Windjammer run, p.14
Windjammer Run, page 14
‘Well,’ said Scirf, ‘I think you’re all round the twist – you could have a good life here if you’d just accept each other as friends instead of killing each other off – but don’t let me stop you.’
‘The blue-eyes killed my son,’ said the chief mournfully.
‘Yes, I’ve been meanin’ to ask you about that. How did they kill him? Did they send assassins in the night?’
‘They murdered him with bad dreams. They had their Jenny Hanivers send a deadly dream on the night wind to make him ill. He complained of feeling sick one day, his feathers dropped out two by three, and then at last he grew so weak he died one night in his sleep. They are terrible murderers, those blue-eyes.’
Scirf coughed into his paw. ‘He – he couldn’t have just caught the croup and died of nat’ral causes – you know, old age and such – all by himself, I suppose?’
‘This does not happen, weasel. Since we have had the Jenny Hanivers, we dodos are immortal. We have the power of everlasting life through our Jenny Hanivers. If we die it is because an enemy has hexed us. In the past few years we have lost many of our brown-eyed warriors. The blue-eyes see our senior warriors as a threat and as soon as they become elderly, they kill them by sending them bad dreams.’
‘The victims complain of having bad dreams before they die?’
‘Exactly! What other proof do you need of the murdering nature of those blue-eyes?’
Soon they were up in the mountains, creeping through the blue rocks. The dodos all had blow-pipes in their mouths. Sylver and his group of mammals armed themselves with slingshots which they hoped they would not have to use. Finally they came across the village of the blue-eyed dodos, consisting of large nests very similar to those in the village down on the coast. However, this village looked deserted. There was not a bird to be seen.
‘They knew we would come,’ said the chief, in a disappointed voice. ‘Now we cannot kill anyone.’
Sylver and the others were greatly relieved to hear this.
‘Come,’ said the chief to Sylver, ‘you will help remove the Jenny Hanivers.’
Sylver, Scirf and the two martens were taken to what appeared to be a ceremonial circle of posts. Pinned to each post was a grotesque figure, like a flattened mask, with tiny arms, legs and tails. They were grey in colour and the eyes, noses and mouths were hollow black pits. The effigies stared out blindly at the mammals as if with evil intent. Sylver had never seen anything as revolting as these Jenny Hanivers in his whole life. Their hollow eyes seemed to follow him wherever he went. They looked mournful, like the solid faces of ghosts, and their open mouths cried out silently for attention.
One of the pine martens gave a startled cry and ran away to the edge of the village. There he stood, shaking from head to claw. The other marten stood transfixed with horror, unable to move or take his eyes from those ugly masks.
In the meantime the chief of the dodos walked from post to post, inspecting the Jenny Hanivers, as if searching for something in their grisly grey expressions. ‘The sacred Jenny Hanivers,’ she said. ‘They are here to protect the tribe against its enemies.’
‘Not doin’ a very good job of it, are they, squire? Because here we are, attackin’ the village.’
The chief ignored this common-sense logic. ‘We shall steal them,’ she said, ‘and use their power against the makers themselves. With these and our own Jenny Hanivers, we shall be the greatest tribe that ever lived on the island.’
‘What are they?’ Sylver whispered to Scirf. ‘Do you know?’
Scirf, more used to revolting things than the others, having held the post of rhubarb dung-watcher for many years and seen horror on horror crawl out from the fetid, steaming manure, was not quite so taken aback as his companions. He studied the sacred objects with a scholar’s eye and recognized something he had read in a book about the pastimes of sailors while at sea.
There had been a paragraph about scrimshaw carving: making little figures from whalebone and whale ivory. There had been almost a whole chapter on mat-making from ropes. Then, right at the back of the book, there had been a sentence or two on making creatures from dried fish, mostly skate.
The seamen would leave a flat fish on the deck in the sun to dehydrate and shrink. Once the fish was dry, its skin became leathery. The artist would then take a sharp mariner’s knife and carve hideous faces in the skate’s hooded underside. Arms and legs would be formed out of the fins on either side of the body and at the base of the tail. They would shape it into a ghastly caricature of a human. The result was this frightening mask, which looked like a frozen phantom caught between the real and the imagined.
‘Jenny Hanivers, yes,’ said Scirf, stroking his whiskers, ‘they’re just fish, they are. Dried fish. Human sailors have carved them into these scary-lookin’ faces with their sharp penknives. Nothin’ to be worried about, squire. Just a load of old dead fish, that’s all.’
The chief now came over to them. ‘You will help gather the Jenny Hanivers. We must carry them back to our village in triumph. In the meantime, my warriors will wreck the nests of the blue-eyes.’
‘Is that necessary – destroying the nests?’ asked Sylver.
‘Most necessary.’
The brown-eyed dodos enjoyed themselves, smashing up the nests of the blue-eyed dodos. It seemed to Sylver that an awful lot of work had gone into making those nests. Now the homes of the blue-eyes would have to be rebuilt.
‘You don’t seem to care that this tribe will have nowhere to sleep tonight,’ he said to the chief.
‘The ground is good enough for the likes of them,’ she replied harshly. ‘Let them sleep in the thorn bushes. Let them sleep on the sharp rocks. Let them sleep at the bottom of the nearest lake. What is that to us? We shall be comfortable in our own village.’
Once the Jenny Hanivers had been gathered in, stacked, and made into convenient packages, the tribe set off again. They returned home the way they had come. Once down from the uplands they followed the same paths. They were wary in case they were attacked on the march. ‘The blue-eyes are sneaky like that,’ said the chief. ‘They have no honour.’
Under the canopy of the rainforest the tribe felt more at ease. They told each other the blue-eyes would never dare come this close to the brown-eyes’ village.
‘It is not in their nature,’ said the chief. ‘They are cowardly creatures at heart.’
When the party arrived back at their own village the shaman came out to meet them. If she had been splendid during the night hours, she was even more colourful and bizarre in the daylight. Her bright feathers swept upwards from a band on her brow and fluttered in the morning breezes. Her pretty seashells rattled around her ankles. In her beak she held a fly whisk; she occasionally transferred this to one of her feet and then proceeded to flay persistent insects.
‘Chief! Chief!’ she cried, when she saw the tribe. ‘They have been here!’
At first Sylver thought she meant mammals from his ship. He imagined that Mawk had returned to the ship and sent out a search party. But when he and the others stepped into the village, he saw that he was wrong.
It seemed that while the brown-eyes were wrecking the blue-eyes’ village, the same had been happening in reverse. The blue-eyed dodos’ village had been empty because they were out smashing the brown-eyes’ village. The nests had been overturned, the twigs and straw kicked into the four winds, the clay which bound them together shattered.
‘Where were you when all this was going on?’ cried the distressed chief to her shaman. ‘Did you not protect our home places, our beloved nests?’
‘I – I was guarding the Jenny Hanivers.’
‘So – you at least saved them.’
The shaman’s claws shifted uncomfortably in the dust. ‘Not exactly, O chief, O great one. I – I was savagely requested to stand to one side. The Jenny Hanivers were all stolen.’
The gloomy chief sat down in the dust. She seemed to be contemplating the claw marks of the blue-eyed tribe, still imprinted in the dirt of the village square. Nothing had come out of these two raids except more work. ‘At least we have some Jenny Hanivers,’ she muttered. ‘At least we will have some protection.’
It seemed ludicrous to Scirf and Sylver that the gods which had failed to protect even the villagers who fashioned them, should be accepted by the wreckers as authentic.
Sylver said, ‘It seems to me that you’ve got what you deserved.’
The chief’s head came up with a jerk. ‘Listen to me, you furry little monster. I think this is all your fault!’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried the delighted shaman. ‘They have brought bad luck and disaster on the tribe. We should burn them at the stake. We should roast them until . . .’
‘. . . their eyes pop,’ finished Sylver.
At that moment Mawk and about thirty pine martens burst into the clearing, yelling and waving weapons in a threatening manner. They bared their teeth at the dodos, showing their sharp fangs, and swore terrible oaths. Wearing their sailors’ kerchiefs of red or blue tied round their heads, they were armed with marlinspikes and other fearsome tools. Cries of, ‘Let’s do ’em,’ and ‘Let me at ’em,’ filled the village. They looked like a blood-thirsty mob of demons, intent on savage murder.
The warrior dodos let out squawks of fright and ran away into the forest, leaving their chief and her shaman to face the music.
To Mawk’s disgust, Scirf immediately ran over to him and hugged him.
‘What a hero,’ cried Scirf, ‘you brought the rescue party!’
Mawk extricated himself from the enthusiastic Scirf. ‘I just got worried, that’s all.’
The chief of the dodos quailed. ‘Now you will kill us all. This is the fault of the blue-eyes. They brought you here with the magic of our own Jenny Hanivers. You are all demons from the depths of the earth. This is why they stole them from us – to rob us of protection against such fiends as you.’
Sylver and Scirf had long since realized that all the magic and power on this island was put down to possession of Jenny Hanivers. Without those graven images the dodos would believe themselves to be powerless and mortal. They would no longer be able to kill enemies at a distance. In fact, they would be much better off without the things.
‘Look, you overgrown yard bird,’ Sylver cried, ‘this gang of black-hearted pine martens would be more than happy to smash all your eggs and burn your nests, but I’m not going to let them. I feel sorry for you, so I’m going to make peace between you and the blue-eyes, once and for all.’
‘And how are you going to do that?’ asked the chief. ‘There has been no peace between us for a hundred years.’
‘I’m going to confiscate your Jenny Hanivers. Both tribes will surrender all those ugly effigies to me on the beach by midnight tonight. Without your symbols of power you will be harmless. You will have to live in peace. Send a messenger to the chief of the blue-eyes and his or her shaman and tell them to come down and bring all their Jenny Hanivers to the shore by the appointed time. Say that if they refuse they will be visited by a horde of mad demons with red and blue heads.’
Sylver let this sink in, then added, ‘You know that in the past some of your eggs have been filled with a hot wind and foul smell, instead of hatchlings?’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried the shaman to her chief, ‘this is true. Bad eggs, bad eggs.’
‘If either you or the blue-eyes hold back one single Jenny Haniver then be assured that all your eggs will turn bad. We have the Jenny Hanivers now. The same will happen if you go to war with your blow-pipes. We will send bad dreams to make you fall sick and die. No-one is allowed to carry a weapon from now on, do you understand? I shall tell the same thing to the chief of the blue-eyes when he or she gets here. In the meantime I suggest you collect all the blow-pipes and poisonous darts you have, make a pile in the middle of the village – and burn them.’
Chapter Eighteen
The blue-eyes sent their chief, but he was not in the mood to pass anything over to a bunch of motley mammals. In the meantime the brown-eyes’ chief had recovered her composure and was also having second thoughts. She could see now that the ship’s crew were not superanimal. The upshot of it all was that both chiefs steadfastly refused to be intimidated. They wanted to keep their Jenny Hanivers and their weapons, and defied Sylver and his crew to do their worst.
It was midday and the sun beat down hotly on the heads of all the opposing forces in the dirt square of the brown-eyes’ village. Sylver stood confronting the two chiefs, who were backed by the whole tribe of the brown-eyes. It was animal nature that now the two tribes had a common enemy – Sylver and his crew – they stood firmly together as allies.
‘You leave me no choice,’ said Sylver severely. ‘A lesson must be taught and learned here.’
The shaman of the brown-eyes sneered and did a little dance to show her contempt. She rocked from side to side, her seashell ornaments rattling noisily. Her great horny feet stirred the dust. The dance was obviously supposed to be some form of gross insult.
The two chiefs told Sylver to take his mammals and depart before the blow-pipe darts started flying.
Sylver turned to Wodehed, who had come up from the ship with Mawk and the rest of the crew. ‘Magic,’ he said. ‘Show them we mean business.’
Mawk groaned. Wodehed was the worst magician in the universe. His spells always went wrong somewhere. However, Wodehed himself was an imposing figure. He was portly and walked with a more dignified air than the other weasels. His brow was bushy white with age and his coat ran with silver hairs. Moreover, he knew the value of showmanship.
He stepped forward and glowered at the two chiefs, at the same time tripping up the shaman, who fell in a humiliating heap in the dust. He then proceeded to chant incantations, full of very dark and strange words, which startled the villagers into retreating a few paces. At the same time he took four magic stones from the pouch on his belt. ‘I will show you,’ he said to the two chiefs, ‘how puny you dodos are next to us weasels. How far would you say it is from here in the foothills to the seashore?’
The blue-eyes’ chief shrugged his feathery shoulders. ‘A very long way.’
‘Do you think I can throw a stone that far?’
‘Of course not,’ sneered the chief, ‘you would have to be a god to throw that far.’
‘Yet I can throw that far,’ replied the confident magician. ‘I can throw even further. I can make this stone reach our ship, which is anchored out in your lagoon.’
Mawk groaned again, but Scirf, ever the optimist, clicked his teeth in appreciation.
Wodehed spouted a few more incantations, looking up at the sun every so often, until finally he seemed ready for the great feat. The dodos began jeering at him, calling him a fake, and said they would chop off his claws if he failed. The pine martens shrugged and made designs in the dust with their tails, as if this was nothing whatsoever to do with them.
‘Harken!’ cried Wodehed, when the sun was directly overhead. ‘There is a bell on the deck of our great ship. I shall make this bell ring four times, one after the other, by striking it with these magic stones.’
With that, he walked with great ceremony to the edge of the forest and stood just within its shadows. The ship’s crew and the dodos then saw him raise his forelimb and throw four times. The missiles appeared not to reach even the height of the tops of the trees, before disappearing in the foliage, but Wodehed yelled in triumph each time he tossed a stone. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes!’ he cried.
They waited. For the crew the suspense was agony. Seconds went by and nothing happened. The dodos cleared their throats, ready to ridicule the weasel magician. Then, miraculously, from the sea came the distant sound of a bell. Though faint, it was undisputably the clanging of a brass bell. Four times it rang – dong, dong, dong, dong – before falling silent again.
The audience was hushed, stunned into silence. Wodehed was indeed a powerful magician in the eyes of the dodos. They shuffled backwards as this frowning, imposing figure returned to the square. He stared hard into their eyes, as if for two pine needles he would punish the villagers with some terrible spells. The young amongst them began whimpering. The elderly said they had never seen anything like it before in their lives. The strong quailed and the weak swooned.
‘You will surrender your Jenny Hanivers,’ boomed the impressive Wodehed, ‘and your weapons. If you do not I shall raze your villages to the ground with magic fire, I shall smash your eggs with a nasty look, I shall cause your eyes to gum up and remain permanently closed.
‘Remember, you are never out of range of my magic stones. I have the gift of far-sight. I see all things, I am aware of all things. I shall know what you are doing, even when I am on board my ship and sailing into the sun. If any dodo amongst you starts a war I shall kill that individual with a magic stone.’
This time the dodos did just as they were ordered. The blue-eyes’ chief sent for his tribes’ Jenny Hanivers and weapons. All were brought down to the brown-eyes’ village, where the weapons were burned. The dodos were forced to shake wings with each other, brown-eye with blue-eye. Sylver suggested it might be a good idea if the two villages merged, to make one single nation of dodos, but added that this was up to them.
The crew then returned to the Scudding Cloud, carrying gourds full of fresh water. They also had the grotesque Jenny Hanivers with them. Alysoun and Bryony, who had missed all the fun, shuddered on being shown these objects. The two jills suggested they be thrown overboard, but Sylver, unable to judge whether they were works of art or not, decided to keep them. You had to be an expert in these matters, like Sleek the otter.
Sylver was totally ignorant about art, and he did not like the carvings, but Sleek might decide, on their return to Welkin, that the Jenny Hanivers were wonderful examples of craftsmanship. If the artifacts were destroyed now, and Sleek found out about it, they might be forced to regret it. Sleek might call him a philistine, as he had been known to do with some mammals. Sylver was not sure he knew what a philistine was, but the way Sleek used the term, it sounded barbaric.
