Word Hunters Read online

  Al stared straight ahead, knowing that there were people nearby who wanted to attack him and who were watching him, and all he could do was wait for Will to persuade the guards that three inspectors with one letter was not so unusual.

  The door was opened for them to go in and then bolted behind them by one of two more guards who were in the first room. A clerk checked the letter and recorded their arrival in a book.

  ‘It’s good to meet you, Mr Kruger,’ he said. ‘I’d heard the count had a new inspector. I’m glad to see you’re escorted. As our reputation grows, the forest roads are becoming less safe. Please—’ He indicated the doorway behind him, which led further into the building. ‘I’ll leave you to your business.’

  Beyond it was a corridor and this time there were no guards.

  ‘We got lucky,’ Will said before the others could speak. ‘Looks like they’ve got quite a system. Let’s move before the real Johan gets here. It’s good he’s not on your mum and dad’s fleet plan. He’d be on the phone already.’

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Al wanted to focus on ‘dollar’ and then a way out. ‘I don’t think this is one where we can look for Grandad.’

  Lexi wanted him to be wrong, but the risks were too great.

  ‘We inspect things,’ Will said. ‘We make our way around the building. We go anywhere anyone might say whatever we need to hear and we get them to say it as soon as possible. Then we go.’

  On the ground floor, the cart that had arrived was being emptied of its load. A sack of rubble was opened for them to check. A rock was taken out and held up to the light of a candle so that they could see a seam of silver gleaming in it.

  The room was hot and the horses edgy at being kept in there. It backed onto a stone wall around furnaces, where timber fires burnt to melt the silver from the crushed rock.

  They climbed a flight of stairs and looked down on the furnaces as molten silver ran along a channel and into a stone basin the size of a bath, where impurities were skimmed from the surface.

  ‘Hey, that’s like Caractacus,’ Will said, ‘though way bigger, obviously.’

  ‘Inspectors,’ a voice said from a level above. They were immediately on their guard. ‘I’d heard you were in the building.’ They looked up and saw a small man with dark hair looking down at them. ‘I’m Karl Sachs. I’m the one you’re looking for.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Will moved towards the stairs. Karl Sachs had something for them to inspect, whatever it was.

  Al and Lexi followed and Karl Sachs met them at the top.

  ‘Let me take you somewhere a little cooler.’ He indicated the door he’d come out of. ‘Some of our best work is done in there.’

  He led them into an open workshop area. At one bench, blank coins were being tipped from moulds and checked for weight. One of the men there took a blank, cut it in two and started to re-melt it in a small cup.

  ‘The blank coins need to be the exact weight and size,’ Karl Sachs explained. ‘They also need to be nine-tenths silver and we melt one down every so often to check its composition. It’s these standards that have people talking about our work here.’ He was clearly proud of it and glad to be giving new inspectors the tour.

  Next he took them to two men who were working on thick discs of metal. One was cutting down into his with fine tools, stopping after every movement to check his work. The other had a hammer and a small steel rod, which he was striking against the design he was working on. The discs were the dies that would be used to punch the coins and, even though they were made of steel, each one lost the sharpness of its image within a few days and had to be replaced.

  There were large pictures of both sides of the coin on the wall behind their work bench. One was of a bearded man with a robe and a halo and the other was of a lion, taken, Karl Sachs said, from the count’s crest.

  On the other side of the workshop, a row of men made coins. Each blank was fitted between a pair of dies and the dies struck exactly hard enough with a hammer so that the blank became a perfectly marked coin. A supervisor walked up and down the far side of the bench picking up coins at random, taking them to a small window and checking each side closely with a magnifying glass before placing the coin back on the table. A younger man scooped finished coins into a wooden box.

  ‘The minters are good,’ Karl Sachs said. ‘There’s an art to it. But however good they are, some coins are not quite what they should be. So they need to be checked.’

  ‘One hundred.’ The man with the coin box stood up straight and stepped away from the bench.

  Karl Sachs waved him over, reached into the box and lifted out a bright new coin.

  ‘The lion must be just right.’ He studied one side closely before turning it over. ‘Saint Joachim must be just right or the coin is melted down again. Look at it. It’s beautiful.’ He held the coin out so that they could see the detail. ‘And to think that to some people it’s just money. Do you know what they’re starting to call them?’ He set the coin back down in the box as if it needed careful handling. ‘They might all be great guilders, but ours stand out. People are giving them their own name now. Joachimsthal – the valley of Saint Joachim – is the home of the Joachimsthaler.’

  Al wanted to tell him that there was more to come. His coins would change the languages of Europe. The ‘thaler’ from ‘Joachimsthaler’ would become ‘daalder’ and ‘dollar’, and hundreds of years later the dollar would be one of the most common currencies in the world.

  As the man with the coin box fitted the lid into place, gold light pulsed from the Joachimsthaler Karl Sachs had shown them.

  Lexi stepped forward. ‘Could we take a close look at that?’

  ‘You can look at anything,’ Karl Sachs said. ‘You’re the inspectors.’ There was a clicking sound as the lid of the box closed and the pins of a lock moved into place. The glow of the portal was gone. ‘All the coins are alike, though. They have to be. Any one’s as good as another.’

  He picked up a coin from the table, gave it to Lexi and signalled for the man with the box to keep moving.

  ‘Thank you.’ Lexi made it look as though she was studying the coin closely. ‘It’s a very fine piece of work.’ She pointed to the box. ‘Where does that go next?’

  It was being weighed on a set of scales, checked to see that it was exactly the same weight as a box of blank coins.

  ‘To the floor below.’ Karl Sachs watched as the box was lifted from the scales and carried away. ‘That’s the last we’ll see of them. There’s a treasury room there. They’re taken out in those boxes.’

  ‘That’s where we’re to go next.’ Will reached out to shake Karl Sachs’s hand. ‘You do excellent work here. No wonder the count’s so pleased. I’m sorry our visit has to be so brief. We have to leave with enough daylight—’

  ‘Ah, the road through the forest, yes.’ Karl Sachs nodded. ‘Make sure you’re out the other side of it before the sun sets.’

  The man carrying the box was moving quickly. He was already on the stairs. The word hunters went after him, wanting to run, but knowing they couldn’t.

  They took the steps two at a time. Will was at the front and so focused on moving quickly that he didn’t see the spade swing at him as he reached the bottom, or the man in grey who stepped from the shadows. The spade struck his shoulder and he fell to the floor.

  Al jumped the railing onto the head of Will’s attacker. He gouged his eyes, and the man screamed. Al choked him and the man grabbed at his hands. Lexi caught the spade as he dropped it and swung it up just as the second man in grey brought his spade down like an axe towards Will’s head. His spade struck hers with a clang and deflected away, hitting the wooden floor and getting stuck between two planks. The man charged at Lexi before she could lift her spade again, but Will stood, got his good shoulder under him and flipped the man over the railing.
r />   One ankle caught on a post and he scrambled to grab something – anything – as he fell backwards. His arms flailed and he plummeted into the bath of molten silver. There was a terrible scream and then he was silent.

  Will took the spade from Lexi and smashed it into the knee of the man in grey who was battling with Al. The man fell, grabbed his leg and writhed around on the floor. Al stepped away from him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Will said. ‘He’s not coming after us.’ There was a corridor ahead. It was the only way the man with the box could have gone. ‘We’re all right. We’ve got the letter from the count. As far as the guards know, those men broke in.’

  They could hear guards running below them, drawn to the noise.

  There was an open door further along the corridor with a soldier on it. He had his sword in his hand and was looking their way. Will ran towards him, holding the letter out.

  ‘Count’s inspectors,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve been attacked. There are intruders in the building.’ He pointed back down the corridor. ‘That way! That way!’

  The guard took a step and then stopped. ‘But this is my post.’

  ‘Go!’ Will held the letter closer to his face. ‘That’s an order on the count’s authority.’

  There was more noise downstairs as the guard hurried along the corridor. Someone shouted at the entrance to the building. A bell rang. Around the building, more bells joined in.

  ‘Intruders!’ someone outside shouted. ‘They’re dressed as inspectors and have the count’s letter.’

  Johan Kruger had arrived.

  The word hunters ran through the treasury doorway. The man who had brought the box was setting it on a shelf with dozens of others. Will shouted to him to step away.

  He lifted his hands and took a pace back. He bumped into a table and reached down to balance himself.

  Will took the box and smashed it onto the floor. The lid split and coins spilt out – 99 regular Joachimsthalers and one with a glowing gold ‘home’ portal.

  Lexi saw it and jumped on it. Al was already finding the peg. There were guards in the corridor, running towards them.

  Lexi opened the portal and the three of them moved to the far corner of the room. Al drove the peg in. As he locked it in place, guards appeared in the doorway with swords in their hands.

  Al turned the key. Mist rose up through the floor and poured in through the doorway. The floorboards shuddered, the walls shook and the word hunters lifted away. They saw soldiers in the square and then the town grew small – a pale gap in the dark forest and then a speck.

  Centuries of light and dark passed as the earth spun below. They hadn’t found their grandfather. But they were alive.

  The spinning slowed and the fall to earth began. Below them the land met an ocean, a river wound its way through a city, a creek passed through a leafy suburb, traffic moved on the streets at exactly its usual speed and the word hunters landed in the park next to Mursili and the dictionary.

  ‘You’ve got to watch those branches,’ Mursili said to Al. ‘You nearly collected one on the way past.’

  Al looked down, to make sure that he was back in his own clothes. ‘That’s the least of our worries.’

  Will winced as he pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt. The welt from the spade had a clear edge to it where it reached his arm, and it extended under his shirt and across his back. The tip of his shoulder felt tender where the bone had been struck.

  ‘We have enemies,’ he said to Mursili. They had dropped their guard at the mint. They had assumed they were past the men in grey and their minds had been only on the portal. ‘It’s my own fault. I should have been looking. Al and Lexi stopped them from killing me.’

  ‘Who are they, though?’ Lexi couldn’t help looking around, scanning the park. Dogs were being walked. There were kids in the playground. She wanted a weapon. As the breeze blew through the trees, the shadows moved.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Will wished he had a better answer. ‘All I know is they’re out there. And it’s good that there are three of us.’

  It certainly wasn’t the word Lexi wanted to see. Al came to her door the following Sunday afternoon, while she was downloading some new music. She knew from the look on his face that the time had come again.

  ‘What is it?’ She was putting a new playlist together, but she dropped the song. ‘What’s the word?’

  ‘It’s “gun”.’ He held his hand up. ‘Don’t go assuming anything. It might be okay. “Water” was a nightmare, remember, so you can never tell.’

  They sent a text to Will and Mursili.

  Will’s reply came through within a minute. ‘Good one. Done it before. Not as bad as some. Don’t be alarmed by it being “gun”.’

  As she waited with Al in the park, Lexi could instantly come up with 50 ways it could become a disaster.

  ‘“Not as bad as some”?’ She scrolled through Will’s text message, for at least the tenth time. ‘How bad is that? He once fought a million Aztecs while he had gastro and they wanted to sacrifice him alive. It’s “gun”. It’s not a word that got invented at a flower show.’

  ‘Yeah. Just so you know, I didn’t pick it.’ In his own head, Al was workshopping at least another 50 ways it could turn ugly. ‘It’s the history of the word, not the weapon, so—’

  ‘Yeah, and one time, long ago and far away from any wars, this peaceful shepherd was in a meadow, putting together his entry for the competition to name a brand new weapon that goes bang and shoots people. So we turn up, pat a few sheep, watch him write “G-U-N” on the entry form, poke in the peg and come home.’ She glared in the direction of the bus stop. ‘Does that sound likely?’

  ‘Well, soon we’ll know. Will can actually tell us with this one. That’s got to be good. He’ll know what the risks are. And where we have to be and when.’ It made sense when he said it, even if he didn’t feel it. ‘He got through it last time without knowing all that.’

  ‘And that means it’s okay he’s the boss, right? I know you know history, but he’s, like, practically 20 and smart and he’s done at least 50 words, including this one. So we have to—’

  ‘It’s probably hard to think straight when you’ve got such a massive crush on him.’ Al was already irritated that Will kept behaving like he was the boss. He didn’t need Lexi making it official.

  ‘I don’t have a—’ She put her hands up to cover her face. She could feel it burning. ‘Just supposing I did, which I don’t, do you think he’d know?’

  ‘I think his mind’s on the job. And I don’t think there’s a boss, but it would be smart for us to take his lead on this one, because he’s done it before.’

  A bus turned the corner and pulled up. Mursili was the second person off. He could see them waiting under the trees and headed in their direction.

  ‘So, interesting one,’ he said when he got closer. He sounded enthusiastic about it. Which was easy, since he wasn’t going. ‘If only we’d had a few guns when the Kaskians attacked Hattusa. We would have handed them back their bottoms in large ceramic vessels for the storage of beverages.’ He stopped and sighed. ‘That is so disappointing in translation. Much punchier in Hittite. It’s a famous phrase of ours when you want to be a little bold about your intended treatment of an adversary. The vessel is “palhi” and don’t even ask how I would’ve translated “arraz”.’ Lexi and Al didn’t seem as interested as he’d hoped. ‘But now’s not the time for a lesson in Hittite. “Gun.” I’ve looked it up.’ He scrolled through notes on his phone. ‘It’s an odd one. Old Norse, so, Vikings. I can’t see any sign of steps to get there and if Vikings had guns Wikipedia’s got a lot of rewriting to do. And they’re not alone.’

  Al showed him the page in the dictionary. The wording fitted with what Mursili had said, but it told them nothing more.

  ‘“Gunna”, “Gunnhildr”. I
’ll be interested to hear how it started with them.’ Mursili almost put his finger on the portal before Al pulled the book back. ‘Sorry. I – It’d be awful to send you there without Will. Though my archery skills might be handy.’

  ‘Do you want to—’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. You need someone, um – I’m the guy in the control room with the screens, remember? I’m all about the information. I’m a googler, not a fighter.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘But I’m tempted, of course.’

  Behind Mursili, Lexi could see another bus pulling up. Will waved as he stepped off with his backpack over one shoulder.

  ‘I have good news and bad news,’ he said as he stopped next to Mursili to hook his other arm into his backpack. It sounded as if he was telling an old joke. ‘The good news is there’s only three steps to go through. The bad news is I’m pretty sure we’ll meet our friends in grey at the first one. But I got past them last time and I can do it again. And this time we’ve got the three of us and—’ He stopped there. ‘One of the stages is a party. A celebration. A couple are a bit rough, but let’s just go. I’ll brief you when we get to each one.’

  He gave his injured shoulder a stretch. It was feeling much better. The bruising had tracked down to his elbow, but it was starting to fade.

  Mursili stepped back from the dictionary.

  ‘What are you not telling us?’ Lexi said to Will.

  But Al had touched the button and a bank of mist was already rolling up from the creek.

  Will’s good news was wrong.

  He braced himself for a drop of centuries, but they burst into daylight much earlier, after a few small bumps.

  Below them lay a city with a river passing through it and public gardens with paths meeting at circular beds. There were square palaces with central courtyards and two islands crossed by streets that continued on either bank into the distance, into the suburbs.