City of Lies Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Lian Tanner

  Jacket art copyright © 2011 by Jon Foster

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2011 by Sebastian Ciaffaglione

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Allen & Unwin Pty. Ltd., Sydney, in 2011.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and

  the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tanner, Lian.

  City of lies / Lian Tanner — 1st American ed.

  p. cm. — (The keepers trilogy; bk. 2)

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Goldie, impulsive and bold, relies on her skills as a liar and a thief to try to rescue her captured friends from the child-stealers running rampant in the City of Spoke.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89696-5 [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.

  2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Robbers and outlaws—Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.T16187Cit 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010048579

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment

  and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  A Message from the Museum

  The Child-Stealers

  To the Docks

  Return of a Traitor

  The Piglet

  Pounce

  Goldie No One

  The Bandmaster

  The Museum of Dunt

  The White-Haired Boy

  Great Danger

  A Message from Toadspit

  The Festival of Lies

  Found!

  A Black Feather

  Harrow’s Business

  Rescue

  The Fortune

  Flense

  Trapped

  Too Much Water

  At the Last Minute, a Lady of High Birth

  Something Has Happened to the Children.…

  Warrior Princess

  A Day and a Night

  The Hunters

  The Shark Nursery

  Fifth Keeper

  Meanwhile, Back in Jewel …

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The ancient tale of Frisia, crown princess of Merne, is a curious one. There was a time when people knew it only as a children’s story. Now, of course, it is famous, because it played such an important part in the life of Goldie Roth, Fifth Keeper of the Museum of Dunt.

  Frisia was a warrior princess, a brilliant archer and swords-woman and a natural leader. She lived in what was, at the time, one of the most dangerous places in the world—the royal court of Merne.

  In those days, the court was full of plots and vicious intrigues. At the center of most of them was the king’s physician, an ambitious woman who was secretly in the pay of Graf von Nagel, the rebel warlord. This physician, helped by members of the royal guard, carried out several assassination attempts on Frisia and her father, the king.

  Frisia survived these plots to lead a tiny army against von Nagel and his followers. The result of the ensuing battle has never been clear. Some say that von Nagel was defeated, and died with Frisia’s sword through his heart. Others say that it was the princess who died, and that her body was carried away by the beasts of the field, who had risen up to fight beside her.

  No one knows what happened to the physician.

  —from The Museum of Dunt: A Hidden History

  The scream woke Goldie Roth from a deep sleep. She sat bolt upright, thinking for a moment that she was back in the terrible events of six months ago, with the city of Jewel on the brink of invasion and her friend Toadspit about to be murdered in front of her eyes.

  Then she heard Ma’s quiet voice in the next room, and she knew that Pa had had another nightmare. She slipped out of bed, threw a dressing gown over her shoulders and hurried into her parents’ room. “Pa?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Pa smiled weakly up at her from a knot of bedclothes. “Sorry to wake you, sweeting,” he mumbled.

  “Your father had a bad dream,” said Ma. “But it’s gone now.” And she too smiled, though her knuckles were white and her fingers trembled.

  It pierced Goldie to the heart to see them trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. She unknotted the bedclothes and tucked them around Pa’s shoulders, wishing there were something more she could do.

  “Were you dreaming about the House of Repentance again?” she said.

  Pa flinched. He and Ma glanced at each other, and a world of pain and sorrow passed between them.

  It was a little more than ten months since the two of them had been thrown into the dungeons of the House of Repentance. They had never told Goldie what had happened to them there, but she could see the scars that were left behind.

  Pa had dreadful nightmares. Ma had a cough that sounded as if it would tear her lungs out. They were both too thin, and even now, long after their release, they had an exhausted look about them, as if something was gnawing at them from the inside.

  Goldie wished that they would talk to her about it. But they never did. Instead, they sighed and changed the subject.

  “A—a message came for you today, sweeting,” said Pa, struggling to sit up. “Where did I put it? It was from the Museum of Dunt.”

  This time it was Goldie who flinched, although she hid it so well that her father didn’t notice. Memories flooded through her. Toadspit—his whole body plastered in mud—turned toward her and laughed. A warm canine tongue swept across her face, and a deep voice rumbled, “You are as brave as a brizzlehound—”

  With an effort, she dragged herself back to the present. Pa was fumbling for a scrap of paper that lay on the table beside the bed. “Here it is.” His forehead creased. “It’s from Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga. It seems that they want you to be the museum’s Fifth Keeper!”

  Fifth Keeper of the Museum of Dunt … The familiar longing welled up inside Goldie so suddenly and so strongly that she could hardly breathe.

  She said nothing, but Pa must have seen some echo of it on her face. “Do you—do you want to be Fifth Keeper, sweeting? Because—”

  “Because if you do,” interrupted Ma, “we wouldn’t stop you.”

  “We wouldn’t dream of stopping you!”

  “It’s just—”

  “It’s just that it’s such a big responsibility,” said Pa. “We’re worried that it might be too much for you.”

  “And—” Ma gripped Goldie’s hand. “And you’d have to be away from home such a lot.” She began to cough.

  Goldie patted her gently on the back and tried not to think about the Museum of Dunt, and how much—how very much—she wanted to be Fifth Keeper.

  “Of course,” said Pa, chewing his lip, “it’s possible that Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga really need your help. If they do—”

  “If they need you, then you mustn’t hesitate,” said Ma. She tried to let go of Goldie’s hand but didn’t quite manage. “Your father and I talked about this earlier.”

  “We did,” said Pa. “And we both agreed. If they need you, you must go!” />
  Goldie could hardly bear it. They were doing their best to be fair, but she could see how much they hated the thought of her being away from home for even a little while.

  And so she forced every scrap of longing out of her voice and said, “They don’t really need me. They’ve got Sinew and Toadspit to help them.”

  Pa frowned, wanting to believe her. “Are you sure?”

  “You’re not staying home because of us, are you?” said Ma, still clutching her hand. “You mustn’t do that. We want you to be happy.”

  A warm canine tongue swept across her face—

  Goldie smiled. “I am happy,” she said. And because she was a trained liar, she sounded as if she meant it.

  She sat with her parents until they drifted off to sleep again. Then she tiptoed back to her room, pulled on her smock, woolen stockings and jacket, and slipped out the front door.

  Ten months was not such a long time really. But to Goldie—hurrying through the silent Old Quarter toward Toadspit’s house—it felt like a lifetime. Ten months ago she had worn a silver guardchain that tied her to her parents or to one of the Blessed Guardians. She had never been anywhere alone, and was almost as helpless as an infant.

  But then she ran away and took refuge in the Museum of Dunt. And in the months that she spent there, she grew up. More than that, she became an accomplished thief and a skilled liar. She learned the Three Methods of Concealment, and the First Song, and how to act with a steely courage, even when she was almost overwhelmed with fear.

  The lessons fed some deep need inside her, and the museum quickly came to feel like home. The only thing missing was Ma and Pa. They were locked up in the House of Repentance, imprisoned by the Fugleman, the leader of the Blessed Guardians.

  And why were they imprisoned?

  Goldie turned the corner onto Gunboat Canal. “Because of me,” she whispered.

  In the Jewel of ten months ago, running away was a crime. The Fugleman could not get his hands on Goldie, but it was the easiest thing in the world to pluck Ma and Pa from their beds and drag them before the Court of the Seven Blessings. There they were tried and sentenced for being the parents of a criminal child.

  It was my fault, thought Goldie. Everything that happened to them was my fault.

  It had rained earlier in the night, and the footpaths of Gunboat Canal were slick with mud. Goldie stopped outside Toadspit’s house, took a deep breath and threw a pebble at the window above her head. Then she slipped back into the shadows and waited.

  She had lied when she told her parents that the Museum of Dunt didn’t need her. The museum did need her, to help guard the dangerous secrets that lay within its walls.

  But Ma and Pa needed her too, and she could not leave them.

  She wrapped her fingers around the enamel brooch that she wore on her collar—the brooch that had once belonged to her long-lost auntie Praise. But the little blue bird with its outstretched wings brought her no comfort.

  Pa thought that there had only been one message from the Museum of Dunt. He was wrong. In the last few months Goldie had had more than a dozen messages, each one asking when she was going to take up her position as Fifth Keeper.

  Tonight she would reply.

  Never.

  “Never?” said Toadspit, in a tone of utter disbelief.

  Goldie swallowed. She had known that this would be hard, but it was even worse than she had expected. “No. Never.”

  As she spoke she felt a prickle between her shoulder blades. She glanced back and saw a small figure duck out of sight. Someone was following them.

  Toadspit hadn’t noticed. “But you want to be Fifth Keeper,” he said. “I know you do!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So what’s stopping you?”

  “I told you! Ma and Pa—”

  Toadspit interrupted her. “Apart from me, there hasn’t been a new keeper for a couple of hundred years! How can you just throw away an invitation like that?”

  “I’m not just throwing it away—”

  “Yes you are! Look at this!” Toadspit waved his left arm in front of her. “No cuff, no guardchain! We got rid of them! We’re supposed to be free, but now you—” He broke off, glaring at her in disgust. “This is so stupid!”

  Stung, Goldie glared back at him. “You don’t understand!”

  Toadspit’s face closed in a scowl, and Goldie wondered why she had bothered to wake him up. She hadn’t seen him for months, and she had forgotten how annoying he could be. She should have gone straight to the museum.

  In the back of her mind a little voice whispered, But he is right. You were born to be Fifth Keeper. It is your destiny.

  Goldie ignored it, just as she ignored Toadspit. She couldn’t leave Ma and Pa, and that was the end of it.

  The two children continued on their way in angry silence. Goldie saw no one on the streets—except for the shadowy figure that still crept in their wake.

  But as they crossed Old Arsenal Bridge and began to climb the hill that led to the museum, the quiet was broken by heavy footsteps stamping down the road toward them. Goldie hesitated, suddenly uneasy. There was something threatening about those footsteps, and if she had been by herself, she would have slipped into the nearest doorway until whoever it was had passed.

  But Toadspit’s scowl was like a challenge.

  He expects me to hide, she realized. And she stuck her nose in the air and kept walking.

  The footsteps grew louder. Nailed boots struck the cobblestones. By the light of the watergas lamps, Goldie saw two men in long oilskin coats swaggering down the middle of the road. One of them was a huge slab of a fellow with ragged blond hair. The other was smaller, but his face was as sharp as a fishhook. As he passed the children, he peered at them like a butcher inspecting a couple of fat calves.

  Fear licked the back of Goldie’s neck. But after that first intense look, the sharp-faced man seemed to lose interest. He and his companion strode across the bridge and disappeared into the darkness.

  Toadspit scowled even harder. Goldie’s fear turned to irritation. She spun around and called, “You can come out now, Bonnie.”

  There was a hiccup of surprise from the direction of the bridge; then a small girl with dark hair stepped into the lamplight. The hem of her nightdress showed beneath her smock, and in her hand was an old-fashioned longbow and a quiver of arrows.

  Toadspit stared at his little sister. “What are you doing here?”

  Bonnie’s chin went up. “I’m going to the museum with you. I followed you all the way from home and you didn’t even notice.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “No you didn’t, or you would’ve sent me back.” Bonnie grinned. “Goldie almost saw me once. But I hid just in time.”

  “Near the terminus,” said Goldie. “When you slipped.”

  Bonnie’s face fell. Toadspit turned his look of disgust on Goldie. “You knew she was following us and you didn’t tell me?”

  Goldie shrugged, still angry with him. “She’s not going to come to any harm, not with us here.”

  “I’d be all right even if I was by myself,” said Bonnie. She held up the bow. “I’m armed.”

  “You’d probably shoot yourself in the foot,” said Toadspit. “Where did you get that thing?”

  “Olga Ciavolga gave it to me. She said I had a talent for it. She said I could be a champion archer one day, like Princess Frisia.”

  Toadspit looked blank.

  “You know, the warrior princess of Merne,” said Bonnie. “There’s a painting of her in the museum. She lived five hundred years ago and she was really brave. Some assassins tried to kill her father the king with poisoned air, and she saved him. And she was the best archer anyone had ever seen. I’m going to be just like her. I’ve been practicing.”

  Toadspit rolled his eyes. “You’re a pest, Bonnie. I bet you woke Ma and Pa up when you left.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “We’re going to have to take you home—”r />
  “We haven’t got time,” interrupted Goldie. “We have to get to the museum.”

  “And if we meet any enemies on the way,” said Bonnie, “I can shoot them.”

  Toadspit snorted. “I bet you couldn’t even hit the side of a house.”

  “I could. I could hit—” Bonnie looked around. “I could hit that wooden pole. The one with the gas lamp, on the other side of the bridge. Will you let me come with you if I do?”

  “No—”

  “Yes,” said Goldie. “If you hit it you can come with us.”

  Toadspit bared his teeth. “Looks like you’ll be going home, then, doesn’t it, Bonniekins.”

  His sister smirked. “You only call me that when you think you’re going to lose.”

  “Stop it, you two,” said Goldie. “Bonnie, get on with it.”

  Bonnie took an arrow from her quiver, fitted it carefully to her bow and turned so she was standing side-on to the watergas lamp, with her legs apart and the tail end of the arrow slotted between her fingers. She drew her right arm back until her hand rested against her cheek. She raised the bow, then lowered it a little.

  There was a moment of complete stillness. Then her fingers twitched, the bowstring made a thunking sound, and the arrow flew across the bridge and planted itself firmly in the pole. Bonnie gave a little Hmm of satisfaction and lowered the bow.

  Toadspit stared. “It was a fluke.”

  “You want me to do it again? I can, ten times in a row.”

  “No,” said Goldie quickly. “It’s all right, you can come with us.”

  “Hang on, I’ve got to get my arrow,” said Bonnie, and before Goldie could stop her, she ran back across the bridge.

  Toadspit took a step after her. “I’m going to take her home.”

  “You can’t,” said Goldie. “You agreed.”

  “No. You agreed. I never said she could come with us.”

  “Don’t be so stubborn. You know she’ll be all right.”

  “Will she?” Toadspit’s voice rose angrily. “I’m glad you’re so sure. But then you’re not responsible for her, are you.”

  “No, but—”

  “Well, I am. And I say she goes home.” He shouted over his shoulder. “Did you hear that, Bonnie? You’re going home.”