The Ega slid the bolt into the crossbow’s furrow and hefted the weapon to his shoulder. Sighting down the long shaft, he fired. The bolt leapt from the string like a lover to his lady’s bed. The Ega continued to stare down the sights of the bow, watching the bolt as it flew straight and true,totally missing its target.
That was impossible. He aimed another bolt at a squirrel in a tree, a few hundred yards away. It didn’t even know what had hit it as the bolt skewered it to the bark. That ruled out the sights being faulty.
If the sights were not faulty, then why did he keep missing? The Ega looked at his surroundings with his diamond eyes. He was in a forest and something was protecting the little girl. Something was protecting her, and it had a vested interest in her quest. It must be one of the Bestia Sancta. The bloody Cat, he guessed.
Magic like that might be able to deflect objects, but he doubted it would stop a knife in his hands.
There could be no escape. Wherever the pair fled, the Ega would follow.
~
The sounds of Lucy’s pursuer closed in on her—the heavy dry snap of twigs beneath his boots and the rustle, crash of him forcing his way through the undergrowth. She had only just caught a glimpse of the attacker as she fled, but she would never forget it, long and thin like a slice taken from a stone. Gaunt and chiselled, it had stared at her with hazy blue eyes, burning with an internal fire. A cold, grey halo of dirty locks had framed the hard face under a wide-brimmed hat. She was sure this was the shadow which had materialised and attacked the wizard Bechet.
Talbot was just in front of her and losing ground to her with each step. His strong goat legs pumped mercilessly, but he wasn’t designed for speed, endurance possibly but not speed.
The Ega, on the other hand, was gaining ground on both, getting closer and closer.
She couldn’t continue at this pace for much longer. A stitch was already in her left flank, stabbing a constant pulse of pain into every jolting movement she made. Her stomach felt as if she were carrying extra water in it. It sloshed and slew from side to side as she ran. A dull gnawing pain burned like fuse-wire in her calves.
Conscience wasn’t helping at all as he sat in her mind gibbering with terror.
The Ega! The Ega! The greatest hunter ever born, on our trail now. We’ll never out run him. Never! Never!
Shut up, will you?
No, no! You don’t understand, he whimpered. It’s the Ega! You might as well stop running. Nothing ever escapes the Ega. I know stories about him. They say he wasn’t born. They say he was created. They say he came in from the outside. They say he came to hunt and kill.
Conscience, who are the “they” who say this?
They? he said, making it up. They are the people who know about these things. He kills for money; he’s a sort of hired gun…crossbow. Once he’s set on something he never misses.
He missed me, she thought with some pride.
I don’t think he’s finished yet, quivered Conscience.
Lucy breathed out slowly, trying to regulate her air flow and halt the stitch as it climbed, like a barbed spider, up her side. She could see the trees thinning ahead of her. As she cleared the last tree she saw the great chasm. There was only one way across its hundred-foot span, a very out-of-condition rope bridge, and that wasn’t the worst of it. The declivitous sides dropped fifty feet to the abyss’ unyielding, rock floor, and that wasn’t the worst of it either. Razor-sharp crystals clung the canyon’s sides. They would cut, cutting any unwary faller into nice, bite-sized pieces, and that still wasn’t the worst of it. At the gorge’s bottom, she could see some things, some living things. Beasts, that was the worst of it.
A writhing carpet of pink flesh and teeth surged from the chasm’s depths. It appeared natural selection had taken a brief, but decisive holiday, when the creatures had been made. Many had tentacles. Most had eyes. All of them seemed carnivorous and all of them had teeth. Canines and molars protruded from jaw lines and foreheads. Eyes sat on stalks, in tongues or, occasionally, on either side of noses. The creatures let up a raucous din of mewling, barking and snarling.
“What the flip is that?” asked Lucy, pointing at one disgusting thing that looked like a twelve-foot pelican, if a twelve-foot pelican were bald, covered in weeping sores and spikes.
“I don’t know what it is. I don’t care what it is. All I know is, we have to cross this now, before the Ega catches up with us,” said the faun, in grounded stoicism.
He placed one hoof on the rickety bridge, clutched the rope handrail and edged his way across, without looking down.
Lucy, never afraid of heights, always joked that it wasn’t the falling which would kill you; it was the hitting the ground that did that. Suddenly, the joke didn’t seem so funny, maybe people with vertigo had a point. In trepidation, she stepped onto the bridge and wasn’t happy when the wooden slat bent under her weight.
Please don’t look down; I don’t think I could take it, mewled Conscience.
She placed one foot in front of the other and began to, gingerly, cross, focusing on Talbot ahead of her. He seemed to be crossing at a sensible pace, not too quick and not too slow. She tried to keep the same steady pace as him. When he took a step, she took one. The wooden slats creaked under her, but none of them gave way. Some of the slats were missing, but not two in a row, and she could easily step over the gap. Talbot stepped, and she stepped in unison; quickly finding she had crossed over half the distance.
The motion of their footsteps, in stolid, clear headed, not-giving-into-vertigo camaraderie, caused the bridge to rock. It was hardly noticeable at first but, just over half way across they swayed a good foot in either direction.
We’re lurching! We’re lurching…and we’re gonna fall. I know we’re gonna fall!
Shut up, Conscience. We’ll be fine as long as the wind doesn’t pick up.
The wind picked up. Talbot had the best sense of hearing, and he shouted at her.
“Hold on!”
“What for?” she asked, still in blissful ignorance.
Err…what’s that noise? asked Conscience.
What noise?
The noise that sounds like a large gust of wind blowing down a canyon?
Lucy barely had time to wrap the rope rail around her wrist, before the wind buffeted the bridge, pushing it four feet to the right. The horizon drastically tilted to the left, and she held herself rigid between the wooden slats and the rope handrail. The world bubbled and screamed in a cocktail of terror and howling wind. Her stomach muscles tensed; her arms burned as she fought to keep herself suspended above the chasm and the chittering, howling monsters, which writhed and boiled below her. The gust died down, but the bridge was still twisted with only Talbot and her holding it in place. Lucy pulled with her forearms, trying to right the bridge as she eyed the squalling creatures at the bottom of the cleft. She pulled with everything she had but the bridge wouldn’t move. Tears of pain and fear rolled down her cheeks, plummeting into the maws of the waiting monstrosities below. They gathered around her, studying her, smelling her fear like the pungent aroma of freshly baked bread. The thousand unnatural horrors below her mewled and squalled, was a cacophony of the damned.
The pink writhing flesh of the creatures made her think of babies lost and burned in hell. She closed her eyes and pulled; she had no choice.
Her arms ached as if someone had lit gun powder in them, but the bridge finally righted itself. Lucy collapsed on the slats her arms still locked around the rope support rail. Tears streamed from her closed eyes. She breathed out, in weighted gushes of air, and opened her eyes a crack. She was still alive.
Let’s never do that again, said Conscience, in a voice that sounded as if he had just thrown up.
She was too shocked to reply, even in her own head. She wasn’t going to be moving for a while. Her crying increased; she was alive! Then the voice came across the thin air, like the footstep of doom.
“Hey, little girl.”
A dry, dusty
, dead voice, like the sound of scraping coffin lids, came from the direction she and Talbot had fled. It was also so very, very close.
Lucy could feel the man’s footsteps, heavy and hard, coming through the slats like aftershocks. She couldn’t move, not yet. Her breath still came in ragged gasps, and her arms shook with exhaustion. Her tears flowed again, and tattered sobs erupted from her. Her mind was still reeling from the sights she had seen, from the monsters who snapped and barked below. She couldn’t do it. It was too hard. Too much was expected of her. She wanted to bury her head under the crux of her arm and hope the world would go away.
“Lucy! Come on,” shouted Talbot in front of her. She looked up at him. His eyes were wide and focused on her assailant as the killer strode ever closer.
Lucy, said Conscience, in a voice that was far too calm to be sane. The Ega is behind us and is coming to kill you. Do you think that sitting here and waiting for him is the best course of action?
The footsteps drew closer. Maybe only five or ten slats away. A thudding death knell as death came to collect.
If you have a plan, now is the time to share it.
Something clicked in her mind. She had thought of a plan. It was a stupid plan which probably wouldn’t work, but she didn’t have a choice. She checked that Talbot still had the side rail wrapped around his wrist.
She reached into her pocket and grabbed the small knife she’d been carrying.
What are you doing? asked Conscience, his voice dripping with insanity.
“What are you doing?” asked the Ega in his dry hiss, which sounded like a retreating tide.
She reached up and sawed at the thick rope handrail. Strands of rope frizzled away into twanging, broken chords. She heard the footsteps of the Ega’s footsteps quickened in pace as he tried to reach her.
It was too late. His running was the last straw for the bridge. With a final, wrenching, snap the rail gave way. The bridge tipped, sickeningly, to the left, twisting her world once again.
Then, it broke in the middle leaving Lucy and Talbot swinging from one side of it.
The Ega, was caught unaware. She heard him fall, his sickening yowl disappearing into the twisted barks of the creatures at the bottom of the abyss.
The half of the bridge Lucy was attached to swung in a low arc to the chasm’s far side. It hit with a bone-breaking smack, and the wind was knocked out of her. She spun lazily from her tied wrist, like a bundled fly in a cobweb. Talbot was only a few feet above, also dangling by his wrist.
This is your plan? Conscience was mortified.
I didn’t have a lot of options.
Talbot unhooked his wrist and climbed up the slats. The muscles in his shoulders bunched and flexed with the effort.
He’s just going to leave us to dangle? Conscience’s voice, already on the surrealist side of sanity, raised another octave.
Talbot’s probably got a plan, she thought, hoping that he had.
The faun climbed, hand over hand, with incredible speed. Lucy could hardly believe the pace at which he covered the forty feet to the top. Once there he disappeared from view, slithering up to safety.
See? He’s run off and left us. Now what are we going to do?
Well, what would you like me to do? she snapped.
Pardon? he replied, in surprise.
Since you seem to be so good at criticising everything I do, I want to know what your suggestion is, I am dangling, alone, above a large drop, with dangerous creatures below me. I don’t have the strength to pull myself up. My only corporeal companion has gone, to hopefully, get help. So, what is your advice, oh great sage?
She was angry. A fire burned inside of her chest, consuming the coercion spell, for the moment, obliterating the coercion spell’s constant ache and replacing it with a furious raw power.
She was angry at herself for not being able to run, for putting herself in this situation. It was she who had cut the rope; all right, she hadn’t had a choice, but she would have if she could have run. Instead, she froze. She was angry at her impotence and angry at Conscience’s cowardice and his sniping at Talbot. Why couldn’t he see his jealousy was de-constructive? They needed the faun.
Maybe we should stay here, he said, meekly.
What was that? she insisted.
I said, maybe we should stay here and trust in Talbot.
Your advice is to continue to do what I’m doing. So what are you complaining about?
I’m sorry. I’m meant to be helpful, you know? It’s what I’m for. I’m designed to be your helper and guide.
Lucy mentally sighed. She thought he was going to start crying.
But, I can’t help you. I’m useless because I’m broken, and now I can’t even be helpful.
Lucy could hear the trembling in his voice.
Look, you have been helpful, she said, as a dull, numbing ache froze her bicep.
You mean that? You’re not just saying it?
I really mean it. Honestly, cross my heart, she finished as the pain began to burn up her forearm.
Hey, the world is sinking. Does it normally do that?
Lucy looked around. The world was moving. Either the horizon was sinking, or she was going up.
I think he’s pulling the whole bridge up.
That’s impossible; he can’t be doing that.
Lucy could feel the pain eating deeper into her arm. She held on. Her shoulder screamed and tried to pop out of its socket, but she simply still held on. The crystal rock face cut her knuckles, causing tears of blood to run in rivulets down her arms, nevertheless, she held on, until she reached the top.
She slithered up and collapsed in a heap,
Talbot dropped next to her. His face was purple with exertion.
“Thank you, Talbot,” she sighed at him.
“Don’t…mention…it,” he wheezed back.
Well, that’s gotten rid of the Ega, chirruped Conscience.
There was a howl of rage from deep within the chasm, followed by a soft mewling.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” panted Talbot.
Both Talbot and Lucy crawled to the chasm’s edge and looked down.
The writhing mass of beasts was still there, but there was another colour among the pink and the red, a dirty green, the colour of moss and mildew, the colour of the Ega’s coat. It was, and it seemed to be making a path towards them.
As they stared in disbelief, the Ega reached the cliff’s foot. His upturned face was soaked with blood, and a grin stretched across it from ear to ear. Gore dripped from the knife he held, the gore from the guts of some the unmentionable terrors whom he had dispatched.
“I don’t believe it,” said Lucy, shaking her head in disbelief as the Ega climbed the razor-sharp rock face with grim determination.
“Well, I believe my eyes. Run,” yelled Talbot. He grabbed Lucy by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet.
“It can’t be. He should have been torn to pieces. The fall alone should have killed him. It just can’t be,” she said, the terror returning to her voice.
“Now is not the time for a discussion. He’s going to be up here very soon. Run!”
She did. She had no choice.
Chapter 10 The Elixir of Memory
“I never knew my father and mother; I was born in the colony, but I can say this about them, I am an improvement on my parents—all children are.”
General Thrax, Year After Ice 11956
“Do you know me, sir? Do you have memory of our previous meetings? Oh, what folly—fie, for shame! You have no proof of your knowledge. You can be sure of naught but from your own last blink.”
Franches Verns, Year after Ice 19450
Lucy and Talbot bolted away from the edge of the chasm and ran pell-mell for a solid fifteen minutes until there wasn’t any path that Lucy could follow. The underbrush was thick and snapped in an echoing sonar ping with each pounding step. Running was no longer the best course of action—hiding was.
“Over there,” hissed Ta
lbot, as he wheezed air back into his tired lungs. “We’ll hide in that fallen tree.”
He pointed to a giant tree lying on its side. The roots had rotted away so only the trunk was left, making an enormous wooden pipe. It must have been a mighty tree, when it stood, because its decomposing corpse was over fifteen-foot round.
It was dark and dank inside the hulk. Lucy’s footsteps echoed in the soft squelching way she imagined sewers sounded. Mushrooms bloomed in the dark crevices like umbrellas on a beach.
“All right,” he whispered into her ear, “the Ega won’t be able to see us in here, but he might be able to hear us. So, keep quiet. Now, let me have a look at that cut.”
The faun pushed Lucy’s chin up and examined her wound. The gash ran straight across her throat, exposing the innards to the air. Most of the major blood vessels were severed, and her windpipe had a nick in it. Air gasped in through the opening like a draught under a door.
“Ummmm, it’s going to need stitches,” he said. His face showed his surprised that she was still alive.
“Stitches?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, and we don’t have any painkillers.”
He’s going to perform surgery, and he doesn’t have any painkillers?
“What we do have is this. This is the Elixir of Memory.” He reached inside his waistcoat and brought out a little vial of green liquid. “When I give it to you, you will go into a trance. You’ll be deep into your own memories, and there’s no way of knowing if you’ll go to good or bad ones. Then again, anything is better than you being here for the next few minutes. See if you can take your spell friend with you.”
Spell friend? My name is Conscience, you goat!
Conscience, are you going to come along?
Yes, I think I can. If you’re going to go into your memories, then I’ll be able help.
Talbot wafted the vial under her nose, and she breathed in the sweet aroma of flowers and tree-sap. It called up a Madeleine memory of a day in the park when she was six. She began to fall backwards, out of the tree, out of the present. The blackness, at the edges of her vision, closed in around her.
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 10
