In the Lair of the Mountain Beast

by James Moloney

  ‘We guessed as much,’ Berrin told him. ‘What other things do you eat?’

  ‘Rabbits … and frogs. There’s a surprising amount of meat on a frog. Then there are roots and wild berries. Here, you must take all I have for your journey.’

  ‘We can’t take all of it. You’ll go hungry yourself,’ said Dorian.

  ‘For a day or two maybe, until I gather some more. But your mission is important. You need all the help you can get.’

  This sounded like a familiar conversation. ‘We met other grown-ups who said they wanted to help us,’ said Berrin. ‘They stole our food.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. The people who roam these old farmlands are desperate to survive and nothing more.’

  ‘You don’t live with them,’ Berrin pointed out.

  ‘No, most are adults who escaped the roundup years ago, or children who fled from the dormers and somehow made it here to the countryside. They’re not much good at fighting and don’t work as a team. But I was a Rat, like you.’

  ‘There must be other former Rats as well.’

  ‘I know of some. A few have been killed trying to fight back as they did in the tunnels. One or two live separately, like me, staying alive and hoping that Malig Tumora’s schemes will fail.’

  Listening to this, Berrin felt the hope bleed from his heart. ‘Can’t you get together, can’t you organise some resistance? Malig Tumora can be defeated — he must be defeated.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say so, but we need a leader, someone who can strengthen frail hearts and make us band together.’

  ‘What about you, Jones?’ Dorian said. ‘You know what needs to be done and the way you saved Berrin shows your courage. Why don’t you take the lead?’

  ‘Because of this,’ Jones answered and, though it was now dark, they sensed the movement of his hand to touch his face. ‘Just the sight of my disfigurement reminds the others of the Gadges. And then there’s my voice. I can speak to you in a small space like this, but out in the open, where a leader must convince others to risk their lives … no, I cannot lead.’

  They lay down where they were and slept more deeply than they had for days.

  ‘The rain has stopped,’ Dorian announced the next morning, when she came back from an early peek at the new day. With the food Jones insisted they take stowed inside their packs, the children returned to the narrow pipe beneath the road.

  ‘There’s one more thing I must tell you, before you leave,’ said Jones as he stared across the road and let his eyes climb the slopes of Mount Windenbeck. ‘On still nights, when sounds travel great distances, I have heard a noise.’

  ‘From the volcano? But Mad Lizzie’s song said it was … what’s the word, Aden?’ Berrin asked.

  ‘Extinct.’

  ‘Yes, extinct. Is the volcano coming alive again?’

  ‘Perhaps. The noise is a deep rumble, more like a hungry beast. I have heard stories from others that years ago, before Malig Tumora built the electric fence, some of his failed experiments escaped to the land beyond this road. Beware, my young friends. That mountain might be home to more than the moth you seek.’

  Aden struggled to get through the pipe and Dorian grazed her hips badly, but they were all soon standing and brushing the mud from their wet clothing. With a final wave to Jones, who watched from the opposite side of the road, they set out towards Mount Windenbeck. An hour later, they began a steady climb up its slopes.

  Dorian called them into a huddle. ‘This is it. If the moth is still alive, we’ll find specimens on this mountainside. Aden, get the net ready. Try not to hurt them if you capture any.’

  ‘We should put the net on the end of a long pole.’

  The other three stared at him as though he was crazy.

  ‘That’s what scientists use,’ Aden said hotly. ‘I learned about it.’

  ‘Fine, Aden, you stick the net onto a long pole then,’ said Dorian in a scathing tone. But of course there were no poles lying about, and they wouldn’t catch a single moth unless they found one first. ‘Let’s spread out.’

  Dorian stayed in the centre, Berrin and Aden fanned out, about fifty metres apart, on one side of her and Olanda the same distance on the other. Slowly, they worked their way upwards. The slopes of the volcano were rocky, with little grass and only the occasional hardy shrub. The higher they went, the stronger the wind became.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Dorian called to the others.

  They shrugged or shook their heads. ‘I can’t see any insects at all,’ Aden shouted and Berrin was forced to agree. A few flies battled the stiff breeze, but as they climbed there were fewer and fewer of these buzzing pests as well.

  They shared some of the boiled roots Jones had given them for lunch. Not very appetising, but when you’re hungry, it’s amazing what tastes good. Through the afternoon, they continued their methodical tramp up the slope. When the sun dipped below the distant heights of the mountain itself, they were left in shadow. The air grew colder and the wind snapped and tore at their clothing. By then, they had to face the facts.

  ‘There’s hardly anything at all alive on this mountainside,’ said Berrin, putting the dismay they all felt into words. ‘It’s just rocks and dirt. Not even any weeds. No moth could live here. What would its caterpillars feed on?’

  Olanda’s thin frame shivered. This was hardly surprising, for only a few hundred metres higher lay the first patches of white.

  ‘There’s no point searching above the snow line,’ said Aden. ‘Insects are cold-blooded creatures. In snow and ice, they wouldn’t last an hour.’

  ‘Let’s make camp here then,’ Berrin suggested and Dorian didn’t object, particularly as a cluster of granite boulders promised to shelter them from the wind.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll start working our way around the mountain,’ she said, but she didn’t sound very hopeful.

  They lay down close beside one another to preserve body warmth. Berrin had been asleep almost an hour when a nightmare began to trouble him. A faint rumbling filled his sleeping mind, conjuring up thoughts of monsters made all the more frightening because he could not see them.

  Then he was sitting up in the moonlight and found his companions had done the same. The distant noise was not a part of his dream after all. It was real. And it wasn’t a vibration through the rock beneath them. The wind had dropped to a gentle zephyr while they slept and it was on this whispered breath that the ominous noise drifted across Mount Windenbeck.

  ‘Something alive is making that sound,’ said Olanda.

  Perhaps it was a trick of the breeze, but after Olanda had spoken, the roar became louder. Was it a warning? Where did it come from? Surely a sound like that could only come from a huge creature.

  ‘If there is a mountain beast, let’s hope it’s too far away to find us tonight,’ Dorian said.

  Berrin had a better idea. ‘Let’s hope it never finds us at all.’

  TEN

  Paradise

  BERRIN WOKE WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK. The rumblings of the mountain beast had not disturbed them again. Perhaps there was no such creature and the chilling noise was a natural phenomenon of the volcanic slopes.

  He slipped out from between Dorian and Aden and stood up. The first suggestion of light was brightening the sky in the east. Looking down at his companions, he couldn’t bring himself to wake them.

  Jasper was awake though. He climbed onto a stone and stood on his hind legs until Berrin picked him up. ‘Let’s go for a look around,’ he whispered to the rodent.

  The curved peak of Mount Windenbeck was catching the first rays of a sun not yet above the horizon. Its whiteness shone even in the half-light, pristine and inviting.

  Five minutes of steady climbing brought Berrin to the first isolated patch of snow. It stung his palms with its cold. He scooped a handful into his mouth and felt the snow melt to a surprisingly small amount of water.

  There was enough light to see around him now. Could the moth they sought live above
the snow line? It was special in one way; perhaps it was special in others. He climbed higher, feeling the snow crunch under his shoes. Then he forgot his search for the moth and revelled instead in how high he was above the rest of the world.

  He could see to the horizon in a wide arc and there, just visible to his right, were the highest buildings of the city where Malig Tumora ruled. He let his eyes sweep across the wide expanse of the countryside and traced the faint line of the road they had crawled under.

  ‘What else is out there?’ he asked Jasper, who sat happily on his shoulder. ‘Jones spoke of other cities. Malig Tumora sells his inventions to them.’

  Berrin didn’t like this idea. Everything that evil man had created brought misery. Now he had been replaced by his own ruthless machine, which harboured the same ambitions, the same need to bring humans under its control.

  ‘The computer’s determined to develop a clone human being, Jasper, heartless like itself and devoted to the same goals.’

  A terrible thought took hold of Berrin. The machines and inventions that Malig Tumora sent out to the other cities, to people he could not see beyond the horizon, were they designed to bring the same havoc to humankind?

  ‘We must destroy Malig Tumora before he destroys us,’ he whispered.

  ‘Berrin, Berrin!’ a voice called. Turning sharply, he saw his three friends hurrying through the snow towards him.

  ‘It’s not far to the top of the mountain from here,’ said Dorian. ‘We may as well go all the way before we start down and look for the moth again.’

  Because Mount Windenbeck had blown away its peak long ago, a curved ridge formed the highest point. The Rats trudged towards it. Their feet were soon sinking into the fine white powder and then their legs, almost to the knees.

  ‘I’m freezing,’ Olanda complained but she wouldn’t give up. They pressed on through the snow, laughing, tossing handfuls at each other. With just fifty metres left it became a race to see who would be first to claim victory over desolate Mount Windenbeck.

  Who won the race? None of the children would ever recall, for when they reached the ridge, shouting and tugging at one another to gain an advantage, suddenly all thoughts of races and winning and the bitter chill of their feet were forgotten.

  ‘Look down there!’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Am I really seeing this!’

  The ridge turned out to be only a tiny part of the wide rim that ran around the entire top of Mount Windenbeck. They had climbed one slope, only to find that inside the mountain was another.

  ‘Of course,’ Aden said, slowly remembering what he had learned. ‘Volcanoes can hollow out a crater inside themselves. That’s what this is — an enormous crater.’

  ‘But it’s so green, so lush.’

  ‘That’s because the bottom is a long way below the snow line. And all the melted snow flows down there to water the plants and trees.’

  ‘I bet it’s warm down there,’ said Olanda, who had begun to shiver again.

  ‘Yes,’ said Berrin. ‘And where there’s warmth and lots of green plants, there’ll be insects, butterflies, moths, caterpillars. If our moth is still alive, it will be down there.’

  ‘Come on, let’s fetch the ratpacks,’ said Dorian, practical as ever. ‘We can be over this ridge again and down into that crater by lunchtime.’

  At first the descent was steep, and the ice and snow around the ridge meant they had to use the rope in case they slipped. It was a long way down for anyone who fell.

  Once they were out of the snow, the going became easier. Ledges provided convenient paths and wild grass and shrubs gave them something to hold onto. The crater was protected from the mountain winds and, with the sun’s rays trapped by its massive walls, the air grew warmer with every downward step. Berrin was sweating heavily by the time they reached the crater’s floor.

  The valley that spread out before them was painted with every shade of green imaginable. Flowers dotted the broad pastures like countless jewels. Trees had grown up close by the tiny streams that carried the melted snow from the edges of the crater to a large pond at its centre. They walked the half kilometre to this pond and stood staring at the reflection of the cloudless sky in its surface.

  ‘Mad Lizzie’s song was right,’ said Aden. ‘This is a paradise.’

  Dorian slipped the ratpack from her shoulders and put it near some huge boulders piled on one side of the pond like a giant’s marbles. ‘We’ll make our camp here,’ she said to Berrin, who was doing the same. ‘Olanda, get down here,’ she called to the girl who had climbed onto the highest boulder.

  But when Berrin looked up as well, Olanda had disappeared. ‘Where’s she gone?’

  He needn’t have worried. Olanda appeared again a few seconds later. ‘Hey, there’s a little cave inside these rocks. Come and see.’

  Dorian wasn’t in the mood for such discoveries but when Berrin and Aden caught Olanda’s excitement and climbed the boulders to join her, Dorian followed.

  ‘It’s like the tunnels,’ Olanda said. ‘And there’s just one access hole here on the top.’

  They slipped through after her and jumped down onto a ledge two metres below the hole, though Aden became wedged in the narrow opening and had to be pulled through. They found themselves on a ledge two metres below the hole. The ledge ended abruptly after a few steps, but there was enough light to see a way down over the rocks. They scrambled down to ground level.

  ‘Olanda’s grotto,’ Aden dubbed the cave.

  ‘Look, there’s water in here too. Do you think that …’ Olanda seemed enthralled by this hideaway that now bore her name and, without explaining what she planned to do, she waded into the black water and slipped under the surface.

  Ten seconds passed, then twenty.

  ‘Olanda!’ Berrin was beginning to panic. Thirty seconds. How long could she hold her breath?

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Dorian. ‘What if she’s caught on something and can’t swim back to the surface?’

  ‘I’d better go after her,’ Berrin said, already kicking off his shoes.

  ‘No need for that,’ came a voice from above and behind them.

  They turned round as one to find Olanda dripping wet and smiling down at them from the ledge. ‘There’s a way out to the pond underneath that boulder. Go on, try it.’

  ‘No,’ Dorian said, her voice echoing gruffly around the confined space. ‘We’ve got a job to do and we’d better get started.’

  They climbed up to join Olanda on the ledge and then out through the narrow opening into the sunlight.

  ‘At least you’ve had a proper bath,’ Berrin teased. ‘Look at you, cleaner than I’ve ever seen you.’

  ‘You could do with a bath yourself,’ and without warning Olanda tried to push Berrin off the pile of boulders where they overlooked the water.

  ‘Stop it, you two,’ said Dorian, who had returned to the ground. ‘Get down here with me.’

  While the other three descended, she took out Ferdinand’s drawing of the moth. ‘This is what we’re looking for. There are only a few hours of daylight left so we’d better get started. Once we have the moth, we can climb out of here.’

  ‘Why the rush?’ said Aden. ‘This is the best place I’ve ever seen. It’s so much better than the tunnels underground and I’ll bet there’s plenty to eat, once we start looking.’

  ‘Trust you to think of that,’ said Dorian, though there was no malice in her voice.

  Berrin was on Aden’s side. All his life he had lived in the misery of the dormer, crammed in with hundreds of other children and forced to spend his days in stony, colourless playgrounds. Even after he’d escaped and joined the Rats, he’d known only darkness and mud. This truly was a paradise.

  He remembered what Dorian had said when they first left the city. ‘This is what lifeis supposed to be like for human beings,’ he repeated. ‘This is what we’re fighting for?’

  They stared at him, even Dorian. ‘I suppose it
is,’ she said, a little bewildered. Then her face darkened. ‘But we’ll never know unless we find this moth.’

  Along with the others, Berrin began the search. He saw dragonflies skimming over the surface of the pond, beetles both large and small, and slapped at march flies that tried to bite him. But these weren’t moths. He found fifteen different kinds of butterfly, but these weren’t moths either. He found caterpillars on every plant and bush he searched, but how could he tell if they would turn into the moth they had come to find?

  As the light began to fade, Aden called to him. ‘Any sign of the moth?’

  Berrin shook his head and tramped across the meadow to join his friend, who was now lying in the grass. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Berrin took Jasper from his shoulder and placed him gently on Aden’s chest. Aden stroked the little tuft of white fur. Jasper stayed still, enjoying the sensation.

  ‘I wish I could stay here,’ said Aden. ‘It would be better than living with those pathetic grown-ups.’

  ‘What about Jones? He seemed all right. He might let you live with him,’ Berrin said, putting some vague idea into words.

  ‘Jones,’ Aden repeated, giving the suggestion some thought. ‘Maybe, but here would be better. I wouldn’t feel like such a freak here. I’ve been looking around while we searched for the moth. There are berry bushes and I could trap ducks, like Jones does. Best of all, there’d be no Gadges to hunt me down.’

  ‘You’d be alone though.’

  Aden propped himself on one elbow, forcing Jasper to retreat to the flatter region of his stomach. ‘Not if you stayed with me.’

  ‘Me? Stay here!’

  Berrin’s immediate response was shock that Aden should even suggest the idea. But Aden was right — no Gadges, no Malig Tumora to worry about, the sun shining overhead, the warmth, the clear waters of the pond.

  Aden could see in Berrin’s eyes how much this idea appealed to him. ‘We could stay if we wanted to. If we find the moth, the girls can get it back to the city. There are plenty of Rats to carry out Ferdinand’s plans. You’ve done all you can.’