Chapter 25

“We were supposed to find The Tree,” I groaned.

“The tree that can’t be found?” Drakeforth muttered from the deck to my right.

“Yeah.”

“Not finding it is just as important as finding it.”

I sat up. “We found Goat and the map by not looking for them. We found the museum by not looking for it.”

“It’s the Trouble Theory,” Eade said. She had found my hamm­ock and was excavating a persimmon with a spoon as she rocked gently in time with the ship’s motion. “I won’t bore you with the math. Basically it states that the likelihood of finding trouble has a measurable value that is inverse to the amount of energy expended avoiding trouble.”

“And yet if you go looking for trouble, you are bound to find it,” I said.

Drakeforth stood up and brushed himself off. “She’s making it up, Pudding. It’s an attempt to make her sound more educated.”

Eade shrugged and tossed the husk of her freshly excavated pers­immon over the side. Goat yelped and ran across the deck, tying a knotted cord of leather around his waist as he went. We watched as he dived over the rail and vanished.

“We should probably see if the fall killed him,” Drakeforth said after a few seconds.

I plucked at the taut cord. It twanged with a deep note that went down the scale until the rope creaked. With a grunt of effort, Goat climbed over the rail.

“Persimmon,” he panted. He carefully set the rind aside and unhitched the rope.

“Are you okay?” I moved closer to Goat until the smell of him stopped me.

“Do they validate parking?” Goat asked.

“I’m glad you’re okay and the persimmon was rescued.” I smiled and nodded, a blush rising on my cheeks. Why was I embarrassed? I wasn’t the crazy one. Was I?

“Drakeforth, care for a recap?”

“It’s certainly the time of night for it,” Drakeforth agreed.

“Eade, if you could try your absolute hardest to stay quiet until I have finished, that would be appreciated,” I said, before she could finish drawing breath.

“Professor Bombilate. Informist and archaeologist, is missing. The Knotstick Order think he was on to something at the dig in Errm. They also have a vested interest in the Shroud of Tureen, which we have discovered is a forgery. Eade, in her position as librarian at the Museum, was aware that the Shroud was fake. Someone else knows about the Shroud too. I heard Eade arguing with the curator of the museum. They were concerned about their secret being revealed. Shortly afterwards, we were attacked by two murrai. Which, according to my Pathian guidebook, are not known for attacking people. All this after we escaped not one but three angry mobs, yes Drakeforth, I include the entire motorist population back home in that number. We met Goat, who is on a quest for a mythological tree. The only way we can find it, is to not look for it. We didn’t find it, because it is all around us. Empathic energy. Everything is connected. The Tree is Living Oak, and Living Oak is empathic energy condensed, just like everything else. Except, I don’t know, vibrating at a different frequency?” I ran out of things to say. No one laughed, so I waited a few seconds. Still nothing.

“Well that’s it. I mean, everything that I can think of right now.”

Drakeforth pushed his hat back on his head. “Succinct. Wouldn’t fit on a T-shirt. But not bad for a recap.”

“The story so far. Who cares? We know what has happened. It’s what happens next that I want to know about,” Eade said from her—my hammock.

“Right, I mean we all do. Except, how do we know what happens next?” I looked around, half expecting a sign to point from the sky to the answer. Maybe a flashing light.

“We should have a cup of tea,” Drakeforth said. “Pudding, can you find somewhere safe to store this?” He handed me the folded Shroud.

“Tea, excellent, I’ll help.” Eade flipped easily out of the hammock.

“Great. Tea. Yes. I’ll give it some more thought, while you make tea.” I held the fake Shroud of Tureen in my arms as they walked away. I tried to ignore that I could really use a cup of tea right now. I needed to find a solution. Then to celebrate with a cup of tea.

It was tempting to climb into the hammock, wrap myself up in the ancient sheet, and hope that fate would take care of things while I slept through the next decade.

Fate is a nice excuse. It wraps things up in a sweet-roll of fatalism. Nothing we do has any impact on what is already going to happen. The really smug answer to any challenge is that we have no way of knowing what destiny or fate hold for us. Destiny, of course is simply fate in sweats and no makeup, jogging with us on the journey towards the inevitable.

The inevitable journey, I thought. Well, we’re never going to get where we are going at this speed. A murrai could walk fas—. I stopped that train of thought with the emergency brake of panic. Racing to the side of the deck, I peered over. Nothing but empty sand going about its business of making silicon valleys and dunes. Regretting my burst of adrenaline-fuelled enthusiasm, I tucked the grey sheet into a shelf, then ran to the other side and looked down. This area of desert was so similar to the other side they could have been mirror images of each other. Jogging and ducking under the complex macramé of Goat’s rigging, I headed to the rear of the ship. There they were: stone faces turned up to us, massive feet working as sandshoes as they strode purposefully along in time with the slow meandering of Goat’s skyship.

Fatalism has two children: Futility and Fatality. They are what fills the void when Hope bails.

I waved at the two murrai. “Hello!”

In perfect synchronicity, they each raised a stone arm and waved slowly in reply.