The Book of Beasts

by John Barrowman

  The only emotion Em could feel emanating from the crofter was a staunch resolve and a deep satisfaction. This worried Em more than if she had sensed terrible danger. The more she glanced at him in the moonlight, the more she could feel a drumming in the back of her head.

  The last part of the climb down to the footpath was mostly on flat rock. The crofter slid down on his haunches, forcing Em to do the same.

  ‘What were you doing scratching away at them stones when you should be in bed?’

  So he’d been watching her. Now Em was truly worried.

  ‘It’s for a project,’ she mumbled, trying to keep herself from tumbling down the slope. She concentrated her imagination. Inspiriting the old man wouldn’t hurt him. It would just calm him enough for her to wriggle free and get back to the Abbey before anyone knew she was missing.

  As she sent the first wave of calm towards him, a sharp pain stabbed behind her eyes. For a moment, everything went black.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying on the footpath, her hands and feet bound in plastic ties, feeling sick. This old man had somehow blocked her inspiriting powers.

  The old crofter leaned on the fence marking the footpath and pulled a walkie-talkie from inside his jacket.

  ‘I’ve got the lass,’ he said into the handset. ‘Aye, she’s trussed up like a wild pig.’

  Em struggled to get back on her feet. The old man leaned over and cuffed her sharply behind the ear.

  ‘Settle down.’

  Em was so shocked at being smacked, she didn’t feel any pain for the first few seconds. Then her ear throbbed to life, hot and burning. The crofter tucked his crook under his arm, scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her along the footpath away from the Abbey.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Auchinmurn Isle

  The Middle Ages

  ‘Tut tut,’ Malcolm said smoothly. ‘None of that now, Mattie.’

  Matt’s fingers felt sluggish. He couldn’t draw. Somehow, his father was stopping him.

  Malcolm slipped his hand into his tunic and unrolled a parchment, revealing another of the old monk’s bloody drawings. He waved it in the air, pacing back and forth, keeping a watchful eye on Solon, Matt and Carik. ‘I have plenty of the old monk’s drawings in reserve. He has been busy sketching all kinds of useful things for me,’ he said. He looked at Matt, taking a step closer. ‘I did so love building models when I was young like you, Mattie. One of my first was a re-enactment of the great battle for Era Mina. There is a marvellous tapestry of the scene, hanging on the wall at the Royal Academy. I was quite inspired.’

  As quick as lightning, he slipped the parchment beneath the old monk’s limp fingers.

  A legion of ferocious miniature Viking warriors armed with long swords sparked into being, streaming from the machine, racing across the floor, swarming towards Matt. Carik screamed; Solon gasped.

  ‘Their wee swords are tipped with poison,’ Malcolm added. ‘A nice touch, I thought. A recipe I learned from my mother.’

  Matt scrambled backwards, stamping at the first wave of warriors. He caught and crunched several, their swords breaking with a satisfying snap under his boots. Carik and Solon dived in to help as Malcolm’s laughter echoed round the chamber, but it was hopeless. More warriors followed, and more still, climbing the walls round Matt, hundreds and hundreds of them, their dragon helmets glowing in the darkness like the red eyes on a thousand cockroaches. Then they dropped en masse on to Matt, Carik and Solon’s bodies, stabbing at them as they fell.

  Matt felt the world blacken. In his last moments of consciousness he saw his father tear up the parchment with bony fingers. The warriors blasted into a million pieces, leaving a splatter of blood soaking into the cavern floor.

  When Matt regained consciousness, his head felt leaden, his chin pressing against his chest. He opened his eyes slowly.

  What he saw shot panic into every limb, and tightened every muscle.

  His hands were bound in bloody half-gloves and his head was locked in the iron mask. A fresh sheet of parchment lay fixed to a new wooden tablet before him. He was trapped inside the mechanical wraith.

  Malcolm was standing in front of the cave drawing of the two-headed hellhound, observing him. Through the slit in the mask, Matt could see Solon and Carik slumped against the cave wall, looking pale and queasy.

  ‘Awake at last,’ Malcolm said, sounding pleased. ‘We can proceed.’

  Matt had to stay in control of his imagination if he was going to survive.

  ‘I won’t help you!’ he shouted. His voice boomed around his metal headpiece, deafening him. ‘I won’t! You’ve done enough.’

  Malcolm scowled. Matt cried out, a nail of pain pounding into his forehead. Beneath the helmet his nose began to bleed.

  ‘Have it your way,’ Malcolm said.

  He unsheathed the bone quill from his belt. The quill’s sharpened white tip glinted in the firelight, cold and deadly. Then he kneeled in front of the old monk, now lying sprawled on the rock floor, and loosened his cowl, exposing his concave chest. Suddenly the bone quill looked less like a writing implement, and more like a thin white dagger.

  ‘Don’t hurt him any more!’ Solon choked, crawling across the dirt to lift the old man’s head on to his lap. Malcolm backed off a step.

  ‘Leave him be!’ Solon cried, laying his hand on the old man’s forehead. Matt twisted his head to see.

  ‘My family’s blood runs in your veins too, Solon,’ wheezed the old monk. ‘You’re ready for what is to come.’

  Solon leaned forward and kissed the old man.

  Malcolm loomed over Solon and Renard, his voice echoing in the chamber. ‘Will you cooperate or not, Mattie?’

  Matt bit his lip so hard he could taste blood. He said nothing.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  Malcolm left Solon cradling the old monk and strode over to the mechanical contraption. The animated knight who had formerly worked the machine had vanished when Malcolm tore up the last of the old monk’s sketch. Malcolm took his place at the treadle.

  With great difficulty, Matt turned his head in the mask, to get a clearer view of Solon sitting bowed over his master. Brother Renard’s eyes were cloudy and dim. His life was fading.

  Matt thought of Jeannie still trapped in the tower. He had to do something soon to get her out of there, before she faced a similar fate.

  Brother Renard stirred gently.

  ‘Remember, my son,’ the old man whispered, gazing up at Solon. ‘Imagination is the real and the eternal. I failed to finish The Book of Beasts. Finish it for me, Solon. Finish…’

  The rest of his words dropped into silence. He had gone.

  With tears in his eyes and rage in his heart, Matt watched Solon kiss the old monk’s forehead.

  ‘Goodbye, master,’ he said.

  Solon covered Brother Renard’s face with the soft folds of the old man’s cowl. Matt sensed Solon’s fury. It jolted him from his own sadness. He struggled in vain against the straps binding his arms and feet. Solon was going to do something stupid, something rash that would result in only more deaths, most likely their own.

  He was about to plead with Solon to be careful, to think before he acted, when Carik took the young monk’s shaking hands in hers. In seconds, Solon’s anger had dissolved. All Matt could sense now was a gut-twisting sadness.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Matt’s neck was aching from the weight of the iron mask.

  ‘What do you want from us?’ he hissed at his father.

  ‘You are a descendant of Albion, Mattie,’ Malcolm said conversationally. ‘With the bone quill, you have the ability to open this portal to Hollow Earth with my help. The only part of the puzzle that remains is the whereabouts of the manuscript you must copy from. The Book of Beasts. Then together, father and son, we can rule this world.’

  Malcolm looked at Solon. ‘Where is the book?’

  ‘You are full of madness and bile,’ snapped Carik.

&nbs
p; Malcolm ignored her. ‘Where is the book, Solon?’ he repeated.

  Matt could sense telepathic messages flickering between Solon and Carik, but snagging them and deciphering them was impossible. To hear Em in his mind, all he’d ever had to do was listen to her imagination, to see its patterns of light. Then somehow in his mind, her thoughts became words that he could hear.

  Oh, Em, thought Matt. I wish you were here to help me.

  Perhaps if he did the same with Solon, he might hear something. He focused, but all he could hear was white noise.

  ‘I don’t know where the book is,’ Solon said, staring at Malcolm with hatred. ‘The Abbot hid it. And as you have already killed him, its whereabouts may never be known.’

  Malcolm moved fast across the chamber and gripped Carik round her neck, lifting her off the ground, pressing her against the wall. Slowly but surely, he began to squeeze the life from her.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said in a silky voice.

  Matt tried to lift his hands to draw something on the parchment spread on the tablet before him, to help Solon and Carik, but the binding was too tight. His panic increased. He was beginning to hyperventilate. Breathe slowly. He had to find a way out of this mechanical monster. But how? He could hardly move his head, let alone the rest of his body.

  Move your mind, son!

  Matt froze. Jeannie? Is that you?

  Jeannie’s voice seemed to crackle through the static. Move your mind…

  Jeannie! Jeannie! I don’t know what you mean!

  Matt was feeling light-headed with panic. He wished he’d paid more attention to Simon’s lessons on inspiriting, on being a Guardian, on finding calm in a storm.

  Closing his eyes, he took one deep breath, exhaled slowly, then another, and another, regulating his breathing, calming his mind and his palpitating heart.

  Solon heard the last breath of air slowly hissing from Carik’s lungs. Her face was beetroot-red, her body limp beneath Malcolm’s grip.

  ‘Stop!’ he said hopelessly, unable to bear it. ‘Please, stop! I… know where the Book is hidden!’

  Malcolm dropped Carik to the dirt, where she gulped and gasped for air. Solon helped her up, holding her close. He felt Malcolm’s presence in his mind like a demon’s claw scratching through his thoughts, uncovering the image of the Abbot’s throne chair.

  ‘Fetch it for me,’ Malcolm commanded.

  Solon held Carik more tightly. ‘It’ll take me too long. My sister. The miller’s family. They will perish if you don’t release them first.’

  Malcolm looked unmoved. ‘No one is released until I have the book. Take that tunnel.’ He pointed to a yawning rocky hole near the one they had dropped through only a short time ago. ‘It will bring you out above the bay. Your peryton will provide all the speed you need. Return the same way.’

  Solon glanced at Malcolm’s infernal machine. Matt was slumped forward, as still as a statue.

  Solon heard Carik’s anxiety in his head.

  I think he has gone.

  What do you mean?

  ‘Do not dawdle, boy,’ Malcolm growled. Black ink was dripping on to his chin in a thick blob. He wiped it with the back of his hand. ‘Fetch the book! Or I may not extend my mercy to your girl again.’

  Solon moved swiftly to the rope ladder, climbing back up the rock wall to the mouth of the tunnel that Malcolm had indicated. Before he disappeared, he glanced again at Matt’s motionless body.

  Carik, do you think he’s dead?

  I sense nothing from him. Nothing at all.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Auchinmurn Isle

  Present Day

  Em did what she probably should have done the moment the old crofter had grabbed her. She called for help, deep inside her own mind.

  Zach! Zach! Wake up. I need you right now!

  The cottage the crofter had brought her to had a dark thatched roof and was made of flat stones, insulated with thick peat. The thatch was tightly woven and, unlike the rest of the one-room cottage, not in need of repair. A large hearth took up most of the wall next to a row of high, small windows facing the sea. The windows were filthy, caked with salt and grime. The floor was made of the same stone as the walls, and was as thick with muck as the windows. The place looked as if it hadn’t seen a cleaning rag in years.

  Against one wall was a wooden bed with a carved headboard that Em couldn’t help staring at. It looked like a giant set of antlers. The bed was the only decent piece of furniture in the room, neatly made up with a fat red pillow and a windowpane quilt designed with the most vibrant colours and designs that Em had ever seen.

  Hundreds of books in every shape and size had been shoved in the cracks between the stones above and around the bed. Em felt such a rush of warmth from the strange library that she almost forgot that she’d been brought to this cottage against her will.

  The rest of the room was sparse and unwelcoming. If it weren’t for the books, the pot bubbling on the fire in the hearth and the neatly made bed, Em would have thought no one had been here in weeks.

  The crofter set the chair in the middle of the floor.

  ‘Sit yerself on that,’ he said, and nudged her with his crook.

  ‘Why can’t I sit next to the fire?’ Em said bravely. ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘I’ve heard what you weans did last time you were tied up. So sit yer arse on that chair. Now!’

  Fear had seeped into the crofter’s demeanour, and he was taking it out on Em. She sat on the chair.

  Zach! Can you hear me?

  No answer. Maybe she was too far from the Abbey. Maybe he was in the deepest part of sleep. Em groaned to herself. Why did teenage boys sleep so soundly?

  The walkie-talkie on the mantel crackled to life. The crofter grabbed it and stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him. Em stared up at the high windows. Even if she hadn’t been tied up, she was too big to get through any of them. Besides, the crofter would probably return before she’d even reached them.

  Em’s blood ran cold as she considered the crofter’s last words. I’ve heard what you weans did last time you were tied up. The last time she and Matt had been tied up and drawn their way out of trouble, they had been with two people she hadn’t seen since, and very much hoped never to see again.

  How did this old man know about it?

  The walkie-talkie crackled outside the door. Em strained her ears, but failed to hear the conversation. She and Matt had used walkie-talkies when they were younger, playing hide-and-seek in their old London flat. Walkie-talkies had a limited range, which meant whomever the old crofter was talking to was already on the island.

  Em didn’t have much time.

  She hopped to the only front window and peeked outside. The old man was crouching beneath the tree, talking with his back to the door.

  Em hopped back to the chair, leaning on it while she scanned the empty fireplace for a weapon. She rolled her hands against the plastic ties. Scissors would be nice. Or a knife. Then she stared at the ash on the hearth, and grinned.

  Stay outside, old man. Stay outside.

  Em sat down beside the hearth with her back to the fire. Without being able to see what she was doing, she began to sketch in the ashes.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Auchinmurn Isle

  The Middle Ages

  Jeannie was still fading in and out like a badly tuned radio station inside Matt’s head. Matt concentrated, fixing her words in his mind as he heard them.

  Call the Grendel up from the centre of the island. The Grendel was the first beast to rise out of the muck an age ago, so it must be the last one bound away. You must possess it, control it. With the help of the book, Hollow Earth will open to take it inside.

  His hands were dirty. There was clay under his nails and between his fingers from the cave floor when he had fallen beneath the poisoned weapons of Malcolm’s tiny army.

  Turning his head slightly, Matt could see Carik huddled in her corner again. Solon had gone. Malcolm sat away from them b
oth, his arms hanging loosely on his knees, his head bowed, black liquid dripping from his mouth. Whether he was praying or sleeping, Matt did not know.

  He worked at the clay stuck between his fingers, bringing it down to his fingertips. Then he used it to lightly sketch the Grendel on the corner of the parchment. Most of the image was hidden beneath his palm. He hoped the sketch was big enough.

  He heard his mother’s voice in his memory.

  The power and longevity of any animation is affected by a combination of intent and imagination, Mattie. You have to will it to life.

  Matt had never wanted to animate a drawing more.

  But, when he finished, there was no explosion of light anywhere in the cave. No lines of colour leaped from his drawing. Nothing. Only a faint throbbing in the base of Matt’s neck, and a painful flash of light behind his eyes. He clenched his jaw to avoid letting out a yell.

  Someone was beside him. He felt a cool hand on his arm.

  ‘Carik?’ he whispered, trying to turn his head to see her.

  She squeezed his arm lightly, comforting him. ‘Despite leaving me in that cave, I’m at your service.’

  Malcolm’s head shot up. His tongue flicked from the side of his mouth to catch a drop of inky blackness on its tip as his hand waved Carik back to her corner. Matt felt her unwillingness to go.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Solon had no intention of retrieving The Book of Beasts, but he couldn’t let the thought into his mind. If Malcolm sensed even an inkling of what he was planning to do, his sister and the others would suffocate in that terrible black swamp. Matt and Carik too were depending on him. He wouldn’t let them down.

  The moment Brother Renard had taken his last breath, Solon had made a promise that he would avenge his death. His and the Abbot’s. Solon accepted in his heart that he would have to break certain rules to achieve it.

  The peryton’s glimmer reflected like moonlight on the water as they soared together high above Era Mina. Solon gripped the peryton’s antlers, doing his best to keep his plans locked safely away in his own mind until the right moment.