City of Lies - Lian Tanner [53]
Goldie could not speak. Mouse was staring at her with desperate hope in his eyes. Even the cat and the white mice were watching her, as if they expected her to come up with a miracle.
I don’t know any miracles, she thought.
But at the same time, something stirred inside her.
The Festival.
The wildness.
The Big Lies …
A Big Lie might save them—if she could summon one. If they hadn’t all been used up already.
With an enormous effort, Goldie forced her poor sluggish mind to cry out for help. Come to me, she called silently. I need you. I need you!
She tried to imagine the wildness welling up beneath her, and the air fizzing around her, the way it had fizzed around the dancing girls.
She tried so hard.
And then she tried again.
And again.
She could feel herself sinking back into despair. “There must be some way of summoning a Big Lie,” she whispered. “Think! Think!”
But the cold water was up to her waist now, and it gripped her like the hand of death. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
Would that be such a bad thing?
No …
She was on the brink of giving up when, deep in the back of her mind, so far away that she could barely hear it, a little voice whispered, Sing.
“Wh-what?” mumbled Goldie.
Sing!
“S-s-sing what?”
But all the voice would say was Sing …
Goldie ransacked her numb brain for songs. But they had gone, along with the warmth of her body. The only one she could remember was the scrap of nonsense that she had heard on the streets of Spoke.
Not knowing what else to do, she began to mumble, “And her—ch-children—were h-hairy—and t-terribly scary …”
Even before the words died away, she knew it was useless. It would take a big song to get them out of here. A song that could shift a rock pile, or change the minds of heartless killers.
She closed her eyes and, like a distant echo, heard the thrum of a harp string. As if, hundreds of miles away, Sinew was playing the First Song. Playing for his life and the lives of others. Playing on and on and never giving up.
The First Song. Of course! How could she have forgotten it? It was the song that every other song in the world had grown out of. Goldie had no idea what it might do if she sang it in Spoke. But she knew without a doubt that it would do something.…
The rising tide was up to her armpits now. She still had hold of Toadspit, though she could not feel her hands. Mouse and Bonnie were struggling to keep their heads above water.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to let go and slip beneath the surface. Nevertheless, Goldie opened her mouth and began to croak out the strange sliding notes of the First Song. “Ho oh oh-oh. Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
Her throat felt as if it belonged to someone else. She forced herself to keep going. “Ho oh oh-oh. Mm mm oh oh.”
For an unbearably long time, nothing happened. Then, all at once, the air around her flickered like a candle flame. Toadspit groaned.
“Mm mm oh,” croaked Goldie. “Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
The flickering feeling came again. As if—as if something was taking an interest in her. She sang louder. “Ho oh oh-oh. Ho oh oh-oh. Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
“What are you doing in there?” shouted Guardian Hope, who had climbed to a higher stair to avoid the rising water. “What have you got to sing about?”
Goldie didn’t reply. An unexpected warmth was surging through her body, giving her strength. She wrapped her arms as best she could around Toadspit and the other children, and kept singing. “Ho oh oh-oh. Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
The cat lifted its sodden ears and yowled along with her, “Rrow rrow rrow-rrow. Prr prr rrow rrow rrow-rrow rrow.” The white mice squeaked the same odd notes.
Toadspit, still deeply unconscious, mumbled, “Mm mm oh oh oh-oh oh.”
And then it happened. The air on every side began to swirl and fizz.