Page 32 of The Neverfear

Bring me the Belt of Hippolyta.

If you speak of this, Irian Guinne dies.

If you fail, Irian Guinne dies.

‘Who’s Hippolyta?’ Christopher was tense in every muscle.

‘I think she’s something to do with Greek myth,’ said Anya. ‘Gallia taught me about her.’

‘Good. Then who was she?’

‘Sorry, I should’ve been clearer – I was taught about her. That doesn’t mean I learned about her.’ She turned to Jacques. ‘I don’t suppose you came across her in your summer reading?’

The dragon had been reading biographies, ‘To get,’ he said, ‘a sense of style and rhythm for my own.’ Anya caught Christopher’s eye and winked. Her voice had been exactly the right amount of shy, impressed and hopeful.

Jacques preened himself. ‘As it happens, she is one of those whose lives I have studied. Hippolyta: daughter of the god of war. She possessed a famous belt – but not of your paltry leather kind, which merely stop your trousers from falling around your ankles. It was a girdle, a thing of lustrous gold. It gives the wearer strength. Hercules killed her and took the belt by force as one of his Labours. A most uncouth gentleman. But this was all thousands of years ago of course. It has been lost.’

Anya’s face fell. ‘If it’s been lost,’ she said, ‘we won’t be able to trace it through thousands of years of history.’

But Ratwin spoke. ‘It has nots been lost.’

‘What?’

Every head whipped round to look at the small ratatoska. There was the edge of a smile on her rodent face.

‘I knows where the belts is. And so does yous. You saws it around the middle portion of Vigo Nex, the pirate king of Freondell. And he askeds you to his party.’

They sat in the galley with a map spread out on the kitchen table, as Ratwin charted a course for the Island of Freondell. The waves were high and a chandelier winked in the mirror as the boat rocked, so that it looked as if something were moving deep within the mirrored glass.

Anya turned to Christopher. There was a glint in her eye. ‘Freondell,’ she recited. ‘Mostly lawless, pirates common, stay away.’

‘It’s a lot of ocean-lengths to sweeps,’ Ratwin said, ‘to get there punctual-timewise by Fridays. We wills have to sails through the darkling.’

First, Ratwin said, they would need clothes. ‘The camps is in an oasis in the slap-middles of the desert, but that doesn’t mean they isn’t ruthless fashionistas. They throws out any they don’t like the looks of, so you wills need to dress dazzling. There is a band of outlaws in the easts of Antiok who likes to dances in just the smallests imaginable pants and mighty-enormous hats.’

Anya rolled her eyes. ‘Ratatoskan tales.’

They ransacked the boat for supplies. They found a gold jacket of Nighthand’s, which Anya wore as a coat, and lengths of thick gold ribbon, which Christopher wound around the tops of his boots and waist.

‘What about you, Ratwin?’ said Christopher.

‘I haves my horn,’ said Ratwin, ‘and I shall slick-polish it to shining. A ratatoskan horns is glamorisation enough.’

Anya found a stick of charcoal, which she used to circle Christopher’s eyes with a flick up at the corners. ‘Just practising,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it again before the party.’ She did the same to herself, and lined the Cupid’s bow of her upper lip in black.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I don’t actually know what swashbuckling is, but we look like we might be about to do it.’

The Glimourie Light

Christopher took the night shift on the tiller as they passed through the Northern Shoals. The stars were out in uncountable thousands, and the sea all around was darkest blue.

There was a noise above his head; something huge was flying through the night towards him. His first thought was manticores. He drew his sword and moved instinctively to set his back against the body of the boat. And then he gave a cry of delight as the face took on shape and familiarity.

‘Naravirala!’

The sphinx landed on the deck of the boat and furled her wings. Even in the moonlight he could feel the power in her great leonine body radiating from her, the sinewed strength of her shoulders and limbs.

‘Do not speak,’ said the sphinx. ‘Do not wake the others. The stars have told me you are in trouble – is that true?’