The Shadow Arts

by Damien Love

  “I want you to p-p-pick it up. I know it’s difficult for your tiny mind to understand, but I positively can’t make myself any clearer.”

  Alex thought furiously, glancing around his circular prison. His eyes were drawn helplessly back to where the thing had fallen. It seemed he had no option but to do what she wanted. It was that or nothing. But there was a thought—do nothing. He leaned back against the chill brickwork and folded his arms.

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Oh, tell you what: let’s have a bet. I says you will.” The silhouetted figure disappeared.

  Alex stood staring up, mind racing. He had the awful, certain feeling she was going to cover the well. He stiffened as he heard another voice suddenly call out from a little farther away.

  “Don’t listen to her, Alex!”

  “Grandad!” Alex shouted.

  All he could see was the bright disc of sky.

  “Don’t—” The old man’s voice was silenced by a sharp slap. There were sounds of struggle, a pained sigh, then nothing. Zia’s head popped back into view.

  “Want to guess what I’ve done to him?”

  “Leave him alone! I’ll—”

  “What’ll you do, duckie?”

  “Okay, okay! I’ll do what you want! Just leave him alone.”

  “Well, go on then.”

  Alex swallowed with difficulty, then forced himself to reach down into the dead leaves. His hand closed around something jagged. When he brought it out, he was clutching a flier.

  The little machine seemed lifeless. A purple-and-black ribbon was knotted tightly around it. Taking care to avoid its razor-edged wings, he warily turned the robot over. The ribbon held small sharp scissors strapped to it.

  “Yes, bravo, well done,” Zia called. “Now, see this?”

  Alex squinted up and froze. Something was coming over the edge of the well, slithering oddly down the wall. After a moment, he realized she was lowering a rope ladder. When the bottom rung was around ten feet above, it halted.

  “Now. The Soaring Spirit is all prepared, receptive and ready just for you.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. Let met translate into rabbit. Ahem: in your tiny right paw, you clutch a Soaring Spirit. You have seen them before. This device has been especially prepared for your use, and your use alone. Tuned to the bunny wavelength. It’s all ready for you, it’s waiting. Treat it carefully, because we’re getting to the stage that we don’t have many left. Not had time to get more ready.

  “If you examine it closely, you will find a hinged panel on one side. You can see in the dim, can’t you, bright eyes? All the carrots you eat? You will further notice I have loaned you my nail scissors, which I expect returned in the same immaculate condition, although I will of course have to have them sterilized. Now, to prime the Soaring Spirit and thus commence commune, you must give something of yourself. As we are only trying teensy-tiny wee baby steps, a little snip of your fur will suffice.”

  “I—I don’t understand . . .”

  “Give us strength,” Zia muttered. “Cut some hair off and stick it in the machine.”

  “But . . .”

  “I see.” She sighed theatrically. “We need everything spelled out. Righto. You see the ladder, above, yes? And you have worked out that it’s too far above for your wittle wabbity arms to weach, even with a vewy, vewy big hop? Well. Should it turn out that you are able to access the Soaring Spirit, you can send it up to hook the ladder and drag it down to you.”

  Alex looked dumbly from the shadow above to the macabre machine in his hand.

  “But I can’t,” he managed. “I don’t know—”

  “Oh, I sympathize, Flopsy, believe me.” Zia yawned. “Far as I’m concerned, odds against you being able to do it are a zillion to none. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be up at the crack of dawn wasting my precious time. But don’t worry if you can’t. We won’t bother you anymore, and you can just curl up and have a nice big sleep in your cozy burrow.”

  Alex’s blood had curdled to sludge. Her orders made no sense. In his mind, a clear picture was growing, of what it would be like to be left alone down in this hole. How time would crawl past in days and nights and deepening hunger, until . . . He cut that line off.

  “Find yourself in a situation, deal with it,” he whispered. He pulled the scissors free. His fingers shook. He tugged out a strand of hair at his temple, cut it off, then stuffed the scissors into his back pocket.

  Examining the flier, he saw the panel. Opening it with his clammy hands revealed a shallow compartment, a humdrum metal clip inside. Tiny tubes led strangely off from it, like fine blue threads, disappearing inside the robot. He tucked the hair beneath, hesitated. He looked at his hair lying there. Then he clicked the panel shut.

  What now?

  Screwing his eyes tight, he focused, straining to cast aside disbelief. He concentrated so completely on the flier that he stopped breathing. Finally, with a choking gasp, he had to give up.

  “Oh dear,” Zia called, without interest. “That was none too promising. There are things I could give you to help. Secrets and things. I’ve helped other little cotton brains. Did you see von Sudenfeld with his new toys? But, in your case, y’see, if you can’t do anything on your own, there’s no point. Tell you what, though, you can have another go, best of three. Fair’s fair. I’ll even give you extra motivation.”

  As she disappeared, Alex slumped against the wall and slid to the ground, letting the flier drop. He stared numbly at the bricks beyond his feet and thought about his mum, wondering what had happened to him, about his grandfather, captured up there.

  He wondered where this well was, what the landscape around it was like. Lonely, he assumed. Forgotten. His heart thudded high in his chest. He had thought he knew what fear was, but now he understood. This now, this was fear.

  And beneath it all, another feeling it took him a moment to recognize: the absence of the old toy robot. He had carried it with him constantly for months. Now that he was without it, he felt its lack like a thinning of the blood.

  “No, oh, don’t!”

  Alex shot to his feet as his grandfather’s anguished cry came echoing down.

  “Stay down there, Alex! I’ll save you, just— No! You fiend!” A painful groan.

  Alex realized he was pacing, touching uselessly at the walls. Forcing himself to stop, he stared at the flier lying among the dead foliage. He hadn’t managed to raise Harry, but he had definitely felt something moving when he’d tried to send his mind out to the old tablet. He had done it before. Maybe he could do this. He tried to recall the sensation of pushing a thought out. He could do this. So do it. He shut his eyes, clenched his jaw, and tried reaching out with his mind again.

  He had a sense that this would require a similar yet subtly different kind of movement to the one that led his mind toward the tablet. What had his grandfather told him about how the tall man’s gang powered the machines? They use themselves. So, then, he wasn’t trying to reach out to some other force this time. He was reaching out to . . . himself. The lock of his hair. Part of him.

  He thought of the clip of hair, attempting to picture it clearly. The sounds of his grandfather struggling continued. He tried blotting them out—then, instead, focused on them. He stopped fighting it away and allowed himself to feel it all rushing around him, through him: fear, anger, panic. Use it as fuel. Take it in. Send it out.

  He kept trying, went far beyond the place he thought he had to stop—and then he gave up, seized by a wracking coughing fit. Alex leaned against the shabby wall, panting. When he opened his eyes, it was several seconds before he realized the flier was no longer lying where he had dropped it. Searching around in bewilderment, he found it.

  The robot hovered in the air just behind him.

  Its wings beat so fast he couldn’t see them. Its propeller whirred
hungrily. For an instant, he had a vague, unsettling impression of looking back at himself through its wavering eyes. Practically as soon as he noticed it, the machine fell lifeless to the ground.

  Before he had time to think, Alex closed his eyes again. Thinking was no use. He had to feel it, deeper than thinking. Tune out thoughts but feel everything in him, everything around him. Fear and anger and panic. Put it into the effort. Not passing through doors this time, but . . . building a bridge.

  He was one end of the bridge. And he was also the other end of it, the part of him waiting over there, the clip of hair. Build the bridge, then send a thought across it.

  A rustling made him open one eye. The flier’s wings were moving on the ground, twitching, faster. As soon as he saw it, the movement stopped.

  There was surprise now, a sliver of hope. Feed that into the mix, too. Use it all to shape the bridge, then send the thought across. Up, he thought, and felt the thought move.

  The machine was in the air, metal wings thrumming. As soon as he thought about it, it all stopped and the flier fell. Five seconds later, he had it flying once more. Alex sensed himself trying to divide his mind, block part of it off from the rest. Shutting doors. The trick was connecting without thinking about it, almost without knowing he was doing it. Like sprinting fast down a flight of stairs—try to think about what your feet are doing, and you lose control.

  In fits and starts, dipping, then climbing, he sent the machine wobbling upward.

  Vague amber flashes were going off across Alex’s vision. He was seeing the wall of the well through the flier’s eyes. With that realization, the connection broke again. He caught the machine, threw it back up, then sent his mind after it, building the bridge. Up. The ladder appeared in his flickering picture. Alex distantly felt himself reaching out a hand, felt the flier’s little hook bite into rope. Now, leaning back, he dragged it down.

  Looking up to see, he lost the connection, caught the flier as it fell. He stuffed it in his pocket. The bottom rung hung little more than arm’s reach above.

  “Close enough for a big hop now,” he muttered. He pressed back against the wall, took two steps, and leapt. Catching hold, feet scrabbling against slippery bricks, he hauled up until he could grab the next rung, then the next. His grandfather’s yells grew clearer as he neared the top.

  “Ow, oh, ow, oh, you devil, ow . . .”

  Just below the opening, Alex paused, trying to form some plan to take him into the next few seconds. There was no plan. He steeled himself to move anyway. Not thinking had carried him this far.

  Alex heaved himself out of the well.

  XX.

  OVERGROUND

  Alex hit the ground and rolled into an alert crouch, surveying the scene. The sight flummoxed him.

  They were out by scraggly trees at the end of a long, drab brown field. The derelict remains of an abandoned farmhouse stood close by, forest clustering behind, wooded hills beyond.

  Zia lay alone on her back on a felled tree trunk, watching the clouds. Scattered on the ground around her lay objects Alex recognized as the contents of his coat pockets: his house keys, wallet, and phone. The latter lay broken beside the fist-sized rock he had picked up on the mountain, which Zia had presumably used to smash the phone to bits.

  With one hand, Zia swiped a stick absently against the log, making thumps and cracks. With the other, she occasionally gave herself a lazy slap on the cheek, or pounded her chest. All the while, she sang out anguished sounds in perfect imitation of Alex’s grandfather’s voice.

  “Ow, you villain, oh, oh— Oh.” Seeing Alex, she sat up and frowned. “Well, that’s disappointing,” she said, still speaking with the old man’s voice.

  Something about it turned Alex’s stomach. Acting on instinct, he whipped the flier from his pocket and threw it hard. As it sailed away from him, he caught it with his mind, put life in the wings, and aimed at Zia. He moved a finger. The machine raised its scalpel arm, going into attack

  “Now, don’t be silly,” Zia said flatly, using her own voice.

  Two silvery blurs burst from her coat and slammed into Alex’s flier from either side. It felt as if his brain had been squeezed in a vise. The pain made him almost black out. He fell, faintly aware of his flier dropping stunned before him. He didn’t think he would be able to move again.

  “He was right,” Zia mused.

  Alex could vaguely see her through his watering eyes. He heard a whirring. Something was pulling at his coat. Lots of things. A team of fliers, lifting him. The pain in his head was too intense to fight back. He hung limp between them.

  “We’ll just pop you safely back in your pot to stew a bit.”

  Alex felt himself carried up and back. His head hammered, but he forced himself to start struggling. As his wavering vision cleared, he saw that the machines held him directly over the well’s yawning mouth. He stopped writhing in case they dropped him, then started worrying that dropping him was exactly what they intended, anyway. Instead, they lowered him softly to the bottom, then flew off, one pausing to lift the rope ladder out as it went.

  “Where’s my grandad?” Alex yelled up at the empty sky. “What have you done with him?”

  “Hmmm?” Zia’s shuddering silhouette reappeared. “Oh, he’s away over there somewhere.” She waved a hand idly. “Not done anything to him, bunnykins. What to do with you is the question now.” She paused, as if considering options, then clicked her tongue.

  “Plan was to just keep a wee eye on you, then come visit you later in your dreary suburban burrow back in Blighty, bunny, once we’d concluded our current business. But my doddering old brother would keep bringing you closer and closer, and, well, if he insists on serving you up on a platter, seems rude to refuse. What did you think you were doing poking around the pulpit pieces? I’d’ve thought the old man would know better by now. How many friends is he willing to lose? The gate will open regardless, child. It’s all coming together.

  “Anyway. Father’s awful keen to meet you, little leaping lepus. He reckoned you have an interestingly shaped mind. Reckoned it might be worth the cultivation. Family blood and all that. I reckoned your mind would be about as interesting as a wet lettuce on a Wednesday, but there we go. I will grudgingly concede there might be some very limited potential for teensy talent of an extremely minor kind.

  “Shame the old man didn’t see you with the Soaring Spirit, though,” she went on. “Oh, brother drear wouldn’t like you playing with toys like that at all, bunny. But maybe you do, eh? You’re allowed secrets, Alexander. You’ve already kept secrets, haven’t you? We all have secrets. Even your wonderful old grandpapa. . . .”

  Alex’s vision shook as the pounding between his ears pulsed faster. The shadowy figure above seemed to stretch and lurch strangely in the air.

  “Bet he never told you . . .” The voice came and went on waltzing waves of pain. “. . . your daddy, eh? Bet he nev . . . daddy . . . even brighter bunny than you. And bet ol’ Grandad never told . . . Daddy died, hmm?”

  “What?” Alex whispered. He couldn’t make out what she was saying. He sank back on his heels.

  “My father would never let me die,” Zia continued haughtily. “But s’pose it takes all sorts. Anyway, you just take another little nap now, until we’re ready to begin your schooling.”

  She turned away, and then something was hovering in the well’s opening, slowly descending. Alex tensed and got unsteadily to his feet. His head felt like the inside of a drum being battered by an angry toddler, but he rubbed his eyes as clear as he could.

  Another flier, but there was something about the shadowed shape that was different. Eventually, he saw. The flying thing carried a second machine: thinner, with a head like an elongated egg, and arms that tapered to pin-sharp points.

  He’d seen one before, when it had tried to stab him in his bed, just before his world turned inside out—a stin
ger, his grandfather had called it, warning its needles would put him to sleep. Or worse. The little arms were already cycling hungrily, making enthusiastic jabbing motions as it drew nearer.

  Alex backed away and slipped off his parka. When the machines got within range, he jumped, whipping out with the coat. The flier dodged, but he swatted again and caught it a glancing blow. The robot bobbled in the air, then recovered and shot upward, disappearing out the well. Alex felt a tiny, grim thrill of victory. It dissolved as he realized that the departing flier no longer carried the stinger.

  The leaves at his feet rustled, and a silvery little arm broke through, making a stabbing lunge at his toes. With a yelp, he leapt across the well. The thing disappeared. Alex stood frozen, searching the ground, listening. Risking a glance up, he saw Zia leaning over, watching. A noise brought his attention back down in time to catch a stirring of the leaves. He dived for the spot, spreading out his coat and pressing down hard.

  Alex knelt staring at the blank green fabric stretched between his fists. A needle jabbed through, wiggled meanly, then vanished. A second later it came knifing out again, nearer his left hand.

  Half his mind screamed, Let go, get away. The other half showed him images of the stinger instantly getting free and springing for his face. He felt the thing moving under his hand. With an involuntary shudder, Alex threw himself back, stared down at his coat, and waited for the machine to emerge.

  Nothing happened. He caught a faint noise from above, then another. A rushing whirr, rapid clangs. A pained gasp that could have been the cry of a small girl. He looked up. Zia had vanished.

  Alex stood perplexed. Maybe his grandfather had tracked him down. Or maybe this was another trick. After a second’s more hesitation, he snatched up his coat, jumped back, held it ready.

  The horrendous thing just sat there, scratching its needles gently on the leaves. It no longer seemed interested in him. Alex took his chance, grabbed for the robot and smashed it hard against the brickwork. The egg-head cracked. Something yolky oozed out. He heard Zia’s shriek from above, sounding farther away.