by Heide Goody
“And that is the last of the pink wafers,” said Professor Omar, presenting the almost demolished packet of biscuits to Prudence.
Prudence took the biscuit. Pink wafers, she decided, tasted of sweetness and air and not much else.
“Is there nothing for me?” said Steve, rocking back and forth on his land squid.
“You have no mouth,” the professor pointed out.
“What’s this, you blind degenerate?” Steve punched himself in his stitched-on face.
“Mouth with which to eat,” sighed the professor.
The professor struck Prudence as someone who needed to sigh a lot. She could see he was in pain and he looked very, very old. Even older than her mum.
“Let’s go play,” she said to Steve.
Steve grabbed the foil packet from the professor and smeared it across his own face, leaving fragments of biscuit all over it like little pink flecks of stubble. “See?”
The professor threw his hands into a complex configuration. “Yhorr ves’nh!” The lights in the ceiling flickered in a concentric wave emanating from the point directly above the professor’s head. “To stop you wandering too far,” he said, giving Prudence what she suspected was supposed to be a conspiratorial wink.
He waved a hand at the concrete horse as it loomed over. “I’ll have the Bridgeman sculpture stay here. It does tend to eat people when it’s hungry. There’s one still out there in the wild, you know.”
Prudence headed down the nearest aisle.
“I shall lead the way, pipsqueak!” said Steve and tried to gallop ahead. “I am the expert!”
Prudence prodded and examined objects on the shelves as they made their aimless way through the storage space.
“What’s this, then?” she said, holding up an irregularly shaped white token.
“It’s not important,” said Steve.
“What’s this?” she said, gesturing to the collected fragments of a broken vase.
“It’s not important.”
“And this?”
Steve sneered at a configuration of golden wire and jewels that might have been a headdress or might have been a statue of an insect. “Not important,” he said, and rode on.
“I thought you said you were an expert,” she said, mildly miffed.
“An expert in important things,” he said haughtily. “When I see something important, I shall point it out to you.”
“Sounds like you don’t know.”
“If you’re to be my apprentice, you must learn to show me proper respect.”
Prudence gave him a good hard frown, which was of no use because he was riding ahead of her. “Who says I’m your apprentice?”
He tossed his head back. “We agreed. You said you needed a mentor.”
“Did I?”
“And if I am your mentor then you must be my mentee which is much like an apprentice. Now, keep up.”
As they explored, Prudence concluded that many of the objects in the Vault were here because they were annoying and refused to behave as objects should. There were some blue gemstones that refused to be counted. There was a heavy gold coin that only had one side. There was a pottery statue of a woman, the face of which, when she turned it, took on a different expression – a trick of the light. However, as Prudence turned it, the woman’s face did not return to the earlier expression. Each turn of the statue made the woman’s face more vicious and strange than before. The features did not move at all, but within a handful of turns, the woman had a face that was contorted by rage and madness into something utterly inhuman.
After putting the increasingly-angry woman back on the shelf and carrying on, Prudence soon found the air became fuzzy and thick and too difficult to push through.
“Not too far!” came the professor’s distant voice.
“No mortal is the master of me,” said Steve. He urged the land squid onwards, but it could do no better. Its tentacles wobbled uncontrollably in the fuzzy air, like flags in the wind.
“We’ll go this way,” said Prudence, and headed down a side aisle.
“That’s where we wanted to go anyway,” said Steve.
After twists and turns along the boundaries the professor had set them, Steve found nothing important enough to be an expert on. They came upon something that was certainly different, even if only in terms of its scale. In an open area surrounded by shelves, sat a thing of stone or cement, covered in powdery dust. From the central mass, curling tendrils and tentacles sprouted in wild, crazed loops which touched the ceiling and stretched outward in a rough circle five times wider than Prudence was tall.
Prudence looked around. “How did they get this in here?” It was bigger than any door she had seen and couldn’t even be moved around in this space without taking down most of the nearby shelves.
“Through clever means and artifice,” said Steve.
“But how?”
“I don’t have to tell you everything,” he sniffed.
Prudence tapped a tentacle to see if it might move like the concrete horse. It didn’t.
She placed a hand on the rough surface. It didn’t feel like a made thing. There was an unevenness to its shape that wasn’t just down to poor construction. It felt like an explosion frozen in time, a single terrible moment captured in this form. She instinctively knew it was alive.
“Hello,” she said.
“Do not talk to the rock thing,” said Steve. “Ah. Now that does look important.” He headed off towards whatever had caught his attention.
Prudence ignored him, closed her eyes and flattened her hand on the stone. She could feel the being within. With senses she had not used since birth, she felt out beyond her own body and touched a mind encased in the cement.
“His name’s Crippen-Ai,” she said, to Steve, to no one. “His name’s Crippen-Ai. And he’s screaming.”
01:50am
“There are three security points between the entrance and the store room,” said Maurice as they came to a sturdy hatch door.
The tunnel beneath Birmingham University was not what Rod had expected. He considered himself to be something of a tunnel connoisseur. Sometimes it felt as if all the key moments of his life had occurred in tunnels. Sandy ancient tunnels leading to the lair of the King in Crimson. The vast concrete tunnels of the nuclear bunker under the city centre. The abandoned railway under the Mailbox building. Cramped or cavernous, damp or dusty, every tunnel had its own character.
This was the first tunnel Rod had been in with mood lighting. The floor was bare earth. The rough walls had been given a layer of plaster and painted with white emulsion. The intermittent wall and ceiling props – surely not the century old originals, Rod thought – were painted in a contrasting glossy cream. Rod had to duck his head to pass under each beam; Maurice had no such issues. And then there were the wall lights.
Strung along a length of cable tacked to the wall, each light was a feature all by itself. There were luxury pleated silk shades, mounted on chunky wooden brackets so that they resembled a Seventies bistro. Some of the shades were edged with fringing or pom-poms. There were even some tattered vintage paper shades which looked very much as if they had real butterflies squished into their composition. Rod, who had no eye for interior design, suspected someone (almost certainly Maurice rather than Omar) had spent many a happy weekend at antiques fairs, selecting the most kitsch and outrageous lampshades for this unique collection.
Maurice ran his hand over the door in front of him and intoned a short Venislarn phrase. Nothing noticeable happened. Maurice opened the door onto the next section.
“And if you hadn’t said the magic words?” asked Rod.
Maurice thought. “I would have exploded. Or gone blind. One or the other. It’s been so long since we put this in.”
There was rumbling from back along the tunnel. Maybe the leisure centre had been sat on by a god. Maybe a careless foot had swept the entrance building to the tunnel aside.
“Shall we close the door behind us, just
to be on the safe side?” suggested Rod.
Maurice nodded and continued. “Three security points,” he said. “The second door has a combination lock. The third is a riddle door.”
“Right. A riddle door. As in ‘My first is in apple but not in pear…’? That kind of codswallop?”
Maurice chuckled. “Do I detect a certain disdain?”
Rod shrugged. “As a form of security, it makes no sense. Passwords and passkeys are fine. But if the ‘key’ you’re being asked for is something you can work out from the question then it’s not security; it’s a general knowledge quiz.”
“You sound like Omar. He has no sense of fun either.”
“I’m just saying—” Rod had to duck hurriedly to avoid the next beam. “It’s the kind of thing you only find in computer adventure games, or that Dungeons and Dragons malarkey.”
“Ah, there speaks a man who never knew the thrill of defeating a gelatinous cube with a lucky D20.”
“Aye, you’re not wrong there,” agreed Rod, readily.
The next door had a keypad set into the wall next to it. Maurice tapped in five digits.
There was another rumble, maybe no louder than the last one but deeper in tone. A brutalist chandelier swung on its fixing. Dust motes drifted in the air.
Maurice looked up in momentary trepidation.
“What are these for?” asked Rod, holding up the plastic box.
“Ah,” said Maurice with notable cheer. “Very important.” He took the box and opened it. “Sandwiches and macaroons.”
Rod picked one of the biscuity cakes.
“Vital in an emergency,” said Maurice. “If I’d left them in the car, who knows what might have happened to them.”
“You never know,” said Rod. “When we’re done here, it might still be there.”
“It?”
“The car.”
Maurice whipped out a pocket-sized packet of napkins and passed them to Rod. “Crumbs.”
“Quite,” said Rod.
Another ground-shaking rumble. Rod tried not to think about the structural integrity of a mine tunnel which predated World War One.
Maurice went back to close the door behind them. Rod put both macaroon and tissues in his pocket. He hardly felt it was time for a dainty repast.
“The sandwiches are ham and piccalilli,” said Maurice. “You can’t go wrong with a decent piccalilli.”
Another crash, louder than thunder, as deep as any explosion. Rod’s knees buckled as the ground wobbled. A ceiling beam silently gave way and wood and earth tumbled into the space between him and Maurice. Earth fell in hard unforgiving clods. Through the cascade of soil, Rod saw Maurice’s shocked face, hands raised as he stepped back.
Rod shouted to him, didn’t even know what it was he was shouting, and then the cave-in spread. A half tonne of earth clipped Rod’s shoulder. He fell into a stumbling run, deeper into the mine. Even when the dull roar had been replaced by the fizz of settling earth, he did not stop. Only in the silence did he slow, now on hands and knees, and look back.
The lights, ripped off the wall in places, were still on. The air was filled with a brown haze.
Earth, rich loamy soil, filled the tunnel some distance back in a solid uninterrupted wall. His mouth was gritty with the dust from it. How much of the tunnel had caved in? Five feet? Ten feet? Thirty?
“Maurice!” he shouted.
There was no reply from beyond the cave in. However, behind him, a melodic baritone spoke. “Greetings, weary traveller. Riddles have I if you wish to pass…”
Rod closed his eyes.
* * *
Ricky Lee stopped in the Library lobby to make sure he understood what Nina had said. “You need me to drive you to Sutton Park.”
“Yes.”
“To the donkey sanctuary.”
“Yes.”
“Because Vivian Grey’s husband is there.”
“Mr Grey, yes.”
“Because he’s been magically turned into a donkey.”
“Yes.”
“And he knows a magic spell that can undo all of this.”
She winced. “It’s not as simple as that. And I really don’t like the ‘m’ word. It makes it all sound stupid.”
Ricky Lee stepped back and put his hands on his hips. “We’re driving to the suburbs to collect a donkey and you think the ‘m’ word makes it sound stupid?”
“Everything thing you —ggh! – adn-bhul humans do sounds stupid,” said Pupfish.
“And are all the other donkeys magically transformed people?”
“What? No. I don’t think so,” said Nina.
“Didn’t know if it was like that thing in Pinocchio.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about,” she said.
“Pinocchio. The film. The island.” He looked to Pupfish to back him up.
“I seen a version of Pinocchio,” Pupfish conceded. “Straight to DVD type. Weren’t no – ggh! – donkeys, although some of the guys were hung like donkeys. There was this one scene where the girl sits on Pinocchio’s face and—”
“Getting off topic,” said Ricky. “So, we’re going to Sutton Park, finding the donkey and … bringing it back?”
“Naturally,” said Nina.
“In my car?”
Nina thought on that. “Can we take out the parcel shelf in the boot?”
Ricky rolled his eyes at her. He spoke into his police radio. “Control. I need a police van in the location of the city centre. Priority.”
Lights shifted in the sky outside. The world looked sick.
02:00am
Rod could not take his eyes off the face in the door. Superficially it could be mistaken for a number of distended knots in the wood, with a warped nub for a nose. On further inspection it was very clearly a face. What Rod found fascinating and disturbing in equal measure was that on even closer inspection, it was really very cartoonish, and spoke as though it was composed of latex foam and was being operated from behind by a Sesame Street puppeteer.
“What the heck are you?” said Rod.
“Is that your answer, weary traveller?” said the door.
“What? No,” said Rod. “I’m asking what you are. Are you like a person trapped in a door or are you a magic door?”
“I have a riddle for you,” said the door. It even had little rosy cheeks of polished wood. “I’m always old, sometimes new, never sad but sometimes blue—”
“Yeah, yeah. Forget that,” said Rod who didn’t have time for such things. He grabbed the door handle, twisted and pulled.
“To get through my door, weary traveller, you must answer my riddle.”
“Shut up.”
Although the cave-in had only been a minute before, Rod could feel the heat and heaviness of the air. There were no ventilation shafts in this section. Whether Maurice had survived the cave-in or not, Rod needed to press on, find the orb and get out of here or he would suffocate. A thought occurred to him.
“Say something, door.”
“You would like to hear the riddle again?” it asked. “I’m always old, sometimes new—”
Rod put his hand to the speaking mouth and felt the flow of air. “You breathe?”
“Is that your answer?”
“You’re a door with lungs?”
“Is that your answer?”
“Using up my flamin’ oxygen.” He drew his pistol and pointed it between the face’s knotty eyes. The mouth dropped open in alarm.
“Weary traveller! I am but a simple door!”
“I need you to ‘a’ stop using up my air and ‘b’ let me through.”
“All you need to do is answer my riddle.”
“I don’t do any of that twaddle,” said Rod. “Now, open up.”
“But if you would but listen!”
In the cloudy light and the increasingly hot air of the tunnel, Rod did not harbour much patience but he was an inherently polite man.
“Fine!” he hissed. “But be quick about it.”
“I have a riddle for you—”
“I know that.”
“That was by way of being my preamble, weary traveller,” said the door and cleared its throat. "I’m always old but sometimes new, never sad but sometimes blue. I’m never empty but sometimes full. I never push but always pull.”
“No idea,” said Rod and took aim again.
“Wait! Wait!” said the door. “You’ve barely thought about it.”
“I’ve thought about it enough,” said Rod. “Now, open up or I will shoot my way through.”
“But it’s not that difficult a riddle if you put your mind to it, weary traveller.”
“No time.”
“Sometimes new, sometimes blue, sometimes full, always pull…”
Rod shrugged. “A car?”
“A car?”
“A car.”
“That doesn’t work,” said the door.
“Yes, it does. It’s a car. Open up.”
“But that’s not the answer to the riddle.”
“Why not?”
“Always old?”
“Been around for ages, haven’t they, cars?”
“Never empty?”
“They’ve got seats in them.”
“Sometimes blue?”
“Some cars are blue.”
“No, no,” said door, waggling its cheeks as though trying to shake its head. “The correct answer to a riddle should feel inherently truthful. There’s an element of poetry to it. The answer can’t be something that merely fits the criteria.”
“It’s a car,” said Rod. He placed the barrel of the gun against the face’s forehead. “It’s a blue bloody car. Tell me I’m wrong.”
The door looked panicked. “Weary traveller, please—”
“I will reduce you to matchwood. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“But this is my one sole purpose. I exist to ask the riddle! If I give in to threats, then what is my purpose? Where is my raison d'être?”
“And then I’ll burn that matchwood.”
“Please, just think on. New something, blue something, full something. Common phrases. You just have to find the word that fits, weary traveller!”
Rod didn’t waver. “It’s a car. Final answer. Locked in. And I dare you to call me ‘weary traveller’ again. I double dare you.”
