Ransom
‘Help!’ Christopher roared. ‘Kidnap! Somebody help us!’
A window opened above – a face looked out. It was instantly hauled back, and the window slammed shut.
Christopher ran after the boats, shouting again and again. ‘Kidnap! Call the Gardai!’ But they had vanished into the network of canals where he could not follow. He looked desperately around for a boat but there was none. He turned back to the alley. Ratwin was rising painfully.
‘Nobodies will come. We must get to the centres – there wills be Gardai there.’
Christopher turned back to Anya, who was crouched on all fours like an animal.
‘Are you badly hurt?’ he asked. It had happened so fast, he thought. Catastrophe is swift.
She didn’t seem able to speak, but she shook her head.
‘We need to get help,’ he said. She did not look like herself, and Christopher’s heart, already galloping with panic, raced faster. ‘Anya! Come on. Up.’
He held out both hands to her and she stood, crying out as she did. There was blood running down one of her bare arms.
Jacques landed on Christopher’s wounded shoulder. He gave a short, hard lick at the blood. ‘A kidnap,’ he said. ‘The dirtiest of human crimes.’ His voice was bitter.
‘But kidnappers leaveses a ransom-demand note,’ said Ratwin.
It was as if they had been heard. There was a sudden cry from above and a bronze bird swooped down again into the bloodstained alley. Anya gave a cry that was like a weep, but the bird dropped a rock at Christopher’s feet before launching back into the sky.
‘A stymphalian bird,’ spat Jacques. ‘Dark creatures.’
Wrapped around the rock was a piece of parchment. Christopher unfolded it:
We have taken what is precious to you.
We require the most precious objects in Glimouria in ransom.
There will be three demands.
The first is the easiest. Pluck a golden whisker from each of the three heads of a Cerberus.
If you tell the Gardai that we have taken her, Irian Guinne dies.
If you tell any person or creature, she dies.
If you fail, she dies.
Christopher stared. A terrible sense of unreality had taken hold. ‘If you fail …’ he read again. ‘She dies.’
Anya spoke for the first time. Her voice sounded unfamiliar, rough and harsh. ‘We have to tell Nighthand.’
Christopher tried to impose order on the furious chaos of his body. ‘Yes. Of course we do. Gallia, will you fly ahead—?’
‘Are yous sure?’ said Ratwin. ‘They is mens to takes seriously. That notes says—’
‘We have to,’ Anya rasped again. ‘He’ll know what to do.’ She spat out a mouthful of saliva and blood. ‘Nighthand will get her back. And they’ll never know.’
But even as she spoke, a stone plummeted from the sky. It missed her by inches, and she cried out in rage. Looking up, they saw a second stymphalian, this one larger than the first, taking off back into the sky.
Around the rock was wrapped a scrap of paper. Christopher pulled it off. But he already knew what it would say. The writing was jagged and blotched:
We will know.
If Fidens Nighthand discovers we have taken her, Irian Guinne will die instantly and painfully.
We are watching you.
Anya let out a cry. She dropped to her knees, and Christopher sank to a crouch next to her. She leaned her head against his. For a long moment they stayed there, their heads touching, waiting for the roar of pain and shock and bewilderment to pass.
It was Gallia who roused them. She came to land on Anya’s shoulder.
‘You must get up. You must both wash. You’re bleeding.’ Her voice, with its familiar governess croak, helped. Christopher rose and pocketed the two pieces of paper.
Anya moved, half blind, towards the water in the canal.
‘Not there,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s filthy. Your cuts will get infected.’
He led her back the way they had come, until they reached an empty square, with a single flowering tree under a clock tower.
He had remembered there being a water fountain, and he took her to it and pumped the handle.
Freezing cold water splashed over his hands.
He rinsed the blood from them, from his face and arms – the wounds stung like acid but they weren’t deep – then pushed Anya towards it.
She still moved as if stunned, so he pulled off his jacket, wet the sleeve and bathed Anya’s face with it.
‘You fought like a warrior,’ he said. It felt important to talk to her, to bring her back. ‘It was impressive. Like you weren’t afraid at all.’
The water on her face revived her. She blinked and shook herself, then put her entire head under the running stream, and tried to smile at him.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I was afraid. I was terrified. But I was even more angry than I was afraid. I think my body acted of its own accord.’ She scraped her soaking hair from her face. ‘What now, Christopher? What do we do?’
The ice-cold water had brought clarity, and Christopher spoke like he had been planning it for weeks, like he was as sure and confident as a king.
‘We do what they say,’ he said. ‘The kidnappers were the same men that Vigo Nex saw: the bandits. You saw their snake bracelets. They massacred a village. They murdered Senan’s father.
When they say they’d kill Irian, we need to believe them.
So we have no choice. We tell nobody. And we bring them what they want. ’
‘The whiskers of a Cerberus?’ said Anya.
‘Yes. I don’t know why they want them, but if that’s what it takes, it’s what we have to do.’
‘I forgets you isn’t from heres,’ said Ratwin. ‘There is a sayings: As rares as the whiskers of a Cerberus. The whiskers is living golds.’
‘What even is a Cerberus?’ said Christopher. ‘Some kind of dog?’
‘It is a three-headed hound,’ said Jacques. ‘Each head is different. One used to guard the underworld, and their whiskers glowed bright enough to see the way.’
‘A single whisker of a Cerberus is worth thousands,’ croaked Gallia, ‘because those who try to pluck the whiskers are usually torn into three pieces by the three sets of teeth. Why these disgusting men want the whiskers is not the question. The far more pressing question is, why are they demanding two teenagers pluck them? Why not Nighthand, or any number of pirates that you find on the seas? Why not Vigo Nex?’
‘Becauses,’ said Ratwin, ‘nobodies would suspects it. Living with Nighthands has taughts me one things – the more extravagant your decisions, the harder they are to predicts.’
‘Nighthand!’ Anya’s colour returned in a sudden flood. ‘Christopher, if we just go seeking this dog, if we don’t come back, Nighthand will come looking for us. And if he finds out—’
‘Irian dies,’ said Jacques.
‘Then we’ll need to tell him a story,’ said Christopher. ‘Something he’ll believe. Gallia?’
Gallia waited, unspeaking.
‘Would you fly back to Glimt?’ said Christopher. ‘Could you tell Nighthand that Irian … I don’t know …’ He turned to Anya. ‘Tell him what?’
‘Tell him,’ said Anya, ‘that we were on the way to the Senate, but we were stopped by a friend of Irian’s who needed her help. He’ll believe that. She always helps.’
‘Yes! Tell him that there’s … a colony of injured unicorns in Atidina.
Nothing dangerous. Tell him we went with her.
To keep her safe.’ The words hurt him. ‘And then every day until we’re back you’re going to have to pretend to have had another message from us.
From the ratatoskas, or the other gaganas. Will you do it?’
Gallia jerked her head upwards, and sideways: Gaganan for Yes, if I must. But she halted in the air.
‘Koo!’ Gallia said. ‘He was with Irian! In her jacket.’
‘Oh!’ cried Anya. ‘I forgot! I forgot he was with us!’
‘He’ll be safe,’ said Christopher. ‘Anya! You can’t cry now. There isn’t time. Listen – if he’s with her, it means Irian isn’t alone.’
Anya threw back her head, her nostrils flared. It was something he admired about her – she had the muscle that could hold back tears when she needed to.
‘Gallia,’ she said, ‘you’d better go, before he starts expecting us back.’
Gallia cocked her head left and right, checking for stymphalian birds. She bent her beak, and whispered in Anya’s ear, and Anya took her and held her close. She stroked the old bird’s back, and kissed her fervently on the head. Then the bird gave Christopher a peck on the hand, and she was gone.
Christopher turned to Anya, who was watching Gallia’s soaring wings, biting her lips together.
‘Where do we find a Cerberus dog?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Anya. ‘There are none on Dousha.’
‘And we can’t just ask people on the street,’ said Christopher.
‘But,’ said Anya, ‘this is the City of Scholars.’
‘So?’
‘So, if we can’t ask a person, we can ask a book.’