by V M Jones
The faces of my friends drifted through my dreams. Gen the way she used to look, a princess in disguise: knobbly nose, jug ears, straggly hair awry. Jamie, pink-faced and earnest, puffed-up as a marshmallow and just as soft inside. Kenta, quiet as a mouse, fierce as a tiger. Rich, with his swagger and sheepish grin. Even old Blue-bum — the real one — bright eyes, monkey-tail, blue behind and all. Words, voices, snatches of remembered laughter …
I’ll go first; I’m bigger, and stronger …
My feet are hurting, and I’m hungry …
It seems so unkind … not like you at all …
It was a dream, wasn’t it? Only a dream …
My eyes snapped open. Only a dream …
Wait up, guys — wait up!
The mist had thickened: it was dense and smothering, echoes of my dreams still tangled in it. Stupid with sleep, I struggled to one elbow, peering into the swirling whiteness. My mind was tricking me like it had in the Singing Swamp. I groped with clumsy fingers for my larigot, fumbling with the strap of my pack, desperate to block the ebb and flow of the voices, now louder, now softer, harder and harder to ignore.
I say we stay where we are till this mist clears … Richard’s voice, so matter-of-fact and real I could almost reach out and touch him.
We should go on … he’ll be looking for us …
I can hardly see a thing …
What if we get lost?
We’re already lost!
Already lost … already lost …
I hardened my heart and closed my ears, put the larigot to my lips and began to play. At once its song filled my head and the lure of the voices retreated. The familiar spell wove round me, soothing and protecting …
‘Adam? Adam!’
Jamie was blundering towards me out of the whiteness, his chubby face one massive beam, with Rich and the girls panting at his heels and Blue-bum lolloping behind. The larigot dropped from my numb fingers and tumbled to the ground. I goggled at them open-mouthed.
‘Trust you to sit there playing that darn whistle while we yell ourselves hoarse hunting for you!’ growled Rich with a fearsome scowl — and then the frown crumpled and for the first, last and only time, tough-guy Richard burst into tears.
‘I still don’t believe you’re real,’ I said for what felt like the zillionth time.
‘Oh, we’re real all right,’ said Rich cheerfully, tossing another log on the fire. ‘Though I have to say there were times I didn’t think we’d make it. It was all thanks to Kai, of course — I just wish there was some way of letting him know we’ve found you and you’re OK.’
Kai had left the others as soon as he knew they were safe, and headed back to Arakesh to prepare the way. ‘Though none of us has the faintest inkling what he meant — it was all super-secret Believer stuff you see,’ Jamie confided.
‘He wanted us to go with him, but we knew you’d try to get back to Karazan,’ said Gen.
‘And when you did, the first thing you’d do would be look for us — and the first place you’d look would be the Stronghold of Arraz,’ said Kenta.
‘If there’s anything left of it,’ grinned Rich. ‘So that’s where we were heading when we heard your penny whistle. Back into the frying-pan, I suppose you could say. But I bet you’re wondering how we got out of Arraz in the first place, and then all the way down here. I guess we’ve kept you in suspense long enough. So if you’re sure you’ve had enough to eat, settle down and pin back your ears, and I’ll tell you the whole story …’
Out of the frying pan
One minute Adam and King Karazeel were silhouetted against the glow of the computer screen; the next they were gone.
Rich stared through the bars of the cage, sick to his stomach. He didn’t know which was worse — Kai betraying them, or Adam being idiot enough to trust him.
The plan had been for Adam to volunteer to be the Mauler’s first course, but with his Swiss army knife stashed away in his pocket. Once he was clear of the cage he’d make a sudden lunge for Karazeel and get him in a stranglehold, the knife at his throat. Then they’d have the so-called King of Karazan as hostage, and they’d be calling all the shots.
But then Kai had snuck in and somehow tricked Adam into telling him stuff … stuff Rich would need a few quiet moments to get his head around. Q as a ‘lord of creation’ was hard to swallow if you actually knew him, but kind of made sense if you were a power-crazed nutter from Karazan; but Kai had got the wrong end of the stick about the plasma globe. It wasn’t the ‘source of skyfire’, at least as far as Richard knew — so why had Adam said it was?
He scratched his head. Something didn’t quite add up …
‘And now,’ hissed Evor, ‘I am ready for a little entertainment. The Mauler’s patience is wearing thin, and there are five of you, after all. Who shall it be?’
The toad was staring fixedly at the cage, ropes of drool swinging from its jaws. Its haunches tensed for another leap; then it shuffled forward slightly and subsided again, panting.
Suddenly Rich’s blood froze. The metal retainer embedded in the wall had pulled loose. Before, it had been fastened at all four corners; now, after the Mauler’s frenzied leaps, it was held only by a single bolt — and even that was hanging by a thread. Rich was suddenly glad of the sturdy bars separating them from the toad. It would take only one tiny thing to set it off, and this time he wouldn’t put money on Kai being able to control it, Keeper or not.
Rich looked uneasily across at Kai — and frowned. Kai had moved behind Evor and was standing very close to him, his trident poised and an expression Rich had never seen before on his face … almost as if he was psyching himself up for something. Evor’s attention was fixed on the cage, leering from one face to another, rubbing his hands and muttering to himself.
Without warning the world began to shake. It started as a trembling Rich thought came from somewhere inside himself — fear, he supposed, though it wasn’t something he’d often felt before. But within seconds it had grown to a shuddering vibration that made Rich grab onto the bars for support, and Jamie give a wail of terror.
It’s Adam, Rich knew instantly. He’s made this happen, somehow. He must have had another plan —
And then the Mauler leapt.
With a roar of rage it flung itself towards the cage, the shackle tearing from the wall as if it was made of paper. The mass of muscle and blubber arced across the room in a single gigantic leap, knocking Evor aside and smashing into the cage halfway up with an impact like a freight train. The cage tipped and swivelled, the front edge of its circular rim lifting clean off the floor. For an endless moment the cage teetered in the balance, the children cowering under it, staring up at the massive structure suspended above them with the toad spread-eagled on its bars. Then the creature’s back legs gave another jerking spasm and the cage fell backwards, to crash onto its side on the stone-flagged floor with the Mauler half-crushed behind it.
Evor sprawled on the floor — the toad lying stunned — the air ringing with the vibration of the falling cage — the world jack-hammering … and then Kai’s frantic shout brought Rich to his senses: ‘Quick — run!’
One glance at Kai’s face, and Rich knew. ‘He’s with us — follow him!’ he yelled, grabbing the others and dragging them towards the open lift, staggering to keep his feet against the dizzying sway of the tower. ‘Get in — quick!’
A shove, they were all in, Kai bringing up the rear. He pressed his palm to a recessed panel set into the wall and the curved double doors slid smoothly shut. Just before they closed Rich caught a glimpse of the Mauler struggling to its feet, slavering as it squeezed its bulk past the cage and across the floor towards Evor.
Then the doors snicked to and the lift started its descent. But it wasn’t a smooth, controlled fall; it was a series of hitching, hiccupping drops, jarring first against one wall of the shaft, then against the other as the tower swayed from side to side. Who cares? thought Rich. At least we’re out of there. Things can’t get any w
orse.
He was wrong.
There was a CRACK, as if the core of the universe had snapped. A nanosecond later came a sonic BOOM as the massive computer above them exploded. The steel cable snapped like a strand of cotton, the shock wave from the explosion blasting the lift down the shaft like a bullet down the barrel of a gun. Gravity turned head-over-heels: bodies flew upwards, arms and legs flailing, heads colliding with the roof. Time froze in an instant of terror so pure it was almost holy. An image of his pet mice flashed into Rich’s brain, part-touch, part-smell — a jigsaw-puzzle tangle of softness and sawdusty silken sweetness. Who will look after them now?
Before the thought had time to form the lift hit the bottom of the shaft. There was no pain: just crippling deceleration, shock, and roaring emptiness. Spread-eagled on the floor, Rich felt a drifting sense of wonder. Dying isn’t so bad after all, he thought with mild surprise. What’s everyone so worried about?
Then, in hops and jerks, his thoughts began to catch up with themselves. He was aware of a rushing sound … a bulging in his eardrums … a darkness blacker than night — deeper surely than death could ever be. Groggily he lifted his head.
‘Water,’ croaked Jamie’s voice beside him.
The lift hadn’t smashed onto bedrock; it had hit water. The realisation surfaced in Rich’s mind with a whoosh of relief — and at the same moment the lift itself burst out of the water with an answering WHOOSH like a breaching whale, bobbed up and down, and then settled on its back, rocking gently to and fro.
‘So there we were,’ said Rich with relish, ‘floating along on a sub … sub …’
‘Subterranean,’ prompted Jamie.
‘Yeah, a sub-whatsit cave under the Stronghold of Arraz, with no clue what to do next.’
‘But then Kai opened the doors of the lift,’ chipped in Kenta, ‘and it was like being in a little boat …’
‘And best of all, we could see! And you’ll never guess what we did see,’ said Gen.
‘Glow-worms!’ supplied Jamie triumphantly. ‘Millions of them, all over the roof and walls of the cave.’
‘Like tiny stars. It was like being in a fairy grotto.’
‘Though actually I think it was an underground aquifer,’ Jamie amended, with an apologetic glance at Gen. ‘More of a tunnel than a cave, with a current that drifted us along, on and on …’
‘And all the time, above us, the rock was rumbling, and we were expecting that any moment the whole mountain would fall on top of us …’
‘But it didn’t,’ said Rich with a grin.
‘Is it getting lighter,’ Gen asked, ‘or is it my imagination?’
It was lighter, Rich realised; and something else was different. The water, which had been so still, was rippled with tiny corrugations that were slapping against the flat front of the lift-boat with a rhythmic lapping sound. And there was another sound, far off in the distance, amplified by the rock walls: a hollow booming.
‘Whatever that is,’ whispered Jamie uneasily, ‘I have a hunch we’re not going to like it.’
The boat bobbed on, and the sound grew till it filled the tunnel with a roar that made the air tremble. The little boat was frisking about on the water now, lilting and bouncing cheerfully as it drifted faster …
It skipped round a bend and they saw it: the exit from the caves. Horror wound icy fingers round Rich’s heart. The underground river had carried them right under the mountain range but the way out was blocked by a wall of water. It was the same waterfall they’d crossed on Rainbow Bridge, but now they were beneath it. From far above, the roar of the falls had been deafening, the spray a blinding mist that obscured the far bank; from below, it was a thundering devil’s cataract Rich knew meant certain death.
It was way too late to turn back. Already the little craft was accelerating towards the swirling eddies at the edge of the cascade. It would fill the boat in less than a second; sink it without a trace. Rich knew what happened to people trapped under falls like this: currents kept you churning round as helplessly as clothes in a washing machine; it could be hours before you resurfaced, if you ever did. And by then …
Sorry, Adam, he thought numbly. We did our best, but it looks like the River Ravven’s won.
Then Kai was screaming in his face, his words drowned by the roar of the water — but Rich could read his lips, his frantic hand-signals: ‘Down! DOWN!’
Rich spun and threw himself onto the others, dragging them face-down onto the metal floor, screaming along with Kai, whether aloud or in his mind there was no way of telling: DOWN! DOWN!
At long, long last — black and blue with bruises, green with dizzying nausea — they felt the tiny airtight capsule bob to the surface, still spinning and corkscrewing wildly, and hobble and bobble into calmer waters. They lay half-dead, retching and groaning and gasping for breath in the stifling dark. At last, with a wordless croak, Kai fumbled for the panel and the doors slid open.
Rich raised his head drunkenly. The world whirled, then tipped and steadied.
They were cruising sedately along in the centre of the river. Rich peered cautiously over the side. Here and there tiny translucent spiders scrabbled momentarily at the shiny steel sides of the little craft, then swirled helplessly away.
In the distance was a pale ribbon of falling foam, framed on either side by the bush-clad slopes of the gorge. Above it, the sky was washed in a strange red glow.
Rich sucked in a deep, grateful draught of fresh night air … then frowned. The air should have been fresh and clean, but it wasn’t. It was dark, so it must be night — but it wasn’t.
They’d made it out safely, against all the odds. So everything was fine — or would be, once they drifted to the bank and made their way back to Adam. Yes, everything was fine.
Except in his heart he knew it wasn’t.
Salt tears and broken hearts
‘You’re right,’ I said bleakly. ‘It’s anything but fine.’
And slowly, haltingly, I told my story.
They listened in silence. Though I knew we were completely alone, I found myself lowering my voice almost to a whisper, as if the swirling mist might have ears; glancing up, it was easy to imagine faint shapes drifting like grey ghosts in the whiteness.
Once I’d finished, Jamie was first to speak. ‘Well, one thing’s obvious: our top priority is to find Zenith. When twain is one and one is twain, wind blows and sun shines forth again … that can only mean one thing: the two of you need to be together again for everything to get back to normal.’
‘Yes, for once it’s crystal clear,’ agreed Gen. ‘Maybe you won’t even have to do anything else, just find him.’
‘Just,’ said Rich with gloomy emphasis. ‘I can’t believe Meirion wouldn’t simply tell you where he left him. He must know, surely?’
‘It was couldn’t, not wouldn’t. He said that in Karazan the path to the truth is crooked and hard to find, and though he could point the way, I must get there on my own. And then he went into a kind of trance … it’s hard to explain.’ I looked at Rich’s scowling face and knew it would be a waste of breath to even try. He saw things simply, in black and white; the shifting sands of my strange conversation with the prophet mage had more to do with images than words.
‘Well,’ said Jamie, ‘even though what he said was cryptic, we have to assume he gave you all the information you need to find Zenith. In which case …’
‘We need go over exactly what he said, and see where it leads us,’ said Gen, sitting up straighter. The familiar sparkle was back in her eyes, and I felt a rush of hope. This was what I’d thought would never happen again. The others were here; we were together. Even Blue-bum. He peeped up at me with his bright button eyes, and gave an encouraging chitter.
‘OK then,’ I said, frowning with concentration. ‘First of all, he said we — I — would find things on the way, some useful, some not. He said we already have some of them —’
‘Like Zaronel’s diary and the cylinder!’ interrupted Jam
ie. ‘Do we have anything else?’
‘There’s this, I suppose.’ Rather doubtfully, I produced the small green mosaic I’d found in the grass in the Summer Palace. ‘But it’s just a bit of mosaic from the pool.’
‘It’s beautiful!’ said Gen. ‘Can I see it?’ I handed it over, and she frowned. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Adam. It has that tingle … Suppose it is precious, magical in some way, and someone dropped it …’
‘It could have lain there for years,’ agreed Jamie earnestly, ‘just waiting for the right person to come along and pick it up.’
‘Or it could just be a bit of stuff from the wall of the pool, like you said,’ grinned Rich, tossing it from hand to hand. ‘I don’t feel any tingle, Gen.’ He handed it back. ‘Carry on, Adam.’
‘He said that he carried the second-born to the east, and left him in safe hands. A cradle-craft sets sail for Limbo; in those lost lands I left him.’
‘So,’ said Jamie, ‘Limbo is a place, and you have to get there by boat.’
‘Which makes sense when you consider that our map of Karazan shows nothing to the east but sea,’ said Kenta.
‘Maybe if we get back into our lift-boat and set off eastwards, the map will magically extend to show where we were going — and bingo! There will be Limbo, large as life,’ said Rich hopefully.
‘Yes — and maybe not,’ replied Jamie with a dark look. ‘Go on, Adam, what else did he say?’
‘He said … he said …’ I was battling to separate the words from the images. What had actually been said? Had there been any words at all? ‘The birds of the air will point the way …’
‘Yes?’ prompted Kenta.
‘And there was something to do with moons, the twin moons of Karazan rising together and balancing the heavens …’
‘That’s real helpful, I must say,’ muttered Rich.
‘And look for grey smoke on a grey horizon.’
‘Well, there’s no shortage of grey horizons.’
