by Murray, Lee
“I’ll be fine,” Mathilde insists. “No one’s likely to come back this way. But, just in case, help me get the Taikarion into that opening in the rocks. That way, if someone does come, we’ll be out of sight.”
With some grunting from the team and more bitter lime scent from the Taikarion, they finally manage to conceal the pair in a crevasse in the rocks.
“We’ll be as quick as we can,” Rowan says, dropping a hand on Mathilde’s shoulder.
Mathilde doesn’t reply. Well, what is there to say? Dying takes the time it takes.
5
Ari, Tonya and Rowan run now, up and down the labyrinth in search of the markers.
Breathing hard, Rowan concentrates on memorising their route so they’ll be able to retrace their steps and find Mathilde later. It’s not an easy task as all the tunnels look alike and it seems to Rowan that there are billions of them. But they can’t risk marking a trail on the wall in case something else follows it back to Mathilde. Still, at least their eyesight has become accustomed to the low light, making it easier to navigate. Soon they’ve found one of the markers, under a large cone. Actually, it’s a touch screen—advanced technology for a primitive underground labyrinth—but they’ve no time to philosophise on the incongruities. Ari touches the tablet.
“I thought there’d be an actual marker,” Tonya says, as they head out of the clearing under the cone and away from the shaft of murky light. “Something to carry with us.”
Jogging beside her, Ari shakes his head. “You’re forgetting that some species don’t have hands: the Sceets, for example. This way, a team member only needs to touch the screen. The presence of a single body cell will register their species’ DNA. A Sceet would fly at it, like a fly at a window.”
“The Sceets are gone,” Rowan says wryly. “Buzzed off long ago.”
“Not necessarily,” says Ari. “Sceets are tiny organisms, not much bigger than our thumbs, so they’re influenced by changes in temperature. It’s a lot cooler under these hills. A prolonged period down here could slow them down. They might even hibernate.”
“Too much to hope for. Hey, did that screen say who’d been here before us?” Tonya asks.
“I didn’t even think to look,” Ari says. He turns on his heel and heads back to the cavern and the screen, where he pulls up a display and peers at the table. “Nineteen teams. We’re the last to reach this checkpoint.”
“Shit!” says Tonya. She slaps her hand against the rock wall.
“We can still beat them.” Rowan tries to reassure her. “We might be the last to get here, but there are three more markers. The other teams might not have found them yet.”
“Yeah, but if we’re the last to get here, it means that somehow those Clicker-things have got in, doesn’t it?” Tonya says.
This time it’s Rowan’s turn to curse. “How the hell did they do it? We all saw them. Those bastards were stuck outside.”
“No point stressing,” Ari says, matter-of-fact. “They’re in. We’re last. We need to move.”
For the second time, they take the farthest tunnel leading out of the mound to continue their search. Jogging along the tunnels in single file, freak sounds reach them on the currents. Rowan’s scalp tingles, but he sets his jaw and carries on, willing himself to believe that the noises mean nothing, that those hoots and wails are just bravado, a psychological tool meant to frighten him, like the piped-in soundtrack in the haunted house of a two-bit carnival. But the roars and shrieks get so loud that even Ari is shaken. He turns and takes them in another direction, hopefully skirting the site of the commotion. There are a lot of teams running about in these darkened alleyways, and Ari isn’t keen to get them involved in an inter-species bloodbath.
“This one,” Ari says eventually, holding up a hand. It’s another cone, similar to the last. It looks big enough. This could be it. They enter the cavern and spread out looking for a screen. There! Rowan rushes to the place near the centre of the cavern where the screen hovers. He hasn’t quite reached it when he feels a prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck, the creeping feeling that you get when suspenseful music plays in a thriller. His skin rises in goose-bumps. Rowan’s blood runs to ice. What is it? He looks around wildly, searching for the threat, but sees nothing.
“Rowan! Don’t move,” Ari whispers from the edge of the light.
He hears Tonya’s quick intake of breath.
Rowan’s heart clenches. It must be bad. And now—too late—he remembers that niggle on the plateau. Realisation slaps Rowan dead in the chest. Snow! These little volcanoes are nowhere near high enough, or cold enough, for snow. So, if it wasn’t snow… Barely daring to move, Rowan looks up, awash with dread.
A spider that isn’t a spider, black and sinuous, and suspended from its snowy web at the top of the conical mound. With spindly legs and a strangely human head, the thing is hideous. And huge. It slithers down its silky string, observing Rowan with a single glassy eye. Rowan is transfixed. His head screams at him to run, but he’s like a rabbit: paralysed with fear as the raptor’s shadow crosses the sun. The creature stares at Rowan as it oscillates on its thread, drifting gently backwards and forwards in the wind currents that funnel through the rocky corridors. There’s something mesmerising about that eye. Seductive. Try as he might, Rowan can’t seem to drag his eyes away, and it’s odd, but he thinks perhaps he can hear the spider singing, its voice lilting and melodic. That music—it reminds him of home, of that last evening with Lisa, in the back yard under the willow: the chirping of the crickets, the rustle of the warm breeze in the hanging branches, Lisa’s whispered ‘yes’. You know, perhaps it’s just inquisitive, as intrigued by him as he is by it. It’s curious, that’s all. It doesn’t mean any harm. It can’t help being ugly. The creature moves inexorably closer, calling to Rowan, a salutation from an old friend…
Rowan takes a step forward.
“Hyah, Spidey! Hey, over here!” Tonya’s scream reverberates through the cavern. The spider-thing swivels on its tassel and, as it moves, Rowan catches a glimpse of the Vauxhon behind it. Tightly-bound in the spider’s silk strings, the Vauxhon sways gently to and fro from a single strand cemented to the ceiling. It isn’t dead, but it isn’t struggling either. It’s just hanging there, accepting its fate. Rowan’s stomach sinks.
That…that…thing!
Suddenly withdrawn from the creature’s embrace, Rowan roars. He charges at the spider, throwing his shoulder into it, trying to tear it off its tether. He’ll teach it to try and trick him. Using his mind. Using Lisa! But Rowan’s blow isn’t enough to sever the cord. On its thread, the spider glances away, like an apple on a string at a summer fête, the momentum carrying Rowan to the safety of a narrow tunnel leading away from the cavern. Rowan slams into the wall, the jagged rock slicing his right palm in the process. Quickly, Rowan takes stock. The good news is: this tunnel looks too narrow for the creature to pass. The bad news is: Rowan is on the opposite side of the cavern from Tonya and Ari. He’s on his own. Heaving for breath, Rowan turns to face the spider in time to see it careering towards Tonya. His heart lurches. Rowan’s thrust had carried the spider with him for a way, and having reached the top of the arc, it’s now swinging back in Tonya’s direction, its spindly legs reaching out to grab for her. Why doesn’t she move? She only has to duck into that passage…
“Tonya!”
Suddenly, Ari is there, his stick pointed at the spider’s heart.
Jeepers. A tiny stick against that monster? But, taking care to keep his head turned away, Ari thrusts with all his might, the baton just long enough to hold back the creature’s grasping forelegs. The action registers in slow motion in Rowan’s mind. When he was a little kid, Rowan had played sweeper for the school soccer team, and he knew that kicking a ball rolling towards him gave it more lift. Rowan loved that he could kick the ball higher and further than anyone else on the team. Likewise, Ari’s stick sends the spider penduluming at speed back the other way. It crashes against the wall of the
cavern above Rowan’s head, where it clamps itself to the rocks, momentarily stunned by the impact.
“Now! Rowan, run!” Ari and Tonya shout. A shower of stones rain down on Rowan, spurring him at last. He dashes for his friends on the other side of the cavern, but the screen is right there. It’s not that far. Just a few metres. If he could touch it, they could still complete the challenge…they need not be eliminated. He swerves, heading for the tablet.
“No, leave it!” Ari roars.
“It’s coming.” Tonya gasps.
Glancing sideways, Rowan sees the spider above him on the wall. It’s flexing its legs, preparing to jump. Alongside, the Vauxhon bobs merrily on its string.
“Don’t look at the eye!” Tonya screams.
“Come on, man!” Ari urges.
But the screen… And then Rowan remembers the Sceets, and Ari’s words about DNA from a single cell… Without breaking his stride, he stoops, scooping up a pebble that has tumbled from the wall in the spider’s crash. With only one chance, there’s no time to aim. Rowan rolls the pebble in his palm, then, keeping his wrist flat, he skims it at the screen. The bloodied pebble glides through the air, and hits with a tiny plunk. The screen blinks; the Terrean team registered.
That’ll be a point to me, Andy, Rowan thinks, mentally giving his little brother a high-five as he sprints the final steps to the narrow tunnel and the safety of his friends.
6
“Rowan, you did it!” Tonya runs at him and, for a moment, Rowan thinks she’s about to wrap him in a bear hug, but at the last minute she pulls back and throws out her palm instead. “You hit the screen! You hit it! We’re still in this thing.”
Rowan returns her high five, their cheery slap echoing in the tunnel. “Well, I wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you and Ari. That thing—”
“It hypnotised you, I know. It was the eye. It had me in its sights, too. If Ari hadn’t been there…” She trails off awkwardly.
Ari waves his hand in front of his face. “All I did send it back where it came from, like hitting a tennis ball on string. It was pure luck that thumping the wall stunned it.”
“Yeah, well, I never thought I’d be so pleased to see you brandishing your little stick…” Rowan says.
There’s a second of silence before the three of them burst out laughing, Ari chuckling and waving his ridiculous stick about, and Tonya punctuating her laughter with an endearing snort. Rowan rubs the grit from his eyes. It feels good to laugh. Even if the joke is lame.
They decide to rest for a while, sitting on the ground with their backs against the rocky tunnel wall, Ari poking at the ground with his trusty stick.
“The snow. I knew something wasn’t right.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Ari says.
Tonya nods. “Yeah, you couldn’t have known it was spider spittle.”
Rowan concentrates, thinking back to the view from the plateau. “The four marked peaks were covered in snow-web, so I reckon all the screens are going to be protected by those spider-things.”
“The first screen wasn’t.”
“It might’ve been. We never looked up, and the light was murky. There could’ve been a spider-thing in there.”
Ari agrees. “I think it must have been there, above us. If the other teams had killed it, we would’ve seen the carcass.”
“Maybe it just wasn’t hungry. Maybe by the time we came through, it’d already eaten half a dozen others,” Tonya says.
Rowan suppresses a shiver. Or saved them for later.
He says: “Some of our Conclave competitors could’ve been dangling above our heads without us seeing them. That Vauxhon wasn’t dead, you know. It was alive, watching. I think our spidey-friend likes its food fresh.”
Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Tonya, Rowan feels her tremble. “Jeez!” she says. She jumps up and brushes herself off, and it occurs to Rowan she might be trying to brush away her fear. “Come on,” she says. “We’ve got two more spiders to beat.”
Moments later, they’re jogging through the labyrinth again, searching for the third marker.
7
Rowan calls out to Ari. “We’ve been running in this direction too long. I think we need to double back.”
“Just a bit farther. I’m positive I saw one of the markers hovering out in this direction.”
“How can you even tell what direction we’re going?” says Tonya, irritated. “We’ve been running around like rats in a maze for ages.” Tonya’s worried. She’s having trouble memorising the turns and, counting their paces, she’s only really guessing at the distances. Mostly likely, the map in her head will be way off. If anything happens, she wants to be able to get herself out of this stupid labyrinth.
“Let’s just go to the next crossroads in the tunnel, two hundred metres, and then, I promise we’ll turn back.”
They don’t make it that far. Rowan is the first to spot the glow of the Cron’s silver fur heaped in the middle of the tunnel, as if someone has taken a skid on a shaggy hall rug.
“Careful,” says Ari as they approach. “It might still be alive.”
“Can anyone else smell Taikarion?” says Tonya. She flares her nostrils for a better whiff. Rowan, too, has picked up the bitter lime smell. The odour has a distinctly unpleasant undertone. Possibly Cron? Ari gestures to them to stay back, while he prods the silver carpet with his branch. The creature doesn’t move.
“I think it’s dead,” Ari says eventually.
“No kidding,” says Tonya. “Check out this wound.” Ari and Rowan come around to her side for a better look. Low down on the Cron’s back, where a human’s kidneys would be, the silvery pelt is stained and matted. Tonya tries not to retch as Ari separates the damp fur with his hands to reveal a thin stab wound.
“It’s deep,” Rowan says.
Ari nods. “Whatever it was probably penetrated an organ.” Pulling his hands back, he wipes the crud off on his trousers. “Rowan, do you think it could’ve been a Gyptor radula? You were close enough to one today.”
Rowan pauses, closing his eyes to better visualise the creature from the attack in the market. Finally, he shakes his head. “No, the Gyptor’s radula could definitely slice—it made short work of the Silici tentacles— but it was finely-serrated, like a shark’s skin. These wounds are too clean. If I was going to guess, I reckon this was done with a blade.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. Possibly the same weapon that was used on the Taikarion. Maybe her team mates overpowered the Cron, then used its own weapon to kill it.”
“Guys, look,” Tonya says.
It’s another being, even larger than the Cron. Crumpled and torn, the creature is lying on its side, deep gouges to its torso, and dark red blood coagulating in the fissures.
“What is that?” Rowan demands.
Ari shrugs. “No idea.”
“Could it be a X…Xrlf?” Rowan stumbles on the word.
“Don’t know.” Tonya nudges it with her foot, turning the body to reveal the creature’s ventral surface. Compound eyes stare back. Lifeless. “Whatever it is, it’s a dead one. Do you think it got caught up in a fight between the Crons and Taikarions?”
“Looks like it,” says Ari. “These injuries… Rowan and I think there has to have been a weapon; a blade of some sort. It’s possible it’s still lying around here somewhere.”
Tonya rolls her eyes. She did warn them that the other teams would cheat. She helps them look for the weapon. Rowan and Ari work together to heave first the Xrlf, and then the Cron, to one side while she sweeps her hand underneath the corpses. The Cron fur is especially damp and slippery, and the pair are able to hold its still-warm bulk for a just few seconds before it slumps to the floor.
“Anything?” Rowan gasps.
Tonya shakes her head. “No weapon. But there was this.” She opens her fist to reveal a dead Sceet, which she drops beside the Cron. She brushes her hands on her pants. “That makes four species. Quite the showdown.”
�
��Any well-aimed swat could have taken out the Sceet, but whoever killed these others used a knife, and since we can’t find it, they probably still have it,” Rowan concludes.
“My money’s on the Taikarions. It reeks of lime around here,” Tonya says.
“What if we made a mistake, and the Taikarions didn’t leave their team member to die? Maybe they left her temporarily while they went to extract a payback from the Cron for her injuries.”
Rowan blanches as Ari’s words sink in. “But if that’s true, they’ll find Mathilde! We have to go back, now!” The hothead spins, ready to run back the way they came, but Tonya pulls him back by his shirt tail.
“Rowan, wait. Look around: there’s evidence of four species here. That means at least four teams have come this way. I think Ari’s right. That third marker has got to be around here somewhere. We need to find it first.”
“But what about Mathilde? We can’t just abandon her. The Taikarions could be attacking her right now!” He twists out of her grasp. Quickly, she whips around in front of him, barring his way.
He needs to see reason. Does he want to die in this miserable tunnel?
“Rowan,” she says, evenly. “It’s true that the Taikarions might be there, but they might not. They could’ve gone straight on to the next challenge.”
Unconvinced, he turns his head away.
This time, Tonya grabs his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. “If we’re wrong, Rowan, and they have gone back to recover their team mate, we’re already too late. We’ll never catch them before they reach Mathilde: they’ve got to be an hour ahead of us.”
“Then we need to go now!” Rowan pushes her away roughly, but now Ari bars his way.
“There’s another scenario.”
“What scenario?” Rowan hisses.
“That the team carrying the blade has already been eliminated.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Rowan, think about it. Conclave is a universal once-in-a-millenium event. There are billions of cregals tied up in sponsorship deals. Images are iSplayed everwhere: Sceet’s hives, Cron dens, the Phemere’s silicon towers, everywhere! If there was a blade, someone must’ve seen it.”
