Kill Fish Jones

by Caro King

  Up on the banks of Menga’s Tarn, Alice looked at the sky. Wedges of dark cloud had begun to form on the horizon. A wind was gathering too. It lifted her hair and made the trees toss restlessly. It was a warm wind and brought with it a smell of bonfires. She shivered, feeling lost and afraid.

  Sounding strangely lonely, her phone rang. She answered it.

  ‘H’lo?’

  ‘Alice?’ Her mother’s voice seemed a long way away. Further than just half the country.

  Alice shivered again. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Um, I’m at Menga’s Tarn,’ said Alice. ‘Half way between Crow’s Cottage and a place called Knockton.’ She couldn’t think of any lies that would do. Besides, it was way past time to lie. There was a long silence before anyone spoke again.

  ‘Can you come home now? It’s …’ Her mother paused, struggling to find words for the strange feeling that crackled in the air like thunder. ‘The clouds are turning dark and I think you should come home.’

  Alice wished she could. ‘Sorry, Mum, I’d really like to, but I’ve got to wait for Fish. I can’t let him down, see.’

  Her mother was silent for a moment. ‘I’ll come and find you,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  Alice drew in a wobbly breath. ‘But what about your work?’

  ‘To hell with work,’ said her mother, and hung up.

  Alice listened to the empty phone for a moment and then put it back in her pocket, feeling a little braver.

  Before she could turn her attention back to the tarn, there was an ear-spitting crack, like a vast whiplash snapping across the countryside. Beneath her feet the ground shook and she screamed as rocks, trees and bushes trembled and slid, ripping away from the steep sides of the tarn and crashing heavily into the water. Steam rose into the air in serpent coils and Alice fell to the ground, wrapping her arms around her head. Soil and stones rattled around her, and a huge groaning filled the air, rolling out over the meadows and woods. Now the tarn was boiling like a cauldron, filled with wreckage from the land. Above, the sky was full of birds that wheeled and dived in great black swathes against the dark clouds. Shivering with terror, Alice dug her nails into the mossy ground as the land shook, falling apart around her. But her heart was filled with dread because she knew what had happened. Fish had failed, and beneath the earth something terrible was rising.

  Even though the Mighty Curse was not yet free, the world knew what was coming and trembled. Angry clouds gathered fast and the seas that lapped Britain’s shores grew restless. A hot wind blew, and with it spread a feeling of alarm, a premonition of what lay ahead. Everywhere, people stopped what they were doing and ran to watch the skies, calling to their loved ones.

  Some miles away from Menga’s Tarn, but only a few, Susan stared out of a taxi window at the clouds that coiled and twisted like serpents. Suddenly, as if every feathered creature for miles had all risen at once, birds filled the sky. They swirled in great dark swathes against the clouds, dipping and circling restlessly.

  ‘Oh Fish!’ Susan murmured.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the cabby, the one who had delivered Fish and Alice to Crow’s Cottage just two days ago. ‘I’ll get you there.’

  He drove on into a landscape that would be comfortable in anyone’s nightmares. The end of the world was on its way.

  35

  THE DARKEST OF NIGHTS

  The ground was shaking and chunks of rock broke loose from the ceiling and walls of the cave, crashing down around Fish and Grimshaw. The angry light that swarmed around the Mighty Curse was so fierce that it filled the pit, seeping out into the cavern above, far ahead of its source. Fish was still on the ledge, but further in, closer to the pit. All he could see was the black edge where the rock ended and the depths began, and the outline of Grimshaw crouched low and peering down. Although Fish wasn’t near enough to look into the depths and see the Mighty Curse as it tore upwards, he knew in his heart that the beast was as vast as a mountain, with wings like storm clouds, eyes that spat lightning and breath like sheets of flame. He also realised that it must be coming from so far down that it took time for it to break free of the pit.

  Quickly, Grimshaw spun the dials on his chronometer and zapped a little further away, reappearing behind Fish, just where the tunnel opened into the cave. He wanted to watch until the end of Fish’s life, to see his own triumph as it happened.

  Fish stood, staring at the light as it grew, tears pricking his eyes as he realised what he had to do. He knew that he loved his life and didn’t want to lose it. But he also knew that he loved his mother and Alice and Jed more than he loved his life. And if that was true then maybe it wasn’t too late after all. He could send the Mighty Curse back to sleep again, just as Elonia had done! She had offered up her life – couldn’t he do the same?

  The knowledge that to save the ones he loved most in the world would mean giving up his own life tore into his heart like a red-hot knife. He trembled so much he could barely move, but he didn’t stop to think about it. If he hesitated for just a second, his courage might fail and then they would all die. Everyone. And he would still die anyway, so what was the good of that?

  His breath coming in ragged gasps, Fish began the long crawl towards the edge of the pit. He had to go on his hands and knees because he couldn’t stand. There were no pauses between the earth tremors now, and the ceaseless shuddering grew steadily more violent, throwing him face down to the ground again and again. But still he crawled on, going as fast as he could, grazing his hands and knees and leaving a trail of blood from his wounds. The red light burned his skin as it grew stronger and he drew closer. He could feel the demon’s eyes on him, watching from behind. He only hoped that he would be able to fight it off if it worked out what he was doing and tried to stop him.

  Grimshaw was watching all right, hanging on as the world ripped itself apart around them. A grin of satisfaction curled across his face.

  The grin vanished. Something terrible dawned on him. This might be the boy’s destiny! To save the world from Grimshaw! He’d been trying so hard to beat Destiny that he’d brought about the very event that allowed it to be fulfilled. The realisation shook Grimshaw to the core. His heart went cold and hard with anger. If the boy sacrificed himself to save the world, then he’d be dead and Grimshaw would have killed his Sufferer, but it wouldn’t be the same. Grimshaw wouldn’t have beaten Destiny; he’d have just given it a helping hand. He would be cheated of his greatness.

  Grimshaw snarled, his clawed paws clenching into fists and his corner-to-corner black eyes filling with even darker darkness. He had to stop the boy somehow.

  An ear-shattering, grinding rumble, greater than the constant shaking of the earth, threw him to the ground. When things had subsided enough to let him scramble unsteadily upright again, he saw at once what had happened. The tremor had split the rocky floor in two and a rift had opened up between Fish Jones and the pit he was struggling to reach. A rift too wide and too deep for the boy to cross. He would not reach the Mighty Curse before it broke free and set about its task of devastation.

  Now, Grimshaw screeched his victory aloud. He had done it after all! He might be only a small third-rate demon, but Grimshaw had done what no demon had done before. He had beaten Destiny!

  The boy turned his head, and Grimshaw saw in his eyes that he knew he had failed. But the look Fish Jones gave the demon made him stop jumping for joy. It was a look full pain and desperation that sliced right through Grimshaw and set a storm of doubt raging in his head. What was the boy going to do? Surely there was no way he could stop this now? Instinctively, Grimshaw closed his outer eyes and opened the inner one, the one that could look a little way into the future, to make sure that the doom he had set in motion was really going to happen.

  Fish looked around wildly, trying to see a way past the crevice that lay in his path, but there was no way across, nothing he could do to reach the Mighty Curse before it broke free. Light poured ou
t from the pit in a blaze, and as he gazed in horror something began to appear. A dark shape, its horned head rising into the cavern, its vast wings furled behind it.

  He began to lurch towards it with no plan and no hope, only desperation to spur him on.

  Standing on the top of a skyscraper in London, Limbo, Tun watched the city change as everything Blinked.

  It was not any of the usual three-hourly update points. This was different. Things were happening so fast that Limbo was synchronising with Real Space at the rate of a Blink every five minutes. Back in Real Space, worried people were trying to get home, and cars in Grey Space flicked into and out of being, moving in jumps as the traffic built up. Some of them had been deserted as their owners gave up and went on foot, leaving their vehicles in the middle of the road, or even parked on the pavements. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky with every Blink, strewing their wreckage over the city streets as they plummeted to the ground, the metal carcasses vanishing with the next update as Limbo recreated itself again and again.

  With every Blink, the detail got less until the buildings were just concrete shapes. The London Eye was a skeleton of fused metal etched against the sky, and the Houses of Parliament had become a vast slab covered in random scribbles of stone. Big Ben was a faceless column staring out over a meaningless jumble of concrete. Even the air no longer smelt of old socks, but of distant bonfires instead.

  Tun hunched his skeletal shoulders, tucking his clawed hands into the folds of his dark robe. Deep inside his cowl, the terrible eyes glowed with a feverish excitement that was half-fear, half-exultation.

  Far away to the east, the Sisters paused. Lady dropped the Wanderer she was holding. Trembling, Flute took Rage’s hand.

  ‘What have I done?’ she cried. ‘I should have left well alone. I didn’t think he would do it! I was so sure he would choose to let the humans live!’

  In the crypt, Lampwick the Robber yawned. There was nothing for Limbo to update in his stone cell, and he couldn’t smell the strangeness in the air. He knew via the Acts and Facts what Grimshaw was planning to do, but nothing more than that. He had worked out a few choice phrases to offer when the Avatar came back with yet another miserable failure.

  For something to do, he sat up straight, cleared his throat and began to rehearse them out loud.

  His inner, future-seeing eye wide open, Grimshaw cried out with horror. It was so terrible that his heart stopped with shock. It was a good thing he didn’t need it.

  It was really going to happen! Laid out before his future vision was the end of the world. The empty Tarn filled with tumbled rock, the land stripped bare with its green coat of trees withered and burnt, the sky a turmoil of shrieking birds, storm clouds and lightning. He saw the Mighty Curse stretch its wings, sending hurricanes to rip up the meadows and the woods and the houses. Thunderbolts arced from its eyes and a single roar shook cities to the ground and turned the air to an inferno. He saw Fish and Susan Jones and all the noble humans devoured in a moment of white-hot flame as humankind was swept away, its flaws and goodness become nothing but whirling ash in the firestorm.

  Beyond that he saw the sea, its restless waves boiled to vapour, and the mountains torn down from their heights, the clouds gone and the deep blue sky turned to fire. He saw the underground cathedral as it crumbled, its columns and shining rocks shaken into dust. And he saw the jungle, its hidden cities torn apart, the monkeys burned to cinders. The tree that he had rested in flaming against the dark sky, and the leopards … the beautiful leopards … cowering as fire found them and stripped their lovely coats from their bones. And last he saw the monster in the lake, no longer vast and dark and powerful, no longer even bone and flesh, just so much ash in a world of ashes.

  Watching the destruction, the pain of loss filled Grimshaw up so completely he felt something break inside him. All that incredible beauty, all that fierce and savage grace swept away in a torrent of fire. Beside that pain, the disgrace of the lost chronometer, of having Survivors, all that was nothing. Not worth a tear, let alone the world. And what was the admiration of other demons when he could have the delight of visiting Real Space? Even the memories, the knowledge that the world was there, was worth an eternity of respect from the likes of Hanhut and Tun.

  Tears pouring down his face, Grimshaw stared in horror as he saw what the Mighty Curse would do to the Earth he had unknowingly come to love. He saw it as it would soon become. The sky filled with boiling clouds, the sun shrouded from a world without even the smallest, tiniest living thing to stir in its grey dust. He saw the darkest of nights and he was its creator.

  Grimshaw opened his eyes again.

  ‘NO!’ he howled. And began to run towards the Mighty Curse.

  Alice screamed as the earth shook, the banks of the tarn splitting apart as the force of the Mighty Curse rose beneath them. Stones and earth and the shreds of trees fell like hail around her. There was one last ear-shattering roar and then, suddenly, she felt the shaking grow less violent. She lay for a moment, gasping for breath, her heart hammering and her face smeared with dirt and tears.

  But the cracking of wood and the tumble of soil was definitely slowing, and when she was brave enough to peer up at the sky she could see the clouds already growing lighter.

  Pulling herself to her feet, Alice didn’t try to stop the tears running down her face. She was trembling with fear and misery as she gazed around. The wreckage of trees, shrubs and fallen earth clogged the tarn. Most of the water had boiled away and its banks were no longer steep. Above, the wheeling flocks had broken up and the heavy clouds were dissolving as quickly as they had come. Even as she turned her head to look, the sun appeared, bathing the ruined heath in warmth and light. It made her cry all the harder.

  Fish was dead. He had to be. The Mighty Curse had been woken and now it was asleep again, and it would take a life to bring that about. Fish’s life.

  Alice drew in a shuddering breath and wiped her face on her sleeve. Although she knew he must be gone, somehow she couldn’t give up just yet. Going to the very edge of Menga’s Tarn, she threw back her head and called his name, putting every ounce of breath she had into the shout.

  ‘FISH! FISH!’

  Her voice echoed on the air, and it seemed to her that everything was suddenly still and silent, listening. Overhead, the sun grew stronger and the sky began to turn that particular blue that is the colour of infinity.

  ‘Fish?’ said Alice again, her attention caught by a small sound. ‘FISH!’

  She began the scramble down through the rubble of split trunks and torn branches, catching her clothes and hair on their twisted fingers as she went.

  36

  AFTERMATH

  All around Fish was absolute darkness. Trembling, he lay in the suffocating heat and dust, unable to see and hearing nothing but the uneven thud of his heart.

  The last thing he had seen before the Mighty Curse had stopped its destruction and had sunk back into the pit, dragging its fire and death with it, had been the demon, bounding towards him. He had felt the softness of light paws on his head as it used him for a springboard to leap the fissure, soaring through the air as gracefully as a cat and landing on the edge of the pit. The creature’s soft voice echoed around the cavern, cutting through the sounds of destruction, as it cried out, ‘Take me, and let the world live!’

  It took one more bound, its twisted shape silhouetted for a second against the fiery light, and then it was gone, plunging into the heart of the abyss.

  The demon had done what Fish couldn’t do – it had sacrificed itself to the Mighty Curse as Elonia had done all those years ago. It had sent the Mighty Curse back to sleep again.

  All Fish remembered after that was a sound like immense stones grinding deep in the heart of the Earth and a roaring wind that howled through the cavern as the Mighty Curse retreated. The gale had nearly taken him too, but he had clung on to anything he could, grazing his fingers to the bone. And then it was over and silence and darkness had swarmed back
into the cavern, encasing Fish in a rocky tomb.

  He gasped, trying to calm the panic rising inside him. The Mighty Curse was gone and the world was safe, for now at least, but Fish wasn’t. He could still die here in the caves under Menga’s Tarn. Exhausted and shaken to his core, Fish was too terrified to move in the darkness in case he fell into the torn rock around him. Suddenly, he raised his head and listened, straining every nerve to hear. There had definitely been something. A shout, maybe. It was faint, very faint and muffled, filtering down from the outside world, but it was a shout all right. It was Alice!

  Her voice gave him the strength he needed to move and, slowly, Fish began to inch towards the sound, or at least to where he thought the sound was coming from. He hadn’t inched far when he felt a soft touch on his skin, cooling his scraped and battered limbs. Air. Now he began to move in earnest, ignoring the pain that gripped every muscle. Eagerly, he started the long crawl up the slope to freedom.

  In Limbo, the news was already spreading.

  Tun raised his hot-coal eyes to the grey sky. There was madness in them. He breathed in the air, smelling once again the stale aroma of old socks. Below him, the city of London lay spread out like a grey plaster model that nobody could be bothered to paint. The details (such as they were in Limbo) had come back, and the fiddly bits on the Houses of Parliament were all in their proper places. Parts of the last plane remained scattered across the streets, and the traffic was still oddly placed, but otherwise everything looked as dull and useless as normal.