‘Thanks,’ replied Alex, extremely pleased with himself. ‘I’m learning. Who were they?’
‘Hunters,’ replied the board-comber, not wishing to go into time-consuming explanations. ‘Beware of them.’
‘I shall.’
‘By the way,’ said the board-comber, ‘I love the mask.’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Makishi. ‘Yours isn’t bad, either.’
Coming from outside the Mask Country though, Cocalino did not have the power of speech and therefore did not make comment.
‘How long has he been gone?’ asked Chloe.
Jordy looked at his watch. ‘The last time I saw him, it was six o’clock – it’s now nearly five. About an hour.’ He held up a finger.
Chloe stared at her step-brother for a moment, then said, ‘Oh yes, I forgot – time goes backwards here.’
The finger came down. ‘One hour precisely – now.’
CHAPTER 17
Swarming of the Ink Imps
‘The thing is, when he comes back, don’t make a fuss.’
Jordy was anxious not to upset Alex. He didn’t want to give his step-brother an excuse to run off permanently. If they all started arguing, Alex would definitely go away and hide. He did that when he was upset with anyone at home. He just took himself off somewhere. Jordy called it ‘sulking’ but he didn’t really know what caused Alex’s moods. Jordy admitted to himself, deep down, that the reason Alex annoyed him was because Jordy didn’t understand him. No one really did.
‘No, I agree,’ said Chloe. ‘We’ll play it down, yes?’
So when Alex wandered back into camp, expecting to be shouted at for leaving without telling them, they virtually ignored him. He took Makishi off his face and slung him on the cord over his shoulder.
‘I’m back,’ Alex said.
Chloe looked up from the meal she was making.
‘Oh – are you? Didn’t know you’d gone. I thought that was you over there.’
She pointed to a heap of rags in a dark corner.
Alex pouted. ‘I don’t wear stuff like that.’
‘Yes you do,’ replied Chloe. ‘Worse stuff.’
Alex didn’t take the bait, but eventually asked, ‘Are we moving on today?’
Jordy came over with his backpack already clipped shut. ‘Yep. I reckon from what the bortrekker told me that we’re very close to the Great Water Tank he talked about. The bureaux are on the edge of the lake, guarded by the ink imps. We’ll get the map—’
‘What about the ink imps?’ interrupted Alex. ‘Won’t they try to stop us?’
Jordy laughed. ‘What can a few imps do to us? Nah, we’ll just walk through them and find the map. We need to find Mr Grantham’s watch. Frère Jacques. Then we can start back home again. Now I know how to navigate up here I think I can get us back.’
‘Easy, just like that,’ murmured Alex. ‘Wonder why we didn’t do it before?’
‘Because we haven’t got the watch yet,’ replied Jordy, through gritted teeth.
Nelson loped into camp with a mouse in his jaws.
‘Poor fare that,’ cried Alex. ‘You can do better than that, ginger. Bring us an Attican wild boar.’
Nelson gave Alex a hard stare. He was not a cat who enjoyed being mocked.
‘Yuk,’ Chloe said, ‘I’m glad there are vegetables.’
Nevertheless she stroked her cat until he purred in delight. He flopped over at her feet and began playing with the dead mouse, batting it backwards and forwards. Finally Chloe picked it up by the tail and tossed it away. Nelson stared after it, but decided it wasn’t worth moving for. He was in a nice shaft of sunlight that warmed his fur and it felt very good. The boards were cosy beneath his fur and like all cats he loved a laze.
At that moment six Atticans in dustcoats arrived: the same set that had sniffed around the board-comber and Alex earlier. They were fusty-looking, much taller and broader than the normal villagers that the children had met until now. Their features were stern below their shining bald pates. They also looked stronger than any villager the children had come across. They would not have looked out of place in a hardware store. They had the appearance of harassed counter clerks.
‘Eeerk!’ cried the one who pointed.
‘Eeerk yourself,’ said Jordy, hands on hips. ‘And your name is …?’
Chloe and Jordy did not know who these characters were. They seemed very hostile. Another of them beckoned, indicating that the children should step forward. Jordy was inclined to tell him to take a running jump.
‘These are the ones the board-comber called hunters,’ Alex said. ‘They look a bit aggressive, Jordy.’
‘I’ll give them aggro all right,’ muttered Jordy. ‘Just let ’em step over here.’
Chloe said, ‘They’re getting angry.’
‘Let ’em,’ said Jordy. He was actually not feeling as confident as he sounded. ‘There are only – six of ’em.’
Seeing that the humans were not going to obey the cursory summons indicated by the crooked finger, the creatures moved in to arrest them.
Until this point Nelson had been vaguely aware of intruders. He still lay on his side in the warm sunlight, stretching his head to look at what all the fuss was about. He sniffed and on smelling the strange odour of the intruders his hackles rose. Nelson, like many cats, was very sensitive to unusual odours. When the creatures actually advanced, Nelson went up on his three paws in an instant. All his fur was on end now, his remaining twelve claws were protruding like curved daggers from his paws and he was hissing and spitting through bared fangs. There was a low growling whine coming from his mouth.
In short Nelson, a large cat, was upset and with his formidable arsenal of weapons he looked a terrifying, spiky, fierce ginger beast.
The Atticans paused in their advance. Nelson spat and yowled loudly. They backed off. Nelson advanced, his eyes slits, his claws scratching the boards as he slunk towards the intruders, alternately growling and giving off low menacing yowls, as if to say, Don’t make me come and get you.
They turned and retreated quickly.
‘See, they were even scared of a little cat,’ cried Jordy. ‘Just think how frightened they would be of me.’
‘More likely they’ve never seen a cat before,’ Chloe remarked, coming closer to the truth. ‘I think they looked quite formidable – I think we’re lucky, Jordy, that they were wary of Nelson.’
‘He’s better than a wolfhound,’ Alex said, stroking his pet. ‘Come on, I think we’d better go, in case there’s more of them somewhere around.’
They packed up quickly and were soon on the march.
They came across a huge bowl-shaped valley where the boards had sunk. Jordy gave a whoop of delight, threw down his skateboard, jumped on and went whizzing down into the bowl, then up the other side. He enjoyed this so much he did it several more times. Chloe then had a go and managed to stay on. Alex watched his brother and sister, then finally he too tried the run and was also successful in staying upright. It was exhilarating, this exercise, and their shouts and yells of excitement brought watchers.
It seemed there was an Attican village nearby and the inhabitants, having heard the cries, came to the edge of the bowl to see what was going on. They were amazed to see blurred ghosts with humped backs shooting down into the bowl and then up again, only to fly around the edge. One of the ghosts kept leaping and somersaulting, always landing neatly on its feet. In the eyes of the Atticans, who had never seen anyone or anything go more than ten miles an hour, this was the ultimate in speed and made them feel quite sick. It was something outside their experience and their brains couldn’t cope.
‘Come and join us!’ yelled Jordy, calling to the attic people. ‘I’ll teach you how to do it.’
One of the Atticans watching their skateboarding was suddenly overcome by giddiness and fell forward to slide down into the bowl. His friends and relations let out a unified cry of dismay. When the terrified villager, his bald head sweating, tried to climb out
of the bowl he kept slipping back in again. His movements became frantic, until finally Jordy felt he ought to help him. Jordy went sweeping down from the far side, grabbed the hapless villager, and lifted him up to carry him to the lip of the bowl. Friends and relatives reached out and grasped him. Jordy let go and swept down again, to swoop up the far side of the bowl.
The villager let out a cry of relief at finding himself safe.
White plaster dust rose when his kin punched him hard on the back and shoulders. This was a way of showing both affection and their own relief that he was not hurt and had escaped. The villager, grateful for so many punches, hit back at his beloved. For a while the clouds of white dust flew from the jackets and coats of the Atticans, then it all settled down again and they turned to stare once more at the ghosts. There was some discussion about how unorthodox it all was: they had never before had ghosts who zoomed back and forth too swiftly to follow. Then they congratulated the giddy villager for surviving in the hands of such creatures, and finally, as the sun began to set, they wended their weary way home, back to their wardrobes and washing baskets, to ponder on the vagaries of the unnatural world.
The following morning Jordy, Chloe and Alex came to an enormous water tank: a tank so large there were ladders up the sides to reach the lip. And when you climbed those ladders and looked out over the surface of the water, you could not see to the other side. All you could see was miles and miles of gentle waves, which eventually disappeared into a shimmering haze. On those wavelets, in the far distance, objects were floating. The Atticans, it seemed, were seafarers as well as land creatures.
‘Wow!’ cried Jordy. ‘Look at this. A whole lake. Maybe even an ocean. Who knows what’s on the other side of this lot?’
The water in the tank smelled fresh and clean. It was like being on the shore of a vast lake where sparkling mountain stream water came cascading into a natural basin and filled it. Instead of mountain streams, however, there were lagged water pipes which led from gutters up on the roof. When it rained in the outside world, as it seemed to be doing now, clean water gushed from the gutters, down the pipes and directly into the tank. In turn other pipes carried the excess away, to tanks all over Attica, where it was used in the inhabitants’ strange world. Thus there was a balance which maintained a safe surface level of the Attican lake.
‘Isn’t that something?’ whispered an awed Alex. ‘What a marvel of nature.’
This remark caused his sister to look at him sharply.
‘What do you mean, nature?’ she said. ‘This isn’t natural, Alex. This is an attic, built by someone.’
‘Yes,’ replied her younger brother, giving her a significant look, ‘but by who?’
‘Whom,’ she corrected automatically, then could have bitten her tongue as Alex gave her a withering stare. ‘I mean, Alex …’
But he had turned his back to her.
Chloe’s heart sank once more. How could she tell him? How could she say it worried her that he thought the attic world was natural? Of course it worried her. It meant that Alex was becoming part of that world: another sign that he was beginning to fit in here, grow into this place. She shuddered when she thought of it. Her brother was changing into someone else. It wasn’t natural at all: it was entirely unnatural. She and Jordy had to get Alex out of here quickly, before he became that someone else completely.
‘Come on,’ Jordy cried, unaware of the tension and the negative atmosphere which had suddenly sprung up between Chloe and Alex like a chill breeze, ‘let’s find those bureaus.’
Chloe bit her tongue again. Bureaus. It should be bureaux.
The three of them traversed the edge of the great lake, which seemed to be square, for they reached a corner and on turning it, found what they were looking for: a vast forest of writing bureaux. They might have been dismayed by the sight, knowing that they had to find one particular bureau in this multitude, but they could see one brilliant bureau. On it were beautiful pictures of long-tailed birds and cliff crags with single trees gripping their ledges and one lovely snow-tipped mountain. But that wasn’t the reason they thought it brilliant. It was brilliant because it was painted with a crazed gold lacquer and – caught as it was in a shaft of sunlight – it dazzled as if it were made of real gold. In that huge and seemingly endless forest of writing bureaux this one called to them with its astounding beauty.
It had no branches, of course, but it had leaves. These leaves were quills sweeping from inkpots clustered on its shelves. Feathers of fresh-snow white. Other bureaux also had goose feathers sprouting from their inkpots, but not like these. Those on the golden bureau were of a purity which stopped your heart. These must surely have come from the wings of angels for they sang to you with their faultlessness. Not a drop of ink soiled them, not a speck of dust marred them. They were perfect in their whiteness, in their elegance, in their surety that they were hallowed feathers.
‘The map couldn’t be anywhere else,’ said Jordy, ‘could it?’
He hadn’t said where and they didn’t answer him. The other two knew what he meant and Jordy’s question was purely rhetorical.
Jordy then cried, ‘Well, come on – let’s go and get it.’
He ran into the forest before the others could stop him. They themselves hesitated to rush in with him. Both Chloe and Alex were mindful of the warnings they had received regarding the ink imps. They couldn’t actually see any of these creatures at that moment, but such warnings always had to be taken seriously in the attic.
And they were right not to follow him. Out of inkwells and inkpots standing on many of the bureaux came the ink imps. They were small liquid creatures only centimetres high but in the shape of men. Coloured they were: green, red, blue and black, according to the ink in the pots from which they had emerged. They left no marks where they skipped and danced over the floorboards. In their tiny hands they carried pens like spears, the brass nibs gleaming wickedly in the gilded attic light. On they came, in their tens, their hundreds, their thousands. These coloured demons swarmed over Jordy, who let out one cry of despair before being overwhelmed. Their weapons stabbed at his bare skin and exposed flesh relentlessly. He cried out in anger and pain.
‘We must help him,’ cried Chloe, looking round for a weapon. ‘Alex, we’ve got to help him.’
But there was nothing to hand. Alex too started forward, but then stopped again, fearful for his own life. There seemed to be millions of the horrible creatures, bearing down on Jordy, attempting to force him to the floor.
True to his determined nature, Jordy fought back at the vicious ink imps, who were now pinching his flesh with niblike claws. He flailed and raged at them, sending them flying in all directions. Struggling, with them hanging many-hued from his limbs and body, he fought to cover the distance between himself and the golden bureau. To the watchers it seemed a miracle that he was still on his feet with the sheer weight of numbers trying to topple him. But Jordy had a sportsman’s competitive nature. He was damned if he was going to go down: not without a terrible fight. Even as he staggered forward he picked handfuls of the ink imps from his body, flinging them away with force.
Some of them were thrown so hard they splattered against the bureaux from which they had emerged. Under such force their skins no longer held and contained them. They smacked into woodwork and metal and burst like ink-filled balloons. Red, green, blue and black ink dribbled down the sides, fronts and backs of the bureaux in a gory show of colour. This seemed to enrage even more those who remained. They crawled over Jordy’s body en masse, absolutely incensed with his actions. Some tried to reach his eyes, to attack them, to attempt to blind him. Jordy was quite aware of this change of tactics, for he covered his eyes with one hand, peering through the cracks between his fingers. With great effort he finally reached the golden bureau and fumbled around with the catch to open the front.
‘He’s doing it!’ cried Alex. ‘Go, Jordy, go.’
‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t get hurt,’ whispered Chloe. ‘Look
what they’re doing to him. He’ll be bruised all over.’
Nelson, who had been watching curiously, now dashed forward on his three legs and began attacking those funny little creatures which were scuttling over the boards. However, after the first two or three ink imps had burst in his claws, he loped slowly back to Chloe. Nelson was not fond of being showered with liquid of any kind, be it water or ink.
The bureau door dropped open, held up like a desktop by two side catches. Jordy’s free hand scrabbled around inside the opening. There were paperweights in there, and stamps for franking letters, and all sorts of paraphernalia. His searching hand worked like a spider among them, searching for that elusive chart of the attic. Finally his hands came upon a roll of parchment. He took it out, flipped it open, unrolling it. ‘A diploma,’ he yelled in frustration. ‘A bloody teaching diploma for some bloke called Potterswaite.’ Again his free hand went inside and all the while the ink imps nipped and tugged away at him, trying to get him to submit.
He found another roll of parchment. He clutched it. This time he could not unroll it with one hand because it was tightly bound with a red ribbon. They could see he dare not take his protective hand from his eyes and so he had to hope that this time he had the map in his hand. Jordy turned from the golden bureau and thrashed his way back towards the two who were waiting for him. Chloe rushed forward and began picking imps from his shoulders and flinging them into the bureaux forest. Alex, seeing her do this, followed suit. Together they snatched red and blue, green and black imps and cast them away.
Finally all three began running away, turning the corner, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the imps.
Unfortunately in doing so, Jordy tripped. The roll of parchment threatened to get away from him. In trying to retain it he fell heavily, his right arm underneath the full weight of his body. There was a ghastly crack from one of his bones. Jordy’s face went white with shock. He sat up looking dazed and sick. Holding forth his injured limb it seemed his forearm was fractured in the middle. There was a horrible sharp bump in the skin which was a sure sign of a broken bone trying to poke through. Jordy looked as if he were going to pass out, but he rallied, gritting his teeth.
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