Chapter 11
‘HOW DID YOU brING THE LOQUISONUS machine inside without getting it wet?’ I ask Abelio.
His request to show him how it works came at the crack of dawn, and Cindra barely has time to nudge a cup of herbal tea towards me before Abelio is leading me through the tunnels.
‘We have several tunnel entrances,’ Abelio says. ‘One thing you will learn about wyverns is that we are resourceful.’
He has a spring in his step and I realise that our cultural exchange has officially begun.
My dread rises as I follow him, the loquisonus machine in my arms. The time has come to lie, to pretend that the loquisonus is a tunnel detector that I can teach Abelio to use, while somehow convincing him to help me win this war.
I catch a glimpse of Gideon inside a chamber, looking pale as Aodahn animatedly interrogates him on his knowledge of French.
Abelio leads me past the cave with the pool entrance and down another tunnel.
We climb up a steep slope towards a tall, vertical line of light.
‘Here.’
Abelio creeps through a gap in the rocks, the same sort of entrance that led to Ruth’s tunnels, and I press the loquisonus machine to my chest as we climb through.
We’re standing on top of a grassy sand dune and behind us is what looks like a cave entrance blocked by a rockfall.
You’d never guess it leads to an intricate underground tunnel system.
‘Where are we?’ I ask.
‘The north side of the island still, but facing west,’ Abelio says.
I stare out across the island in the direction of Wyvernmire’s camp, but the view is blocked by hills and mist. Is she still sending her Guardians and dragons out to look for me? Does she know we’re searching for the Hebridean Wyverns on this side of the island? Will she come this far?
‘A demonstration?’ Abelio says politely.
It’s not a suggestion.
I set the loquisonus on the ground, keeping an eye out for dragon-shaped shadows.
‘Did you always live on this part of the island?’ I ask him. ‘Even before you went underground?’
‘Yes,’ Abelio replies. ‘We have always been private creatures and the proximity of the opposite side of Canna to the other islands does not appeal to us, especially during the nesting season, when Rùm is overflowing.’
‘So when Clawtail lived with you, it was here?’
I fiddle with the dial on the loquisonus, waiting for his answer.
‘Of course,’ he replies.
The government has been here before, then. This must be where they killed him. I hand Abelio the headphones. They’re much too small for his head.
‘You can press these to your ear,’ I tell him. ‘They’re for listening.’
He gives me a curious look as he takes them.
I flick the switch and the loquisonus machine whirrs.
Abelio recoils as the crackling noise fills the headphones, but it’s quickly replaced by the steady musicality of the Koinamens as I find the correct frequency.
The machine is designed to convert echolocation into a series of sounds audible to the human ear, and so while Abelio can hear the sounds through the headphones, they in no way resemble what he, an echolocating dragon, hears when communicating telepathically.
He has no idea he’s listening to a transmuted version of the dragons’ most sacred tongue.
I pick the machine up and gesture to him to walk with me towards the cave entrance.
‘The closer we get to any tunnels, the louder the alarm will sound,’ I lie.
I know the sound will grow louder as we approach the tunnels because the wyverns are echolocating there. Then I turn and lead him away again, down the dune in the direction of the sea, where there are no wyverns.
‘The noise is quieter here,’ Abelio murmurs.
I nod, counting my luck. If there had been a dragon flying over the water, the sound of their echolocation would have come through the headphones and what I’ve just told Abelio wouldn’t have made sense.
‘It is odd,’ he murmurs, ‘that the tunnels sound like the strings of a musical instrument.
How does the machine work?’
‘I didn’t invent it,’ I say slowly.
My heart races. What can I make up on the spot?
I need Abelio to believe that I have some knowledge to offer him, so that he will allow me to stay long enough to figure out how the wyverns can help the rebels win the war.
My eyes dart to more of the amber-coloured crystals in the grass.
‘But I think it has something to do with . . . the presence of minerals in the earth, which are closer to the surface where tunnels have been made.’
I am a better liar in Cannair than I am in English.
Two dragons swoop across the sky and I see Abelio startle. The noise in the headphones is changing. I stumble back in the direction of the cave, but I can tell by his expression as he follows me that he’s noticed.
‘Why did the noise start again back there, if there are no tunnels?’
I shake my head. ‘It started again because we came back this way,’ I say, gesturing to accompany my stilted speech.
I watch as the dragons fly over us. Slowly, Abelio reaches for the loquisonus machine and carries it back to the spot where we were standing a moment ago.
With the dragons overhead gone, it is no longer detecting their echolocation and I let out a small sigh of relief.
His lower jaw quivers, revealing small, sharp teeth. Does he know I’m lying?
‘Perhaps,’ he says slowly, ‘the machine was detecting old tunnels in the cliffs. In the past, when our passageways have been discovered, we were forced to fill in the entrances and abandon them.’
My head spins as I grasp at his words, mentally translating at a snail’s pace. ‘That must be it,’ I reply.
‘Fascinating,’ he says with a wide-lipped smile.
‘What use might you have for a tunnel detector?’ I ask him tentatively. ‘If you made the tunnels, then surely you know where each is located.’
‘It is always useful to know which weapons one’s enemy might have in their arsenal,’ he replies.
‘And your enemy is who, exactly?’
‘We have lived underground since the British government came looking for Patrick Clawtail. We lost many of our own in the fight to protect him. After that, we decided to keep to ourselves.’
‘This is the only tunnel detector known to exist,’ I say. ‘So you don’t have to worry about—’
‘I thought you said Britannia was at war,’ he interrupts.
‘It is.’
‘Then what makes you think the same government that attacked us once before won’t have more machines like this one at its disposal?’
‘What makes you think Britannia’s government is interested in detecting wyvern tunnels?’ I reply.
I’m pleased with my quick retort. Perhaps mastering Cannair won’t be so hard, after all. And perhaps this is the information I need. Perhaps Abelio is about to tell me what Hollingsworth didn’t.
‘Because we shielded a rebel the government wanted,’ he murmurs. ‘And now it seems we are doing so again.’
His blue tongue hisses between his teeth.
‘So you know from first-hand experience how ruthless Britannia’s government is,’ I say.
‘The Peace Agreement was corrupt, allowing dragons to feed on human children abandoned on Canna after the people here were forced from their homes. And now that same government is trying to ban any languages that aren’t English or the Slavidraneishá of the Bulgarian Bolgoriths. Languages like your beautiful Cannair.’
‘Prohibit a language they do not even know?’ Abelio hisses.
‘Shielding our wyvernlings from such ignorance, from such cultural decline, is paramount. Do you see why we live the way we live? Why your mere presence is unnerving?’ His eyes flash.
‘You are a link between us and the terrible government you speak of, girl with the golden machine. After you have used our fasgadh, I am not sorry to have to ask you . . .’
‘Yes?’ I prompt.
If there’s anything I can do to make Abelio more willing to help us in the war against Wyvernmire, I will.
‘. . . to never return.’
I feel my shoulders slump as Abelio holds my gaze. His scales are a deep blue against the roiling grey sea in the background. They are alike, Abelio and the sea. Wild and passionate on the surface. yet unmoving beneath the waves.
He will never agree to fight in a war.
‘You may stop your machine,’ Abelio says.
I flick the switch and follow him back inside the cave. As we walk through the tunnels, I hear a loud thumping.
‘To the left,’ Abelio says.
I follow the source of the noise into one of the chambers.
Serena is standing at a large wooden table with Cindra and several other wyverns.
A length of thick grey material is spread out on the table, with three wyverns on each side and Serena at the head.
They are beating the cloth with their long index talons.
Cindra lets out a low, hissing whisper and Serena looks up in surprise as the other wyverns copy her.
‘What are they doing?’ I ask quietly.
‘They are waulking the tweed,’ Abelio replies. ‘It is an ancient Gaelic tradition, shared by humans and wyverns. Once the wool is removed from the loom it is drenched in urine and beaten to shrink the fibres, to ensure that the cold and damp of the Hebrides cannot pass through.’
I recognise the word for loom. It appears in Clawtail’s journal at least a dozen times. I watch Serena, but the expression on her face is imperceptible. Is she going to dip her hands in urine in the name of the feminine arts?
‘Where are the looms?’ I ask Abelio.
‘In the weaving chamber,’ he replies.
Of course.
‘The tweed,’ I say. ‘It holds your memories, doesn’t it? And you use it to make rugs and—’
The soft whispers become low, haunting chants. Serena presses her hands into the tweed as I try to understand the sung Cannair, but I don’t recognise any of the words. The rhythmic thumping of the cloth on the table, accompanied by the wailing song, is almost hypnotic.