The Crossing of Ingo. Helen Dunmore

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      “Watch out, Conor, I’m going to throw it.” “You’re crazy,” grumbles Conor. “I told you, you should have given it to the cat.” I take a small plastic bag out of my pocket, and shake out the bed of weed which is wrapped around the fish egg. The little fish is still alive, swimming inside its rubbery membrane. I shudder, draw my arm back and throw egg and weed as far away from us as I can into the waves.

      Sea water swirls around my legs, almost knocking me off balance. I grab Conor’s arm and we stand together, waiting, watching the horizon. The Call is alive in both of us. It’s like music rising at the start of a crescendo, but it hasn’t got there yet. We are waiting for Faro.

      The sky is dark today. The wind chops off the white crests of the waves. Even inside our cove, where the water is protected by a curve of cliff and by the rocks that guard the entrance, the sea is wild.

      A wave sucks back, tugging at us, wanting to pull us with it. We manage to stay upright, but we have to fight for balance.

      “There he is!” shouts Conor.

      Faro’s head shows through the wave crests and then vanishes again. Next time he rises he is only fifty metres from shore. He waves, and we plunge forward. I dive through the first wave and then the next, cutting through the water with Conor beside me. We are not in Ingo yet, but the water feels like home.

      We reach Faro. His head is above the surface and he is breathing air. He is pale and his face, like the sea, is stormy. I wonder if the air is hurting him. I thought it was growing easier for Faro to make the transition.

      “Are you all right, Faro?” I ask.

      “I was pursued,” says Faro, and anger blazes in his eyes. “Look.” He flips over so that we can see his tail. There is a gash in it at the base. “I am losing blood,” says Faro. “I have called my sister but she is with a child who was thrown against the rocks by a rogue current. She will come when she can.”

      “Faro! It looks deep,” I say.

      “It is deep. It was intended to be deep. Mortarow pursued me. The sea bull has gored me.”

      “He did this to you?” demands Conor, and a fury equal to Faro’s flares in his face.

      “Ervys’s followers have taken up arms,” says Faro. There is deep anger in his voice as he shakes back his hair defiantly. “He has taught the Mer to arm themselves against their brothers and sisters. He has defied the law of the Mer. Saldowr shall hear of this.”

      “Faro, can you climb up on to a rock?” I ask him. “We aren’t healers like Elvira but if we press hard on the wound that might stop it bleeding.”

      “It will weaken me more to leave the water. I came to tell you that in two nights we will answer the Call. But Ervys’s followers are waiting for us. They will pack the Assembly chamber if they can. They will try to turn the Mer against us so that we are not chosen to make the Crossing. They fear what will happen if we succeed. They don’t want peace: they want war, and victory.”

      “What time? When shall we come?”

      “Be here when the moon rises. I will come for you. You will know when the time is right, because the Call will grow so strong in you that you hear nothing else. This is what I have been told by those who have made the Crossing. I will be here for you.”

      “But you’re badly hurt, Faro!” I stare through the water and see a cloud of blood around Faro’s tail. “Will you be strong enough?”

      “Strong enough!” says Faro, looking at me as if I am Mortarow trying to stop him. Then his face softens. “Are you wearing our bracelet, little sister?”

      “Of course.” I lift my arm to show him. “Faro, what kind of weapons have they got – Ervys and his followers?”

      “They have taken up spears fashioned from the wood they find in drowned ships, and from sharpened stones and coral.”

      I look anxiously at Faro’s tail. I know that people often get blood poisoning from coral wounds. “Was Mortarow’s spear tipped with coral, Faro?”

      Faro turns aside and spits into the water. “Mortarow has taken human metal to tip his spear. He has been rummaging deep in the belly of a wreck and has found human weapons.” He spits again. “And our sea bull says that he is upholding the pure traditions of the Mer.” He’s very pale. Anger gives him energy, but he needs Elvira’s help, and quickly.

      “Go, Faro, you’ve got to hurry. Are you strong enough? Shall we come with you to find Elvira?”

      Faro shakes his head. “In two nights I shall be here for you.” He turns. There are no dazzling somersaults this time, or glittering plunges into deep water. Faro dips his head beneath the surface and swims down, down into Ingo until he is lost to sight.

      “We shouldn’t have let him go, Conor. That wound was deep.”

      “He’ll be all right, once he gets to Elvira.” Conor turns and wades back to shore. I catch up with him. “Only two nights to wait,” he says.

      “Yes.”

      Conor glances at me, his face sombre and thoughtful. “Aren’t you afraid, Saph?” he asks.

      “Of Mortarow, you mean? But Saldowr wouldn’t let him hurt us… would he?”

      “Mortarow has just struck at Faro, Saph. He knows that’s the same as striking at Saldowr himself. They’ve lost their fear of what Saldowr can do to them. Listen Saph. Do you really still want to make the Crossing?”

      I stop dead in the shallow water, grabbing Conor’s arm to make him stop too. “How can you say that?”

      “I’m not even sure that I should let you go.”

      “Let me go! Conor, you’re my brother but you’re not my keeper. Don’t you understand? I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to go.”

      Conor sighs. “I keep thinking what Mum would say if she knew.”

      “You can’t think like that.”

      “You’re my sister, Saph. My real sister.”

      I know this is a dig at Faro. Conor doesn’t like it when Faro calls me little sister. “I know,” I say, “but I still have to go. And so do you, don’t you? You heard the Call.” Conor nods. “Ingo needs us,” I go СКАЧАТЬ