The Islands of Chaldea

But we had not run into the barrier. When Aunt Beck shot back on deck, still pinning her plait up around her head, she said, “Ah, I thought as much from the colour of the sea. We’re into a piece of the lost land here.”

As the Dominie had so often told us, there was a line of reefs and rocks in the sea between Logra and Skarr that were all that remained of the Land of Lone after it broke up and sank in the earthquake. The Dominie had sailed out to see it for himself when he was young, and he said that there was ample proof that it had once been inhabited. He had found broken crockery and pieces of fine carving lodged among the rocks. Sailors told him that some of the longer skerries even had remains of buildings on them. Ogo was always very impressed by this.

“The Dominie told us all about it,” he said excitedly to Aunt Beck. “He found a carved comb and most of a fine vase. Can we go and look, do you think?”

“Oh, shut up! Who cares?” Ivar said.

“But I always wondered—” Ogo started again.

By this time, Seamus Hamish was bawling for us all to climb off on to the rocks to lighten the ship, so that he could get us afloat again and see what the damage was. The poor ship was grinding back and forth, back and forth, which sounded very dangerous, and sailors were already ducking under the clotheslines with boxes and bundles of cargo, to lower them carefully overboard. Some of them stopped and helped us down too. Ogo was so eager that he jumped down by himself in a great floundering leap.

“And the sea all around the lost land is always brown with its earth,” I heard him saying, while the cook was passing me down into someone’s big tattooed arms.

Ivar of course could not be outdone by Ogo. He leapt by himself too, and landed with a clatter and twisted his ankle and complained about it for the next hour. And Aunt Beck went down as she had come aboard, peacefully riding another sailor.

“There will be no damage,” she said to me as she was carried past me. “Can they not trust me to protect the ship I sail in?”

Her sailor dumped her up beyond the rocks in a very expressive ‘no comment’ way. I ambled along to where she was and found that the place we had run into was really quite a large island, sandy and rocky and desolate under the queer, hazy lilac sky. There was a bit of cliff ahead about as tall as Ogo and, above that, there seemed to be some trees.

“Can we explore?” Ogo was asking eagerly. “How long do we have?”

“I’ll see,” said Aunt Beck.

I looked back at the poor ship as Aunt Beck called over to the Captain. There it was, lying sideways and grinding, grinding, between two prongs of rock, and hung all over with coloured clothing. Very undignified. Seamus Hamish was busy getting the sails in, but he yelled back that we could have an hour. And he told the cook and another sailor to go with us.

“I shall stay here,” Ivar said. “My ankle really hurts.”

We left him sitting on a rock surrounded in yellow sea foam while we made for the cliffs. I was quite as eager as Ogo was. The Dominie had said that the earthquake had happened over a thousand years ago and, as far as I knew, I had never seen anywhere that old. Aunt Beck was, as always, demure and restrained, but she seemed to me to be springing up the cliff as eagerly as any of us. It was one of the easiest climbs I have ever made, although I must confess that my good dress suffered a little on the way.

Halfway up, Ogo said, “Hey! What’s this?” and picked up something that looked like a big broken saucepan lid. It seemed to be made of very old black leather. We all gathered on a crumbly ledge to examine it. You could still see that there had been patterns stamped on it.

Aunt Beck had just taken the thing to hold the patterns to the light, when Ivar came scrambling limpingly up beside us.

“Ogo,” he said. “You’re supposed to be my servant. You’re supposed to stay with me. You know I’ve hurt my ankle. What are you doing going off and picking up rubbishy old shields for?”

“It was a shield, I think,” Aunt Beck said, turning the thing around. She has beautifully-shaped, artistic fingers. I am always impressed when she handles things. “These patterns—” she began.

“Throw it away,” said Ivar.

“No, don’t,” said the cook. “I can sell it on Bernica. They like old things there.”

“These patterns,” Aunt Beck said loudly, “are the symbols of the Guardian of the North. Put it back where you found it, Ogo. It is something none of us should meddle with.”

She was probably right. I had last seen symbols like that embroidered on High King Farlane’s robe. Everyone watched, rather chastened, while Ogo carefully put the broken shield back on the ledge where he had found it. “I could have got a hundred silver for that,” the cook remarked as we all went on up the cliff.

The cook looked very glum at that and said nothing more until we arrived among the trees at the top. There it was as if the whole ground ran away from us. Tiny creatures – mice, rats, voles – sped and scuttled out of our way. I saw rabbits, squirrels, a weasel and even a beast like a small deer running from us among the trees. Small birds and large ones clapped out of the tops of the wood. None of the trees were tall. They were all bent and bowed in the sea wind, but I could see they were trees that were very rare on Skarr, like elders and hazels, and were just coming into leaf. Aunt Beck put up an elegant hand to old dusty catkins and then to the light green beginnings of elderflowers.

The other sailor said, “I wish I’d brought my crossbow! Fat pigeons. That deer.”

“Fine rabbits,” agreed the cook and Ivar said, “Let’s go back. There’s nothing here. My ankle hurts.”

“We shall go on,” Aunt Beck decreed. “I want to see how big this place is.”

“I want to know how all these animals got here,” I said.

“Well, you won’t find that out by walking about,” Ivar said. “My ankle—”

“The animals,” Aunt Beck said, “undoubtedly descend from creatures that fled from the earthquake. Ah, we’re getting somewhere.”

The trees gave way to big rocks and fluttering grass. I saw harebells there. We went around the largest boulder and saw the sea again beyond us, angrily crashing below on whole piles of rocks. In the distance you could actually see the barrier, like a band of white mist that stretched away in both directions as far as anyone could see. Nobody looked at it though, because there were the remains of buildings in front of us. The walls were not quite as high as my head and made of blocks of sandy-coloured stone. There were beautifully chiselled patterns on them.

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