“Wait Kabor, STOP!” pleaded Holly.
Gariff drew his pick. “I’m with ya, Cuz!” he said.
“No Kabor,” pleaded Bobbin. “There were six of us, plus there’s something in the water, that makes at least four of them, maybe more.”
“Then stay out of the damn water,” said Gariff.
The hags had finally grown tired of their ruse. Perhaps it was not quite working out the way they had hoped it would. The time had come to collect. Morbid playfulness at an end, the trio succumbed to their primal urges. In the battle that ensued, we found out that there is definitely more to hags than their old crone guise might suggest.
The hag in the grasses commanded the others. “Take ‘em all… down, down. Save the li’l children… we will, we will.” She looked directly to me. Her voice wilted. “Let me save you,” she said. “Down, down deep to the safe cool waters. I must save you, my child, my promise.”
That was all I could endure. The five of us clustered, standing back to back. The Stouts held their weapons defiantly. Bobbin brandished a butter knife. Holly picked up a stick.
I made a sideways glance at the quivering ball of flesh at my side, then at his utensil.
“Seriously?”
Bobbin shrugged.
I considered assembling my bow, but it would take too long to unhook from my pack, string, and then gather the arrows together. And I did not draw my knife as the boys had. Instead, it was the words of Fyorn that played back in my mind about the light of the stone, about the Hurlorns, and about the wise Elderkin. And how the Hurlorns had chosen me above all others for reasons even he did not understand. Was this to be the end the woodsman spoke of, as foreseen by trees? In my mind’s eye, Fyorn’s voice rationalized everything.
The Mark does nothing for the path ahead, but at the end is another journey waiting.
Those trees must know something we don’t.
So, I let things happen the way I thought they must have been meant to happen. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bog stone, the gift of the Hurlorns. I held it high, in full view of the crooked hag in the grasses. A spark of light flared bright for an instant, bright enough to be seen clearly by all. The light flashed and danced beneath the facets of the stone. I held the sparking stone in a manner so bold that anyone watching might have thought it to be a great weapon, and that it would flare up and strike the foul creature down. I truly believed it would do something. I believed in the mysterious power of a glowing hunk of ancient tree gum.
It flickered, as usual.
“Nud, what er ya doin’?” Gariff was baffled. “That won’t do anything.”
“Mine! All mine… MINE! I loses it!” cried the hag in the grasses as she dashed at me, reaching out for the stone. “My l’il one.”
Knives flashed and Gariff’s pick rose to halt her advance.
“I know what I’m doing,” I said.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Put that thing away and take out yer knife! Are you daft?” said Gariff.
“Throw it away!” said Holly.
The hag in the grasses erupted in a hoarse shriek: “Give it to me!” She shifted back and forth, her gaze ever on the crystal.
Then she looked me in the eye, her voice full of ridicule. “Listen, listen l’il pipses. Hear the children’s whispers, ya, ya. All the saved children like to whisper.”
I heard the whispers. My heart froze.
The parrot hag repeated the words stupidly: “All the children’s whispers.”
“What does she mean, Nud?” said Gariff.
“I don’t know,” I said. Really, I knew. We all knew, but we didn’t want to know.
The parrot hag and her hunched master crept closer, and once again the rushes betrayed the Shadow in the Water. My friends and I stood ready to fight in the middle of the trail. It was their move.
The hag in the grasses kept her distance at first, slithering to and fro and relaxing her stance. In a gentler tone, she began to speak. Her motherly tongue, forked as it might be, could have passed for reassuring. “Be a good l’il one… a good l’il one and give it to me… ya, ya. Save you I will. Save you from it. Your mother wants it. She asked me to tell you.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on a wish. Strike them down. I felt something, a surging energy. But there were no lightning bolts or blasts of magic arcing out from the electric spark in my stone, no matter how hard I tried, or thought I tried. The wind picked up, and in blew a gust so strong and concentrated that it rolled Gariff’s hat over, emptying its contents, and then sent the monstrosity soaring over the bog waters.
The hag in the grasses watched curiously as the hat flew, tracking where it landed in the far off rushes. Then she turned her stare to me.
That’s it? I wondered. My thoughts raced. The stone is powerless.
“You can have the pretty stone when you give Jory back to us,” I told her flatly, “and if you don’t leave us alone I’ll smash it to pieces. SMASH IT!… I will, I will. Do you HEAR ME? I’ll smash your l’il one.” I posed as if to throw it against a half-buried stone.
In a dance full of anguish, the hunched-in hag squirmed and writhed. “Them’s lies to us… them’s liars! LIARS!” she said to the parrot hag.
“Bad l’il ones. Bad children! Bad! BAD!” added her mimicking companion.
“Give them’s one more chance,” commanded the hag in the grasses. “Look into the heart of it… Tell us l’il ones, tell us what you see? Heh?… speak up. SPEAK UP!” She choked on a glob of phlegm, then wretched it up and expelled it into the moss.
I held the stone at eye level and stared into it, just like she asked. I don’t know why I did it. The flashing was hypnotic, entrancing – just like that first day at the creek. Except this time, I remembered everything I saw. Tall grey towers rose against a grey cliff, and gargantuan trees grew beside them. Their topmost branches swayed in the breeze hundreds of feet above in a cool, starry sky. I drifted up into those branches. My ears filled with the familiar whisper of rustling leaves. The sound rose to a dull roar as the wind picked up, stronger and louder.
I don’t know exactly how much time went by, but when I finally came to, all was in chaos. I felt Kabor’s hand pushing at me. He had wedged himself between me and the hag in the grasses. The hag had me in her grips, but Kabor got between us, stabbing at her arms with his knife.
The rest had scattered by then. I lost track of their battles.
Kabor and I struggled against the hag in charge, with me in her clutches. The Stout whipped around and tried to pull me free. I became the rope in a deadly game of tug-of-war. A break finally came – as Kabor pulled I lurched forward and stumbled towards him, free at last.
I glanced up the trail in time to see a fallen hag push herself to her feet, then pull a long, pointed stick out of her belly. The disturbing sight caused me to miss a beat in my own battle. I just stood there and watched, half-dazed, as the two hags up ahead – including the wounded one – took chase after Gariff, Holly and Bobbin. They moved with sudden and unnatural bursts of speed, stopping momentarily between leaps to look at one another. The parrot hag sought constant approval from her master.
Our part of the skirmish was not going well. The hag in the grasses was quicker than she looked for one so old and decrepit, and she could lash out at a distance. She snagged me and Kabor with vine-like tendrils. I fell into her entangling arms. Her rancid breath smelled like the bottom of the bog.
“Down now children, down we go,” she whispered, “down to safety, down to rest.”
Kabor and I kicked, and screamed, and bit to no avail. Kabor tried to slash the hag, but she held his arm firm. He managed to switch hands on the knife and swiped at the tendrils. But her tendrils were slippery, wood-strong, and tightly wound. It wasn’t working. The hag had overtaken us. She dragged us knee deep into the bog waters.
Kabor kept the fight up and cut one tendril away. I wriggled an arm free, drew my knife, and stabbed her firmly in the shoulder. Her flesh was so
ft and unnatural. Still, she would not let go, so I cursed and stabbed the vicious witch repeatedly. Black liquid oozed out of every slit, but the wounds did little to impede her. The tendril roots and grasses that were somehow a part of her shot out repeatedly to twist around our limbs and trunks. I cut at them, but there were always more. They twisted together, tough as rope.
The worst was yet to come. That hag opened her mouth wide and even her tongue lashed out. It wrapped around my neck. My knife dropped, and with my free hands I did all I could to keep her leash from choking me.
With the two of us fully in her grips, the hag proceeded to drag us under. She was too strong to resist, an unsurpassed wiry strength. I looked to the others, half-expecting – fully hoping – to see Gariff charging to our rescue. But all I beheld was his entangled, sturdy bulk being pulled under as we were being pulled under. Both hags had bypassed the lumbering Bobbin to secure the faster prey. Holly screamed. I could not see where she was.
“Play dead,” I whispered to Kabor, just before drawing my last breath. By his eyes I could see he thought I was mad. “Just do it and wait for my signal.”
Down we went under the mosses; down into a cold, deep pool.
CHAPTER XXI
Queen of the garden under
So I let myself slip, deeper and deeper down the watery path to doom’s end. I gave myself wholly to the woman in the bog and accepted the bitterness of defeat. There was no denying her victory. The hag’s relentless grip and that twisty strength of hers is what caught me off-guard. Her tendrils not only held us firm, they latched onto debris at the bottom of the water pocket and pulled her along. She would have her way and I, Nud Leatherleaf, aspiring diplomat, seemed destined to adorn her cursed garden and roll with the bones of children from long ago – the lost innocents of Fortune Bay. I was to be her thing to put on display.
In return for giving in, she was to leave me there, alone, and not spend too many precious seconds lingering about in admiration of her prize decorations. That was the secret deal that I made with her.
A deathly chill engulfed me as we crossed into a layer of icy water and descended into a hidden drop-off. I bit my lip and tried hard not to flinch. She had to believe that I had drowned.
You don’t have the right, you stupid hag. A voice echoed from within, from behind my brow.
“Wait,” it told me.
The voice was reassuring. The voice was Paplov’s.
As far as I could tell, Kabor had followed my lead. He was holding up well, for a Stout. That or he had already drowned. Kabor’s chest had barely puffed out at all when he tried to imitate plump Bobbin – a less than encouraging sign.
The hag kept on with her undertaking, oblivious to my machinations.
Paplov’s calm voice resounded again in my mind. “The moment will come.”
Then something unexpected happened.
I felt a sharp tug forward, then a pause as the ropey tendrils slackened. Soon after came another tug. I bided my time. She’s testing my resolve, I thought. It was the same way I might test a fishing line to see if the catch was still there, gauging the creature’s will to survive by the fight left in it. I pulled back the next time, trying my best to imitate that last feeble trace of desperate resistance. I played the hooked fish, except I was baiting her instead of the other way around.
After a little more fight, just for show, I gave in and allowed myself to drift. The hag seemed satisfied enough with the performance. She even let loose her grip a little. The depth of water pressed against my ears.
I could break free, I thought. Pips are built for speed and quick dekes, and are semi-aquatic. I definitely could out-swim a blundering old woman, especially in an open stretch.
But I owed it to Kabor to stick it out.
I wanted to breathe, already, at only twenty counts. Nerves, I think. My record was one hundred and ten.
The hag crept farther into the hole, dragging us deeper than I had imagined possible anywhere in the bog lands, except perhaps Everdeep Hole. The pressure in my ears mounted. For Kabor, it would be worse. Our bodies bumped together as we were towed. I didn’t feel him kicking or moving at all. Then again, he wasn’t supposed to… not yet.
The hag changed course, abruptly, and sped up. She began to move sideways. My arm clipped something – a stump at the bottom of the hole. I half opened one eye as I skipped and spun along the bottom, stirring up mud and debris. I had counted to thirty in the time it took for the hag to bring us all the way down. At most, Kabor would have that much endurance in him again to spare.
I spotted the “garden” – not much of a garden at all; shallow mounds set within a ring of long-spears. Someone should have told the old woman that gardens are for living things. In hers, decaying things, long dead, drifted from the ends of sharpened poles. One pole skewered an oddly familiar, dark round mass, wrapped in reeds.
Still, Kabor had not flinched.
The hag slowed her pace, wrapped her tendrils around the bases of several posts, and carefully glided through the pike barrier. She coasted to a halt in the centre of the garden and set us down on the muddy bottom. The wood in my pack kept me floating back up. The hag kept a tendril on me at all times to force me down.
The Queen of the Garden Under never thought twice about the act of drowning us. Still, there seemed to be some hint of affection in the way she went about her gruesome task: the way she so delicately wrapped me in braided rushes like a spider wraps its tender prey in silk. And the way she so gently stroked my hair away from my forehead, like a mother might, to fully appreciate the precious face of her sleeping child. Kabor’s death shroud was next.
To the hag, we were more than mere showpieces. We were her emotional treasures, to cherish and protect until the end of days. Nearly forty-five counts had passed and the hag had not yet honored our secret deal. She wasn’t about to leave us alone any time soon. Worse, she started feeling at my pockets as she hoisted me up and floated me over the garden ring. What a lovely beacon my stone would make, flashing at the bottom of the bog for all eternity, a last sight for future victims.
It was Kabor’s swift action that set us on our way. His reflexes bordered on precognition. I had just then gained my water lungs and comfortably suppressed the urge to breathe. All the while, the Stout had drifted death-like, just out of my reach, and loosely tethered to a pole. The time had come to make our move.
So when the hag’s rearranging brought me close to Kabor, I thought to grope for an arm or a leg. But before even laying a hand on him, he sprung to life.
Something else stirred as well. The spiked round mass stuck to a pole began to quiver. Legs shot out, fan-like in all directions. Kabor shot upwards as the central mass of the dark ball spun about its axis. I had seen the thing before. Somehow, the hag had acquired Fyorn’s spider – the prize attraction in her gruesome collection. And somehow, it was still alive.
Fear. Panic. I shot upwards after Kabor, kicking the hag square in the face. My braided bounds quickly became undone. Kabor tore at his bindings and set them adrift as he wriggled upwards. The hag batted at the spoiled ropes falling around her, hand over one eye. She let out an electrifying screech.
Barely into our escape, I felt a tremor in the water – the wake of the Shadow’s passing. I caught sight of the tail of the hulking creature as it disappeared into the darkness.
The Shadow in the Water must have circled round, out of sight. It came back at us like a blur out of nowhere, crossing above and stifling our ascent. Then it swam out of sight again. The hag gained water on us in that moment, and her groping tendrils caught my ankle. Kabor was already snagged.
As we succumbed to her grip once more, the Shadow maneuvered to make a third advance, this time angled from below. Suddenly there was turbulence and mayhem, thrashing and swirling water. I was thrust aside. The Shadow had something in its jaws. “Kabor!” I screamed into the depths.
Then a muted wail of anguish reverberated through the water. I was released, flipped head ove
r heels.
The Shadow had taken the wrong prey and disappeared into the inky depths. I felt for Kabor. He was with me.
But which way was up? I had lost track of time and direction. In the confusion, I went still for a moment and just let myself drift. The buoyancy of my backpack pointed the way, and off we went.
The two of us barreled straight into a mass of ropey vines. Although not fixed to anything solid, the vines were so entangled with one another that they opposed our every move, wrapping around arms and legs. I pushed up, at least I thought it was up, but it might have been sideways.
Nearly out of breath, I finally broke through to the surface. It was dark. I gulped at the air, foul air. It tasted bitter on the tongue, dank and decayed. But it was life.
Kabor should have been right behind me. Heavy breaths pulsed through the silence. My heart pounded. He’s not coming up. I shook my head. Beaten, I removed my pack and tossed it to the dark shore. Maybe there was still time. Maybe.
Down into the tangles I dove, groping about frantically in complete darkness. I searched the water column around me, end to end and through and through.
Half a minute later, my leg brushed against what felt like a hand in the weeds. It was. I grabbed on and pulled, but there was no life pulling back. Kabor’s limp body was caught in the tangles. I twisted, jolted and finally yanked him out, then dragged him to the surface, and to shore.
Exhausted, I laid my best friends’ cousin on the cave floor. I fumbled in the darkness to find his chest. No rise, no fall. Nothing. I felt for his face, plugged his nose and gave him two short breaths. I pushed down on his chest fast, repeatedly, to jumpstart his breathing. Nothing. I kept at it. Nothing. With every last bit of strength, I raised my fist up high and belted it down on Kabor.
I heard the spurt of water first; then coughing and a gasp for air. A long moment passed, and the Stout sucked in a single divine breath. He rolled over onto his stomach, retching. He was alive.
CHAPTER XXII
SPARX Incarnation: Mark of the Green Dragon (SPARX Series I Book 1) Page 17
