“You … worthless … bucket … of pus,” Hadrian coughed, and Alistair couldn’t tell if he was talking to him or to the Mandrake, for Hadrian’s eyes fell closed and his body started to convulse.
The Mandrake roared again and kicked at the balcony with his powerful legs. The balcony crumbled, raining stones on the raging crowd, and with a still-writhing Hadrian skewered to his horn, the Mandrake flew up and across the room, over the pedestal and then down toward the teeming masses below. A blast of arctic air erupted from the Mandrake’s mouth, freezing and leveling each and every body it hit.
“Stop!” Alistair screamed. “Please stop! You shouldn’t be doing this!”
The Mandrake responded with a cackle. “I was designed to do this!”
The room flashed from sweltering to frigid in an instant. The exit was still clogged with people and would remain clogged, because the Mandrake released another blast of cold air from his mouth and it froze the bodies in place.
“The red rope!” came a terrified scream from below. “Pull the red one! It’ll pulverize the beast!”
Hadrian’s empty swing rocked back and forth in the open air, its tortoiseshell seat coming close to the pedestal. In Alistair’s sixth-grade gym class, there had been a track and field day when he had registered a long jump of eight feet, which was considered not bad for a twelve-year-old. The shell appeared to reach within eight feet of the pedestal at the apex of its sway, and since it was only going to lose momentum, it was now or never. Alistair took a few steps back. He started to run.
As he reached the end of the pedestal, his foot snagged a bunched-up section of net. He stumbled, and what was a planned leap became an impromptu fall.
“Waaaaa!” Alistair screamed, his voice joining the chorus of cries from the frenzied villagers below. Down he went into clouds of frosty air. Whatever broke his fall was likely to be person or stone, so when he struck a meaty and feathery wing, he was relieved, but only for a split second.
The wing flapped up and Alistair slid down onto the Mandrake’s back. It was an enormous back, rife with rib and muscle, and Alistair was astounded that this was the same beast as Potoweet. Balancing would be impossible without a firm grip, so Alistair reached forward and grabbed at the feathers on the Mandrake’s head.
The Mandrake roared again, tipped its head back, and flew upward, out of the billows of cold air and toward the hanging garden of tentacles. Alistair held on like it was a bucking bronco, but his sweaty hand was already slipping, and when the Mandrake took a sharp turn, Hadrian’s impaled body spun like a propeller and his foot hit Alistair in the face. Alistair lost his grip.
He grabbed at the air as he fell again, and the first thing his hands found were the dangling colored ropes.
Yank, yank, yank, yank.
He snatched and swung from rope to rope like he was on a jungle gym. Tentacles came rocketing down from the ceiling, snapping at the air, striking the pedestal, striking one another, becoming intertwined.
Yank, yank, yank, yank.
More tentacles, ricocheting off one another—the hollow ones pilfering the frozen bodies of figments, the ones equipped with blades chopping things to bits, all of them zipping past the Mandrake, who dipped and dodged as he flew.
Yank, yank, yank, yank.
The walls took a pounding, the screams got even louder, and the ceiling began to crack and let in the chunky, viscous sea. Red liquid began to rain down on them.
Through a torrent of blood and a tangle of tentacles came the awful visage of the Mandrake. The beast was tilted sideways, weaving through the air past the many obstacles, his eyes locked on Alistair. As the blood doused the Mandrake’s body, the creature howled in pain but kept moving.
Alistair was holding on to one rope, and there was one final rope in front of him. Since everything was drenched in blood, everything looked red. He had no idea what pulling this final rope would do, but pulling this final rope was all he could do.
Yank.
As a blast of cold air struck Alistair’s legs, a tentacle grabbed at his head, and with the ceiling caving in and blood pouring down, Alistair slipped away into the dark.
Up and over and around he went as the bays of agony faded and the only noise was the sluice of his body through the tube. It reminded him of a babbling brook, but it was the opposite of relaxing. Because next came a jolt and a crash as the tube busted through a flimsy layer of ice and spat Alistair out onto cold ground.
He was now in a dark cavern where the air was frosty but ripe, and standing in front of him was a penguin.
“Greetings and salutations,” the penguin said.
November 19, 1989
His shirt was wet from the rain. Also the blood. Kyle Dwyer, Charlie’s older brother, lay in the grass, bleeding from the stomach. The autumn sky cursed and spat.
Charlie crouched down and waved his bare hands in the air above Kyle’s wound. They were mangled hands, casualties of a fireworks accident. The left one had a thumb, pinkie, and ring finger; the right one had only a thumb and pinkie. Yet Charlie moved them with grace—slowly, confidently. The movements seemed practiced, a ritual of sorts. Charlie had done this before. To Alistair, that much was clear.
But what was he doing exactly? Kyle writhed and the blood kept coming, while Charlie swept his hands over and under each other like he was casting a spell. It didn’t appear to be helping.
Alistair couldn’t bear to witness this anymore. Yes, Alistair had shot the gun. Yes, he had caused Kyle’s wound. But rather than help, he chose to run away. He said that it was to call 911, but that wasn’t the only motive. That moment—that image—had potential. To stick. To stay. To never leave. Like the final page of a tragic book.
Because this appeared to be the end of Kyle’s tale.
SO LET’S START ANOTHER
IN ANOTHER YEAR BEFORE YEARS
This tale concerns a boy and his stories.
Stories, fictional ones at least, were unknown to those people who lived at the foot of those snowy mountains, in those caves next to that creek. There were no storytellers in that tribe called the Hotiki—that is, until the one named Cabal was born.
Cabal was born during a rainy season, and when the next rainy season arrived, he was already speaking. Six rainy seasons later, he was telling long and complex yarns that kept the Hotiki enthralled well into the night. He told them about how the stars were enchanted beings. He spoke of faraway places where the forests and fields were awash with flowers and the snows never came.
“Where do you learn such wondrous things?” the elders asked, for they only knew of things they had witnessed with their own eyes and ears. They observed. They shared knowledge. They didn’t invent like Cabal.
“I am not sure,” Cabal admitted. “Like the rain, sometimes stories fall on me.”
It was as acceptable an explanation as any, and the elders actually didn’t care where his stories came from, so long as Cabal kept telling them.
One night, Cabal told the story of a girl and her brother. The girl had long arms and big round eyes and a scar on her cheek. Her brother was a mischievous boy who happened to be a shape-shifter, a person who could transform into any creature alive. While playing near a pond one day, the girl dared her brother to take on the form of a frog and to hop across the water on the tops of lily pads. Never one to resist a dare, the boy dove into the water and emerged transformed, entirely slick and green. But before he had a chance to even hop once, a turtle surfaced and gobbled the frog-boy up.
The girl was terrified and filled with sadness. Also guilt, plenty of guilt. She feared that her tribe would accuse her of murder, so she devised another solution to her predicament. She journeyed into the woods and rounded up animals.
“You must pretend to be my brother,” she told the animals. “And I will let you live among us and eat our food. But only one of you at a time. If the tribe becomes suspicious, then I will replace you.”
Because humans always had the best food, the animals agreed
. A wolf was the first one to accompany the girl back to her tribe. Since the girl’s brother was a known shape-shifter and spent most of his time in the form of animals, the tribe had no reason to doubt that the wolf was the child they all knew. And they all lived in harmony for quite a while. Until one morning the wolf could not control himself and he stole a baby from a bed of hay and ate the baby in the woods.
“You wicked beast,” the girl told the wolf as he slinked away into the brush. “You are no longer my brother.”
The tribe never suspected the wolf. They thought he was simply the precocious, but peaceful, shape-shifting boy. Instead they blamed the missing baby on the wrath of their creators.
“The creators give and so they must take,” the elders pronounced.
The girl, determined to continue with her charade, replaced the wolf with a bear. Life with the bear was nice. Good. He was part of the tribe and all was well. Until, as anyone could guess, the bear gave in to temptation, his insatiable hunger for old ladies. One foggy night, the bear stole the girl’s grandmother from her slumber and devoured her in the woods.
“You wicked beast,” the girl told the bear. “You are no longer my brother.”
Like the wolf, the tribe did not suspect the bear. They laid blame upon the creators. And the girl replaced the bear with a lion. The arrangement worked once again, until it didn’t. The beast’s appetite won out. This time the tribe’s greatest hunter was the meal.
It kept on like this for a while. The girl refused to tell the truth about her brother, she continued to replace the animals, and people kept getting swallowed up in the forest. Soon, the only ones left in the tribe were the girl and that turtle, the one that had originally eaten her brother. Due to a steady diet of frogs, the turtle had grown to the size of a mammoth.
“Do you plan to eat me and end this tribe?” the girl asked the turtle.
“No,” the turtle told her. “I plan to protect you. To keep you alive so that you will grow very old and realize how foolish and selfish you have been.”
Sure enough, that’s just what the turtle did. He kept the girl from harm, lending her his shell when she needed protection, catching extra frogs and fish so that she would always have food. And she lived a long, healthy life.
When they were both quite old, the turtle asked her if she regretted what she did.
The girl, now an old woman, replied, “No. Because I lived much longer than I would have without your help. Lying was the smartest thing I ever did.”
This angered the turtle so much that he finally revealed the truth to her. “All of these years and you haven’t learned one thing!” The turtle then transformed into an old man and stood in front of her.
“Brother?” the old woman asked.
The old man nodded. “The same,” he said. “That day at the pond, I did not become a frog. I became a turtle. And you became a liar.”
This was not the end of Cabal’s story, but it was all the tribe would hear, for Cabal stopped the tale when Hela, who was their oldest member, began to weep.
“Do not worry, Hela,” Cabal said. “It’s only a tale. This girl did not exist.”
“But she did,” Hela cried. “The girl you described was Una, with her long arms and big eyes and scar on her cheek. And the boy? He was Banar.”
“Who is Una?” Cabal asked. “Who is Banar?”
“I am the only one old enough to remember,” Hela said. “When I was a girl, there was a boy named Banar who impersonated animals. The chaos spirits drowned him in the creek one night. Not long after that, they took his sister, Una. We never saw her again.”
The rest of the Hotiki gasped at this. “I know nothing of these people,” Cabal said.
“Of course you don’t,” Hela said. “No one does. Because we chose not to speak of them, for fear that the chaos spirits would come after us all.”
“I believe you’re seeing something in my tale that is not there,” Cabal said.
Hela stood up and pointed a finger at Cabal. “I believe your tale comes from an evil place. I believe you know not what fills your head. I believe you are possessed by the chaos spirits and have no place in the Hotiki.”
Since Hela was the eldest in the tribe, she was trusted to be the wisest. The rest of the Hotiki agreed with her when she said that Cabal might be dangerous. Even Cabal’s parents thought it best when the tribe decided to isolate him for two rainy seasons.
“We will not speak to Cabal,” Hela decreed. “He will not speak to us. We will bring him food, but that is all. He will live alone in the smallest of our caves. And if after two rainy seasons we are safe from the chaos spirits, then we will let him live with us once more. But he must not tell such tales ever again.”
There was no arguing with Hela, and Cabal accepted his fate. He set out to live in the small cave. It was a cramped and dank place. Water dripped from the stalactites and onto Cabal’s head when he tried to sleep. It kept him awake for hours. In the past, when he couldn’t sleep, he would make up stories, but he tried to wean himself of that habit now.
I must think of only things I know, he told himself. I must not let the stories in.
There was no stopping them, however. The stories rushed in at an alarming rate, piling up in his head. Soon there was no room for them and they started replacing his memories. By the end of the second rainy season, Cabal hardly had any memories left. His head was only stories.
Hela came to him one morning and said, “You have been noble and brave to live alone for all these days and nights. The Hotiki have been safe. Would you like to rejoin us now?”
With an innocent smile, Cabal said, “Yes. But first I’d like to finish that story.”
MUCH LATER
CHAPTER 8
Broken icicles as thick as tree trunks covered the floor of the cavern. Cracked and splintered bones lay scattered throughout. A penguin stood a few feet from Alistair, his black wings crossed like arms across his white chest. The penguin winked and smiled, and Alistair scooted away on his butt and the heels of his hands. “It’s okay,” the penguin whispered. “Forget your worries.”
Forget your worries? Easy enough for him to say. He isn’t sitting where I’m sitting.
The penguin clearly hadn’t just witnessed a monster attack hundreds of people. The penguin clearly wasn’t covered in blood. Sitting on the frosty ground, Alistair examined himself—his clothes and their rusty, earthy sheen. He paid particular attention to his hands. Yes, they were bloody too.
“It’s confusing, I know,” the penguin said. “New places. New creatures. Takes some adjustment. I can help with that. My name is Baxter. My game is hospitality.”
The penguin bowed low, his beak almost touching the ground, but the gesture didn’t impress Alistair. He wasn’t about to be burned by a bird once again. “Stay back,” he said.
Baxter nodded respectfully, held his ground. “I take it that your visit is an unplanned one?”
On the walls of the cavern there were little lights, not much different from Christmas lights. Only a handful were lit. They spelled out a message:
HE WON.
A few raggedy, emaciated polar bears hovered overhead, in the upper reaches of the cavern, aided by propellers that sprouted from their backs. The propellers were flesh and bone, as much a part of the bears as their chapped noses, as their yellow teeth, as their crescent-shaped claws that grew like terrible black flames from their dangling feet. Their eyelids were low, and their eyes were glassy and pink. They didn’t seem to notice Alistair, and he had never seen anything like them.
Yet he had heard of something like them. Exactly like them. “Your name is Baxter?” Alistair asked.
“Yes.”
“Baxter the penguin?”
“Yes. Would you prefer another name?” Baxter replied. “I’m open to suggestions.”
In the middle of the cavern, there was a throne made of ice. It was cracked and empty, but Alistair imagined a girl with a fur-lined parka perched on it. “Who created you?�
� he asked.
The tip of Baxter’s beak dipped and his voice became somber and respectful. “You are looking at the first and most loyal friend to Chua Ling, a creator of great wit and generosity.”
Chua Ling. She was Fiona’s friend. Fiona had told Alistair stories about her. “You’re serious?” he asked.
Baxter put a wing to his heart. “I don’t kid about Chua.”
Chua had gone missing almost a year before Fiona. It was her disappearance that had set off a chain of events that led Fiona to tell Alistair about Aquavania. If it weren’t for Chua Ling’s insistence on stopping the Riverman, Alistair would have been at home, asleep in bed, instead of stuck sitting on the ice talking to a penguin. Of all the corners of Aquavania he could have ended up in, Alistair had landed in one of the few he had heard about. It was either a fabulous stroke of luck or another elaborate trick.
“If you were really created by Chua Ling, then tell me, what was her favorite snack?” Alistair asked.
The question sparked Baxter’s eyes, and with a flick of a foot, the penguin sent himself sliding across the ground as if he were wearing skates. It was impossible to avoid the bones, and as Baxter plowed through them, femurs and vertebrae clattered together like wind chimes. Eventually, his curving path led him to the throne of ice, behind which he ducked down for a moment. When he reappeared, he was carrying a bowl filled with potato chip crumbs.
“Salt and vinegar were her absolute favorite,” Baxter said. “But for guests, she served barbecue. More of a crowd-pleaser.”
A simple answer of potato chips would have sufficed, so Baxter’s thoroughness was impressive, but Alistair wasn’t completely satisfied. The best liars are thorough. “What did Chua say when she was excited?” Alistair asked.
“Hot chocolate!”
The Whisper Page 8
