by Caro King
For the floor of the dome was water. It was so deep it looked like black glass beneath the surface glints of light. The room was cool too, and the faint lap of the water had a hollow, echoing sound.
On the other side, opposite where he was standing, he could see an archway like the one he had just come through. A broad strip of the wall was covered in pictures carved into the stone. The last picture looked unfinished.
He stepped out of the corridor and down on to a ledge that ran around the pond towards the second arch. Beside him, the dappled water flicked and flashed with the silver backs of fish as they surfaced and then dived again.
When he got to where the carvings began he paused to take a look. It was clear that each picture had been done with infinite care and patience. As far as he could see, every image told a story. At first Jonas did not recognise any of them, but then he realised that the first was obvious.
It showed a group of Fabulous gathered around a shape on the ground. Another figure, this time Quick, hovered outside the group anxiously, his face a mask of terror. In the background a complex pattern of wolf-like shapes milled and snarled, showing cruel teeth and narrow eyes. The figure in the centre was hardly visible between the slender forms of the Fabulous so he switched his gaze to their faces. All of the figures, except one that had its back to the viewer, wore expressions of misery, horror or shock.
These were the Seven Sorcerers and this must show the Final Gathering. He took a step back to see it as a whole and as he did so his eye worked out the figure in the middle. The reason it looked so strange was because it was in pieces – nothing more than a heap of scraps.
He couldn’t restrain a soft ‘eugh’ of horror. He turned away to look at the next picture. This one he didn’t know. A beautiful, young woman stood at the head of a flight of steps, looking down. In one hand she held a torch high, the other clasped a locket shaped like a thin diamond, the chain it hung from twined around her fingers.
After the woman came a picture of chaotic industry. Figures dug and hauled and built in all directions. There were carts and horses pulling away rubble or bringing materials. Ropes and pulleys and shovels and even some of the workmen’s lunches were there too, recorded in tiny, exact detail. And over it all towered something familiar.
‘They’re building the House!’ he said out loud.
‘Yeth.’
Jonas started so violently that his foot slipped under him and he thought he was going in the water, but he regained his balance and straightened up.
‘Thorry. I didn’t mean to thtartle you.’
‘I – um – didn’t see you there.’
‘People don’t. It’th becauthe I’m thilver like the water.’
The creature was right. It was silver because it was covered in fine scales. Sitting on the ledge in the wavering light, it looked like part of the water.
‘My nameth Gorgle, what’th yourth?’
‘Jonas. Are you, sort of, part fish?’
‘That’th me. Part fith, part man. I’m one of Thtrood’th ecthperiments.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Tho am I,’ said Gorgle. ‘But thomeone hath to be.’
Jonas walked past the arch to where Gorgle was sitting. As he got closer he could see that Gorgle had webbed fingers and feet like fish tails. He had no hair, but fine tendrils ran down his skull to the back of his neck and along his spine. He was wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off trousers in something thin and grey.
Jonas crouched down next to Gorgle, who watched him from eyes like silver discs.
The fish man pointed towards the picture on the wall. ‘What they’re building ith the down-houthe. The Houthe wath already there. It uthed to belong to Gan Mafig, the apothecary that helped the Theven make the Deathweave.’
Jonas nodded. ‘I know that bit. It was their magic that went into the weave, but without Gan Mafig to distil the seven spells and mix them together it would never have happened.’
‘He wath the betht apothecary ever. He even thought up the mortal dithtillathion proceth.’
‘The what? Oh, mortal distillation process. What’s that? Is it different to distilling spells?’
Gorgle nodded. ‘It’th about how to dithtil a living thing. Mr Thtrood utheth it a lot in hith ecthperimentth. Like me. I wath a fith and Mr Thtrood infected me with dithtillathion of man.’
‘I wondered how he did the things he does.’ Jonas looked back at the picture thoughtfully. ‘I never knew this was Mafig’s house!’
‘Hith and hith daughterth. That’th her in the thecond picture. Her name wath Theraphine and the ran away during the Final Gathering. Not becauthe the wath thcared, but becauthe the wanted to be with her lover. He wath jutht a woodthman and her father thought the daughter of thomeone ath important ath he wath thould marry a thortherer.’
‘How do you know all this stuff ?’
Gorgle shrugged. ‘People tell me thtorieth and I put them in pictureth, that’th all.’
‘You did this?’ Jonas stared at him in amazement.
‘Yeth. The one I’m doing now ith about the girl who made a Fabulouth.’
‘She’s the one I’m looking for.’
‘Ninevah Redthtone ith your friend?’ asked Gorgle, his voice filled with awe. He tugged Jonas’s arm. ‘Come and thee.’
Gorgle led Jonas to the carving furthest along, the one that was unfinished. It showed a girl standing on a hillside, with another figure beside and just behind her.
‘She’ll love that!’ laughed Jonas. He looked closer. ‘But I have to tell you, Jik isn’t that big.’
Gorgle shrugged. ‘He’th a Fabulouth. He mutht be.’
The image of Jik was striking. Gorgle had made him a lot taller and somehow more powerful-looking. It also looked as if he were rising straight out of the earth, joined to it somehow.
‘You will want to go on and look for her now, I think,’ sighed Gorgle. ‘And it’th about time I filled the pool too.’ Seeing Jonas’s puzzled glance, he went on, ‘the water thinkth into the ground at the bottom of the pond and leakth away. Tho, every day I have to top it up with thea water.’
‘How do you do that?’ asked Jonas. ‘Is there a way out of here?’
Gorgle shook his head. ‘I go down on the winch in a pail, you thee.’ He pointed to the ropes next to the slit in the wall. ‘I take the bucket and lower mythelf down to the water, I fill the bucket with thea and then I pull mythelf up again. But there ith no way out. The thea ith violent here.’
Clambering up to the gash in the wall, Jonas leaned into it and peered out. The wind hit him, dashing a faint trace of spray into his face even this high up. Below, the waves crashed against rocks like jagged teeth. There was nothing but angry sea and empty sky.
‘OK,’ said Jonas with a sigh. ‘You’re right.’ He went to sit back down again. ‘What a shame. The tunnel I came in through is collapsed, the Secret Way, Taggit called it. So when I find Nin we’ll need another exit.’
‘There mutht be one,’ said Gorgle. He nodded at the second carving. ‘No one knew how Theraphine uthed to get out of the Houthe without her father knowing. Everyone thayth her Thecret Way ith the tunnel you uthed to get in, but I don’t think tho. Remember, the down-houthe didn’t exthitht in her day. I think Theraphine’s Thecret Way wath here before the down-houthe wath built. I think it thtarted in the up-houthe thomewhere.’
‘But when they were digging to build the down-house, wouldn’t they have found it?’
‘No. Thtrood forbade them to dig under the thentre of the Houthe. He didn’t want to rithk anything collapthing. I’ve thought about it a lot and I think the Thecret Way thtartth in the inner garden, the one the Houthe ith built around, nextht to the Maug’th courtyard. Theraphine loved the garden.’
Jonas stared at the fish-man. ‘Gorgle, you’re brilliant. I am very glad I met you!’
Gorgle smiled shyly and blinked his silvery eyes.
‘A top-notch artist too. These carvings are wonderful.’
&nb
sp; ‘Thankth!’ Gorgle hung his head bashfully. ‘I like carving. It taketh my mind off thingth. Ethpethially on Fridayth.’
‘What happens on Friday?’
‘Mithter Thtrood hath fith for dinner on a Friday.’ Gorgle’s face twisted in misery. ‘Every Friday afternoon, the girl cometh from hith kitchen and taketh a fith.’
Jonas looked at Gorgle and then he looked at the pond, where the silver-backed fish swirled beneath the surface.
‘They are my brotherth and thithterth,’ said Gorgle. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes. ‘I have to give him one of my family to eat. But if I don’t he will kill me and if he killth me then who will fill the pond? And if no one fillth the pond then they will all die.’
‘That’s terrible!’
By now the tears were on Gorgle’s cheeks. ‘They underthtand, my brotherth and thithterth. Every Friday I athk them who will go and one of them, one of the older oneth, thwims to the thurface. Every Friday.’
Jonas reached out and put an arm round the fish-man’s thin shoulders.
‘It breakth my heart,’ said Gorgle and then fell silent, staring empty-eyed at the pool as it glimmered in the fractured light.
28
Evebell
f Milo hadn’t been hanging on to her, Nin would have frozen on the spot.
‘Eyes,’ he hissed, dragging her along with him.
It was thin and spindly and covered in spiky hair, with arms and legs that looked out of proportion. Its face was mostly eyes. Huge, bulging, black, glossy eyes. Underneath them was a tiny mouth like a slash. Nin felt a dart of fear as it ran past, but the creature ignored her.
‘It’s the uniform,’ said Milo comfortingly. ‘Makes you as good as invisible, but only as long as you’re where a servant ought to be.’
As they went past Gan Mafig’s picture, Nin glanced nervously up the stairs to where Mr Strood had his rooms.
‘Doesn’t he have a bodyguard?’
‘What’s the point? No one can hurt him. He’s immortal. As in never going to die.’
Nin remembered Strood telling her that he had been thrown to the wolves once. She also remembered how scarred he was.
‘So even if someone, say, chopped him to pieces he’d just heal up again?’
‘Yep.’
‘Ugh! I always thought being immortal would be nice.’
Milo shook his head vigorously. ‘Nobody’d want to be like he is!’
They kept going down the corridor. Here, the walls were lined with pink-and-burgundy-striped paper, not silk, although the carpet on the floor was still deep and soft. When she had seen the House from the outside, Nin had noticed the bricked-in windows. Here on the inside, all traces had been papered over and the walls were flawless. Light came from lamps on metal brackets in the wall that burned steadily with a yellow-white light. Nin thought the house had a strange feel, as if it were its own world, far apart from the Drift or the Widdern. They passed a couple of servants, who shot them timid smiles and said nothing, but no more Eyes. Once they were past the kitchens, where the clean scent of soap and hot water mingled with rich smells of lunch, Milo pushed open a door.
‘Here you are. The stairs to the down-house. It’s two flights to the storerooms. Then if Toby’s not there, go all the way along the storerooms corridor and up the stairs at the other end, all right? And BE CAREFUL.’
Nin leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled at her. The door swung shut and she was alone. Nervously, she followed the stairs down into the part of the House that was built inside the cliff until she reached the stores. Here, the occasional wall lamp pitted its glow bravely against the shadows, and in the dim light, doors marched two by two into the distance. It looked like they went on for miles. She had a lot of rooms to look in and it would take her some time, but with no one around, at least she would be able to call his name.
The tunnel had been sneakily curving back on itself for a while, and now it had narrowed down to a thin slit in the rock. Irritably, Jik stared at the gap. It was too small even for him. If the wall had been earth and not rock he might have been able to …
He stopped mid-thought and turned, hurrying back to a point just before the tunnel had started shrinking. Here the walls were not rock but densely packed earth. Putting his hands out in front of him he stepped slowly forward, his stumpy arms burrowing easily into the earth. Though it wasn’t really burrowing but blending.
Inside the Land he paused to get his bearings and then moved on, swimming through the earth, part of it and yet not. From listening to the way it sounded, he knew that towards the cliff face and right down at the lowest parts of the House the Land was mostly rock. Underneath the House, the Land was soil and he would be able to travel through it easily, as long as he avoided the wooden struts built in to support the walls and floors of the many rooms.
After a while Jik decided to step outside the walls for a look around to see where he was. He found himself in a corridor that led to a bathroom containing a bathtub big enough to take a whole Grimm guard. There was a scrabbling noise coming from the bath, so he climbed on to the chair next to it to look in. It was a spider.
It was dark blue, its eyes were purple – all eight of them – and it sat in a knock-kneed jumble of legs up at the plug end, watching him nervously. Jik had seen something like it before in the House gardens, so he wasn’t surprised by its size.
‘Jik?’
‘Hss.’ The spider looked sulky and bunched her legs up even closer. She had been stuck in the bath for a long time and was obviously fed up with it. The edge was just too high for her to reach and every time she tried she slithered back on the enamel surface.
‘Jik gik yik ik? Yik hik mik fik mik frik?’
Hss brightened up. ‘Yss pss! Yss.’
Jik nodded and was about to lean over to give her a legs up when the door burst open and one of the servants darted in clutching a bundle of towels.
She spotted Hss straight away and screamed. There was the sound of footsteps running along the corridor. Jik, who was on the other side to the maid, did a neat back flip into the next bathtub along, where he crouched out of sight. He had a moment of sick horror when it dawned on him what would have happened if the bathtub had been full instead of empty. When the dizziness cleared and he could think again he realised that help had arrived.
‘What is it! What’s happened!’
‘Oh Susan,’ wailed the first maid, ‘there’s a s-spider!’
‘Goodness, is that all! Get me a glass and some card.’ Jik heard Susan edge forward to look. ‘Oh lor!’ She staggered back, having changed her mind about the glass and the card. ‘It’s one of those bigguns from the garden. Hurry up, girl. Go and fetch a guard!’
Feeling very down, Nin traipsed up the stairs at the far end of the storeroom corridor. There had been no sign of Toby and now she was heading towards the great library where all the books that Mr Strood didn’t take a personal interest in were kept. The first thing she saw when she reached the landing was a sobbing maid.
‘It’s B-Bogeyman P-Polpp,’ the girl wailed as soon as she saw Nin. ‘I-I’ve got to s-sweep the library and he th-threw me out.’
‘Did he hurt you?’
‘I hit my head,’ babbled the girl. ‘He called me a stupid moo and said he’d fry my pinny if I didn’t get out.’
Nin took the girl’s broom. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said firmly. ‘You get on with whatever else you’ve got to do.’ An idea was forming in her head. What had Errol told her? Terrible gossips, bogeymen.
The girl stared at her out of eyes so brown they were black and then she turned and ran like a frightened mouse. Taking a deep breath, Nin pushed open the door of the library.
‘Excuse me, Bogeyman Polpp,’ she said politely.
The creature curled up on an old sofa between two bookcases raised its head and glared at her with irritable red eyes. Polpp looked something like Skerridge only less tidy. He was also hairier and bigger and wore a pair of tartan trousers t
ied up with someone’s old school tie.
‘What?’ he snarled, ‘make it quick, kid, or yer toast.’
‘I can’t do toast,’ said Nin, ‘but I do have some bread and honey tea?’ Out of the big pocket in her pinafore, she pulled a flask and a half-loaf that Milo had given her.
The bogeyman gave her a long look. And then a longer one. Something about her got its curiosity going.
‘I don’ know yer name,’ Polpp said. ‘An’ the only names a bogeymen don’ know are them what’s been stolen.’
Nin smiled. ‘I’m Ninevah Redstone, but mostly people call me Nin.’ She hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake, after all he could report her escape to Mr Strood. But somehow she didn’t think he would, and besides, the reward would be worth it. She might not have found Toby yet, but maybe her luck was handing her an opportunity not to be missed.
The BM’s mouth twitched. Something horribly like a grin struggled across it, revealing a set of teeth like broken tombstones.
‘’er what made a Fabulous? ’er what escaped from the Storm ’Ounds?’ The grin broadened. ‘’er what got away from Bogeyman Skerridge?’
Polpp burst into laughter. Nin ducked as a spurt of flame flickered over her head and burnt a sooty patch on the wall behind her.
‘To be fair …’ Nin began.
The bogeyman waved his hand dismissively. ‘So what if ’e gotcha in the end. Troof is, tha’s the closest any kid’s ever come to it.’ Red eyes looked her over thoughtfully. ‘Awright, ’and over the grub and tell me all about it.’
It took a while because Polpp found some of it so funny that he made her tell it twice.
‘Why are you so interested?’ asked Nin when she had finished.
‘Finks too much of ’imself does Bogeyman Skerridge,’ Polpp snorted. ‘All that “Never lost a kid” stuff. ’Ooo cares. Kid gets lost. Yer goes and gets anovver one. Plenny of ’em out there.’
Nin clamped her mouth shut. Now was not the time to lay into him about the fate of the children he stole, not if she wanted to find out anything useful.
‘An’ the stoopid part is, there’s one fing that just AIN’T DONE fer a bogeyman an’ tha’s goin’ out in the daylight.’ Polpp made a disgusted face. ‘Blimmin’ Skerridge makes a big song an’ dance outta not losin’ a kid, then does somefin’ like goin’ out in the daylight what goes right against a bogeyman’s grain! There’s somefin’ wrong in ’is ’ead if yer arsk me.’ Polpp yawned. ‘Anyway, better get on, I guess. Been fun meetin’ y – ’Ang on …’ He stopped mid-stretch and stared at her. ‘’e got yer in the end? ’Anded yer over t’ Mr Strood?’
