Free Lucia's Masks by Wendy MacIntyre Page A

to absorb lest it tangle his thoughts. They were each like little pots on the boil. Their wrists twitched, as did their fingers. They ran upon the spot, lifting their knees high. They cocked their heads in one direction and then the other.
    They were listening for a call, Chandelier realized. They were tied to an invisible rope. They were someone’s toys to pull at will.
    “Move it, sweet stuff. Show us what you’ve got or we’ll rip your eyes out.”
    Toys, he thought again, and these are children. They like to play with things that move and glitter. Of the three precious things he carried — the metal and stone object his father been clutching when he died, the Pouch of Miriam and the compass — he knew it was the compass that would galvanize the children’s attention. He took the instrument out, laid it on his palm, and offered it to them like a holy relic.
    “Gimme.”
    Chandelier held his breath while the two boys studied the compass.
    “It moves. The little arrow thing shivers.” They made a sound that might have been laughter.
    “ A compass. To tell which way you are going.”
    “Hah! We’re all going to Hell. Everybody knows that.”
    “Think Ralph will like it?” the taller of the two asked the other.
    “Yup. It’s metal, innit?”
    “What else you got, sweet stuff?”
    Chandelier knew he must fight to the death to protect his last two precious belongings. He readied himself, feet planted firmly apart, and his fists as hard as he could make them.
    At that instant a whistle rent the air, one blast, then two more.
    “That’s come-back call,” said one.
    “What about him . . . ?” The other pointed to Chandelier.
    “Ralph’ll skin us if we’re last in again.”
    They spun round on the balls of their feet, and lifting their knees high, sped off in a peculiar loping run.
    Chandelier sank to the ground, trying to slow his breathing and quiet the thunder in his head. Then he moved on, a good half-mile from the site of the assault, and took refuge under leaf cover. He called on Morpheus, but a sore question kept poking at him. What was Ralph to those boys? Was it only fear of Ralph tugged them back on that invisible line, or was love like sons’ for their father twined there as well? The question hurt him, sounding out the depth of the void inside he recognized as his loneliness.
    When he set off the next night, clutching the Pouch of Miriam, he did not have even the stars from which to take his bearings. They were blotted out by slate cloud cover, overlaid by a kind of gluey haze that sometimes showed a purplish sheen. He knew he was lost; had been so since the moment he handed the compass over to the two boys. Why had he been so foolish? They might have settled for the nuts and raisins. He realized this was unlikely, but the idea dispirited him all the same.
    Keep going . Snake’s tongue flicked at his ear.
    Yes. But how tired he was and how leaden his feet. He had ceased running because the air was so heavy it clogged his lungs. He noticed that the trees around him were thinning and that sometimes they disappeared altogether. When that happened, the exposed ground looked grey and cracked.
    There were fewer trees in the North, or they grew scraggly there. Was that not what he had learned in the Egg? The sullen air made it hard for him to think clearly and remember things. What an amazing outcome, if he had indeed stumbled on the right track northward. Perhaps it was the Pouch of Miriam looking after him.
    Was this already the North? Up ahead he saw a mesmerizing sight that made him sure this was so. Wonderful lights in different colours played across the sky, swooping in great arcs and crossing each other. Orange he saw and pink and a yellow that dazzled his eyes. Were these the Northern Lights? Yes, they must be. His heart quickened and he propelled himself through the pall of his fatigue.
    As he came nearer, he was disappointed to see the lights become less, rather than more beautiful. The