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32. MONSOON

The exhausted survivors of the sinking Belbelo spent their first day on the Island of the Nonce at the beach where they'd been washed ashore. Every time the tide came in it would bring more pieces of the wreckage up onto the sand: splintered timbers and rope, mostly. They didn't expect to have to build fires on the island (it was warm at Three O'clock in the Afternoon; what need would they have of fire?) so the timber was of very little use. But every now and again a box of supplies was washed up, including a box of emergency rations.

Unfortunately there was no medication for Mischief and his brothers, who were still in very poor condition. Though their wounds had stopped bleeding, there was no sign of consciousness returning. All Geneva, Tom, the Captain and Tria could do was to work together to build a small shelter out of branches and leaves, and lay the brothers in it, away from the heat of the midafternoon sun.

Luckily both Tom and the Captain still had their copies of Klepp's Almenak , and each had a different edition, so they were able to consult the pamphlet on a wide variety of matters.

"It isn't always reliable information," Geneva cautioned them, as Tom proposed to make a stew of berries he'd found when he'd ventured a little deeper into the island. "We could very well poison ourselves."

"I doubt there'd be a recipe in the Almenak which produced poisonous food," Tom said.

"So you say," Geneva said, plainly unconvinced. "But if we all get sick—"

While they'd been arguing about this, Tria had been picking up the berries, one by one, and sniffing them. A few, particularly the smaller, greenish berries, she tossed away. The rest she left in the bag in which Tom had collected them, and declared with her usual strange confidence: "These are all right."

The stew was duly cooked, and it proved to be delicious.

"We still could have got sick from the green ones," Geneva reminded Tom and the Captain, "if Tria hadn't stopped us from eating them."

"Oh, for goodness sake, Geneva," MeBean said, "let it go. We've got more important things to worry about without arguing over stew."

"Such as?"

"Such as him." MeBean glanced in the direction of Mischief. "I mean them," he said, correcting himself. "I'm afraid they're slipping away from us."

"I don't know where we go for help," said Tom. "According to the Almenak , there aren't any towns on the island, so if there are any doctors around, they're living in the wild. There are a lot of churches, but Klepp describes most of them as abandoned."

"There's the Palace of Bowers," Geneva said. "Perhaps there's still some people there…"

"How far is the Palace from here?" Captain MeBean asked Tom.

"See for yourself," Tom said, proffering his edition of Klepp's Almenak so that all of them could see it. He pointed to a bay on the north-northwesterly side of the island. "I believe we're here ," he said. "And the Palace is way over here . It's probably two days' walk, maybe more if the landscape between here and there is hilly."

"Which it is," said Geneva. "The whole island is hilly. But we can still carry Mischief between us."

"Is moving them a wise idea?" MeBean asked.

"I don't know," Geneva replied, shaking her head. "I'm no doctor."

"That's the problem; none of us are," said Tom. "If I had to guess, I'd say moving them would be fatal, but maybe waiting here is an even worse idea."

At that moment, everybody stopped staring at the map and looked up. The wind had suddenly risen, making the great blossom-filled banks of foliage in whose shadows they sat churn and sigh. And carried on that wind there came the sound of hundreds of voices, all singing a wordless song.

"We're not alone," said the Captain.

The music was both majestic and serene.

"Snakes," said Tria.

"Snakes?" said the Captain.

"She's right," Tom told him. "There's a red-and-yellow serpent on the island called the vigil snake. They sing. It says so in the Almenak ."

"I don't remember snakes on this island," Geneva said.

"Yes you do," said Tom. "They were requested by the Princess—"

"For the wedding."

"Exactly. Finnegan had them brought over from Scoriae, which is their natural habitat. Apparently they liked it here. Klepp said they all escaped in the confusion after… all that happened at the wedding. And they have no natural enemies here on the Nonce. So they bred and bred. Now they're everywhere."

"Are they poisonous?" Tria asked. It was perhaps the first time that any of them had heard her voice any fear about the natural world.

"No," said Tom. "Very mild-mannered, as I remember. And very musical."

"Amazing," said the Captain. "What are they singing? Is it just nonsense?"

"No," said Tom. He read from the Almenak. "'The song that the Vigil Snake sings is in fact one immensely long word; the longest in the ancient language of the species. It is so long that an individual can sing it for a lifetime and never come to the end of it !"

"That sounds like a Kleppism to me," Geneva said. "How would they ever learn it?"

"Good question," said Tom. "Maybe they're born with it, like a migration instinct?"

"Born with a song," said Geneva.

Tom smiled. "Yes. Don't you like that idea?"

"Liking it and having it be true aren't the same thing, Tom."

"Huh. Sometimes you need to let things strike your heart and not your head, Geneva."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" snapped Geneva.

"Never mind."

"No, tell me Tom," she said, bristling. "Don't make sly remarks and then—"

"It wasn't sly."

"Well, how else would you—"

"I resent being called—"

"And I resent—"

"Stop it," said Tria. "Both of you ." The girl had sudden tears in her eyes. "Look at them."

While the argument between Tom and Geneva had been mounting, Mischief and his brothers had started to breathe in a most terrible fashion, a rattle in their collective throats that did not bode well.

"Oh Lord…" Tom threw aside the Almenak and went over to the little bed of leaves and blossoms where they'd laid the brothers. "This doesn't sound good at all."

He went down on his knees beside Mischief and laid a hand on his brow. Mischief's eyes were rolling back and forth wildly behind his lids, and his breathing was getting quicker and shallower with every passing moment.

At the same time, as though there was some strange synchronicity in the air (the argument, the singing, the wind and now Mischief's anguish all happening within seconds of one another), the Captain looked skyward and announced: "I think we should get our stuff under cover."

He didn't need to explain why. A vast thunderhead moved over the sun as he spoke, and the wind in the trees grew suddenly stronger, stripping some of the more fragile blooms of their petals.

There was a sudden burst of activity as everyone did as the Captain had suggested. But fast though they were, they weren't fast enough to move everything before the rain began. There were a few scattered drops, and then—in a matter of seconds—the drops became a torrential downpour, the rain coming down with such vehemence they had to shout to make themselves heard.

"You and me, Tom!" the Captain yelled, "We'll take Mischief together!"

"Where are we going?" Tom hollered.

"Up there !" McBean said, pointing up a small slope between the trees. The rainfall was so powerful that rivulets of sandy-brown water, carrying a freight of dead leaves, twigs, blossoms and the occasional dead rodent, were running down the slope. The area around Mischief's makeshift bed was already an inch deep in water.

There was a flash of lightning now, followed by a roll of thunder; the rain came on with fresh attack, as though it wanted to wash the world away.