Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner

still there after all. ‘Because she’s new—’
    ‘You were new here once,’ said Olga Ciavolga coldly. ‘And I do not remember anyone playing jokes on you. Tsk! There are dangers enough in the museum without you making more for your amusement. Go! I am ashamed of you.’
    Toadspit tried to say something, but the old woman wouldn’t let him. ‘Go!’ she snapped again.
    The boy’s footsteps echoed back up the tunnel. Then Olga Ciavolga was standing beside Goldie in the flickering light. ‘You see,’ she said. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of.’
    ‘I— I thought brizzlehounds were—’ Goldie was about to say ‘make-believe’, but that sounded rude when one of them was standing right in front of her. So instead she said, ‘I thought all the brizzlehounds were gone.’
    ‘And so they are. All of the great hounds gone, except for Broo,’ said Olga Ciavolga. She reached out and stroked the giant head. ‘Now lead the way, my friend. There are things we must show this child.’
    The brizzlehound’s body almost filled the narrow tunnel, but he turned around in a single fluid motion that took Goldie’s breath away. As they wended their way downwards between the rocky walls, she edged closer to Olga Ciavolga.
    ‘Is he really tame?’ she whispered.
    ‘Tame?’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘No brizzlehound is ever tame. He is wild and bold and he has his own way of seeing the world. But if you treat him with respect he will not harm you.’
    ‘Where did he come from?’
    ‘I stole him from a circus.’
    ‘But there hasn’t been a circus in Jewel for hundreds of years!’
    Olga Ciavolga gave one of her rare smiles. ‘Some of us are older than we look.’
    Goldie’s head swam. She remembered what Toadspit had said. ‘Is Broo a thief too?’
    ‘Ah, yes. He is a stealer of lives. In the circus he killed a man who tormented him cruelly. They were going to shoot him, but I stole him and brought him here.’
    It was hard for Goldie to act normally when there was a stealer of lives so close in front of her. But after a while her heart slowed almost to its normal rate and the clammy feeling in the palms of her hands went away. She gave a little hiccup of scared laughter and wished that Favour could see her, walking behind a real live brizzlehound.
    It was warmer in the tunnel now, but the air was still dry. They had been going down for so long that it seemed they must be approaching the centre of the earth. And then, suddenly, the tunnel opened up, and they were walking across the floor of a cavern. Olga Ciavolga turned the flame of her lantern up high.
    Goldie gasped. The walls of the cavern were lined with human bones. There were thigh bones stacked from floor to ceiling, and arm bones crisscrossed in intricate patterns. There were ribs and backbones and pelvic bones, and skulls piled one on top of the other like loaves of bread, with a lacework of finger bones between them.
    ‘This,’ said Herro Dan’s voice right behind her, ‘is the Place of Rememberin’.’
    ‘Oh!’ Goldie spun around. ‘I didn’t know you were there!’
    ‘Tsk, he is showing off,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘What do you think you are doing, Dan, frightening the child?’
    ‘She weren’t frightened, were you, lass?’
    Goldie looked at the old man’s smiling face. ‘A little bit.’
    ‘Ah well, no harm done. Keeps you on your toes,’ he said.
    ‘We are not here to talk about toes,’ said Olga Ciavolga severely. ‘We are telling her about the museum.’
    With that, all of Goldie’s frustration came flooding back. ‘But why ?’ she burst out. ‘ Why are you telling me? Why did you bring me here? Toadspit said that maybe I could help, but I don’t know what that means !’
    Herro Dan sighed. ‘You’re right, lass, it’s time we told you.’ He cleared his throat as if he was about to begin a story. ‘There was a time, long ago, when the Faroon Peninsula was known as Furuuna.’
    Furuunaaaaaaaaaaa . . . The word seemed