone knew who my father was.

The bright sun seemed to dim. Shadows flickered before her eyes. Britta frowned. This had happened a few times lately, especially when she was feeling some strong emotion. She told herself that it was the result of nerves stretched to the limit by the events of the past two days. It would pass. She blinked, and the shadows vanished.

She heard soft footfalls and saw that Mab was approaching, with Healer Kay, sturdy and watchful, close behind her. Britta held her breath. Were she, Jewel, Sky and Vashti about to learn where they were to go?

Blue-painted eyelids drooping, crest of dyed red hair a shocking contrast to her drawn, wrinkled face, Mab cleared her throat to command attention.

‘Bosun Crow will take you below to stow your belongings, Finalists,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘As I have already said, two of you must share a cabin. Settle that matter between yourselves now, will you?’

She withdrew a little with Kay, who instantly began muttering to her, no doubt urging her to go below herself, and rest.

‘Jewel has already offered to share,’ Sky said, blandly ignoring Jewel’s scowl, ‘so I suggest the rest of us draw for it.’

Britta felt a sharp stab of panic. The thought of sharing a cabin with someone she could not trust was unbearable! Jewel was the person she suspected least of attacking her in Del, but it was impossible to be sure.

Frantically she tried to think of an excuse to avoid taking part in the draw. She could think of nothing. She had not told anyone of her suspicions of her fellow candidates. If she suddenly tried to insist that her safety depended on having a cabin to herself, no one would believe her.

From somewhere Sky had produced three pieces of straw—two long, one short. She put her hands behind her back, then brought one hand to the front again, three even lengths of straw poking from her closed fist. Britta felt a prickle of suspicion. There had been something about the smoothness of the action that made her think Sky had done the same thing many times before.

‘Short straw shares with Jewel,’ Sky said, holding out her fist.

Vashti smiled sweetly at Britta. ‘After you!’ she purred. She made it sound as if she was being polite, but Britta knew better. Vashti also suspected that Sky was playing some sort of trick.

Britta hesitated, feeling trapped. It seemed impossible to accuse Sky of cheating—impossible to insist that Vashti must choose first.

‘Anything wrong?’ Sky murmured, raising an eyebrow.

Britta pulled out the middle straw. Without surprise she saw that it was short. She looked up resentfully. Sky shrugged and opened her hand to display the two long straws lying on her palm.

There was nothing to be said, though Britta was positive that she had been duped. It did not make her feel any better when she glanced at Mab and saw the old trader turning away, hiding a smile.

So Mab, while pretending to have no interest in the matter of the cabins, had actually been keeping a sharp eye on the dealings between Sky, Vashti and Britta. And the result had amused her.

No doubt, Britta thought bitterly, the voyage was going to be a series of similar tests. If so, she had just lost the first round. She could only hope that she had not lost her chance of reaching their first port in safety, as well.

2 - The Three Ports

Crow, a hulking, glowering man who looked more like a pirate than a Rosalyn fleet bosun, was waiting by the narrow stairway that led down to the lower deck. Jewel was already standing beside him, intent on being the first to choose a cabin. Shouldering her bundle, Britta went to join them, forcing a smile in response to Jewel’s broad grin. Jewel might be exactly what she seemed, and it was not her fault that Britta had drawn the short straw.

‘Bad luck, little nodnap,’ Jewel muttered, using the annoying nickname she had given Britta on their first meeting. ‘Still, I confess I am relieved. Sky might not have been so bad—she talks little enough, at least—but she is a strange fish. And if I had been forced to share with Vashti I might have been driven to murder by the time the voyage ended.’

With Sky close behind them and Vashti for once trailing at the rear, they followed Crow below. He gestured at the three cabin doors lining the narrow passage at the bottom of the steps. ‘Take your pick,’ he grunted. ‘They’ve all got two bunks.’

He looked down at his hands, pretending to pick at a ragged fingernail, but not before Britta had caught his smirk.

So this is another test, she thought. We are expected to bargain with one another for the best cabin, and no one cares if Jewel and I end up crammed together like pickles in a jar.

She squeezed past Jewel and moved quickly to the third door. ‘We will take this one,’ she called back over her shoulder, throwing the door open.

She was amused to see Crow’s sparse eyebrows shoot up in surprise. With even greater pleasure she caught a glimpse of Vashti glaring from the foot of the steps. So, Vashti had been told that the third cabin in line was by far the largest. That was why she had come down last. Vashti had hoped that Jewel, Britta and Sky would waste time looking into the first two cabins while she slipped along behind them to claim the spacious one for herself.

But thanks to the model of the Star of Deltora in Captain Gripp’s sitting room, Britta knew as much about the ship as Vashti’s parents did. Perhaps she knew more, in fact, since almost certainly they had never seen the cargo and food storage holds, or the places where the crew ate and slept.

Second round to me, Vashti, she thought, surveying her prize through the open door. As she had hoped, the third cabin was just as it was in the model—over twice the size of its neighbours, and fitted with a small table and two seats as well as upper and lower bunks. Over the table was a mirror that reflected bright morning light streaming in through the porthole.

‘Good work, little nodnap!’ cried Jewel, looking over Britta’s head, then glancing into the dim, cramped space that Sky had claimed next door. ‘How in the nine seas did you know?’

‘I just had a feeling,’ Britta said vaguely, moving into the cabin. She had decided to keep the story of Gripp’s model to herself. Her knowledge of the ship had been an advantage once and might be so again—especially if no one else suspected it.

‘Sheets and pillows!’ Jewel crowed, slinging her bundle onto the neatly made lower bunk. ‘By the stars, this is luxury! In Broome we sleep in hammocks at sea. Do you mind taking the upper bunk, Britta? I like to be near the door, and in any case I fear that my weight might test that flimsy little ladder too far.’

‘I do not mind at all,’ Britta said truthfully. She knew that she would feel more private in the top bunk—and safer, too, if Jewel did not trust the ladder.

As they set about stowing their belongings in the drawers below the bottom bunk, it suddenly occurred to her that she might actually be safer sharing with Jewel than she would be in a cabin alone. An enemy would think twice before creeping into a cabin where Jewel was sleeping. And if Jewel herself were the enemy, she would think twice before doing Britta harm in the night, for she would be the obvious suspect.

Watching her companion out of the corner of her eye, Britta was relieved to see her sliding her pouch of spears and the knife from her belt into the narrow gap between the wall and the back of the drawer.

‘I promised Mab I would not go armed on the ship,’ Jewel said, without looking round.

Britta jumped. Did the woman of Broome have eyes in the back of her head?

‘My weapons will be out of the way here,’ Jewel went on calmly. ‘Please tell no one where they are. And do not touch them yourself.’

‘I have no wish to touch them,’ Britta snapped.

‘I meant no insult,’ Jewel said, pushing the drawer shut and sitting back on her heels. ‘It is just—’ She broke off, lifting her head alertly.

‘What is it?’ Britta demanded.

‘We are changing course,’ Jewel said, springing to her feet. ‘Can you not feel it?’

She turned and left the cabin. Britta hurried after her along the passage and up to the main deck.

Sky was already there, leaning on the rail. She looked tense and pale and did not speak or even turn her head when Jewel and Britta joined her.

Small, choppy waves were splashing against the Star’s sides as she turned slowly away from the sun. Flying fish were leaping in the spray like arrows of rainbow light. Looking across the gently heaving deck as the ship straightened, Britta saw the coast of Deltora, a lumpy line far to her right. Her heart turned over.

After a few minutes, Vashti emerged from below and strolled to the group by the rail. She was clearly trying to appear perfectly calm, but her cheeks were flushed, as if she had been running.

‘So we are heading west,’ she said brightly. ‘It is the Silver Sea for us, it seems.’

The Silver Sea … The Silver Sea … Whispers filled Britta’s mind, hissing like foam on a sandy shore.

‘You do not look happy, Jewel,’ Vashti cooed. ‘Are you afraid of the Hungry Isle?’

Jewel made no answer.

‘There is no need to be, I assure you,’ Vashti persisted, with an irritating little laugh. ‘These days, every sighting of the Hungry Isle is reported to the Traders’ Hall in Del. Its course is plotted, so our traders and their captains can predict where it is likely to be at any given time, and can keep well clear of it. It is an excellent system. Perhaps, when you return to Broome, you can tell your people about it.’

‘They know of it already,’ Jewel growled, driven into speech. ‘I do not fear the Hungry Isle. I am simply disappointed because I was hoping for the east, and the Sea of Serpents. I know the islands there. The Silver Sea is a different matter.’

‘A good trader is at home in any port,’ Vashti said. She yawned and turned to look over the rail. ‘But of course,’ she added softly, ‘a poor savage from nowhere could not be expected to understand that.’

She squeaked as Jewel reached her in a single stride and seized her by the throat.

‘Watch your tongue, trader’s daughter, or you will lose it!’ Jewel snarled.

‘Jewel!’ Britta cried in fright, but Jewel took no notice. Towering over the cowering Vashti, she was no longer a genial giant but a wild, terrifying figure.

‘What is this?’ a voice barked. ‘Jewel of Broome, stand back this instant!’

Her face creased with anger, Mab shouldered her way between Britta and Sky and faced Jewel.

‘Stand back!’ Mab ordered again.

Jewel’s smouldering eyes held the old trader’s furious gaze for a long moment, then her hand dropped from Vashti’s throat and she turned away.

‘I will not have brawling on this vessel,’ Mab said coldly. ‘Another incident like that, Jewel, and you will be put off at the next port. Is that understood?’

Jewel pressed her lips together, and nodded. Behind her, Vashti made a great play of rubbing her neck, wincing as if it hurt her.

‘Vashti began it!’ Britta found herself exclaiming. ‘Vashti insulted—’

‘I am not interested in childish excuses!’ snapped Mab. ‘Self-control is the first rule for a good trader. The trader who forgets herself in a foreign port may well find herself in serious trouble—not to mention disgracing her ship and her fleet! I will thank you to remember that, Britta!’

Britta bit her lip, cursing herself for opening her mouth. Now she had become the target of Mab’s anger while Jewel, who was perfectly capable of speaking for herself, had wisely kept silent.

‘Very well,’ said Mab curtly. ‘As you know, we will be visiting three ports on this voyage. Now we are at sea, it is time for you to know what these ports will be so that you can begin making your trading plans.’

She smiled faintly as the four finalists became very still. She knew very well that they had all been waiting impatiently for this moment.

‘As I daresay you have noticed, Captain Hara has set our course due west. All three of our chosen destinations are in the Silver Sea. Our first stop will be Maris.’

Maris! Britta’s heart gave a great thud of relief. She had read a great deal about Maris and heard even more, for it had been one of Captain Gripp’s favourite ports. Quickly she glanced under her eyelashes at the other finalists.

Jewel was shrugging, as if the news was not as bad as it might have been. Plainly she knew something of Maris, even if it was far from her home.

Sky had bent her head and her long hair had swung forward, hiding her face, but Britta could see that her left hand was gripping the rail so hard that the knuckles were white. It seemed that Sky was either very disappointed or very excited.

Vashti was looking smug. Well, of course! A Del trader’s daughter would know everything there was to know about Maris. No doubt Vashti’s parents had been there often—she might even have visited it herself, as part of her training.

Not for the first time, Britta wondered if Vashti had been destined to become Mab’s Apprentice from the first. Perhaps Britta, Sky and Jewel—three outsiders, after all—had been chosen just for show. Perhaps their only purpose was to make it seem that a real contest was being held according to the rules of the Rosalyn Trust.

‘Our second destination,’ Mab went on briskly, ‘is the island of Two Moons.’

Britta’s throat closed. She swallowed hard, trying not to show her shocked dismay. Two Moons was the last port her father was known to have visited on his last, ill-fated voyage.

She clenched her fists. Of all the islands in the Silver Sea, why had Two Moons been chosen for the trial? Was she never to escape her father’s shadow? Was she never to be allowed to forget him?

‘Two Moons!’ Jewel cried, her broad face lighting up. ‘Why, that is where the sorcerer Tier was born—and where sunrise pearls are found!’

Vashti tittered, covering her mouth with her hand. Sky had still not raised her head.

‘You are on this voyage to trade, Jewel, not go chasing rainbows!’ Mab snapped. ‘You will have ten gold coins to spend. That sum would not buy you a glance at a true sunrise pearl. The imitations you will see are merely worthless pink beads.’

By the time Jewel finished protesting that she was perfectly aware of that, Britta had managed to pull herself together. She had forced herself to breathe again. She had made her hands relax.

‘Our third port,’ Mab droned, with the air of finishing off a tiresome duty, ‘will be Illica.’

Maris. Two Moons. Illica …

The air around Britta seemed to shift, as if a freak breeze was eddying around her, then rushing past her and away. For an instant she thought she was going to faint, but the dizziness passed quickly. The next moment she felt lighter and happier than she had for days—as if a heavy cloak had been lifted from her shoulders.

She could not think why. It was certainly not because Mab had announced that the third port would be Illica. All Britta knew about Illica was that it was far away, the most distant island in the Silver Sea.

Healer Kay had moved forward and touched Mab’s arm. The old trader turned to her with a scowl.

‘Illica?’ Jewel muttered in dismay. ‘I have never heard of it! Have you, Britta? Sky?’

Sky did not answer. Her head was still bent. Her hand still gripped the ship’s rail. Even for Sky, Britta thought, the behaviour was strange.

Vashti wrinkled her pretty nose. ‘There is not very much good trading in Illica,’ she said in an undertone. ‘I cannot think why it was chosen—especially in this season.’

‘Really?’ Britta asked innocently, her eye on Mab, who seemed to be finishing her conversation with Kay.

Vashti looked superior, and nodded. ‘Illica is unbearably hot in summer, and the people there are very odd and ignorant. My parents never bother with it these days. It is too far to go for too little gain, my father says.’

‘Opinions differ!’ snapped Trader Mab. As Britta had hoped, she had turned round in time to overhear.

Vashti blushed in confusion, and Britta silently rejoiced to see the perfect finalist caught out for once. She met Jewel’s amused eyes, and winked.

‘The four of you are free to consult the books in the reading room for more information on the three ports,’ Mab said. ‘Books must not be taken from the room, but read at the table provided. After use, they must be returned to the place where they were found. That is all.’

She nodded, turned, and stalked off with the healer, who seemed at last to have persuaded her to go to her cabin and rest. Vashti, still very pink in the face, moved away from her companions and pretended to be studying the horizon.

Jewel glanced slyly at Sky. ‘By the stars, I am hungry!’ she announced. ‘Do you know what I long for? A thick slab of oily white fish on bread fried in pig rat dripping!’

She grinned as Sky abruptly bent over the rail and was violently sick.

‘The open sea is different from the River Broad in Rithmere, it seems,’ Jewel said cheerfully to Britta. ‘Ah—there is nothing worse than seasickness! If only I had known how Sky was feeling, I would never have mentioned oily food in front of her.’

Her grin broadened. ‘Still, looking on the bright side, at least one of us will not be wanting the best books just now.’

With that, she vanished down the stairway to the lower deck, plainly in search of the reading room.

And Britta was left to follow, leaving Sky to her misery and thinking ruefully that Jewel too, it seemed, had to be watched.

3 - The Reading Room

Flitting low over wastes of foam-capped water, visible only to the great sea-going birds soaring above them, the wraiths that had been following Britta returned to the Isle of Tier. They sensed at once that their news was not pleasing. It was only by a great effort of will, in fact, that the King of the island managed to hide from them the fear that stabbed him like a blade as they whispered the names ‘Maris’, ‘Two Moons’ and … ‘Illica’.

The ports are chance only, he told himself, as the wraiths milled anxiously about the cavern walls. They mean nothing!

He summoned up ragged memories. He forced his clouded mind to follow old paths.

Maris and Two Moons were popular trading ports—ideal places for young traders to test their wits against the best. Illica was … a port like no other—a port where only the most cunning of traders would do well.

Mab and the Rosalyn Trust committee had set the Star’s course for those reasons. Britta could have had no say in the choice of destinations. So what did it matter where she landed? She would surely be too intent on trying to win the contest to think of anything else.

Britta! the returned wraiths whispered, images of the girl’s face shimmering among them. Larsett’s daughter! Child of the Staff! She shines like a star. She warms us …

The being on the throne writhed to hear them. He longed to order silence, but instinct told him to tread warily. For the second time, he wondered if it had been a mistake to send the wraiths to find out what he wanted to know. He had not considered that, away from him, they might begin to bond with another who had a tie with their treasure—a tie of name and blood.

Uneasily he shifted on his golden throne. He had not realised that the mystic power of the Staff would stretch so far. He had failed to respect the strength of the sorcerer Tier’s magic.

As he had at the beginning. The thought swam into his mind and circled like a foul, stinging thing, oozing venom. He beat it down. It was too late for regrets. Far too late.

We cannot protect her, we can only watch, but despite her enemies she prospers, the wraiths who had returned were whispering to those who had stayed. Fate is drawing her closer to Tier. Soon the Staff will call her, and she will be with us.

With us … with us … The hissing echoes filled the cavern. Slim shadows swarmed forward, twining around the throne, pressing themselves to the Staff.

‘No!’ the King cried aloud, his control breaking. ‘Leave me in peace! Get back!’

Too late, he saw his error. In a breath, the wraiths so recently returned had vanished. Not sorrowfully this time, but gladly, they were following the order they had chosen to hear. They had left him. They were going back—to Britta.

Britta knew exactly where to find the Star’s reading room. Playing with Captain Gripp’s model of the ship in her childhood, she had always been fascinated by the small space lined with shelves of tiny books, tucked away on the cabin deck. So she was already sitting at the long table, with a heavy volume in front of her, when Jewel threw open the reading room door.

‘Are you a magician, or just lucky, Britta?’ Jewel exclaimed. ‘I have been searching for this place since I last saw you!’

Britta shrugged. ‘I found it quite easily,’ she said, with perfect truth. ‘But I am not having the same luck in finding something useful to read.’

She gestured at the shelves to the right of the door. ‘That is the Silver Sea section. There are books about every island I can think of—except Two Moons and Illica, which were the ones I really wanted.’

She saw Jewel eyeing the book she was reading, and shook her head. ‘This one has short notes on all the islands—maps too—but if the section on Maris is any guide, it will not be very helpful.’

Frowning, Jewel turned and began scanning the shelves. Britta went back to The Islands of the Silver Sea, and began reading the paragraph beneath the map headed ‘Two Moons’.

TWO MOONS is a wealthy island, though little food can be grown there, most of its land being sour swamp. It is a thriving trading port, and it is a common saying that ‘gold is king in Two Moons’. The many stores offer a great array of goods from all over the Silver Sea and beyond, but the island is most famous for its rare pink pearls. ‘Sunrise pearls’, as they are known, are found only in the Two Moons swamplands and are highly prized …

Britta scanned the rest of the text, and sighed. Like the note on Maris, it had told her nothing she did not know already. She turned to the page headed ‘Illica’, glumly telling herself that since she knew nothing at all about the third port, this section would at least provide facts that were new to her.

The map showed a small, round island almost completely ringed by cliffs and underwater rocks. The note below it was very short.

ILLICA is the most remote trading island in the Silver Sea, and is the home of three clans known as ‘The Collectors’. The tower-like castles of these clans are museums of precious objects gathered over the centuries and added to by each new generation. Collectors rarely travel, so welcome foreign traders offering unusual, high-quality goods.

Britta closed the book with the strong feeling that she did not like the sound of Illica. She hated to admit that Vashti was right, but it seemed an odd place for Mab to have chosen as their last stop.

She decided to focus on Maris and Two Moons. There was nothing in the rules of the contest that said she had to trade in all three ports.

In Maris she would use the ten gold coins provided by the Rosalyn Trust to buy goods that were prized in Two Moons. Then, in Two Moons, if all went well, she would trade her Maris purchases for a rare item that would fetch a very high price in Del.

Of course, her rivals were no doubt planning to do the same. It sounded as if Vashti had no intention of trading in Illica, and it was unlikely that Jewel and Sky would risk it either, since information about Illica was so scarce.

Well, Britta told herself, I will just have to think more cleverly than they do—and work harder. She vowed to scour her memory for everything Captain Gripp had ever told her about Maris and Two Moons. She would also search every book on the Silver Sea shelf and note down even the tiniest facts about the two ports. And she would use her secret weapon—her old treasure, A Trader’s Life.

She had brought the tattered book with her not because she thought it would be useful, but because she feared her mother would burn it if she found it. Now she felt that it was more likely to be of help to her than anything she could find in the reading room.

She yawned. ‘I think I will have a nap,’ she said. ‘I had very little sleep last night. Do you want me to leave this book on the table for you?’

Jewel, absorbed in the bookshelves, barely nodded as Britta slipped away.

Alone in the cabin, Britta pulled A Trader’s Life from the drawer beneath the lower bunk. She climbed the ladder to her own bunk, flipped to the page she wanted, and stretched out to read:

My first visit to Maris was a great surprise to me, despite all I had read and heard.

For example, I knew that Maris had no harbour, but faced the open sea, and naturally this worried me. Rough seas, I reasoned, could be disastrous to our schedule, or even prevent our reaching the town at all.

The late Trader Wix, whose assistant I was on this voyage, tried to put my mind at rest. He told me that the weather was always fair for trading ships in Maris. This, he said, was because the Maris leader, who is known as ‘The Keeper’, can control the winds and the tides by the power of a magic Crystal.

Being young and raw at the time, I found this hard to believe, but of course I was soon to discover that it was the simple truth …

Britta read on, reminding herself of all the other things Trader Sven had found surprising in Maris. She smiled over his dealings with the strange, chilly Maris people, and paid more attention than ever to his shrewd advice on good trading in the town. Her confidence rose. A Trader’s Life was old-fashioned, she knew, but she doubted that much had altered in Maris since Sven’s time. The Maris people did not seem to welcome change.

She read that fine fabric woven from the wool of inland beasts called ‘bukshah’ was sometimes on sale in Maris, and would always trade well in cold climates. She read that the Maris people also sold high-quality silk, dried fish, good cheeses, hoopberry wine, tricks, toys and ‘the best honey in the Silver Sea’. Not to mention beautiful objects made of glass and silver, and precious jewellery inlaid with the tiny, rare blue shells called odi.

Sven also mentioned the pickled eggs of a creature called the Kirrian worm, but Britta remembered Captain Gripp telling her that no one but a Maris would eat Kirrian worm eggs, and put them out of her mind.

At length, the familiar words began to blur before her eyes and her need for sleep overcame her. She woke with a start some time later, without knowing what had disturbed her. Her skin was prickling. The cabin seemed wreathed in whispering shadows. The light, happy feeling that had come to her that morning had vanished, and once again a dark cloud seemed to be weighing her down, like the lingering memory of a bad dream.

This is what comes of sleeping in the daytime, Britta told herself irritably. She pushed her book into hiding under her pillow and took herself out on deck, to try to clear her head.

And, softly murmuring her name, the returned wraiths followed her, unseen.

Before too long, the Star of Deltora had passed from the Ocean of the South into the Silver Sea, and soon the west coast of Deltora was just a faint smudge on the horizon. Huge, glittering sea serpents began following the ship, and transparent, eel-like fish the crew called ‘bird banes’ became common sights, shooting up from the waves and snatching unwary seabirds out of the air.

On the third day, Sky reappeared on deck, thinner and more silent than ever, but no longer ghastly pale. Her seasickness seemed to have left her. Vashti was the only one to mention it, asking Sky often how she felt, and warning in sympathetic tones that there was bound to be rougher weather later in the voyage.

For Britta, life on board the Star fell into a routine of sleeping, waking, eating dull food, taking exercise on deck, working on her trading plan and gathering what scraps of information she could from the books in the reading room. Mab was rarely seen except at meals. Vashti took every chance she could get to needle her companions, her blue eyes wide, her sweet smile never wavering. The weather remained favourable. The days slipped by like beads on a necklace, every day just like the last, as the first week gave way to the second.

And then, the evening before their expected arrival in Maris, something happened. Britta was alone in the reading room, about to pack up for the day. The gong announcing dinner had already sounded, and it did not do to be late. She tried to return the book she had been reading to the top shelf, and found that it would not slide easily into place. Something was blocking it. Sighing in irritation, Britta took a chair from beside the table and stood on it, groping in the back of the shelf.

Sure enough, there was a small, thick volume lying there, wedged into the corner nearest the door. No doubt it had at first been standing upright, hidden behind the other books, but now it had fallen flat.

Britta drew it out. It looked very old. It was covered in dusty blue-green velvet, slightly rubbed but still beautifully decorated in faded gold. Its title was Cladda’s Mysteries of the Silver Sea.

Britta’s heart began to beat very fast, she was not sure why. Her fingers trembled as she turned to the Contents page. The Isle of the Four Sisters, she read, The Heart of Gold … The Crystal of Maris … The Sunrise Pearls of Two Moons … Tier—the ‘Hungry Isle’ …

Her eyes blurred. Quickly she snapped the book shut, and as she did the edge of a flimsy slip of paper that had been pressed between the back cover and the last page slid into view. Britta pulled the paper out. It was a trader’s receipt.

The reading room door slammed open, crashing against the edge of the chair Britta was standing on and nearly making her lose her balance. She grabbed the top of the bookshelf for support.

‘Ho, Britta!’ Jewel bawled, leaning through the doorway. ‘Are you not coming to—?’ She broke off, seeing the room apparently empty.

‘I am here!’ Britta said, hastily stuffing the receipt into her pocket and pushing the Mysteries book out of sight behind the others on the top shelf.

She jumped down from the chair, emerged from behind the door and hastily joined Jewel, who laughed at her all the way to the dining room.

All through dinner, Britta thought of the book. She longed to retrieve it, but knew that if she wanted to read it in private she would have to wait until Jewel, Sky and Vashti were asleep.

With difficulty, she made herself keep away from the reading room all evening. The hours passed more slowly than any she could remember since the voyage began. In a fever of impatience she strolled on the deck, sat at the writing table in the cabin and chatted with Jewel as they prepared for bed.

But at last all was dark, and the only sounds were the soft creaking of the ship and the lapping of the water against the hull. Lying in her bunk, her cloak in a bundle beside her, Britta waited. Her mind wandered. She drowsed. Then she stirred, sat up and pulled the cloak around her shoulders.

The curtains had been drawn over the porthole as usual, and the cabin was very dark. Slowly, feeling her way, Britta climbed down the ladder, stole past Jewel’s bunk and let herself out into the passage. After that, it was only moments before she was turning the knob of the reading room door.

Silently closing the door behind her, she felt for the chair she had used to reach the top bookshelf. It was just where she had left it. Gingerly she crawled up on the seat, and stood. She felt the spines of the books packed together on the top shelf. She lifted the first three away, and felt with her other hand for the book she had hidden in the corner behind them.

Her groping fingers touched nothing but bare, dusty shelf. Cladda’s Mysteries of the Silver Sea was gone.

4 - Maris

Britta spent a feverish ten minutes feeling behind all the books on the Silver Sea shelf before giving up the search. Someone had found Cladda’s Mysteries and taken it. She cursed herself for leaving the chair behind the door. It had made someone curious. She might as well have left a blazing arrow pointing to the top shelf!

But who was the culprit—Vashti, Sky or Jewel? She knew they had all spent some time in the reading room that evening while she was pacing the deck, waiting for the hours to pass. One of them had the book—the book that must contain very valuable information, since her father had been willing to pay so much for it.

Crossly she crept back to the cabin and climbed into her bunk. Lying there, listening to the creaking of the ship and Jewel’s even breathing, she slowly began to feel better. What did the book matter after all? From what she had read on the Contents page, it lived up to its name. It dealt with mysterious legends, not with facts a trader needed to know.

She had her trading plan. Tomorrow she would begin to carry it out. The book would have been a distraction, and it was just as well that it had gone. The thief, whoever she was, was welcome to it. And may it bring her ill fortune, Britta thought grimly. She turned over, and willed herself to sleep.

The next day, just before noon, a thin, dark line became visible across the vast expanse of shining water.

‘Maris!’ carolled Jewel. ‘May the stars favour us, little nodnap!’

‘Indeed!’ Britta agreed fervently, and at that moment she really did wish Jewel good fortune—as long as her own luck was even better.

Sky, leaning lazily on the rail nearby, said nothing. The breeze tossed her waist-length hair, fluttered the bright scarf knotted at her throat and tugged at the fabric of her loose tunic and trousers. Otherwise, nothing about her moved except two of her fingers absently playing with one of the little ornaments tied to the braids that dangled on either side of her face.

If Sky felt nervous or excited at the sight of their first trading port, she was hiding it well. And Vashti had not even bothered to come on deck.

Two hours later, they were so close to Maris that across the choppy waves they could see pebbled streets and low, rounded buildings behind the long strip of beach. Slim figures in hooded cloaks of blue, green and silver stood in small groups on the sand. A few raised their arms to the approaching ship, but most simply watched.

‘Not exactly a warm welcome,’ Jewel commented.

Vashti, who had made her appearance only moments before, smiled sweetly. ‘You would not know, Jewel, of course,’ she purred, ‘but experienced traders do not expect warmth from the Maris folk. They are not like us. It takes a long time to get to know them.’

She sighed and gave a little yawn, as if to show that for her this arrival was a routine matter. ‘We will drop anchor in line with that offshore island,’ she trilled on, pointing to a small, thickly forested hump of land jutting from the water not far from shore. ‘Then we will be rowed to the beach in the landing boat. That is how it is always done here.’

None of the other finalists answered. Sky was staring in fascination at the little island. Jewel was frowning towards the town. And Britta—Britta was struggling to remain expressionless as a strange feeling crept over her, growing stronger by the moment.

Shadows had begun flickering before her eyes again. Her skin was warming and tingling. It was as if invisible bodies were pressing closely around her, as if invisible fingers were brushing her hands, her face, her neck. She shivered, and heard Vashti give a tinkling laugh.

‘Poor Britta is very nervous,’ Vashti cooed to Sky, loudly enough for Britta to hear. ‘She is shaking in her boots! I am not surprised. The Maris are cunning, and expert traders. She will need more than luck to do well here.’

Do not react, Britta ordered herself fiercely. You should be used to Vashti’s needling by now. She gripped the rail, pretending she had not heard, and found with relief that her irritation had broken her strange mood. Her vision had abruptly cleared, and the close, prickling feeling had gone. Vashti had done her a favour without knowing it.

‘It seems you are nervous too, Sky of Rithmere,’ Vashti went on smoothly. ‘Why do you stare so at the little island? There is no trading to be done there.’

‘The island interests me,’ Britta heard Sky answer shortly. ‘I would like to see it more closely.’

There was the tiniest pause, then:

‘Well, why not?’ Vashti murmured, lowering her voice so that Britta had to strain to make out the words. ‘We will be in Maris for three whole days. You could easily slip away for a time without being noticed. The island is not far from shore, and you claim to be able to swim like a fish.’

‘Indeed,’ Sky said thoughtfully. ‘It is a tempting idea.’

Britta stiffened. ‘Sky, no!’ she exclaimed, swinging round impulsively. ‘The little island is forbidden to all but the Keeper of Maris, and if you set foot on it the Keeper will know. He feels everything that happens in these waters. Vashti is trying to get you into trouble!’

Vashti’s eyes flashed with baffled anger, then she gave her silvery laugh again. ‘Oh, Britta, how stern and serious you are!’ she cried. ‘Do you not know a joke when you hear it?’

‘Yes,’ said Britta evenly. ‘And you were not joking.’

‘Of course I was!’ Vashti retorted. ‘And I should tell you, Britta, for your own good, that ladies do not eavesdrop on private conversations!’

She tossed her head and flounced away to stand by the rail on the other side of the ship.

‘Thank you for your concern,’ Sky drawled, turning to stare at Britta, ‘but my ignorance is not so great as you and Vashti plainly think it is. I know perfectly well that to set foot on that island would end my promising career before it has begun.’

Britta felt her face grow hot. ‘But I thought—’

‘It suited me to let Vashti think I was taken in,’ Sky said. ‘At the very least, she would have been confused when I came to no harm. But that little plan has come to nothing, thanks to you.’

‘Oh!’ By now Britta’s cheeks were burning. She felt angry and foolish in equal measure. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, with all the dignity she could muster. ‘I was only trying to help.’

She thought for an instant that Sky’s dark eyes had softened, but then it was as if a shutter had fallen over the lean face, leaving it blank and expressionless.

‘I can look after myself,’ Sky muttered, looking away. ‘Keep your nose out of my affairs in future!’

‘Do not worry!’ Britta snapped. ‘From now on, I would rather jump overboard than lift a finger to help …’

The words died in her throat as she heard shouts ringing out around her, and suddenly became aware that something very strange was happening.

The brisk wind had ceased as abruptly as if a door had slammed, shutting it out. The choppy sea had smoothed and calmed till not a single white fleck marred its surface, and nothing stirred in the depths below.

With no wind or tide to drive her, the Star of Deltora slowed and finally could move no more. In minutes she was floating motionless on what looked like a vast sheet of blue-green glass, her sails sagging on her masts like limp white curtains.

It was utterly still. Even the seabirds had fallen silent. The only sounds were the creaking of the ship’s timbers and the shocked curses of the crew.

‘Sorcery!’ Jewel hissed, backing away from the rail.

Britta swallowed. The creeping, prickling feeling that had oppressed her before had returned. She shook her head, determined not to give way to it.

‘The Keeper has halted us,’ she managed to say. ‘He does not want us to come any closer.’

‘But why?’ Jewel exclaimed. ‘Vashti said it was usual for ships to drop anchor in line with the off-shore island, and that is still quite a way ahead!’

Stiffly Britta turned her head and looked towards the shore. Waves no longer crashed and foamed on the long strip of sand, which was now completely deserted. Blue, green and silver glinted in the spaces between the buildings of the town beyond. The colours were massed together as if the streets were crowded with people standing perfectly still, shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting.

‘Something is wrong,’ she said.

She knew it was true. She knew it by the empty beach, by the stillness of the people in the town. She knew it by the frightened curses of the crew, who had plainly never seen a ship stopped in this way before. And she knew it by the sight of Mab, who was standing rigidly at the prow with Captain Hara, her hands on her hips, her red hair flaming in the sunlight, her whole body radiating anger.

‘Wrong? But what in the nine seas could be wrong?’ Jewel demanded.

‘I think we are about to find out,’ Sky murmured. She was gazing at the limpid stretch of sea between the Star of Deltora and the shore.

Britta followed Sky’s eyes, and her stomach turned over. A small boat was approaching, gliding smoothly over the glassy water. The craft’s white hull looked as frail as a shell. No sail hung from the slender mast, and there were no oars in sight. Yet the boat moved—moved steadily towards the Star of Deltora—leaving no ripples behind to show its path. In it stood a slim figure wearing a tightly hooded blue cloak made of some shining fabric Britta did not recognise.

Sky began to edge towards Mab and Captain Hara. Britta and Jewel quickly followed. Hara glanced at them and frowned, but the old trader did not turn. Either she did not hear their approach or she did not care what they did. She waited in silence as the Maris craft drew closer, never taking her eyes from the strange being standing so upright by the mast.

Only when the craft stopped a little way from the ship did her mellow voice ring out, loud in the unnatural silence.

‘Greetings, Perlain of the clan Pandellis! What is the meaning of this?’

Craning her neck around Sky, Britta caught her breath as she saw the Maris man clearly. Beneath his cloak he was clothed from head to foot in tight garments of shining blue. His skin was glistening blue-grey, his eyes were pale, flat and empty of expression. The fingers that grasped the mast were webbed.

‘Greetings, Mab, the Trader Rosalyn,’ the being replied, with a slight bow. ‘Greetings, Captain Hara! The people of Maris regret the inconvenience, but sadly we cannot welcome you to our shores at present. We must ask you to leave us.’

‘Leave?’ roared Captain Hara. ‘What madness is—?’

He broke off as Mab laid a warning hand on his sleeve.

‘There has always been goodwill between Maris and the Rosalyn fleet, Perlain,’ Mab said calmly. ‘For centuries our friendship has profited us both. I would be sorry to think that the situation had changed.’

‘It has not changed,’ the Maris man said, with equal calm. ‘But on this occasion we regret that we cannot accept your visit. That is our right, as I am sure you will agree.’

‘Of course,’ Mab replied. ‘But as I am sure you will agree, Perlain, our long friendship gives us the right to ask for an explanation.’

Perlain hesitated. His webbed hand tightened briefly on the mast.

‘Is there plague in the town?’ Captain Hara asked suddenly. ‘By the heavens, if that is so—’

‘There is no plague in Maris,’ Perlain broke in. And something about the way he said it sent a shiver down Britta’s spine. Surely there had been a very slight emphasis on the last word. There is no plague in Maris. In Maris.

Mab had not missed the hint. Her whole body stiffened. ‘Do I gather that the Keeper feels the seeds of plague aboard the Star of Deltora?’ she asked quietly. ‘If so, he is mistaken. We have sailed directly from Del. If plague were aboard it would have shown itself by now, and there has been no sign of it.’

Again the Maris man hesitated. Britta heard Jewel curse under her breath, felt her own heart beating fast and hard.

‘This is no time to be discreet, Perlain,’ Mab persisted, her voice hardening. ‘Maris was chosen as the first port of call on a voyage that is of great importance to the Rosalyn fleet. The Keeper has insulted us by halting our ship and refusing to offer welcome. If you wish our friendship to remain unbroken, you must tell me why.’

‘And if you fear the truth will cause panic aboard this vessel, you can put that out of your mind, man of Maris,’ Hara growled. ‘Any member of my crew who attempts to land without permission will die at my hand—I give you my oath on that.’

Perlain bent his head briefly and then looked up, straight at Mab. His long, lipless mouth opened.

‘I will be plain, since you wish it,’ he said. ‘The Keeper senses a fearful presence on your ship, Trader Rosalyn. Someone aboard is wreathed in shadows. The evil may be illness of the body or mind. It may be … something worse. But whatever it is, the odour of death is at its heart, and we do not want it here.’

5 - The Warning

Captain Hara made a sudden movement, quickly controlled. Mab did not look at him. Nor did she glance behind her at Britta, Jewel and Sky, who had all gasped. She kept her eyes on the Maris man’s face. Her back was very straight, her shoulders squared.

‘With the greatest respect, I assure you that the Keeper is mistaken,’ she said evenly. ‘If there was a soul aboard the Star of Deltora who could or would harm your people, Captain Hara and I would know it. I ask you to trust our judgement and allow us to land.’

Perlain hesitated. His eyes closed. Plainly he was listening to something no one else could hear. Then his eyes opened, and slowly he spoke.

‘I am sorry, but there is nothing to be done. The Keeper cannot tell what the dread presence on your vessel is, or who is harbouring it, but he knows it exists. He feels it, by the power of the Crystal. Any other ship containing such a shadow would have been destroyed the moment it entered Maris waters. The bonds of long friendship alone have spared the Star of Deltora … for now.’

The threat was unmistakable. Perlain closed his lips and waited.

‘I see,’ Mab said, her voice as firm and steady as ever. ‘Then we have no choice but to sail on to our next port, as soon as the Keeper sees fit to release us. We ask only that you fill our empty water barrels before we depart, for the usual fee.’

‘New barrels are being filled at this moment,’ Perlain said, glancing over his shoulder towards the town. ‘They will be sent to you very soon, and are offered with our compliments.’

Without waiting for an answer, he gave another slight bow. ‘Thank you for your understanding, Trader Rosalyn. I bid you farewell and wish you fair winds. I hope to see you again, at a better time.’

‘I hope the same,’ said Mab, and watched without a tremor as the shell-like craft turned and began silently gliding back towards the shore.

Hara snorted. ‘New barrels, indeed!’ he muttered wrathfully. ‘With their compliments! That would be the first time those slippery scoundrels have ever given us anything free!’

‘They want nothing from this ship to touch the shore,’ Mab said. ‘They fear infection … in any form.’

She swung round and fixed Britta, Sky and Jewel with eyes as hard as stone. ‘Vashti!’ she called sharply, without turning her head. ‘Come here, if you please! I have something to say, and I do not wish to have to repeat myself.’

Vashti emerged from behind some empty water barrels on the other side of the ship and crossed the deck, smoothing her hair. Her face was red, she was breathing hard, and her eyes were shining with angry tears.

‘I cannot believe we are forbidden to trade at our first port because of some—some foolish imagining of the Keeper!’ she burst out. ‘How do the Maris dare to refuse entry to a Rosalyn ship on such grounds?’

‘This is their territory,’ Mab said coldly. ‘They have a perfect right to refuse our visit—on any grounds.’

‘But—’ Vashti clenched her fists. For once she was finding it difficult to control herself. ‘My trading plan—’

‘Will have to be altered,’ Mab cut in. ‘A good trader is flexible, Vashti! Now, listen to me, all of you! If I had known what Perlain had to say to me, I would have ordered you all out of earshot. As it is, you overheard our conversation. That cannot be undone, but it is vital that you do not chatter of what you know. You must keep it to yourselves.’

She paused, pressing her lips together as if it was too much of an effort to go on. Her face was gaunt. Her skin seemed stretched too tightly over her bones, and was grey beneath the rouge that stained her cheeks. Captain Hara moved a little closer to her and slid his hand under her elbow, but she twitched impatiently away from him, lifted her chin and went on.

‘I need not tell you, I am sure, that there is no danger on this vessel. You are all rational beings and must see that any evil aboard would have shown itself by now. But sailors as a breed are superstitious, and because the men on this voyage are all new to the Star of Deltora, they are more likely to be unsettled by wild tales than our regular crew would be. The men are to know only what Captain Hara sees fit to tell them. Is that understood?’

She scanned the faces of the four standing before her, and went on only after receiving four nods.

‘Good,’ she said, in a slightly milder voice. ‘It will be hard enough as it is for Hara to explain why we are not landing. The men have been looking forward to shore leave in Maris.’

‘They have indeed,’ Hara muttered. ‘And I must tell you that I do not like our chances of keeping this business quiet, Mab. It would be a miracle if at least some of what Perlain said was not overheard, and word will soon spread. You know what ships are.’

He scowled, gesturing at the shore. ‘And look there! That alone will set tongues wagging. What better sign could the Keeper give that this ship is not to be touched by Maris hands?’

Britta looked at the beach and her stomach tightened. Perlain’s boat was drawn up on the sand. Beside it, cloaked figures were rolling barrels into the still water. The barrels already afloat were drifting steadily towards the ship in a long, straight line. The sight was eerie.

Hara scrubbed at his beard in frustration. ‘It will be tedious work, retrieving those barrels from the sea. We will be stranded here for some time yet. But that is my affair. You have done your part, Mab. Go below and rest while you can.’

‘Do not fuss, Hara, curse you!’ Mab barked. ‘I get enough of that from Kay!’

Hara said nothing, and after a moment the old woman sighed and shook her head. ‘I daresay you are right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I will do as you say.’

Scowling, she turned back to the watching finalists. ‘You people can go below as well. You will be in the way here, and you all have work to do. You must make new plans based on a first trade at Two Moons.’

In silence the four tramped to the stern and crowded down the little staircase to the lower deck. Vashti stormed into her cabin and slammed the door. Hands in pockets, Sky sauntered on along the passage, no doubt making for the reading room. Left alone, Jewel and Britta glanced at each other, then without a word moved into their cabin and sat down with the little writing table between them.

‘So,’ Jewel said quietly, ‘we load the Maris water and sail on. Hara tries to make the crew believe some fairy tale, we keep silent, and no one says a word about the most important question.’

‘What question?’ Britta felt so flat, and at the same time so uneasy, that she was finding it hard to think clearly. All her plans had been overturned. Her mind had been focused on Maris, on trading well in Maris, and now Maris had been denied her.

Jewel gave a snort of laughter that carried no trace of humour. ‘Wake up, little nodnap! The question of what the Keeper sensed! A fearful presence aboard this ship—a presence with death at its heart!’

‘Mab does not believe in it,’ Britta said. But as she spoke, she shivered, for in her heart she knew her words were not true. Mab, and Hara too, had been shaken by Perlain’s message. Their iron control had not been able to disguise the fact that they were feeling far more than simple anger at being turned away from Maris. That meant that they did believe the Keeper’s claim—in part, at least—though they were pretending otherwise to avoid panic on the ship.

‘It is dangerous to ignore such a warning,’ Jewel muttered. ‘If there is evil aboard, we should seek it out and destroy it.’ Sweat was beading her brow. Her right hand was pressed to her shining metal armband as if it were a talisman.

The dim walls of the cabin seemed to press in on Britta, press in on her till she could hardly breathe. Fearful whispers echoed in her mind. For an instant she was certain that she was feeling what the Keeper of Maris had felt, and dread brushed her with icy fingers.

With a great effort, she calmed herself. Do not be absurd, she told herself sternly. You are safe in your own cabin! You are imagining things, like a child who fears monsters under the bed!’

‘We have been at sea for almost a fortnight,’ she said aloud, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘Whatever the Keeper senses, it has not harmed us yet.’

‘It may be waiting its time,’ Jewel answered soberly. ‘If it is here it is here for a reason, and that reason cannot be good. We are trapped in this cursed ship with something we cannot see, Britta. And it is a long way to Two Moons.’

The moment the last water barrel had been hauled on board, a strong wind filled the Star’s sails and sped her away from Maris. None of the finalists appeared on deck to catch a last glimpse of the forbidden shore. Nor did Mab or Healer Kay. The crew worked sullenly, without looking back. Only Captain Hara stood watching the thin line of land fade into the distance. His bearded face was troubled, but he shared his thoughts with no one.

That night, Britta could not sleep. Her mind was filled with memories of what had happened in Maris, of the things that Jewel had said. She kept thinking, too, of her ruined trading plan. There would be no silk, wine or cheese to trade in Two Moons now. All her work since leaving Del was wasted.

At last she decided she could lie in her bunk no longer. She crawled onto the ladder and climbed down. Jewel was a dark, silent shape in the lower bunk. Taking care to make no sound, Britta threw her cloak over her nightgown, let herself out of the cabin and padded barefoot to the reading room. There, at least, she thought, she could light a lantern and find a book that would lull her to sleep.

She had shut the reading room door behind her, and was feeling her way towards the wall where the lantern always hung, when she heard a small sound in the passage outside.

Terror seized her. The Maris man’s words echoed in her mind.

Someone aboard is wreathed in shadows. The evil may be illness of the body or mind. It may be … something worse …

Britta clenched her teeth, balled her hands into fists. It was ridiculous to fear a sound on the Star of Deltora at night! It was absurd to think that danger roamed this beautiful ship!

And yet as she heard the sound of the reading room doorknob turning, she did not hesitate. In a single movement she wrapped her cloak around her and crouched down behind the table.

She heard the door creak open. She heard someone step, soft-footed, into the dark room. She heard a soft, sliding sound and a tiny thud. And then the door was closing again, and she knew she was alone once more.

Britta let out her breath and drew fresh air into her lungs. Shakily she stood up, feeling ashamed of herself. There had been nothing at all to fear. The intruder had been simply returning a book to the shelves—returning it by night because it was forbidden to remove volumes from the reading room, and whoever it was had broken the rules.

Hard on the heels of that thought came another.

Taking her time, Britta lit the lantern. Quietly she moved a chair to the shelves beside the door. She climbed onto the seat of the chair, took the first three books from the top shelf, and groped in the space behind them.

Her fingers touched something soft, square and thick. She drew it out.

The gold decorations winked at her in the lantern light. The title shone against the blue-green velvet. Cladda’s Mysteries of the Silver Sea.

6 - Undercurrents

Her heart beating hard, Britta climbed from the chair and sat down at the table. She held the book loosely between her hands, then let it fall open. And there before her lay the pages that she was sure the person who had taken the book had read many times. She stared at the chapter heading at the top of the left hand page.

THE SUNRISE PEARLS OF TWO MOONS

So, despite what Mab had said, someone had been reading about sunrise pearls! Was it Jewel, or Sky? It must have been one of them. Vashti was not tall enough to reach the top shelf without standing on a chair.

Well, whoever it was plainly thought that the chapter was worth studying—and in secret, too. It would be as well to know why. Eagerly, Britta began to read.

Sunrise pearls, rare pink pearls of great beauty, are one of the many mysteries of the Two Moons swamplands. They are harvested only by the swamp dwellers, whose territory is forbidden to outsiders.

The pearls’ exact location is a closely guarded secret. This writer has heard rumours that they are to be found in patches of a dangerous type of swamp mud, pale in colour and with the ability to drag a fully grown man down to his death in less than a minute. If this tale is true, it explains why the pearls are so rare, for harvesting them must be perilous. Even the common swamp mud is treacherous.

Many swamp dwellers believe that sunrise pearls are a legacy of the fabled turtle man Tier, who worked magic in the Two Moons swamplands before being set upon by fearful neighbours and cast into the sea. According to legend, Tier survived his ordeal and at last used mud from his native land to create from bare rock the isle that bears his name. He then transformed a handful of sand into a wondrous Staff which gave his island the power to move and feed. (see Tier—the ‘Hungry Isle’)

Britta caught her breath. The lantern light flickered crazily. Shadows danced across the pages of the book. She shut her eyes, scolding herself for her weakness. She knew the story of Tier perfectly well. Most people knew it. She had to learn not to react so violently every time a mention of the magic Staff or the Hungry Isle took her by surprise.

Opening her eyes again, she forced herself to read on.

A tribe that reverences the sorcerer Tier exists in the deepest part of the Two Moons swamplands to this day. The symbol of the tribe is a turtle, and its leader is said to be heir to Tier’s magic.

The ‘turtle people’, as they are known, are the chief suppliers of sunrise pearls to the traders of Two Moons. They are feared by other swamp dwellers, who believe that they use Tier’s sorcery to collect the pearls safely.

Few who enter the turtle people’s territory ever return, and those who do never speak of what they have seen. Even the pirate Bar-Enoch, who is said to have spent several days in the depths of the swamp, did not boast of his time there.

According to his crew, Bar-Enoch went into the swamplands alone, with precious goods to trade, and returned mud-stained and apparently empty-handed. It is worth noting, however, that from Two Moons Bar-Enoch sailed directly to the Hungry Isle, where he claimed the Staff of Tier for himself. It seems likely that the turtle people gave him secret knowledge that allowed him to take the Staff from its creator’s dead hand without being struck down by the famous curse.

Britta felt sick. This was something she had never heard or read before. Was this why her father had paid such a high price for the book? Because it told of Bar-Enoch’s visit to Two Moons, and guessed at the reason?

Certainly, Larsett had followed in the pirate’s footsteps. He had also visited Two Moons shortly before becoming the new Master of the Staff of Tier.

Britta snapped the book shut, forcing away the unwelcome thoughts and feelings it had roused in her. Keeping her mind blank, she jumped up, darted to the shelves and thrust the book back into its hiding place, telling herself to forget she had ever seen it.

The long days that followed as the ship forged south, on course for Two Moons, were very different from those that had gone before.

On the surface, little had changed. Good weather and fair winds continued to bless them. Flying fish still jumped in the spangled waves. Now and then a sea serpent seeking easy prey would follow the ship for a time before giving up and vanishing into the depths. Salted meat and pickled greens appeared on the dinner table all too often. Mab and Captain Hara ordered no search, and behaved exactly as they had before. And despite Jewel’s fears, day succeeded day with no sign of the shadow sensed by the Keeper.

Yet below the surface, all was not well. Dark undercurrents were pulling the mood of the ship down, growing stronger with every sunset.

The crew was increasingly restless. As Hara had feared, his efforts to make little of the failed landing in Maris had not been successful. Those men who had seen Perlain arrive had done their utmost to catch at least a few of his words. What they had not heard for themselves, they guessed, and the tale that the Star of Deltora was cursed had quickly spread.

Bosun Crow suddenly recalled hearing that Zoolah, Senior Managing Officer of the Rosalyn Trust, had died suddenly the night before the ship sailed. His story fanned the flames of rumour. The death of a middle-aged woman with a weak heart would have meant nothing to the crew before, but now it was seen as a dread warning.

Rumours swelled and multiplied, fuelled by fear. Those who knew the history of the Star of Deltora wasted no time in whispering the gruesome details of her first, ill-fated voyage to those who did not.

Soon everyone from Grubb the ship’s cook to Davvie the cabin boy knew that the Star had been built for Dare Larsett, the famous Del trader who had become the sorcerer king of the dreaded Hungry Isle. They knew that Larsett had used his ship to find the fabled Staff of Tier and carry it back to the haunted place where it had been created, and where it would be most powerful. They knew that the Star of Deltora had later been found drifting in the Silver Sea, her crew slaughtered and the skeleton of Zoolah’s brother, the gallant Captain Mikah, tied to the wheel.

All this made a mixture powerful enough to convince every seaman aboard that the Star of Deltora was at best unlucky, and at worst haunted by the vengeful dead. The fact that for eight years the ship had sailed safely under the flag of the Rosalyn fleet, and had never been forbidden a landing in Maris before, made no difference.

It was torment for Britta to overhear the furtive mutterings that had now replaced songs, rough jokes and raucous laughter when the crew worked on deck. She had her own reasons for wanting to forget Zoolah’s wretched death. And every mention of her father caused a pang of guilt that, try as she might, she could not ignore.

I am not my father! she told herself, as she had told herself so often before. I am not responsible for what my father did!

But in her heart she knew that it was not so easy. If Zoolah had lived long enough to tell Mab who Britta really was, Britta would have been disgraced and left behind in Del. If the troubled crewmen were to discover that their ship was carrying the daughter of Dare Larsett, they would very likely mutiny, and throw her into the sea.

But they do not know it, Britta told herself, lying sleepless in her cabin while Jewel snored softly in the bunk below. They need never know it. I must not let their talk upset me. I must forget I am anything but what Captain Gripp said I was. I must forget Zoolah, forget my father, my mother, my sister. I must forget everything but that I am Britta, a poor orphan, Gripp’s distant relation—and a finalist in the contest to become Apprentice to the Trader Rosalyn!

She did her best. She shut her ears to the whispers she overheard on deck. She lost herself in work on her new trading plan. She did not react when Captain Hara gloomed over his dinner, murmuring to Mab of the latest rumour he had tried and failed to suppress.

The men went about their work sulky, fearful and muttering. They jumped at shadows, bickered with one another, neglected their duties and made mistakes. Accidents became common, and every accident, from burned rice in the galley to an arm broken by a carelessly tied water barrel, was taken to be proof of the curse.

Captain Hara tried to quell the rising discontent by sharp orders and at last by threatening to throw the worst of the troublemakers into the lockup. But still the muttering, brawling and mishaps continued.

‘It was a mistake to sign on a gang of strangers instead of keeping to our usual crew,’ Britta heard Hara growl to Mab at dinner one night. ‘I will be surprised if half of them do not jump ship at Two Moons.’

Mab looked up from her plate. ‘Offer them double pay,’ she said crisply.

‘Double … ?’ Hara raised his eyebrows. ‘By the heavens, Mab, have you any idea how much—?’

‘I can multiply by two as well as you can, Hara!’ Mab interrupted. ‘Tell the crew that I have offered double pay to every man who is still with the ship on its return to Del. Greed goes a long way towards conquering fear—especially fear that is based only on foolish whispers in the dark.’

The next morning Hara did as she asked, and after that the crew became less troublesome, though the brooding atmosphere remained.

The finalists, too, were not as relaxed as they had been during the first leg of the voyage. The events in Maris waters had left their mark. Troubled as she was, Britta was well aware that she was not the only one whose mood had changed.

Now that the contest had shrunk to two trades on islands about which they knew little, all the finalists had become more secretive. Britta was still angry with Sky. Sky behaved as if Britta did not exist. Jewel was unnaturally silent and watchful. Vashti, her sweet smile firmly back in place, took every opportunity to upset them all.

Between meals, the candidates spent their time alone. Vashti kept to her cabin. Britta haunted the reading room. Jewel and Sky spent hours on deck, Jewel pacing the rail like a caged beast, Sky sitting cross-legged in the sun practising tricks with a battered deck of cards.

Jewel and Britta still talked a little when they were alone in their cabin at night, but their conversations were more awkward than before. This was because they could not speak of the two things that were uppermost in both their minds—Two Moons and the Keeper’s warning.

Neither cared to mention Two Moons, in case she let slip some useful detail her companion did not know, and so lose an advantage. And Jewel refused point blank to discuss the warning.

At dinner, the night after leaving Maris, Jewel had bluntly asked Mab what plans had been made to unmask whoever was harbouring the evil felt by the Keeper. The sharp snub she had received had silenced her, and from that moment she had kept her thoughts on the matter to herself, even when Mab was not present. The others assumed, perhaps, that her fears had subsided. Only Britta, who climbed past Jewel into the top bunk every night, knew that her cabinmate now slept with her knife by her side.

7 - Two Moons

The weather warmed as they moved steadily south. Sea serpents became rare. Great schools of small golden fish, spotted and striped with black and equipped with needle teeth, surged up from the deep to fight over the scraps thrown overboard by the cooks. Huge turtles basked on the white shores of tiny, deserted islands.

The sun gained strength. The ship began to smell of warm tar, harsh soap and sweat. Mab stalked the deck in flapping cotton trousers and a loose, lavishly embroidered tunic of scarlet silk. Healer Kay appeared in a long, tent-like garment striped in purple and silver. Jewel and Sky discarded their boots and went barefoot.

After a few days of stifling discomfort, Britta thrust aside visions of her mother’s horror and left off her flannel petticoat. The next morning she unfastened the two top buttons of her tight white shirt and rolled up her sleeves to the elbow. And the following day, wrestling with hairpins in the stuffy cabin, she lost patience and simply tied her hair back in a bunch with the scrap of red ribbon she used as a bookmark in A Trader’s Life.

‘Oh, Britta, have you lost all your hairpins?’ cooed Vashti at breakfast that morning. ‘What a pity you did not bring spares, as I did!’

Britta merely smiled. She felt so comfortable that she was wondering why she had not abandoned the tight knot at the nape of her neck before. Vashti, of course, had not loosened a single button of her shirt, despite the heat, and her hair was as rigidly confined as ever.

Finding that taunting Britta was of no use, Vashti chose another target.

‘Only think, in three days we will reach Two Moons, safe and sound!’ she said, with a sideways glance at Jewel, who was wolfing down rice sweetened with dried fruit. ‘Some people feared we would never survive the voyage. But then, ignorant folk panic so easily.’

Britta held her breath, but Jewel refused to rise to the bait. She went on chewing stolidly without even looking up.

‘I would change my tactics if I were you, Vashti,’ drawled Sky, speaking for the first time since entering the room. ‘We all know your little game by now.’

Vashti blinked, and widened her blue eyes. ‘What can you mean, Sky of Rithmere?’

Sky’s face split into a mocking grin, her teeth gleaming very white against her olive skin. She pushed back her chair, stood up and swung out of the dining room, the little ornaments tied to her braids jingling merrily.

Vashti forced a silvery laugh. ‘That girl is so odd!’ she murmured. ‘But I suppose we have to make allowances for her. Poor, plain creature, she is sadly out of her depth among us, and naturally she is jealous.’

Jewel scraped her plate clean, swallowed her last mouthful of rice and threw down her spoon. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then she, too, stood up.

‘I will make no allowances for Sky,’ she said genially. ‘That would be foolish. Sky is as slippery as a fish and as cunning as a messenger bird.’

She bent, leaning her hands on the table. Her eyes narrowed. ‘But you, Vashti, are as sly as a snake! From the beginning you have done your best to lure the rest of us into trouble that will put us out of the contest.’

‘That is insulting and absurd!’ hissed Vashti, paling with anger.

‘Insulting, yes!’ Jewel replied calmly. ‘Absurd, no! And in my opinion this shows that you are far from being as confident as you wish to appear. You fear you cannot win in a fair fight.’

Then she too left the room. After a moment, Britta followed. She had not finished her breakfast, but the look on Vashti’s face had spoiled her appetite.

Three days later, just before sunrise, the Star of Deltora sailed into Two Moons harbour. Washed, brushed and buttoned, hair carefully knotted and pinned, Britta stood at the prow with the other finalists, her heart beating very fast, her eyes drinking in the scene before her.

She had read that the island was shaped like a crescent moon. She had read that its large, calm bay could provide safe harbour for a dozen ships. But nothing she had read had prepared her for this beauty.

The long, curving spits of land that were the arms of the crescent seemed to embrace the Star of Deltora as she passed between them. The smooth water of the bay was mauve beneath a sky flooded with glorious pink. The arc of the shore ahead was spangled with small, glowing lights. The centre lay dark and mysterious beyond, shrouded in a shining, rose-tinted haze.

Wrapped in the dimness of the silent ship, Britta gazed, spellbound, as the land drew closer. It came to her that, win or lose, the whole voyage, her whole, mad attempt to become the Trader Rosalyn Apprentice, had been worthwhile just for this moment.

She became aware of a scent drifting on the air. It was the breath of the island—a mixture of spices, sodden earth and still, dank water, with the faintest trace of something almost unbearably rich and sweet.

Without warning, the strangest feeling swept over her. Two Moons was unlike any place she had ever seen before, yet something was telling her that it was not merely beautiful, but familiar and beloved. The island was tugging at her heart as if somehow it reminded her of home, and a great yearning to reach it swept over her, bringing tears to her eyes.

The feeling was so strong that Britta was frightened. It seemed—almost—to be coming not from her, but from something outside her. The very air, the shadows around her, seemed thick with longing.

Familiar words from A Trader’s Life flashed into her mind.

Once, long ago, a monster called Tier, said to be half man, half turtle, was born to a sorceress who lived on the island of Two Moons in the Silver Sea …

Of course I am moved, Britta told herself. There is no mystery about it! I have read Trader Sven’s tale of the sorcerer Tier so often that I almost know it by heart. I saw the same tale in the Mysteries book just a few days ago. And now I am in the place where the story began!

But Trader Sven also wrote of Maris, the small, cold voice of reason argued in her mind. You have read those stories time and again. Yet you did not feel like this in Maris waters. You felt fear and awe when you saw the Keeper’s isle, but no longing when you looked upon Maris itself.

Britta frowned, but the small voice went on remorselessly: Two Moons is different, because Tier’s story is so closely linked with your father’s. Tier created the enchanted isle your father now rules and the magic Staff your father now wields. Your father came to Two Moons on his last voyage. The seeds of your family’s disgrace lie here.

Gritting her teeth, Britta pushed the unwelcome thoughts away. She fixed her eyes on the dreamlike shore, willing it to cast its spell over her once more.

‘Do not be too impressed. Two Moons always looks its best at dawn and dusk.’

Britta jumped and turned. Mab was standing behind her. The old trader looked haggard, but she was as vividly painted as always and dressed splendidly for shore. Her loose trousers were brilliantly white and her floating silk coat glimmered with all the colours of the sea. From her earlobes swung long silver hoops, the base of each hoop set with a single, blush-pink pearl.

‘I first saw Two Moons on a morning very like this one,’ Mab said. ‘I was just a girl then, serving my first year as the Trader Rosalyn Apprentice. I will never forget that moment. I thought I had come to paradise!’

She smiled wryly. ‘But the vision did not last. The rising sun burned away the beauty as quickly and surely as the years since have worn away my youth and strength. Sadly, time does not stand still.’

Her lips tightened and abruptly she turned away. ‘Unless,’ she added, her voice hardening, ‘you are willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to defy the course of nature, and cheat death.’

As Dare Larsett was. The words had not been spoken aloud, but Britta felt as hollow as if they had.

Mab stalked off to join Captain Hara and Crow, and in an instant Jewel was by Britta’s side, her eyes alight with curiosity.

‘By the stars, you are favoured, Britta!’ Jewel whispered. ‘A private chat with Mab! Vashti is sick with envy, and I am feeling rather green myself. What did the old witch say to you?’

Britta swallowed. ‘It was hardly a chat. She might as well have been talking to herself. She was just—remembering her past.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Jewel spoke with perfect good humour, but she withdrew a little. Plainly she thought Britta was keeping something to herself—a shred of advice from Mab, perhaps—some words of wisdom that her rival did not want to share.

Suddenly Britta felt intensely lonely. A wave of homesickness washed over her, dulling the beauty of the dawn.

She thought of Jantsy, sliding his last batch of fragrant, crusty bread out of the great oven in his family’s bakery as the sun rose in Del. Jantsy’s face would be flushed with heat beneath the white cap that covered his honey-coloured hair. After a time, he would open the shutters and unlock the bakery door, ready to greet early customers with his usual friendly grin.

Captain Gripp was an early riser, too. Every morning before it was light he settled himself at the window of his cottage by the shore to watch Del harbour come alive with the dawn. Safe in his chair, he would shout orders to Bosun the polypan, who would be clattering about at the stove, making the first brew of strong black tea for the day.

At daybreak, Margareth was usually still asleep in their bedroom above the shop, curled up on her side as always, with one hand beneath her cheek. When she woke, her gentle eyes might sadden at the sight of her younger sister’s tidy, empty bed on the other side of the cramped little room. Then she would sigh, and smile, and get up to begin another day working in the shop with their mother.

The thought of her mother made Britta wince. How often over the past weeks had the dawn found Maarie ill and fretful after a sleepless night spent thinking of the daughter who had left her, betrayed her, to chase a dangerous dream?

Furiously Britta swallowed the burning lump that had risen in her throat. ‘Truly, Jewel!’ she insisted. ‘Mab told me nothing of importance—nothing at all!’

‘Very well,’ said Jewel, eyeing her curiously. ‘I believe you. Do not upset yourself.’

‘I am not upset!’ Britta hissed, all too aware that her face must be giving the lie to her words. ‘I am just sick of—of not being trusted!’

Jewel shrugged. ‘None of us can afford to trust too far. We are rivals for a great prize, and we all want to win.’

The calm good sense was like a splash of cool water. Britta bit her lip and nodded, very ashamed of her outburst. What had she been thinking of? This was no time to lose her nerve! Deliberately she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin to look ahead once more at the land that had so enchanted her.

But in the last few minutes, without her noticing, the sun had risen higher in the sky. The pastel dawn had given way to the bright, clear light of early morning. And as Mab had predicted, the dreamlike beauty of Two Moons had vanished as if it had never been.

The mist rising from the centre had turned from luminous pink to dull white. At the shoreline, the muddy water of the bay lapped sluggishly against great, slimy posts supporting a long line of jetties, each jetty bearing a large, bright yellow number. And between centre and shore lay the narrow band of the town, no longer veiled in gentle dimness but revealed all too plainly by the merciless sun.

Lining the paved streets, shops, stores and warehouses of every shape and size jostled together, their roofs and sides plastered with garish signs, most written in several languages. Two Moons Trading Post, Britta read. Sunrise Stores—Finest Quality! Bargains! … Xen’s Prices Cannot be Beaten—Make an Offer! … Genuine Sunrise Pearls Here! Beware Imitations! …

In the harsh light of day, Two Moons no longer looked like a place of legend and mystery. It had been shown for what it was—a bustling, thrusting trading port where the business of buying and selling was all that mattered.

The change was startling, but in Britta’s present mood it was very welcome. Now she was dealing with something she could understand.

Nervous excitement thrilled through her body, banishing the shadows that had clouded her mind, burning away fear and doubt. She turned to pick up her shore bag and pack away the snack meal and water flask that Davvie had dumped beside it. She could almost feel the blood rushing through her veins. Now, at last, it was time to show what she was made of. Now the real test was about to begin.

8 - Word of Honour

The landing at Two Moons began well. Numbered flags raised on the shore directed the ship to moor at Jetty 3, right opposite the main part of the town. As the Star of Deltora slid gently into place, as the anchor was dropped and ropes were tied, dozens of eager people, all with something to sell, gathered to wave, sing, and call words of welcome. But by the time Mab, Healer Kay, Sky, Jewel, Vashti and Britta moved down the gangplank stretching from the ship’s deck to the jetty, things had clearly changed.

The singing welcomers had fallen silent and retreated from the jetty. A man and two women stood in their places. The three wore vividly coloured robes that swept the ground, and their heads were swathed in turbans of bright yellow silk. They were all smiling, but the smiles did not reach their eyes.

‘We are honoured, Chief Trader Xen,’ Mab said to the older of the two women, bowing slightly. ‘I did not expect an official welcome at this early hour.’

‘It is we who are honoured,’ the woman replied, returning the bow. ‘It is always a pleasure to greet the Trader Rosalyn. You know Council members Traders Lau and Bool, of course?’

‘Of course,’ said Mab courteously, as Xen’s companions bowed in their turn. ‘They are both old friends.’

There was a slight, awkward pause.

‘We are surprised to see you out of season,’ said the second woman. She was shorter and slighter than Xen, and her voice was thin, with an unpleasant, slightly whining note.

‘It is not a usual trading voyage, Trader Lau, though of course I hope to do a little business while I am here,’ Mab replied smoothly. She gestured at the finalists behind her. ‘These young people are in training, and what better place for them to test their skills than Two Moons, home of the wiliest traders in the Silver Sea?’

Xen, Lau and Bool nodded and smiled at the compliment, but there was a tension about them that showed they had more to say. As Britta looked at them more closely she could see signs that they had dressed very hastily. A trail of yellow silk hung untidily from the back of Xen’s turban. Bool’s chin sprouted gingery stubble above his braided orange beard. Lau was wearing odd shoes. The shoes were both the same style, but the left was black, the right, dark blue.

The three had rushed from their homes to meet Mab as if the arrival of the Star of Deltora was some sort of emergency! The sober face of Perlain, the Maris man, flashed into Britta’s mind, but she did her best not to let her anxiety show.

‘If this visit is merely for training purposes, then I daresay it will be a very short one,’ said the woman Xen, with only a hint of a question in her voice.

‘We had planned on three days, as usual,’ said Mab. ‘It is hardly possible to do justice to Two Moons in less.’

Xen hesitated, glancing at her companions.

‘Do I gather there is a problem?’ Mab asked pleasantly.

Bool cleared his throat. ‘A slight problem, Trader Rosalyn. Very slight—more of an embarrassment than a problem, really. And not, of course, anything to do with the traders of our little island, who I can assure you are always more than delighted to—ah …’ He trailed off, having lost the thread of what he had been intending to say.

‘It is the swamp dwellers, Mab,’ Xen said, suddenly abandoning any attempt at formal politeness. ‘Somehow they have got it into their heads that the Star of Deltora is ishk—unlucky.’

Britta’s stomach turned over. She felt Jewel stiffen and heard Sky draw a quick breath.

Mab did not flinch. ‘Indeed!’ she said in a light, amused tone. ‘A little too much orchid wine last night, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’ Xen sighed. ‘But you know what they are when it comes to omens and curses and such like—the turtle people of the centre in particular. They will not listen to reason. A group of them came to me at first light. They said they sensed bad luck entering the harbour on a batak ship—excuse me, a foreign ship, I mean—and insisted that the vessel must be turned away. Naturally I refused, but …’ She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

‘But you depend on them to gather sunrise pearls for you, so you cannot test them too far,’ Mab said, with a faint smile.

‘In my view, we should have put the savages in their place long ago!’ the woman Lao declared. ‘They think too much of themselves as it is, and the part-swampies on the fringes of town are almost as bad. If we start allowing them to dictate to us—’

‘There is no question of that, Lao!’ Xen broke in crossly. ‘The Star of Deltora was not turned away. What is more, we have resolved that all those on board who wish to land may do so.’

She turned back to Mab. ‘But—but to keep the peace, Mab, we would be in your debt if on this occasion you finished your business here in one day—and left before sunset. As you know, the swamp dwellers have … beliefs about dawn and dusk.’

‘They think the spirits of the dead are strongest and more visible then, you see,’ Bool hastened to add, clearly wanting to make up for his previous poor showing. ‘It is a very ancient superstition.’

‘One I have often been tempted to believe myself, entering Two Moons harbour at sunrise,’ said Mab, with every appearance of calm good humour, though Britta could imagine how differently she must be feeling. ‘Well, if we are to have only one day here, so be it, Councillors. The turtle people in particular must not be upset. We must keep them working. There have been all too few sunrise pearls on the market in recent years.’

She held out her hand to Trader Xen. ‘You have my word that my trainees and crew will be back on board the ship in good time, and that my ship will have left the harbour by sunset. Will that suit you?’

‘Indeed it will,’ exclaimed Xen, shaking the offered hand eagerly.

Mab smiled. ‘And in return,’ she suggested, ‘perhaps you could spread the word that my young trainees are to be treated fairly—or at least not duped too thoroughly—and that the old Two Moons trick of drugging new traders and robbing them of their purchases will be suspended for today.’

Bool spluttered indignantly. Lao bristled. But Xen gave a snort of laughter and shrugged her plump shoulders.

‘I admit nothing, but you will not have to worry about your chicks, Mab, I am sure,’ she said. She nodded gaily at the finalists, looking at them properly for the first time. Suddenly her brow wrinkled.

‘Do I not know you, my lovely?’ she asked, staring at Britta. ‘You have been in Two Moons before, have you not?’

‘N-no, Trader Xen,’ Britta stammered, blushing hotly and lowering her eyes. Perhaps Xen had seen her resemblance to her father. On his last visit, in the Star of Deltora, Dare Larsett had stayed in Two Moons only a day and a night, it was said. But before that, when he was working for Mab and the Rosalyn fleet, he had visited the island many, many times.

‘This is Britta’s first voyage away from Del, I believe,’ Mab murmured.

Xen shook her head. ‘Strange,’ she said. ‘I could have sworn … Ah well, I am getting old, I daresay. My old nanna used to see familiar faces wherever she went, I remember. It came from living so long, she said. Everyone starts to look the same.’

She laughed heartily, took Mab’s arm, and led the landing party along the jetty and into the town.

Half an hour later, Britta was walking the narrow back streets of Two Moons, her shore bag slung over her shoulder, her hand pressed firmly to the bulging pocket of her skirt where the coin purse Margareth had made her hung heavy with ten gold pieces. Grubby children swarmed about her, and she was sure that some among them were expert pickpockets.

The children had come from nowhere, gathering around her like a flock of hungry, chattering birds as soon as she left the main streets.

‘Sunrise pearls, Trader Lady!’ a sharp-faced boy cried, breaking from the throng to dance in front of Britta, waving a flimsy strand of shiny pink beads. ‘Famous sunrise pearls! Cheap! Very Cheap!’

‘You come to my uncle’s shop, Lady?’ lisped a girl who had lost her two front teeth, tugging at Britta’s hand. ‘Come! I show you! Best shop in Two Moons!’

Britta shook her head and strode on as fast as her skirt would allow. It crossed her mind that perhaps it had been a mistake to move immediately to the back streets of the town, instead of settling herself by spending a little time in the larger stores at the harbour’s edge. There were guards at the doors of the big stores, to keep traders from being pestered.

But the less popular back streets had proved lucky for her in Del, so she had decided to try them first in Two Moons. And after what had been said on the jetty, she knew that time was too short to be wasted.

Mab had not bothered to warn Britta, Jewel, Sky and Vashti to return to the ship in good time. They had all heard her promise that the Star of Deltora would leave the harbour before sunset. They all knew that she would be furious with anyone who made her break her word.

Britta moved on, vainly trying to focus on her surroundings. It was hard to think with the children gabbling around her, plucking at her skirt, every one of them determined to get her attention.

The street was a bewildering blur of colour and noise. The shops and storehouses all looked alike. Their wide entrances gaped beneath canvas awnings that were fluttering with little flags and plastered with signs. Baskets and tables heaped with a huge variety of cheap goods spilled heedlessly out into the roadway, as if intended to trip and trap unwary passers-by.

Racks of vivid clothes flared in the sunlight. Shopkeepers shouted and beckoned, flourishing silk shawls and jewellery, gesturing at trays of dolls and animal figures made of moulded clay.

Britta dodged through the clutter, turning her head from one side of the street to the other, seeing nothing that tempted her to stop and look more closely. Now and then she would try to shoo her noisy followers away, but they would laugh and skip back only for a moment before closing in again.

This is no use, she told herself. They are treating me as if I am an ordinary visitor to Two Moons, and no wonder! I am acting like one!

She stopped abruptly and turned to face the children, summoning up a serious frown. Taken by surprise, they stopped too, and fell silent. For the first time Britta looked at them closely one by one, noting the intelligence in the faces of even the youngest. Taking her time, she dug from her shore bag the packet of nuts and dried fruit that she had been given on the ship, and held it out.

‘I have important work to do, and your chatter bothers me,’ she said slowly and clearly. ‘So I offer you a trade. This food from Deltora, the Land of Dragons, is yours to share if you go away and leave me in peace.’

The children eyed the packet in her hand then glanced at one another uncertainly.

‘It is your choice,’ said Britta, shrugging her shoulders. ‘You can waste your time following me about and miss out on the food, if you wish. But you will get nothing else from me.’

There was a short pause, and then the girl with the missing teeth nodded, stepped forward and took the packet. Gravely she showed it to the others. Then she said something Britta could not understand, and the whole troublesome gang turned and ran off, weaving through the crowd like a little school of fish and at last vanishing from sight.

Britta did not linger. She was pleased at her success, but she knew better than to trust her luck too far. Bargain or no bargain, it was quite likely that some of the children at least would return as soon as the food was gone. She was a Del trader, and for her a trading promise was binding, but they might not feel the same way.

She walked quickly on, turning down the first laneway she saw and hurrying to the end.

Emerging from the lane, she found herself In a street narrower and dingier than any she had seen before. Lined on both sides by shabby stone and timber buildings, most of which looked like small warehouses, it stretched away to her left and right like a ragged cord threaded with dull, square beads. It was completely deserted. Directly behind it, the mists of the swamp rose, staining the sky.

Britta realised she had reached the edge of the town, and felt a prickle of uneasiness. Perhaps this was not a safe place to be. She half-turned, intending to return the way she had come. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sign that made her heart leap.

9 - Master Mull

The sign hung over the door of a narrow shop sandwiched between two much larger buildings. Britta did not hesitate. She crossed the road and made straight for the dull-looking place as if it was what she had been looking for all along. And of course, she realised with almost guilty surprise, she had been looking for it. Without admitting to herself what she was doing, she had been scanning every shop she passed, hoping to see the name that had headed the receipt she had found in her father’s book.

The shop’s cracked door was shut, and its one small window was covered by a heavy curtain. There was no sign that it was open for business. Indeed, by the look of the spider webs, dead flies and dust balls caught between the curtain and the window glass, the place had closed down years ago.

Britta felt a stab of bitter disappointment, quickly followed by a small, surprising wave of relief. She pressed her lips together in irritation, tracking down the source of the relief, and soon found it. She had felt compelled to follow in her father’s footsteps, to stand where he had stood, to meet the shopkeeper who had sold him Cladda’s Mysteries of the Silver Sea. But if the shop had closed, she was spared that. She was free to put her father out of her mind and go her way.

Furious at her own cowardice, she seized the tarnished knob of the door and twisted it. She had not expected success, but there was no resistance. The knob turned with a rattle, and the door creaked open. Before she could think about it, she had pushed through the gap and the door was swinging shut behind her.

After the bright sunshine of the street, the shop seemed very dark, despite the glow of a few lanterns hanging from the walls. It was stuffy, too. The stale smells of dust, old metal and aged wood hung thick in the dead air.

Britta hesitated, coughing a little, then shuffled forward, willing her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She had only taken a step or two, however, when she found her way barred by a heavy wooden counter. It appeared to stretch from one side of the narrow room to the other, and nothing stood upon it except a jar of round pink sweets.

She stared across the counter into darkness. It was hard to see anything clearly, but she had the impression of a vast clutter of objects, stacked so high that they reached the shadowy ceiling.

It occurred to her that the Two Moons Treasure House was more like a lair than a place of business. She shivered—with excitement or nervousness she could not tell.

‘How may I be of service?’

The voice came to Britta out of the dark, and the next moment a head appeared on the other side of the counter, apparently floating in thin air. The head was as round, bald, pale and shining as the full moon—a full moon with a face that had been drawn by a child, with orange dots for eyes, a curving pink squiggle for a mouth, and no nose to speak of.

The illusion only lasted for an instant, but it was an instant of pure terror. By the time Britta realised that she was merely facing a grossly fat man whose body had been invisible in the darkness because of the long black robe he wore, she was shaking all over.

‘I fear I startled you,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘I do apologise!’

He did not sound sorry at all, and in fact his tiny eyes were sparkling with malicious pleasure. Britta became convinced that he played this trick on every stranger who entered his shop. No doubt he had played it on her father in his time.

And how would Dare Larsett have reacted? Remembering some of his tales, Britta could guess, and without any difficulty she did the same.

She burst out laughing.

If the shopkeeper was disappointed, he did not show it. He laughed too, in fact, his pale cheeks wobbling, his eyes disappearing completely between folds of fat, his small mouth stretched into a tight, round ‘O’.

‘Ah!’ he gasped, when his laughter died at last. ‘I do like a good sport! Have a tuppi!’

He flipped the sweet jar open and shook it invitingly. A sharp, tingling scent filled the air. Britta smiled and, feeling she could not refuse, took one of the small pink balls and tasted it cautiously. It was strangely refreshing, a little like mint.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I have never had one of these before.’

The man helped himself to a huge handful of tuppi and crammed them into his mouth.

‘Very good for the digestion,’ he mumbled, chewing rapidly. ‘Hard to get, though. The swamp dwellers can only make them when the orchids are blooming, and they keep most of every season’s batch for themselves. I am favoured because I am half-swampie myself. Ha! One of the many advantages, I assure you!’

He swallowed, and licked his sticky fingers. ‘So, young trader, you have laughed in Mull’s ugly face, and he has laughed in your pretty one. Now, back to business! What brings you to the Treasure House? So few outsiders know of me, and that is how I like it. I like to keep my dealings quite … private and discreet, you understand. I have regular customers enough, and do not advertise.’

‘I came to you because I am looking to buy something rare and strange, Master Mull,’ Britta said, abruptly deciding that frankness would serve her best in this situation. ‘I want something that I can trade at a very good profit in Illica.’

‘Illica,’ Mull repeated thoughtfully, nodding his great round head. ‘Yes, indeed—you are wise, for one so young. Something kaja, as the swamp dwellers say, is what is needed to trade well in that place, to be sure.’

He made the ‘k’ sound of the foreign word in a harsh, grating way, as if he were clearing the back of his throat. It was like the sound that Councillor Xen had made when saying ‘batak’—the Two Moons word for ‘foreign’.

Seeing that Mull was eyeing her curiously, Britta hastened to cover up her confusion.

‘Kaja,’ she repeated, imitating the grating ‘k’ as best she could. ‘That means … unusual and interesting?’

‘Quite so,’ Mull agreed, looking amused. ‘True kaja objects are powerful—sometimes because of how they were made, sometimes simply because they are one of a kind. I specialise in kaja items. The swamp dwellers will give sunrise pearls for them, you understand, if they like them well enough.’

He rubbed his fat white hands together as if relishing the thought of the riches the rare pearls could bring. ‘If you want kaja, my dear, you have come to the right place. I fear, however, that your pocket may not be deep enough to pay for what I have to sell.’

‘Oh, I am sure you will find something I can afford, Master Mull,’ Britta replied firmly, recognising the first move in a familiar game.

‘I only wish I was so sure,’ the shopkeeper said with a regretful smile. ‘Still, we must try our best.’

He leaned across the counter to look more closely at Britta, and all of a sudden he froze. His smile grew fixed, and his face became even paler than it had been before, though Britta would have said that was impossible.

Her heart gave a great thud and she pulled back a little, feeling her face and neck grow hot.

She could not know that Mull, the part-swamp dweller, had seen the grey shadows of the wraiths writhing behind and around her. All she could think of was that he had seen her resemblance to her father and, unlike Trader Xen, had guessed who she was.

Dare Larsett had been one of Mull’s ‘regular customers’, she was sure. Kaja goods sounded exactly the sort of trade goods her father had loved to buy—so much more interesting, and often more profitable, than the ornaments, spices, tea and silks that usually filled a Del trading ship’s hold.

What a bitter irony it would be if after all she had been through she were to be unmasked so far from home, in a place where she had been sure she was safe!

I will not let that happen, Britta told herself fiercely. If Mull challenges me, if he even mentions my father, I will act very surprised—even insulted. Yes, insulted, as any other girl of Del would be if someone accused her of being related to a man loathed from one end of the Silver Sea to the other.

She tried to catch Mull’s eye, to stare him down. And only then did she notice that the man was not looking directly at her at all. He was gazing over her shoulder, into the darkness behind her.

Britta breathed out, but the relief she felt was mingled with uneasiness, and she turned quickly to assure herself that no one had crept after her into the shop without her knowledge.

There was nothing behind her—nothing but shadows and the pale outline of the closed door.

‘Is something the matter, Master Mull?’ she asked politely, turning back to the pallid, staring man.

The shopkeeper started violently. His long nails scrabbled on the counter top, making a rasping sound that set Britta’s teeth on edge.

Drawing back, he pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his robe and mopped his gleaming face.

‘On second thoughts, I do not think I have anything that will suit you,’ he croaked. ‘I am sure I do not. You would do better to look elsewhere. I bid you good-day.’

10 - Kaja

Dismayed, Britta stared at the shopkeeper’s twitching face. Why had he changed his mind about trading with her? Had he recognised her after all? Or had she said something to upset him? Rapidly she ran through what had happened just before his behaviour changed. All she could remember was saying that she was sure Mull would have something she could afford.

Was that it? Had Mull become agitated because she had made it clear that she was determined to buy something? He was plainly very eccentric. Perhaps, despite his boasting of regular customers, he liked to hoard his kaja treasures, and the thought of letting one go to a stranger threw him into a panic.

The thought would never have crossed Britta’s mind if it had not been for old Mistress Finlock.

Like Mull, Mistress Finlock had her own business. She was a dollmaker, whose tiny shop was not far from the bakery in the centre of Del.

She lived quietly above her shop, and her clothes, though very worn, were always perfectly neat and clean. No one who did not know her would have guessed that she was in desperate need.

But she was. In her way, Mistress Finlock was as troubled as poor, ragged Sheevers, the once-famous Del potter Britta had found hiding in an underground den, guarding his collection of clay lanterns.

Mistress Finlock’s dolls were beautifully made and dressed, it was said, but she did not display them in her shop window. She scraped out a living mending broken dolls that were brought to her, but she would not sell the dolls she had created. What was more, she spent any money she had left after paying her rent on buying materials to make more dolls!

Far too proud to ask the palace for aid, she might well have starved if Jantsy and his family had not given her leftover bread from the bakery at the end of every day.

‘She lost her husband and children during the Shadowlands invasion,’ Jantsy had told Britta when she shook her head in wonder at the dollmaker’s strangeness. ‘The dolls are the poor soul’s family now. She cannot bear to part with a single one.’

Britta thought quickly. If Mull were as disturbed as Sheevers and Mistress Finlock, it would be best to leave his shop at once and stop wasting time. Yet … could the man have laughed as he had if his mind had been shattered by grief and loss? Would he have talked of kaja goods, and his dealings with the swamp dwellers, so freely? And after all, he had sold her father that book.

She smiled sweetly, just as she had often smiled at customers across the counter of her mother’s shop in Del.

‘Oh, no, Master Mull,’ she cried playfully. ‘You cannot get rid of me so easily! I am staying right here until you sell me something wonderful! And I have gold to give in payment, if the item pleases me.’

With satisfaction, she saw Mull’s small eyes flash, and a pink tongue dart out to lick the thin, curving lips. That book about the islands of the Silver Sea was right, she thought. Gold is king in Two Moons.

‘Very well,’ Mull said, speaking very fast and low. ‘I understand you. I will show you the best I have—a thing that I swear will dazzle the Collectors of Illica. And then I beg you will leave me in peace. Wait! One moment!’

He hurried away into the darkness. Britta heard him moving things, opening a drawer …

And then he was back, carrying a bright lantern. Under his arm was what looked like a roll of soft, yellowed paper tied up with ribbon. An old map or chart, by the look of it, Britta thought, very disappointed and more than a little annoyed.

Mull was still playing games with her. The bookstall near her home in Del was always stacked with tattered, out-of date-maps. Sometimes the lettering on them was quite beautiful, but she knew perfectly well that they were not valuable. There were too many of them about. Captain Gripp had bundles of them, and with her own eyes Britta had seen him use strips torn from their edges to light his stove.

Still, she waited calmly while the shopkeeper hung the lantern from a hook dangling above his head and placed the paper roll on the counter. She did not say a word as he untied the ribbon. But when Mull cast the paper aside and she saw what it had been protecting, her heart jumped into her throat.

It was a roll of embroidered silk, a wall hanging fastened top and bottom to polished wooden rods. It looked very old and delicate. Gently Mull unrolled it, holding it up for Britta to see.

‘There,’ he said thickly. ‘There …’

Britta gazed at the exquisitely embroidered silk. She saw a bird’s-eye view of an emerald island, ringed with black sand and set in a rippling silver sea. She saw a soft haze rising from the island into a sky of cloudless blue. She saw circling seabirds, and could almost hear their mournful cries.

Cool breezes seemed to be caressing her skin, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. A hollow whispering filled her mind, like the echoing sea sound she heard when she pressed one of Gripp’s giant shells to her ear.

Britta swallowed. She knew that by all the rules of trading she should be nodding and smiling faintly as if the offering was pleasant enough, but not worth whatever the seller was about to demand for it.

She could not do it. She could only gaze. The work of art hanging from Mull’s sausage-like fingers, its colours glimmering in the lantern light, was like a dream captured in silk. She longed to own it—longed for it with every fibre of her being. She leaned forward, and had the strangest feeling that the darkness behind her moved too, hanging about her shoulders like a muffling cloak.

‘What island is this?’ she heard herself ask faintly.

Mull shrugged, his thick eyelids dropping briefly over his tiny amber eyes. He had shrunk back a little. His hands were trembling, and sweat was beading his forehead again. Suddenly Britta sensed that the man was staying where he was by pure effort of will. At any moment he might turn and escape into the darkness at the back of his lair, taking the embroidery with him.

He is like Mistress Finlock after all, Britta thought, seizing on the only explanation she could think of. He was tempted by the idea of gold, but now he sees that I long for his treasure, he does not want to give it up. I must say something! I must keep him with me!

‘How much do you want for it?’ she asked quickly, and held her breath.

A hoarse, barking sound burst from Mull’s lips. It could have been a laugh, but it sounded more like a sob. ‘It is more a matter of what you will pay, is it not?’ he mumbled.

‘I can offer seven gold coins,’ said Britta, and waited for him to laugh again.

But this time Mull did not laugh. He merely groaned softly.

Britta waited.

‘Make it eight, and the hanging is yours,’ Mull said, as if he had just remembered he was supposed to haggle. ‘I—I will add a necklace of sunrise pearls to sweeten the bargain. Not genuine sunrise pearls, you understand, but good copies—very good copies indeed!’

Five minutes later, Britta was back on the quiet street, the sweet-sour odour of the swamp wafting around her, the taste of Mull’s tuppi still faintly refreshing in her mouth. The rolled embroidery, again wrapped in its protective layer of paper, was in her shore bag. The strand of false pearls was in her pocket—the perfect gift for Margareth. Two gold coins still remained in her purse.

And it was only then, thinking of those gold coins and marvelling at her good fortune, that she remembered the burning look in the shopkeeper’s eyes as he stood behind his counter, watching her leave.

Mull thought she had cheated him—Britta felt it in her bones. And that was all wrong. Trader Sven always said that for a successful trade both parties in the bargain should be well satisfied.

But Mull did not have to accept my offer, Britta told herself irritably. I would have given him all my gold if he had asked for it! And if he did not want to sell me the embroidery at all, why did he show it to me in the first place?

She realised that she was very thirsty, and took a drink from the flask in her shore bag. Then she wandered on, without paying much attention to her surroundings. The sun beat down on her unprotected head, and after a time she started to feel dizzy with heat.

She felt very tired, too. Terribly tired. No wonder, she thought hazily. She had woken long before dawn.

She came to a place where there was a gap between two warehouses. The vacant land was littered with empty boxes, broken baskets and drums stuffed with discarded packing straw. Behind the rubbish loomed the swampland, green, dim and secret.

A great desire for that green shade swept over Britta. The longing was even stronger than the yearning she had felt looking at Two Moons from the ship at dawn, but she did not wonder at that. She did not even think about it—could not, in that moment, think of anything but her need. She stumbled off the road, and it was as if some invisible force was at her back, urging her on, as she wove unsteadily towards the beckoning green.

She had almost reached her goal when her ankle cracked against something hard. The pain brought her to her senses. She rubbed her forehead in dull confusion. What was the matter with her? How could she have thought the swampland was a refuge? The swampland was perilous!

She found that she was leaning for support on the thing that had saved her by standing in her way. It was a long wooden box with a stretched canvas cover—an abandoned storage box for a large piece of furniture, perhaps. It was lying so close to the swamp that its far end was hidden, shrouded in murky green.

Britta shuddered to think how nearly she had staggered like a sleepwalker into danger. At the same moment she realised that all was not well with her. She was swaying where she stood. Her head felt thick. Her eyelids were so heavy that they kept closing.

I have been too long in the sun, Britta thought slowly. And looking around vaguely for shelter she saw that the answer was right there, beneath her hand. The end of the big wooden box on which she was leaning gaped open like the entrance to a shadowy cave. Britta sank to the ground and crawled gratefully into the blessed shade.

The bulging sacks piled at her head did not trouble her, though the one closest to her face smelled strongly of onions. She did not even think about what they might mean. All she cared about was that she was out of the burning sun, and there was enough room for her to curl up and rest a while, to sleep …

And sleep she did, almost instantly. The drug that had spread through her system had done its work well. The rasping sound as a heavy flagon was pushed into the shadows beside her barely entered her dreams. When the wooden flap at the end of her refuge was lifted and bolted shut, she heard nothing. And when there was a low whistle, and the shelter began to move, she did not stir.

11 - Fear

Britta woke slowly, and for a few moments lay with her eyes closed, quite relaxed, hazily assuming that the soft, gurgling sounds she could hear, the gentle, rocking movement she could feel, meant that she was in her bunk on the Star of Deltora. She might easily, indeed, have drifted peacefully back to sleep if she had not drawn a long, contented breath and become aware that something was not as it should be.

Her nose twitched. There was a strange smell in the air—a heavy, sweet and sour odour that was nothing like the smell of the ship.

Britta’s eyes flew open. She saw a dark covering not far above her head. She stretched out her hands and felt hard wooden walls rising on both sides of her. She tried to flex her legs, and felt her feet strike more wood.

Gurgling, rippling sounds filled her ears. Into her confused mind flew the nightmarish certainty that she was trapped in a coffin that had been thrown into the sea, and pure terror thrilled through her.

She tried to scream, but her throat had closed with horror, and the scream died in a strangled gulp. Darkness closed in around her. Frantic to escape, refusing to accept that there was nothing she could do to save herself, she raised her arms and beat at the shadow lowering above her head …

And as soon as she touched it, she realised that it was not a coffin lid, but merely some rough fabric, like canvas, stretched tightly over the wooden sides of her prison.

And the fabric was not wet. It was warm and dry.

As the nightmare faded, Britta began to breathe again. She was not in the sea. She was not about to drown, trapped in a locked wooden box. Her panic subsided and the darkness enfolding her seemed to sigh and warm.

Slowly she began to think rationally. She began to think about what the gurgling, watery sounds, the rocking movement, might mean. Perhaps she was in a boat—being taken somewhere in a boat! But why? How?

She forced herself to think back, step by painful step.

She remembered walking along the narrow street beside the swamp, away from Mull’s Treasure House. She remembered the sun beating down, and how tired, how very tired, she had felt. She remembered that her eyelids had been so heavy that she had hardly been able to keep them open. She vaguely remembered crawling into a storage box at the back of some vacant land, and curling up in its shade …

And that was all.

I was drugged, Britta thought blankly.

The memory of Mull’s great round face, the way his tiny eyes had burned as he watched her leave his shop, came back to her. She remembered Mab’s comment about Two Moons shopkeepers who drugged their customers and took back what had been honestly bought. She remembered the taste of the pink sweet Mull had called tuppi and her stomach roiled with nausea.

Her mind was still working sluggishly. It did not occur to her to look and see if her shore bag was missing, the kaja embroidery gone. All she could think about was that she had been drugged and kidnapped, and was now being carried away from the spot where she had fallen asleep. Every moment, she was moving further from safety. She had to get out—had to escape—even if it meant throwing herself into the sea and swimming for her life.

Clumsily she rolled onto her stomach and crawled onto her hands and knees. Her prison tilted slightly as her weight shifted. Something beside her—a large, heavy jar, by the sound of it—toppled over and rolled noisily. Outside there was a heavy splashing sound, a high-pitched voice cried out in warning or complaint, and the sweet-sour smell that Britta had noticed before was suddenly much stronger.

Britta gagged, but fought the sickness down and remained perfectly still, waiting tensely for what might happen next, bracing herself to fight.

But nothing did happen. The base of her prison steadied, became level again. The heavy splashing ceased, and the smooth, gurgling sound began once more.

She found herself staring at a pile of bulging sacks and baskets. A few had fallen over when the craft tilted, and one bag had split so that small brown onions had begun spilling from its corner. Pale light glimmered through gaps in the clutter of bags, and with it came air, puffing into Britta’s face like warm, foul-smelling breath. That was her way out.

She squirmed forward like a burrowing animal, squeezing between the sacks, pushing towards the light. And in no time at all she was peering through a gap into the open—gaping, thunderstruck, at a scene that was nothing at all as she had imagined.

She was not in the bay, beneath the open sky. She was in a dim, green-tinted place that was almost completely overhung by trees. The trees’ gnarled branches and forked trunks were thick with flowers that looked like fleshy, freckled spiders, and their twisting roots sank deep in soupy grey mud.

The swamplands, Britta thought dully. I am in the swamplands. The smell … of course!

Her idea that she was in a boat had been quite wrong. From what she could see, she was in some sort of sled—a long, covered sled that was sliding over the glossy mud like the sleds that skimmed over snow in pictures she had seen of Deltora’s north.

Mull must have paid swamp dwellers to take her away, to make her disappear so she could not tell anyone what he had done! What could be more natural? Mull traded with swamp dwellers, he knew the language—he was half-swamp dweller himself!

She pushed herself forward a little more, craning her neck to see the sled’s driver.

A small, hooded figure was hunched on the driver’s seat, shaking a set of woven reins and looking warily from side to side as if keeping watch for danger. And the reins were—Britta’s teeth began to chatter. The reins were attached to the creature pulling the sled—a creature of nightmare.

It looked like a slug—a vast, grey, glistening slug—except for the two great black-spotted humps that rose in the middle of its back. Its waving eyestalks were as thick as Britta’s arm. Its bloated body rippled horribly as it slithered over the mud, threading its way between the trees, dragging its burden behind it with no apparent effort. The simple woven harness that circled its body between the two humps was thick with silvery slime.

‘So-so-so, Zrath,’ crooned the driver, leaning forward. ‘So-so-so …’

Shuddering with horror, Britta jerked back. Her knee hit the split sack and onions tumbled around her, bouncing and rolling. She slid a little further back, and the next moment her groping hand had touched something unexpected but very familiar.

Her shore bag! It was still with her—and it was still firmly strapped. Bewildered, Britta pulled the bag open. To her astonishment she saw that the wall hanging she had bought from Mull was still inside, wrapped and tied with ribbon exactly as it had been when she left the shop.

The embroidery had not been taken! It was there, as real as the water flask that lay beside it.

What did this mean? Bewildered, Britta clutched the bag to her chest. The spilled onions rolled around her feet, their strong smell mingling with the odour of the swamp.

Onions … A faint memory crept into Britta’s mind—the memory of curling up to sleep with the smell of onions in her nose. And all at once, with a sickening jolt, she saw the truth.

She had not been abducted and bundled into the sled. She had been inside it all along! She had crept into it thinking it was just a storage box, barely registering the fact that part of it lay in the swamp, failing to see what the sacks of supplies meant. While she slept, the sled’s owner had returned, closed the tailgate and set off for home, probably without the faintest idea that a stowaway was on board.

She had been drugged, she was certain of that. And Mull must have been responsible, because the tuppi sweet was the only thing she had eaten since leaving the ship. But the plan to rob her had failed—because she had been whisked away into the swamp before Mull had the chance to get to her!

Relief, shame and horror warred in Britta’s mind. Her thoughts raced, each new thought tumbling over the one before. The obvious thing to do was to hail the driver of the sled, to beg the driver to stop and let her get down. That was what she would have done at home, in Del.

But it would be a very risky thing to do here. The swamp dwellers were hostile to strangers. Intruders had been known to vanish without trace, and the traders of the coast turned a blind eye to anything that happened beyond the area of their control. Britta could not speak the swamp dwellers’ language. She would never be able to explain how she came to be where she was.

She could try to escape without the driver’s knowing—loosen the canvas covering somehow, and jump for her life from the speeding sled. But if by some miracle she managed to do that without injuring herself or plunging over the side of the path into mud that would suck her down to certain death, how in the Silver Sea was she to find her way back to the town?

Yet if she did nothing, she would at last be discovered—and what would happen then?

Her plight was appalling—impossible!

And as this last, despairing thought slammed into Britta’s mind, taking the place of all the others, she heard the driver give an urgent, husky cry, and felt the sled skidding rapidly to a halt.

Her heart leaped. This was her chance! She might be hopelessly lost, but anything was better, surely, than being carried even further from safety. She slung her shore bag over her shoulder and again wriggled forward through the sacks of supplies.

The driver of the sled was standing up, the reins held tightly in his hands. His hood had fallen back, showing him to be not a short adult, as Britta had thought, but a thin, mud-smeared boy who looked to be no more than ten years old.

He was looking intently at something to the right of the sled. Britta followed his gaze.

There, floating in a broad patch of pale mud, not far away, was a circle of round green leaves surrounding a single, bright pink flower with many pointed petals.

And in the centre of the flower was a perfect pink pearl.

12 - The Battle of the Giants

Britta’s whole body stiffened. Her pulse began to race. She had discovered the swamp dwellers’ great secret—the thing that no outsider had ever seen and lived to tell the tale. She was witnessing a sunrise pearl in its natural setting! Not created by shellfish, as other pearls were, but borne like bizarre fruit by a plant that lived in this one place—the swamps of Two Moons, where long ago the turtle man Tier had worked his magic.

She gazed in greedy wonder at the treasure glimmering in the green dimness. It was the colour of the pink clouds she had seen over the bay at sunrise. It was flawless—perfect! And it was big—bigger by far than the pearls on Mab’s earrings. It was a prize any trader would die for!

For a wild moment Britta thought of leaping onto the driver’s seat, pushing the boy aside and plunging into the mud. She imagined herself plucking the pearl from its nest of petals. She could almost feel its smooth, round hardness safe in the palm of her hand …

Then she came to her senses. She saw that the distance between the sled and the circle of green leaves that surrounded the pearl flower was more than a body length. She saw how the pale mud on which the leaves floated moved and wrinkled like thick soup. She knew that before she could reach the pearl, that mud would have closed over her head and sucked her down.

She had been wrong. No prize was worth dying for.

The creature that the boy in the driver’s seat had called ‘Zrath’, was moving uneasily, making harsh, complaining, coughing sounds. Plainly it was not happy about being forced to stop. The black spots on its humps were darkening and spreading. Murmuring to it soothingly, the boy looked nervously from side to side and then bent and felt for something lying at his feet. When he straightened, Britta saw that he had picked up some sort of tool—a long, straight rod with a groove running all along its length.

Still holding the reins in one hand, the boy twisted his body and leaned over the side of the sled, pushing the rod forward till it almost touched the floating pink flower. Straining her eyes in the dimness, Britta thought she saw an amber shape sliding along the groove in the rod, towards the pearl in the flower’s centre.

She watched, holding her breath. Then, all of a sudden, with a ghastly, gurgling sound, another giant slug reared up from the ooze right beside the rod. The boy yelled, and jerked the tip of the rod upwards. As the amber shape streaked back along the groove and vanished beneath his hand, he shrieked and shook the reins urgently.

But it was too late to flee. The second slug had lunged at the beast tethered to the sled, and already the monsters were fighting, rising on their tails and wrestling with terrible ferocity. The tethered beast was doing its best to defend itself, but the wild slug was larger by far, and it was angry—vicious!

Great folds of stinking mud rose and fell around the huge, twisting bodies. The sled pitched and rolled violently. The boy had thrown down the reins. He was clinging to the driver’s seat, his high-pitched cries rising shrilly over the grating snarls of the wallowing beasts.

‘Zrath!’ he wailed. ‘Ah, Zrath!’

Paralysed with horror, Britta clung to the side of the sled as sacks and baskets of supplies slid about her and the rolling flagon cracked open, disgorging a flood of cooking oil. The tame beast was still upright, but it was weakening. Slime tinged with dull green bubbled from great bruises all over its body. It had drawn back its eyestalks, and its blunt head was bobbing blindly.

It was nearly finished. Its enemy knew it. As Britta watched helplessly, the giant reared up, higher than it had ever done before, then slammed itself down with tremendous force, crushing its rival deep into the mud.

The sled tipped sideways. The boy was thrown off, into the patch of pale, heaving mud where the pearl lily floated. He screamed as the mud began to suck him down.

Without a thought, Britta shrugged off her shore bag, threw herself face down and wriggled out onto the slippery, tilting driver’s seat. Clutching the edge of the sled with her left hand, she reached desperately for the boy with her right.

As she stretched, the muscles of her arm and shoulder straining, she saw the boy’s eyes, blank with terror, his mouth open in a soundless scream. Already the mud was creeping up to his chin. The tips of Britta’s fingers brushed his flailing arm, but she could not quite catch hold.

The boy felt her touch. He turned his head slightly and saw her. His eyes bulged with shock then flamed with hope. His fingers clawed at the surface of the mud, straining towards Britta’s groping hand.

But the slug tethered to the sled had thrown off its enemy. It had reared up again, and was battling valiantly for its life. The sled was pitching wildly in great, churning waves of mud. Britta tried again and again, but she could not grasp the boy’s clutching fingers.

In agony she saw the hope in the dark eyes fade, saw the boy close his mouth as mud lapped his bottom lip.

In seconds he would be gone. Britta could have wept! If only there was something she could throw to him! But there was no time to rip off her blouse with its tight cuffs and many firm little buttons, no time to turn and fossick for the shore bag she had so thoughtlessly discarded inside the sled.

There was only one thing to do. Britta tightened her grip on the side of the rolling sled and let herself slide into the swamp.

Liquid mud, stinking and faintly warm, closed in around her, flooding into her boots, soaking through her clothes, tugging at the pins in her hair. The feeling was loathsome. Britta tried to block it from her mind, tried not to think of what might be rising from the depths of that warm mud, wriggling stealthily around her ankles, creeping into the folds of her petticoat. Pushing herself as far from the sled as she dared, she reached out for the boy again.

She missed the first time, but on her second try she had him! Her heart leaped as her hand closed over his wrist. She felt the frail bones beneath her fingers and held tight, pulling with all her strength. She heaved till the child’s mouth was above the surface of the mud, till his chin was clear …

But she could do no more. The pale mud was holding the boy fast. She could not pull him to safety. She could only hold on, her hands stiffening, the muscles of her arms and back aching with strain, as the sled bucked, the mud heaved, and the harnessed slug fought desperately for its life.

Then she saw, floating beside the boy’s shoulder, the muddy remains of the pink flower. It had broken from its stem, its petals were bruised and battered, but the sunrise pearl still gleamed in its centre.

Britta stared at it longingly. With one move of her hand she could have reached it and plucked the pearl from its pink bed. But first she would have to release the boy’s wrist, and let him sink.

That, she could not do. She did not even consider it. But it seemed to her that never had fate so cruelly laughed in her face. There, right in front of her, taunting her, was a prize that would win her the Rosalyn Apprenticeship, secure her future, give her the Star of Deltora … and she could not have it.

She smiled wryly. So be it, she thought, and looked away, back to the boy.

He had spat out the mud that had seeped into his mouth, and begun screaming again. And suddenly, listening to those harsh, high-pitched cries, Britta realised that she was hearing words, the same words repeated again and again.

Kast! Kast! Imbuck! Kast! Kast! Imbuck!

The child was not just screaming in fear—he was calling for help! Britta added her voice to his, trying her best to imitate the sounds he was making, shouting as loudly as she could. The swamp echoed with their cries:

Kast! Kast! Imbuck!

Britta’s throat was raw. Her arms were throbbing. Soon she could no longer hear the grunting of the fighting beasts. She could barely hear the child’s voice, or her own. Her mind was filled with frantic, helpless, grieving whispers—her name, Britta, Britta, Britta, breathed over and over again.

She feared the whispers were a sign that the end of her life was near. What else could they mean? Her thoughts flew to Jantsy, who would miss her, to Margareth, who would weep for her, to old Captain Gripp, who would sorely grieve … And to Maarie, who would no doubt see her reckless younger daughter’s death as just another blow, another blight on a life that had already, surely, seen suffering enough.

There was a grating roar from the front of the sled. Painfully Britta turned her head. The giant slugs were twisting together, each trying to wrestle the other down. The wild, black-humped slug was on top of the other. As Britta watched, it arched its swollen body and bore down with tremendous force.

With a hoarse, coughing grunt, the tame slug vanished, struggling, beneath the body of its enemy. At the same moment the sled tilted, then flipped upside down, breaking Britta’s grip, setting her adrift. Great waves of liquid mud hit her and the screaming boy, sweeping them further from the sinking hulk. The boy’s wrist slipped from her hand, but he clutched at her fingers and held on.

Britta felt the swamp sucking at her greedily, pulling her down. She felt warm mud lapping her neck. A few pink petals bobbed before her eyes. The last convulsion of the mud—even her desperate struggles and those of the boy, perhaps—had destroyed the pearl flower at last. The pearl was gone, to be lost in the depths of the swamp as so many other precious things had no doubt been lost before it.

The wild slug was bellowing its triumph, thrashing its tail again and again over the place where its rival still feebly struggled. The sled had vanished. Only fat bubbles of air rising to the surface showed where it had been. Britta thought briefly of the exquisite wall hanging from Mull’s Treasure House, then forgot it.

‘I am sorry!’ she called to the boy she had tried to save. ‘I did what I could!’

She knew he could not understand her, but had felt impelled to say the words anyway. He still gripped her hand, but no longer could she hold him up. She was as helpless, now, as he was.

The boy gabbled something in his own language. And then, to Britta’s astonishment, he spoke again, slowly and carefully, in words she could understand.

‘I am Stassi,’ he said. ‘I thank you, batak. You risked your life for mine. I am yours now, till my life’s end.’

He spoke so gravely, so seriously, that Britta could not laugh wildly or shout at him as otherwise she might have done, with the stifling mud lapping at her chin and a horrifying death only moments away.

‘Keep hold of my hand!’ she called instead, then pressed her lips together as the mud rose higher.

13 - The Clearing

When Britta saw the flames, she thought she was dying. She thought she had slipped beneath the mud, and was experiencing the visions that some folk said always came at the end. But then she felt something touch the nape of her neck. She felt something sliding down her back. She felt cords looping under her arms, circling her chest. She saw orange flashes dancing in front of her eyes, felt pain as the cords tightened. And just before she lost consciousness, she heard the sucking, gurgling sounds of the swamp giving her body up, and knew she was saved.

When she woke, her head was bouncing against something that smelled of swamp mud, and the world was upside-down. It took a moment before she realised that she had been slung like a sack of onions over the shoulder of someone who was loping along a dirt track at a slow, steady pace.

Every muscle in her body was aching. The taste of the swamp was sour in her mouth. Her hair was hanging down, slapping her rescuer’s back in stiff, sodden clumps. She could see little, except that other people were jogging all around her—thin, mud-smeared people carrying torches that no longer flamed, but merely glowed and smoked.

I am alive, she thought. The swamp people heard our calls for help. They came.

She was too shocked to take it in, too exhausted to fear what might come next. Even relief was beyond her. Dimly she thought of the boy, Stassi. She tried to say his name, but her lips would not move. The bouncing of her head was making her feel sick. She shut her eyes and slept.

When she came to herself, she was lying on soft but solid ground. Someone was cleaning her face, dabbing it gently with a wet cloth. She opened her eyes and stared up at a leafy canopy that hid the sky.

The cloth was abruptly taken away. She heard a voice whisper something she could not understand, and another voice answer. Then there was a tense silence. Plainly, the next move was up to Britta.

Slowly and painfully, taking care to keep her swimming head as still as possible, she sat up.

A frightened-looking woman was kneeling in front of her, still clutching a cloth and a small bowl of dirty water. The woman’s arms and legs were bare. Her skin was so pale that it looked almost green in the dim light. The short, straight garment she wore was very plain, but her head was bound with brightly patterned fabric arranged in complicated folds. Many silver bracelets circled her wrists, and silver earrings winking with gems dangled almost to her shoulders.

Behind her stood a man so coated in dried mud that he looked like a stone statue. Only his amber eyes spoiled the illusion. His arms were folded across his chest. His face was very grave. Britta wondered if he was the one who had carried her to this place and, if so, where the other rescuers had gone.

Her hands shaking a little, the woman turned aside, picked up a jug and poured a little water into a cup. She lifted the cup to Britta’s lips, but snatched it away as Britta grabbed for it eagerly.

With a cry of frustration, Britta leaned forward, but the woman was holding the cup well out of her reach.

Nak bess! The woman said in a low, trembling voice. Atta!

Seeing that Britta did not understand her, she pointed into her own mouth, swallowed, clutched her stomach and made a hideous face.

The man muttered something, barely opening his lips.

The woman frowned and shook her head. Leaning forward a little, holding up her first finger to claim Britta’s attention, she carefully pretended to take a little water from the cup. She then puffed out her cheeks, made some harsh gargling sounds, bent over the basin and spat noisily.

Atta! she repeated, jabbing her finger at the muddy water. Nak bess!

Britta nodded. She understood. She had traces of swamp mud, atta, in her mouth. She had to rinse it out before she could drink. No doubt the mud was full of diseases, or the eggs of worms. Her stomach churned at the thought that some had surely gone down her throat already.

Cautiously, the woman offered the cup again. Keeping her hands folded in her lap to show that she was not intending to snatch and gulp, Britta took a small mouthful of what seemed to her to be the sweetest water she had ever tasted. She ached to swallow, but did not. She swilled the water round in her mouth, gargled as best she could, then spat into the basin the woman thrust under her chin.

The process was repeated twice before Britta was allowed to drink.

No life-giving nectar in an old tale could have tasted so delicious. Britta sighed with blissful relief.

The woman was watching her intently. ‘Krest?’ she asked timidly, removing the empty cup and filling it again.

‘Krest,’ Britta repeated, nodding. She did not know if the word meant ‘good’, ‘better’ or ‘more’, but reasoned that any one of those would do as an answer. Yes, the water was very good. Yes, it had made her feel much better. And yes, she certainly wanted more.

After the second cup of water, she had revived enough to take in her surroundings.

She and her two companions were at the edge of a small clearing screened from the sky by the overhanging branches of the trees that grew around it. In the centre of the clearing, beside a swathe of glowing, amber-coloured mud, there was a round hut with walls built of woven sticks and a roof thatched with bundles of reeds.

The hut looked very ordinary, except for one thing. Someone had used the amber mud to paint a strange decoration on its door—a large egg shape, patterned like a tiled floor, with six small, plain ovals spaced around it.

The mark gave Britta an odd, uncomfortable feeling. It reminded her of something, but she could not think what. Beneath the thick crust of drying mud her skin began to prickle in a way that had become all too familiar.

Why had she been brought to this eerie place? Where were all the other people who had helped in the rescue?

Britta curled her fingers, digging her nails into her palms, telling herself not to give way to her nerves. If the swamp dwellers wanted to kill her, they could have simply left her to die in the mud. They hated intruders, but surely the boy she had tried to save—Stassi—would speak for her?

If Stassi still lived. If he had not gone under before … The pattern on the hut door seemed to shift and waver before Britta’s eyes.

She turned back to her companions and found that the woman had risen silently and was now standing beside the man, who had put his arm around her.

‘Stassi?’ Britta asked urgently.

In dismay she saw the woman’s eyes darken, and a quiver of pain pass over the man’s stony face. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, though she knew they could not understand her. ‘I tried—’

There was a small sound behind her. She spun round and saw that the hut door had opened. In the doorway stood a tiny but very upright woman wearing a plain grey robe that brushed the ground. The woman’s bare arms were white as bone. When she raised her left hand, it seemed to shine in the dimness.

She beckoned. The gesture was slight—just a slight crook of one glimmering finger—but it did not cross Britta’s mind to disobey the summons. She moved instantly, without thought, as if impelled by some unseen force. Indeed, she had reached the hut before she realised she was moving at all.

The small woman stood waiting in the doorway. Britta met her faded eyes and saw with a shock that she was old—very old—though her pale skin was as smooth and unwrinkled as a girl’s.

‘Ibik!’ the woman said softly. She opened the door a little wider and stood back, holding out one arm in a clear invitation to enter. And glancing at that bare, outstretched arm, Britta received her second shock. The woman’s small, bony hands had a dull amber sheen, as if they had been dyed or painted to the wrist.

Britta glanced quickly over her shoulder. The man and the woman who had cleaned her face were standing where she had left them, watching her intently. There was a terrible tension in their stillness, as if they had been ordered to stay where they were against their will.

When Britta turned back to face the hut, the old woman was waiting with no sign of impatience. She was gazing straight ahead, past Britta’s arm, into the clearing. Perhaps, Britta thought, she was looking at the two younger people standing so still at the clearing’s edge, silently forbidding them to move.

‘Ibik!’ the old woman said again, in exactly the same tone. And Britta knew she had no choice but to enter the hut. The woman was plainly a leader—the authority in those faded eyes made that clear. The amber sheen on her hands, the loneliness of her dwelling, the mark on her door, were more signs that she was no ordinary swamp dweller. Britta had been brought to her for some sort of decision, and would not be allowed to leave until that decision had been made.

Ordering herself to seem calm and confident, but inwardly quaking, Britta stepped through the doorway.

As she passed the open door, she stole a glance at the mysterious gold symbol. One large oval, and six small ones …

Into her mind drifted the memory of shapes basking on the white beaches of deserted islands. Her heart gave a great thud as she suddenly understood what she was seeing.

A large plated shell. Four stubby legs. A head. A tail. The sign on the door was a picture of a turtle!

Britta’s thoughts flew to the one chapter she had read in Cladda’s Mysteries of the Silver Sea. Her throat dried and closed. If she was right, she was in the heart of the swamp. She was in the territory of the turtle people. And she was entering the home of their leader, heir to the magic of the tragic turtle man, Tier.

14 - The Bargain

Britta looked up, straight into the old woman’s eyes, and saw something flicker there. She could have sworn it was fear, but it vanished so quickly that she could not be sure.

The woman gestured at the earth floor, where two woven mats faced each other over a faintly glowing oil burner. She waited while Britta sat down on one of the mats, then shut the door, plunging the small room into almost complete darkness.

Britta waited tensely as the old woman settled herself on the opposite mat. Then the woman leaned forward and turned up the burner so that bright flames flared up, lighting the circle where she and Britta sat, driving the darkness back to the walls.

The woman sat very upright, her legs crossed beneath her grey robe. She fixed Britta with her strange, amber eyes.

‘Stassi,’ she said, pressing her stained hand to her heart. She lifted the hand to her forehead, then mimed cradling a baby in her arms. She put two fingers to her eyes and slid the tips down her cheeks, to mimic tears.

Without words, she had perfectly expressed her love and heartache for a child she had known since he was born. Britta’s throat tightened.

‘I am so very sorry—’ she began, but the old woman shook her head. She had not finished.

‘Stassi,’ she said again, holding up one hand. She pointed at Britta with her other hand. Then she gripped her hands together tightly.

She knows! Britta thought, hope flaring. She knows I tried to save him! The first rescuers to arrive must have seen that our hands were linked!

She nodded vigorously and clasped her own hands. The old woman watched her, expressionless, then abruptly turned away from the light and muttered something into the darkness behind her.

Britta thought she saw a movement in the shadows, near the floor. There was someone else in the hut, it seemed—someone who had stayed perfectly quiet and hidden till now.

The thought was not pleasant. Britta’s uneasiness returned. She heard a thudding sound as something was placed by the old woman’s side, just beyond the circle of light.

The old woman turned, picked up the object, and set it down in front of her.

It was a glass ball on a low silver stand. Inside the ball, puffy white clouds drifted in a sky of dazzling blue. Seabirds soared and swooped below the clouds, their orange beaks opening and closing in silent cries.

Britta stared, transfixed.

‘Kaja,’ the old woman said, patting the ball with her amber fingertips.

Kaja—strange and unusual. Special. Unique …

‘Kaja,’ Britta echoed faintly.

There was a roaring sound in her ears. She could not believe what she was seeing. There, on the earth floor of this hut in the middle of the Two Moons swamp, sat her father’s sky sphere.

The old woman was pointing to the ball, then pointing upwards, linking her thumbs and flapping her fingers to imitate the flight of birds, miming the rising and setting of the sun. She was trying to explain that the sphere showed the sky in miniature exactly as it was at this moment.

Those clouds were even now drifting across the blue above Two Moons. Those seabirds were wheeling and diving in the light breeze that was driving the clouds. Later the blue would dim, then all the colours of sunset would fill the sphere, and the birds flying to roost would be merely shapes and shadows.

Britta needed no explanation. How often in the old days had she sat on her father’s knee at his desk, watching the colours inside the glass ball change as the real sky changed above the big house on Del harbour? It was one of the most vivid memories of her early childhood.

Once she had seen boiling storm clouds and thin, jagged streaks of lightning in the sphere, while thunder shook the house and rain beat on the study windows. Many times, snug in her night robe and slippers, she had seen a miniature moon rising in a velvety black sky pierced by tiny stars.

She had not seen the sky sphere since her father set sail in the Star of Deltora over eight years ago. She vividly remembered creeping into his study when she, Margareth and their mother returned from the farewell at the dock, and finding the sphere gone. She had known at once that her father had taken it, and supposed in her childish way that he thought it would bring him luck.

She had thought of the sky sphere sometimes, in the years of disgrace and poverty that had followed. Her father had loved it—and he had carried it with him on that fateful voyage. For Britta, that had been proof that he had known, or at least strongly suspected, that if he found the fabled Staff of Tier he would never return to his old life. So he had taken the sphere—the one thing he could not bear to leave behind.

The thought had given Britta many bitter moments. And now … now it seemed that she had been quite wrong. Her father had not kept the sky sphere. It was not on the Isle of Tier with him. He had traded it for something he wanted more.

‘Did you get this from Master Mull?’ Britta burst out. She was too shocked to remember that her companion did not speak her language, but it did not matter. Recognising the last word, the old woman guessed what the question had been, and shook her head.

‘Nak Mull,’ she said. ‘Batak.’

Batak—a stranger from beyond the island.

Seeing Britta’s frown of puzzlement, the woman lifted the glass ball and held it up to show the label fastened to the silver base.

‘Thurl!’ the old woman said, ducking her head slightly as if to introduce herself.

Dumbfounded, Britta stared at the label. Her father had been here. He had, perhaps, sat in the very spot where she was sitting now. Her mind raced as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

‘Kaja,’ Thurl murmured, pushing the sphere forward a little as if she were urging Britta to take it. ‘Krest kaja, per Stassi!’

Britta stared in amazement. Was it possible? Was Thurl offering her most precious possession in thanks because Britta had tried to save the boy?

It seemed she was. There was no other explanation for the way she was nodding and trying to thrust the sphere into Britta’s hands.

Instinctively Britta shrank back a little, shaking her head. She did not need a gift of thanks. She had done only what she had felt impelled to do. She could not have allowed the boy to drown before her eyes without lifting a finger to help him.

Thurl looked aghast, and continued to push the sphere forward. Seeing how earnest she was, Britta was briefly tempted. The wall hanging she had bought from Mull was lost—sunk deep in the swamp. Most of her gold had been spent, and she had nothing to show for it.

Thurl’s offer of the sky sphere should have been the answer to a prayer. The sphere was an object of great value—of far greater value than anything Sky, Jewel or Vashti could buy in Two Moons with ten gold coins. And, certainly, it was something that could be traded in Illica for a fortune!

But Britta knew she could not take it. The sky sphere would be familiar to anyone who had ever known Dare Larsett in the old days. If Mab saw it, she would instantly think of the man who had once been her favourite. It would make a link between Britta and Larsett in Mab’s mind, and that could be fatal. Mab might suddenly see Britta’s likeness to her father, as others had done. She might begin to suspect …

And Britta could not risk that. Whatever else happened, she could not risk that. Smiling and shaking her head, she pushed the sphere gently away, and as she did she saw with a thrill of horror that the blue sky behind the glass was dimming.

It was far later than she had realised! She should be on the jetty waiting to board the Star of Deltora right now! How could she have wasted so much time wondering about her father, wishing she could accept the sky sphere, when she should have been thinking furiously about her own plight? Fear and shock had made her forget Trader Sven’s golden rule:

The good trader always focuses on his or her main aim. All our intelligence and energy should be directed to gaining the result we want.

And what I want, Britta thought, is to get out of the swamp, and back to the ship. Things are bad enough for me as it is! Mab swore that the ship would leave the harbour before sunset. If I cause her to break her word …

She turned her attention to Thurl, who was looking downcast, the rejected sphere held limply between her hands. It seemed that Thurl believed she owed Britta a debt. Good! Now Britta had to make the old woman understand that guidance out of the swampland would pay the debt in full.

‘Stassi!’ Britta said, clasping her hands.

The old woman’s eyes darkened. She waited.

Britta unclasped her hands. She touched the sky sphere, and shook her head. She touched her own chest. Then she lowered her right hand and made the first two fingers ‘walk’ quickly along the earth floor. Finally, she pointed in what she hoped was the direction of the harbour.

The old woman groaned softly, and made a helpless gesture. She stood up and disappeared into the darkness.

Britta had hoped she would open the front door, call the man and woman waiting outside, and order them to guide the batak back to the coast.

That had not happened. The front door remained shut. By the sound of it, Thurl was rummaging around in another room at the back of the hut.

The blue inside the dome was slowly fading. Britta sat helplessly waiting, her heart in her mouth, very aware of the precious minutes slipping by.

At last she heard Thurl returning. The old woman reached the circle of light and knelt down. She was carrying a metal tray on which stood a crude little doll made of gleaming amber mud, like the mud in the pool outside the hut. No doubt she had made the figure herself, for its colour matched the stains on her hands.

She placed the tray on the ground, held up the first finger of her left hand as if to command Britta’s attention, and began muttering some words in her own language. Her grave face and manner seemed to indicate that this was some sort of ceremony.

Hoping that it was a ceremony that would end in her being released from the swamp, Britta controlled her impatience and waited respectfully. She did not even react when Thurl slowly extended the raised finger and tapped her lightly on the lips, though her every instinct urged her to recoil.

Apparently satisfied, Thurl folded her hands and soberly nodded at the doll, as if inviting her guest to take it.

Britta picked up the doll. The mud was still soft, and her fingertips sank a little into its sticky surface.

Thurl seemed to sigh. By signs she showed that Britta should put the doll first to her forehead, then to her heart.

Thinking grimly that more mud stains on her face and shirt would not hurt her, Britta did as she was told.

Thurl sat back on her heels, her face slack with relief. She looked, thought Britta in sudden panic, as if she felt that a bargain had been made—a hard bargain, but one that meant everything to her. Was it possible that Thurl now felt her debt had been paid in full—that she owed Britta nothing more?

Surely not! The little mud figure had some charm, but it was more crudely made than the clay dolls and animals that Britta had seen for sale in the town, and it was nothing compared to the sky sphere. Yet … who knew what the swamp dwellers valued? They were strange, secret people.

Cursing herself for blundering into a bargain she did not understand, Britta scrambled to her feet.

‘Please let me go now!’ she begged. ‘Please help me get back to my ship! Do you understand me, Thurl? Oh, Thurl, please understand!’

‘I am taking you, batak, if no one else willing. Price paid now, with goozli, but still I am taking you.’

The voice from the shadows was high and clear. And as Britta stood clutching the doll, speechless with amazement, the boy Stassi stepped into the circle of light.

15 - The Intruder

Her mind in turmoil, Britta stared at the boy she had believed to be dead. ‘Nak, Stassi!’ hissed Thurl, waving him away urgently. ‘Ishk! Ishk!’ But Stassi stood his ground, though his eyes were wide with what looked like fear. He ducked his head at the old woman, putting his hands together as if giving thanks, then mumbled in his own tongue, pointing to the door.

Thurl shook her head wildly.

Stassi wet his lips. ‘You risked your life for mine,’ he said to Britta. ‘So I am thinking that for me, your spirits not ishk.’

Perhaps the second part of this speech was as much a question as a statement, but in any case Britta did not hear it. She was focusing on the boy’s first words, the same strangely formal words he had recited in the swamp. The rest of what he had said as she held him above the mud had come back to her, and suddenly it was as if her mind had been flooded with light.

Suddenly she understood the real reason for the grief of the man and woman waiting outside the hut. Suddenly she saw why Thurl had been so desperate for her to accept first the sphere, then the doll.

You risked your life for mine. I am yours now, till my life’s end.

Britta had taken the words only as lavish thanks. Now she realised that Stassi had meant exactly what he said. By the law of the turtle people, it seemed, he had been bonded to Britta for life because she had saved him. Thurl had been bargaining for his freedom.

But the turtle people saved me in turn, Britta thought. Does that mean I am bonded to them for life?

But one look at Stassi’s cheerful face told her it did not. The law applied only to turtle people saved by batak, strangers, it seemed. And that made a kind of sense. In this wild, treacherous place, turtle people must surely often fall into danger, and be rescued by other members of their tribe. If the law applied to that situation, there would be more slaves than free people in the heart of the swamplands.

‘Thank you,’ Britta said to the boy. ‘Can we go quickly?’

He nodded and went to the door.

Weak with relief, Britta smiled and bowed to the silent Thurl. Carefully, making sure the old woman saw what she was doing, she pushed the little mud figure into her pocket and buttoned it safely inside.

She had just glanced at the sky sphere for the last time, and seen with dread the first faint glow of sunset tingeing the edges of the gathering clouds, when a great hubbub arose outside. The noise of angry voices grew louder, louder …

Thurl muttered to Stassi, and stood up as the boy pulled the door open.

The clearing outside the hut was thronged with shouting people. There seemed to be a struggle going on in the centre of the crowd. Gliding swiftly to the doorway, Thurl called a sharp order.

Instantly the tumult stilled. The crowd parted. Britta stared as three men dragged a mud-spattered figure to the doorway.

‘My lady!’ the bedraggled figure said huskily, catching sight of Thurl and realising at once that she was a person in authority. ‘Have mercy on a poor, lost stranger, I beg you! These people have made a terrible mistake! I strayed into the swamp by purest accident, and was only trying to find my way out when they found me!’

And in astounded dismay, Britta recognised the voice, the long, tousled hair and the muddy face of Sky of Rithmere.

Thurl looked gravely at Sky, then glanced at Stassi, raising her eyebrows. Plainly she was asking the boy what the captured batak had said. Stassi stammered a few words. The men holding Sky jeered and shook their heads. One spoke rapidly, bending his head and shading his eyes with his free hand to show that Sky had been peering around, searching the ground.

Looking for sunrise pearls, no doubt, thought Britta. Oh, Sky, you fool!

In terror she saw Thurl’s face grow stern. She saw Thurl raise an amber-stained hand, then lower it again.

‘Atta,’ the old woman said softly.

Atta—mud. It was a sentence of death—a terrible death by suffocation in the swamp.

‘No!’ Britta cried. She ran to Thurl’s side, shaking her head, racking her brains for the few words of swamp dweller language that she knew. ‘Nak atta!’

At the sight of Britta, the men holding Sky shrank back, hissing the strange word ishk over and over again. The other swamp dwellers in the clearing were rigid with terror, all except two—the man and woman who had attended Britta when she first woke. They ran forward, calling Stassi’s name, but Thurl had thrust the boy partly behind her, as if to protect him, and was holding him fast.

Britta could not see what the swamp dwellers could see—the wraiths swirling about her like grey mist as she stood framed in the doorway. She did not remember that ishk meant evil or unlucky. She assumed that the people feared her because of the power she had gained over Stassi by saving his life.

I daresay they all knew that Thurl was going to try to trade with me for Stassi’s freedom, she thought. Thurl has not yet had the chance to tell them that she has been successful, and that Stassi is safe, despite their cruel law.

And suddenly, an idea came to her. She turned away from Thurl, and looked directly at Sky.

‘You!’ Sky croaked, staring in astonishment.

Sky could not see the wraiths. All Sky could see was the startling picture of Britta covered in dried mud, her hair tumbling over her shoulders in stiff, clotted clumps, a strange amber mark on her brow and her dark eyes burning with purpose.

So I have surprised you for once, Sky of Rithmere, Britta thought. The danger was very great, but it was impossible not to feel a trace of ill-natured satisfaction in seeing the smooth, confident Sky thrown so far off balance.

‘They are planning to kill you by throwing you into the mud, Sky,’ she said bluntly. ‘I am going to try to persuade them otherwise. Unless …’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless you still feel you would prefer me to stay out of your affairs?’

‘On this occasion, I give you permission to interfere as much as you like,’ replied Sky, with a feeble return to her usual manner. She even tried for a rueful grin, but Britta saw that she was very white around the lips.

‘Do you have any gold left?’ Britta demanded.

‘No.’ Sky grimaced. ‘I spent it all. And the very fine clock I bought was lost in the mud with my shore bag when these dolts pounced on me. Why? Do you charge for your services as a lifesaver? Or do you fear you will fail, and hate to think of any gold I might have going down with me?’

‘I am hoping to trade for you,’ snapped Britta. ‘I will have to make do with what I have. Meanwhile, say and do nothing to alarm them.’

She turned to Thurl and Stassi, who had been watching the exchange in silence.

‘Nak atta,’ Britta repeated, pointing to Sky. She pressed her hand to her heart as the old woman had done when explaining her love for Stassi, then pointed at Sky again.

‘This foolish one is dear to me,’ she went on slowly and clearly. ‘I wish to trade with you for her life, Thurl, as you traded with me for Stassi. As part of the trade, she must be taken with me to our ship. Then I swear we will sail far away and never trouble you again.’

She waited, trying not to show how anxious she felt, as Stassi translated what she had said. The boy looked a little puzzled, and stumbled over some of the words. She fervently hoped that he had understood her.

Thurl frowned in thought, then nodded shortly and called something to the crowd. Britta’s heart lifted, and fluttered only a little as the old woman silently gestured to her to return to her former place by the oil burner. It was hard to turn from the open doorway and move back to the pool of yellow light, but she had no choice. If the trading for Sky’s life had to be done with ceremony, and in private, then that was how it had to be.

Thurl waited till Britta was settled on the woven mat, then muttered something to Stassi and pushed him out of the hut. Just before the door slammed behind him, Britta heard two voices crying out in joy and imagined the boy flying into the arms of the man and woman she had realised must be his father and mother.

She was glad for them, but wished all the same that Thurl had kept Stassi with her. Now the trade would have to be done without words.

I managed it before, Britta told herself. And at least this time we both know what is at stake. We only have to agree on the price. But her stomach felt queasy and her whole body was quivering with nerves as Thurl sat down on the other side of the oil burner and nodded at her to begin.

Britta unbuttoned her pocket and felt for the little mud doll Stassi had called a goozli. Except for two gold coins, the goozli was all she had to offer, but she was confident that it would be well received. Thurl had handed over the doll with so much ceremony that she plainly valued it highly. She would surely welcome the chance to get it back.

The doll still felt slightly soft beneath Britta’s fingertips. She drew it gently out of hiding and placed it on the ground in front of her, pointing to it, then pointing to Thurl.

To her astonishment the old woman recoiled, shaking her head violently.

‘But—but why not?’ Britta burst out, forgetting in her panic the uselessness of words.

Staring as if she thought Britta had lost her mind, Thurl gestured at the doll, gestured at Britta, then stabbed at her own chest and forehead. Finally, seeing that her companion still looked baffled, she leaned forward and pointed to the small dents in the doll’s sides, where Britta’s fingertips had sunk into the soft mud.

Was she saying that the goozli was damaged, and now could not be returned? Or had Britta offered a grave insult by trying to give back an object that Thurl had crafted with her own hands? What did it matter? The fact was, the doll had been rejected.

Britta felt heat rush into her face. What was she going to do now? The goozli had been at the heart of her plan. She fumbled in her pocket, found the necklace of false sunrise pearls that Mull had given her, and without much hope, put it on the mat in front of Thurl.

Thurl barely looked at it before pushing it away. What use did the leader of the turtle people have for false pearls, her blank face seemed to say, when the real thing grew not far from her own doorstep?

Britta did not even try to offer her notebook, her pencil, her comb or her handkerchief. The sturdy lining of her pocket had shielded them from the mud, but all were worn, and none of them had been of high quality even when they were new. The two gold coins that remained in her coin purse were all she had left to give.

Trying not to show how anxious she felt, she placed the coins on the mat. Clean and bright, they winked temptingly in the yellow light of the oil burner.

Thurl looked down at them, expressionless. She held up two fingers, and shrugged. Then she raised the fingers and thumbs of both hands.

Britta felt a hot wave of despairing anger. I do not have ten coins, you wicked old bandit! she thought, shaking her head. See for yourself!

She turned her coin purse upside down and shook it to show that it was empty. Then she tossed it into Thurl’s lap.

Thurl’s eyes gleamed. She picked up the purse and turned it over in her hands, touching the delicate embroidery with gentle fingers.

‘Ah!’ she murmured. ‘Kaja!’ And she pressed her hand to her heart.

Stunned, Britta focused on the purse. Her sister had sewn it for her, and given it to her on the night she left home. It was a pretty thing, and Britta valued it because Margareth had made it, but it was not particularly interesting or special. It was just a little coin purse embroidered with birds and flowers.

Then she remembered something Mull had said:

True kaja objects are powerful—sometimes because of how they were made, sometimes simply because they are one of a kind.

The little purse had been made with love, and Thurl could feel that love in every stitch. To her, this made the purse kaja.

And of course it is, Britta thought, a lump rising in her throat. I just did not realise it. And now I have to give it up. For Sky of Rithmere, who has never been a friend to me!

But there was no choice, of course. In moments the trade had been made, and Sky’s life was spared for the price of a kaja purse and two gold coins.

Britta left the hut prickling with irritation. Sky’s few, wry words of thanks on hearing of the bargain that had been made did nothing to soothe her. Nor did the way the crowd in the darkening clearing drew back from her as if she had the plague.

At least I am alive, Britta told herself. Stassi is alive, too. And I saved Sky, whether she is grateful for it or not.

These thoughts cheered her—and cheered her more than a little. But she could not help remembering that now there was the journey back to the shore to be faced—and at the end of it, Mab’s fury.

16 - Moonlight

Thurl plainly wanted to rid herself of her visitors with all speed. Orders were given, people ran to obey, and in no time at all, it seemed, Britta and Sky were bouncing in the back of a sled that was speeding towards the town. The driver, an elderly, sour-looking man Britta had not seen before, clicked his tongue to urge on the giant slug pulling the sled, but did not speak. A woman sat stiffly beside him, armed with a flaming torch. She, too, was silent.

They did not look behind them. It was as if they were trying to pretend that Britta and Sky were not there.

‘That thing is monstrous!’ Sky exclaimed, peering out at the dim shape of the slug in fascinated disgust.

‘The one pulling the sled that carried me into the swamp was even bigger,’ said Britta listlessly. ‘It was badly injured when the wild imbuck attacked, and I lost sight of it after the sled overturned. Poor creature, I hope the swamp dwellers managed to save it after they saved Stassi and me. It fought so bravely.’

She saw that Sky was staring at her, and frowned. ‘What?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing,’ Sky muttered, and turned away, shaking her head.

They went on in silence after that, and this suited Britta very well. Images of the sky sphere kept swimming into her exhausted mind, and she was unable to force them back. Now that she was safe, the strangeness of finding her father’s most precious possession in Thurl’s hut had come back to her with full force.

She closed her eyes and tried to work out what must have happened, step by step.

Her father must have taken the sky sphere into the swamplands to trade. He would hardly have weighed himself down with such an awkward, delicate burden otherwise. The swamp was forbidden, but danger would not have worried Larsett. He was famous for taking risks—why else did people call him ‘Dare’?

And—Britta felt a rueful twinge of admiration for her father’s cunning—the sky sphere was, of course, the perfect item to trade. What else in the nine seas could be so powerfully tempting to a swamp dweller like Thurl, from whom the real sky was always hidden?

The sled rocked. Mud swished and gurgled. Britta kept her eyes closed and let her thoughts run on.

Larsett must have wanted something very badly—something only Thurl could provide. But on that last voyage he had had only one goal—to find the lost Staff of Tier.

Britta shivered, remembering the symbol on the hut door—the symbol declaring to all who knew how to read it that Thurl was in some way heir to the magic of the sorcerer Tier.

Had Dare Larsett discovered, or guessed, that in his last years the pirate Bar-Enoch had brought the Staff to the Two Moons swamplands, where Tier had been born? Had Thurl told Larsett where the pirate’s body and the Staff lay hidden, receiving the sky sphere in return?

That would explain the oddness of the label on the base of the sphere. The label was a kind of receipt, proof that Thurl had come by the sphere honestly. Yet traders’ receipts always stated both sides of a bargain, and this one had not done that. It had noted that Thurl had traded fairly for the sky sphere, but had not revealed what she had given in exchange.

And this could only be because Thurl’s part of the bargain had to be kept secret—as of course it would, if she had allowed the Staff of Tier to be taken from its resting place.

It all made good sense. And yet … Britta shook her head. She could not quite believe it. There was something wrong. What was it?

She thought about all she had seen and done since coming into the Two Moons swamplands. She thought of the hut, and Thurl’s shrewd, faded eyes. And then she knew what her problem was.

Thurl loved kaja, but as her trade with Britta for Stassi’s freedom proved, she loved her people more. Britta could not believe that Thurl would have let a dangerous, powerful, magic object like the Staff loose on the world again, whatever she was offered in return.

And besides, was it really likely that Bar-Enoch would have chosen the unfriendly swamplands of Two Moons as his final refuge?

No, it was not. The back of her head bumping gently against the side of the sled, Britta frowned, more certain every moment that her first idea had been wrong. The Staff of Tier had not been hidden in the Two Moons swamp. But then … what had her father received in exchange for the sky sphere? What else had he badly needed, that only the swamp could provide?

The obvious answer was a sunrise pearl. But why would that have to be kept secret?

‘Britta, wake up!’

Sky’s voice was low and the touch on Britta’s arm was soft, but still Britta sat forward with a start.

‘I was not asleep!’ she snapped, shaking off Sky’s hand.

‘I am sorry,’ Sky said calmly. ‘You looked asleep. One minute shivering, the next frowning—as if you were having a bad dream, which would not be surprising after—’

‘I was merely thinking,’ Britta retorted. ‘Leave me alone! You have caused me trouble enough.’

‘Now, are those the words of a friend?’ Sky sighed gustily. ‘How fickle you are, Britta! It seems no time since you were putting your hand on your heart and swearing I was dear to you!’

Britta bit back a sharp reply, determined not to give Sky the satisfaction of making her lose her temper. At the same moment, she noticed that the sound of the sled had changed, and the jolting and bumping had grown less.

‘We are slowing down!’ she exclaimed.

‘Indeed,’ Sky drawled. ‘And if you stop glaring at me for a moment and turn your head, you will see what I saw just before I roused you. We are almost out of the swamp. The lights of the town are ahead.’

Set down at the town’s edge and quickly left to themselves by the swamp dwellers, who were plainly only too glad to turn the sled and get away, Britta and Sky trudged alone and unnoticed towards the shore. The moon was hidden by a few slowly drifting clouds, and the stars shone small and cold. The streets they passed along were deserted, and for this Britta was very thankful. She could only imagine what a sight she must look—ten times worse than Sky, who was bedraggled enough.

She longed to be safely aboard her ship once more, but the thought of facing Mab made her feel sick.

‘It is not far to the harbour now,’ Sky said casually, and Britta realised she must have sighed aloud.

‘It is not that,’ she said drearily. ‘It is …’

And suddenly she could keep her thoughts to herself no longer. Sky of Rithmere was the last person she would normally confide in, but she did not care. All she knew was that her heart was so full it seemed it would burst.

‘I was drugged,’ she burst out. ‘I fell asleep, and was carried into the swamp by accident. It was not my fault, but I fear that Mab will not believe me. In Del I came back after the last test saying I had been attacked and locked up. She believed me then. But who would believe that I fell into the hands of an enemy for a second time here?’

‘I believe you, if you say so,’ Sky said surprisingly. ‘Who drugged you?’

Britta glanced sideways. Sky’s head was bent, and her dangling braids had swung forward, hiding her face, but her question had sounded quite serious.

‘It was a shopkeeper called Mull,’ Britta said. ‘He gave me a sweet from a jar on his counter. He ate some of the sweets himself, so I did not think there could be any harm in them. But he must have become used to the drug so that it did not affect him. I have read of such things.’

‘I have too,’ Sky said slowly. ‘But I do not think they happen often outside tall tales. Did Mull steal back what you had bought from him?’

‘No,’ Britta admitted. ‘It is odd, but I suppose … he did not have the chance.’

Sky made no reply, and for a long, tense moment they walked on in silence.

‘I was drugged, I swear it!’ Britta burst out at last. ‘And Mull must have been the one who did it! I did not eat or drink anything else except—’

She broke off. A terrible thought had suddenly flashed into her mind.

‘Except water from my flask,’ she finished slowly. And suddenly she was remembering the flask lying unprotected by her shore bag on the Star’s shadowy deck. Anyone could have meddled with it without being seen.

She had drunk deeply from the flask, walking along the road beside the swamp. The heavy sleepiness had come on very quickly afterwards.

Had the enemy who had tried to spoil her chances before the Star of Deltora sailed tried again in Two Moons?

The still, sticky, swamp-scented air of the town was warm on Britta’s face, but inside she felt cold. The thought of reaching the ship no longer made her feel safe. And no longer was it a relief to talk to Sky. Because Sky could easily have been the one …

‘I did not drug your flask, Britta, if that is what you are thinking,’ Sky said lightly. ‘Certainly, I have known for some time that you are far from being the prissy little trader’s daughter I thought you at first. If I seriously wanted to win the Rosalyn contest, I would see you as a dangerous rival. But for one thing, I do not seriously want to win. And for another, while I do not have many scruples, I do draw the line at drugging my rivals.’

Britta hardly knew whether to feel insulted or flattered. Nor did she know how far Sky was to be believed. She decided, after a moment’s thought, that she was in no fit state to judge on either of these questions, so she said nothing and walked on.

Then, quite suddenly, just as a huge full moon emerged from behind the clouds, the harbour was before them. Small lanterns glowed along the curving shoreline. Beside Jetty 3, the Star of Deltora rocked gently at anchor. And beyond the jetties, beyond the ship, a pale moon floated in the calm black water of the bay, a rippling reflection of the real moon in the sky.

Two Moons …

‘Mab waited for us!’ Sky muttered. Hearing the relief in her husky voice, Britta glanced at her in surprise.

‘I would not have put it past her to leave us stranded,’ Sky admitted, with a twisted smile. ‘I daresay if I had been the only one missing, she would have done it, too. But since her pet was missing as well—’

‘I am not Mab’s pet!’ Britta protested heatedly. ‘If anyone is her pet, it is you!’

‘I amuse her, that is all,’ said Sky with a shrug. ‘You are a different matter. Mab watches you intently, when she thinks no one will notice. I have seen her.’

‘You cannot take me in, Sky!’ Britta snapped. ‘Though what you think you will gain by trying to make me believe such a ridiculous lie, I cannot imagine!’

Sky merely raised her eyebrows and smiled knowingly.

There was a shout from the ship. Someone had seen them, just before the moon vanished behind a cloud once more. Lanterns swung wildly as dark figures began running towards them.

In moments they were stumbling up the gangplank of the Star of Deltora, and Mab, flanked by Captain Hara and Healer Kay, was scowling at them furiously. Behind Mab stood Vashti, very prim and disapproving, and Jewel, whose eyes were popping. In the background, Crow and other members of the crew were watching avidly. Chief Trader Xen, looking grim, stood a little apart with a group of glowering shoremen.

‘Explain yourselves, wretches!’ Mab thundered, as Britta and Sky came towards her. ‘Have you any idea of the trouble you have caused?’

She gestured at the shoremen. ‘These men have been combing the town for you since sunset! The entire crew searched for an hour before that! They could find no trace of you! We—’

She broke off with a startled curse. She had just seen Britta clearly.

‘Britta was drugged and carried off into the swamplands, Mab,’ Sky said quickly. ‘I saw it happen, and went after her!’

Furious, Britta opened her mouth to say this was a lie, then shut it again. What did it matter? If Sky wanted to protect herself from Mab’s fury by pretending she had entered the swamp for a noble purpose, then why not let her do it?

‘If your young people had really been lost in the swamp, Mab, they would not be standing here now,’ Xen said curtly. ‘They would almost certainly be dead. No doubt they stumbled into a muddy ditch at the edge of town, but that is no excuse—’

‘The girl has been in the swamplands without doubt,’ one of the shoremen declared loudly. ‘She has been in far—in deep—where the turtle people hide from the sun!’

He shuddered. ‘Do you not see? She has been marked! Only once before have I seen that on a batak, years ago, and that was the evil one—Larsett!’

Britta’s stomach lurched as if she had plummeted from a very high place. Her ears were filled with a dull, growling sound, and it took a moment for her to realise that she was hearing the fearful muttering of the listening crew.

Mab’s drawn face looked ghastly in the flickering lantern light. ‘What?’ she demanded, peering from Britta to Sky and back to Britta again. ‘What does he say, Xen? Who is he talking about?’

‘The female!’ the shoreman gabbled, tapping his forehead then pointing at Britta with a shaking finger. ‘The female bears the mark of Tier! The male is clean.’

There was a thunderstruck silence. And suddenly everyone was staring at Sky. As if the clouds had been waiting their moment, they parted abruptly and again the ship was bathed in moonlight.

There stood Sky in the cold white glare, dark eyes alight with amused defiance, wide mouth curved into a rueful smile. The lean brown face had not changed. The lithe body had not changed. The long, braided hair had not changed. The tattered trousers and tunic had not changed.

But in an instant, thanks to a stranger’s words, people were looking at Sky differently, and the disguise that was no disguise at all had dissolved. Gaping with all the rest, Britta suddenly realised that Sky had told her the truth about not aiming to win the Rosalyn Trust contest. The winner had to be female. And, without a shadow of doubt, Sky of Rithmere was male.

17 - Surprises

Jewel was still shouting with laughter as she and Britta hung over the rail, watching the Star of Deltora glide through the watery moon on her way out of the bay. ‘No wonder Sky kept himself so apart from everyone else!’ Jewel hooted for the fifth time at least. ‘No wonder he was desperate not to share a cabin! By the stars, what fools we were not to see what he was! It was the hair that deceived us, I daresay. Did you hear him say that all men of the Mere let their hair grow long, for luck? Some folk have very strange customs.’

‘Indeed,’ Britta agreed mildly, eyeing Jewel’s bald, painted skull. ‘But it was not just the hair. We believed Sky was female because he had entered the Rosalyn contest, and the Rosalyn contest is only open to females. It was as simple as that.’

Jewel chuckled. ‘I daresay you are right. All he had to do was write a false sponsor’s letter to go with his entry paper. After that it was plain sailing. Oh, the clever rascal! He never tried to play a part. He dressed and acted in his normal way. He did not change his name. He did not even try to change his voice, except always to speak in low tones—and for all we know that comes naturally to him.’

‘I think it does,’ Britta murmured, remembering that Sky had not even raised his voice when he was struggling in the grip of the swamp dwellers outside Thurl’s hut. At the same moment, she remembered how confused the boy Stassi had seemed when he was translating her plea for Sky’s life. Like all the other swamp dwellers, no doubt, Stassi had known full well that the prisoner was a young man, so he could not understand why Britta kept referring to Sky as ‘she’.

‘I just cannot think why he entered the Rosalyn contest in the first place,’ Jewel said. ‘What if he had won? As he grew older his beard would have begun to grow in earnest and everyone would have seen—’

‘He told me he did not want to win,’ Britta broke in. ‘I think he just wanted … experience. And adventure. And a chance …’

A chance to hunt fabled treasure and make his fortune, she finished to herself silently, thinking with a pang of sunrise pearls. She sighed and turned away from the rail.

‘I daresay you are sorry for him,’ Jewel said. ‘So am I, in a way. It is hard for anyone outside Del, especially someone who has no powerful friends, to get a chance on a trading ship.’ She grinned. ‘Except, perhaps, as a very lowly sailor—and imagine Sky swabbing decks from dawn till dark under the eye of a pig rat like Crow!’

Britta felt a smile tweaking her own lips. She could not imagine it. Then her smile faded. Nor could she imagine Sky in the lockup below, being fed on bread and water. But that was where he was now.

‘Mab will come round, never fear, little nodnap,’ said Jewel, with rare gentleness. ‘Just now she is fuming in her cabin, perhaps, but by tomorrow she will be feeling better, and will let Sky out. After all, she does owe him something. He saved your life!’

The sympathy in her voice irritated Britta beyond endurance. Jewel seemed to think that she cared what happened to Sky. But she did not! Why should she care what happened to someone so devious, so wilful, so … so foolishly reckless!

‘Sky did not save my life,’ she snapped. ‘I saved his!’

‘Indeed?’ Jewel’s eyes widened with interest.

Already Britta was regretting her outburst. ‘But keep that to yourself, if you please, Jewel’ she added. ‘He is in enough trouble already.’

‘And you do not want Mab enquiring too deeply into what actually happened while you and Sky were in the swamplands,’ Jewel guessed shrewdly. ‘Well, I can understand that, after what that shoreman said about you.’

Britta did not know how to reply. The uproar about Sky had diverted everyone’s attention from her. She had hoped that the shoreman’s other statements would be forgotten—or taken merely as superstitious babbling. But that had been stupid. Jewel remembered them and so would everyone else, including Mab.

Jewel shrugged. ‘Plainly you are not ready to talk about it to me either, or you would have done so by now,’ she said briskly. ‘So I advise you to go below and do what you can to transform yourself from a mud monster into a human being. I will beg a bucket of warm water from Grubb and bring it to you. The first thing you should do is scrub that orange mark off your forehead. It looks—rather startling.’

Britta raised her hand to her brow in surprise, and felt a small gritty patch beneath her fingertips. So this was the ‘mark of Tier’ that the shoreman had talked about! She realised that it was only a smear of amber mud from the soft goozli doll, and felt reassured. She opened her mouth to tell Jewel, but the words seemed to dry in her throat. Her lips felt stiff, and her tongue suddenly seemed too big for her mouth.

It is as Jewel says, she thought. I am not ready to talk about the swamp yet. I am more shocked than I realise.

‘You will have to cut off your hair, I think,’ Jewel said, regarding her critically. ‘It seems to have set in hard lumps, and I doubt that all the water in the Silver Sea will be enough to get it clean. Still—’ She rubbed her own shaved scalp with satisfaction. ‘Hair is far more trouble than it is worth, in my opinion. It attracts nesting dragons, for a start! You will be better off without it.’

Alone in her cabin, a bucket of hot water steaming at her feet, Britta stared into the mirror above the writing table. A pale, wild-eyed stranger with an amber brand in the centre of her forehead and a muddy bird’s nest for hair stared back at her. Mud monster, thought Britta, and saw the stranger’s lips twitch, then open, as she gave a snort of laughter.

How can you laugh, you fool? she scolded herself. Look at the state you are in! Your best shirt and skirt are ruined—and that is not the worst of it. You have lost everything! Your gold has gone and you have nothing to show for it. You have no hope, now, of winning the contest. And because of that mark on your forehead, your name has been linked with your father’s, which is the very thing you wished to avoid.

That last thought sobered her as nothing else had. She wet the edge of her face towel and rubbed at the amber mark. The surface mud vanished, but an orange stain remained on the skin where it had been. Peering at it, Britta remembered Thurl’s hands—amber to the wrists.

‘Perfect!’ she said aloud. ‘Now I have a tattoo, right in the middle of my forehead!’

Telling herself that the colour from one little dab of mud could not last forever and that the mark would fade in time, she began peeling off her clothes.

She had dropped her filthy shirt on the floor and was about to do the same with her skirt when she remembered the items in the skirt pocket.

She took out the notebook, the pencil stub, the handkerchief, the string of pink beads and the comb, and put them in a heap on the table. She thought of her coin purse, the kaja purse, and sighed. Right at the bottom of the other pocket was the goozli doll. When she pulled it out she saw that it had dried and hardened since she had last seen it, and its amber surface now had a dull sheen.

Britta put the doll on the table with the other things, balancing it on its feet so that it stood upright.

‘I forgot,’ she said to it. ‘I have not lost everything. I still have you.’

The goozli put its tiny hand to its forehead, then to its heart, and bowed.

Britta froze. I am dreaming, she thought dazedly.

The goozli put its hands on its hips, tilted its head to one side and regarded her solemnly. Then, like a streak of golden sunshine, it scampered up her arm, jumped onto her shoulder, and began drawing the few remaining hairpins from her clotted hair. Britta stifled a scream and tried to shake it off, but it clung to its perch and went on with its task as if nothing had happened.

She could see it clearly in the mirror—a moving, orange-gold manikin, standing on her shoulder. It had pulled out all the hairpins now, and was using them to tease out strands of her hair. Flakes of hard mud stuck through with fragments of leaves and sticks began showering onto the deck with a brisk, pattering sound.

Struggling to get her breath, Britta abruptly recalled several things at once.

She remembered the little amber-coloured object that had slid down Stassi’s grooved rod towards the sunrise pearl, during the ill-fated stop in the swamp. She remembered the dark gold flashes she had seen as the life-saving rope was looped around her chest. She remembered the movement low in the shadows of Thurl’s hut, as the sky sphere was brought for her inspection. She remembered the swathe of amber mud that lay beside the hut like a pool of dark honey.

And then she remembered some words from A Trader’s Life:

Tier was a gentle soul who wished no one any harm. After his mother went to join her ancestors he lived on alone in the swamp that was his home. There he lived quietly, moulding amber mud into strange, beautiful shapes that moved …

Shapes that moved … Britta had never really thought about those words before. They had seemed just part of the fable, without real meaning. Now she knew that they meant exactly what they said.

In ancient days, Tier had moulded ‘strange, beautiful shapes’ from the magic mud. In his time, no doubt, wonders had stalked the swamps. These days, Tier’s heir used the same mud for more practical reasons. Thurl made goozlis, tiny servants who kept the turtle people’s clothes and houses clean, fetched and carried for them and, most important of all, helped them harvest sunrise pearls.

Goozlis were one of the many deep secrets of the turtle people of the Two Moons swamplands. Most outsiders did not know they existed, and those who did know did not tell.

Could not tell, Britta thought, remembering how her throat had dried and her tongue stiffened when she was about to speak of the goozli to Jewel.

Fascinated, she stared at the reflection of the little amber creature labouring over her hair, patiently working it loose from the dried mud, strand by strand. The goozli was no bigger than her hand. Its tiny face was wrinkled in concentration. Its small, stout legs were no longer than her fingers …

And suddenly Britta knew why Thurl had given the goozli to her. She remembered the signs she had made to try to tell Thurl that all she wanted in return for Stassi’s freedom was to be taken back to the ship.

She had touched her heart. She had made her fingers walk quickly along the floor, like little legs. She had pointed in the direction of the harbour—which was also the side of the hut where the pool of amber mud lay.

Thurl had not understood. She had thought that Britta was demanding a goozli as her price. And for Stassi’s sake, Thurl had given one.

Just as she had given Dare Larsett a goozli, in return for the sky sphere. Britta had never been so sure of anything in her life.

Britta sat, hands clasped, staring vacantly into the mirror. Why her father had wanted a goozli for himself, she did not know. But she was perfectly sure that, whatever the reason, it had something to do with his plan to find the lost Staff of Tier.

Forget Dare Larsett, she told herself angrily. Forget you have ever heard the name! What does it matter what Father wanted, or what his plan was? You have your own life to live!

But if that was true, why did she seem to be following in her father’s footsteps?

Furiously, Britta pushed the unwelcome thought from her mind. She concentrated on the goozli, which had somehow managed to free most of the hair on one side of her head from mud, and was now working on the other side.

The little creature was a miracle! It would trade for a fortune in Illica, even without a receipt. From the little Britta had read, the Collectors of Illica were not fussy about proof of ownership.

But even as the thought crossed Britta’s mind, she knew it was base, and false, and impossible.

The goozli was not an item she could trade. It was hers—hers for life. She had touched it to her forehead and her chest, and it had marked her. Her fingertips had pressed into its sides when it was still soft and new. And … and somehow it warmed her heart.

The goozli was still wielding the hairpins vigorously. Dried mud was still showering the deck and powdering Britta’s shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye Britta saw a few pink fragments fall with the brown ones, and remembered with a lurch of regret the ragged, broken swamp lily half submerged in pale, heaving mud.

Then the goozli paused. It bent, and plucked something from the tangled web of hair right beside it. The next moment, it had scuttled down Britta’s arm and was presenting its find with a bow.

The thing looked like a grey river pebble. Britta’s heart leaped. She looked at the goozli, which nodded knowingly. She took the pebble from its tiny hand, and dipped it into the bucket of water at her feet.

When she straightened, she was holding between her dripping fingers a perfect pink pearl.

‘Caught in my hair when the wave of mud came, and it sank!’ Britta breathed, holding up the pearl. ‘Smothered in mud, dried in the tangled hair, carried with me! Why, at any time it might have fallen out and been lost! Or Thurl might have seen it!’

But it had not fallen and been lost. Thurl had not seen it. It was here, in Britta’s hand, a sunrise pearl worth a king’s ransom!

Britta did not know whether to laugh or sigh. In the end, she did a little of both.

She had no receipt for the pearl, so she could not use it to win the Rosalyn contest. But what might the Collectors of Illica trade for something so precious?

Suddenly, the future was stretching before her like a sunlit sea, the horizon glowing with mysterious, dazzling promise.

‘You are very well worth having, my friend,’ she said to the goozli, after a while.

And the goozli touched its forehead, and then its heart, and smiled.

DON’T MISS THE NEXT THRILLING ADVENTURE IN THE STAR OF DELTORA SERIES!

BOOK 3: THE TOWERS OF ILLICA

The Star of Deltora is making for Illica, home of the mysterious Collectors. Ahead is the most important trade of Britta’s life—her last chance to defeat her rivals and win the Rosalyn Contest. She knows she should be thinking of nothing else. But she is in danger. The ghostly shadows that haunt her are pressing closer. And though the terrors of Two Moons have been left behind, a cloud of fear still hangs over the Star like swamp mist.

Britta will need all her courage to face the shocking discoveries that are in store for her among the ancient towers of Illica.

AND WHERE THE STORY BEGAN…

BOOK 1: SHADOWS OF THE MASTER

Britta has always wanted to be trader like her father, sailing the nine seas and bringing precious cargo home to Del harbour. Her dreams seemed safe until her father’s quest to find the fabled Staff of Tier ended in blood and horror. Now his shamed family is in hiding, and his ship, the Star of Deltora, belongs to the powerful Rosalyn fleet. But Britta’s ambition burns as fiercely as ever. When she suddenly gets the chance to win back her future she knows she has to take it—whatever the cost.

She has no idea that shadows from a distant, haunted isle are watching her every move.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Deltora is a place of magic and mystery, but the island it shares with the Shadowlands is only one of the many strange isles that dot the nine seas. Some of the nine seas islands are large, and some are small, but they all have their own rich history and their own stories. I have told a few of these stories already—perhaps you have read them, or will read them sometime in the future.

The five Rowan of Rin books are set on an island that lies west of Deltora, across the Silver Sea. Deltorans call Rowan’s island ‘Maris’, because for centuries they have traded with the fish-like Maris people who live on the coast.

One of Rowan’s adventures also takes him on a quest to the nearby Land of the Zebak, a dangerous isle where trading ships never go. And somewhere beneath the waters of the Silver Sea is the lost Isle of the Four Sisters, where Flora, Viva, Aqua and Terra still sing to those who have ears to hear them.

The Three Doors trilogy is set on Dorne, a small, rich island in the Sea of Serpents, to Deltora’s east. Dorne is not only a popular trading port, with many links to Deltora, but also the native land of the magical Fellan. Their mysterious forest surrounds the walled city of Weld, where Rye, the hero of the Three Doors story, begins his quest to find his lost brothers.

And then there is Deltora Quest itself—the tale of Lief, Barda and Jasmine’s heroic struggle to free Deltora from the Shadow Lord’s tyranny.

As those who have read Tales of Deltora will know, there are hundreds of islands in the nine seas. And there are thousands more stories to tell. I can’t promise to tell them all, but sailing with Britta on the great trading ship Star of Deltora will certainly give me the chance to try.

ALSO BY EMILY RODDA

STAR OF DELTORA

1. Shadows of the Master

THREE DOORS TRILOGY

1. The Golden Door

2. The Silver Door

3. The Third Door

DELTORA QUEST 1

1. The Forests of Silence

2. The Lake of Tears

3. City of the Rats

4. The Shifting Sands

5. Dread Mountain

6. The Maze of the Beast

7. The Valley of the Lost

8. Return to Del

DELTORA QUEST 2

1. Cavern of the Fear

2. The Isle of Illusion

3. The Shadowlands

DELTORA QUEST 3

1. Dragon’s Nest

2. Shadowgate

3. Isle of the Dead

4. The Sister of the South

ROWAN OF RIN

1. Rowan of Rin

2. Rowan and the Travellers

3. Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal

4. Rowan and the Zebak

5. Rowan of the Bukshah

Teachers’ notes for the Star of Deltora series are available from www.scholastic.com.au

Omnibus Books

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First edition published by Omnibus Books in 2015.

This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2015.

E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-925065-51-0

Text copyright © Emily Rodda, 2015.

Cover artwork copyright © Marc McBride, 2015.

Cover image copyright © iStock.com/ m-imagephotography.

Cover type by blacksheep-UK.com.

Design and graphics by Kate Rowe.

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