Someone was playing with the story again, and running was not the answer. All the time she’d been in this world she’d run. Now that she thought about it, the running had started even before that.
She’d run from her mother. She suddenly realised she no longer knew who her mother was. She knew her name, Kimberly, but who was she? They never spoke anymore.
Since her father left, the relationship between her mother and herself had fallen apart, like a bridge between two continents. Her father’s death only served to widen the gap. The bond was now so stretched and pulled by opposing forces that it was nearly broken beyond repair.
She’d run from her grandfather too. He’d needed her to be strong for him after his fall, and she hadn’t been. She let him push her away. It was easier to let it happen than to stand against the tide, that was why. He’d been crying out to her, and she let their friendship slide into occasional visits and curt remarks.
The creature was nearer. It couldn’t be more than a few meters away, masked by the dark. She could almost make out the outline of its hulking body. Its breath made foul from eating rotting, raw flesh and drinking warm blood. There was a definite sound from the black. Not the howl of before but a dry gibber. It was a constant chattering like a thousand fingernails being clicked together.
ChitterClick, ClickClick, ChitterClickChitter, it went, in the darkness.
Lucy felt the anger bubble in her chest like a pot on a warming stove. She’d been running since she entered this world. Always moving on—on with the quest—ever onwards to the Falls of Wanda, as the coercion spell would have put it. She’d run away from home, or been pushed away from home and ended up here in a land of fauns and wizards, talking cats and the Ega.
The Ega, that grinning banshee man; she’d run from the Ega too. Every time she’d encountered him, she fled like a cockroach caught in sunlight. Like a frightened child, she’d run from the bogeyman. She was not a child. She was Lucy Alice Zara Gayle. She was almost fourteen, and she would not run anymore.
Talbot’s face sprang into her mind. Talbot who was brave. He’d risked everything for her. Talbot who rescued her, saving her from certain torture and imprisonment. He fought the Ega for her in the pub in Marsh. She would act with the courage of Talbot. Talbot, she thought of Talbot.
Somewhere you had to draw a line, a mark in the sand which that said here: here, is where it ends—this is as far as the darkness comes and no further.
The dry clicking gibber was closer now. It buzzed all around her in like a fly swarm.
ChitterClick, ClickClick, ChitterClickChitter, it bit and eroded at her sanity.
Lucy, can we leave now? I don’t want to meet my maker. What if he’s not nice? whined Conscience.
We can’t run, she thought.
Yes, we can. It’s very easy: left foot, right foot, repeat.
The howl came again, close and feral, a ghost hellhound.
Lucy, it’s just you and me here. A little girl and an amnesiac spell and you want us to face whatever it is out there? We can’t. We’re not strong enough. We’ll die.
Then, we’ll die, she thought.
She was resolute, stoic as a rock. She would not run from this thing, the thing that chased her. She was not its pawn to be manipulated. She was not anyone’s pawn. She was Lucy Alice Zara Gayle, and she would not run, even from the darkness.
What can we do against the night terror?
She could hear Conscience crying in her head. She imagined the tears rolling down his face.
Tears and tears, tears and tears, but which was which?
That blasted monotonous rhyme again. She knew that it was important, but she didn’t think it had anything to do with facing the darkness. Sorting the rhyme out was for later, during the quiet interludes, just like answering the box’s riddle. Now, was not the time for that; now, was the time to stand and be true and be counted among those who stood against the dark. What could they do, a little girl and a small spell?
We can stand, she answered.
She took a deep breath to calm her voice and spoke out into the warm, sweaty night. The whole world felt as if it had been on a boil wash for days. Clammy sweat ran down her sides and made her palms sticky.
“Who are you?” she asked the dark. A calm maturity, which she did not feel, entered her voice as she drew a line in the sand.
The only answer was the incessant chittering.
ChitterClick, ClickClick, ChitterClickChitter.
It came louder and from all around her, so she felt like she was inside the thing’s mouth. It was right by her ear and in front of her eyes. It came from her toes and slid through her hair.
Lucy forced herself not to shiver in fear. This is what you did when you stood against the darkness. You showed no fear. It didn’t matter if you fell. You could not run. You just stood and broke the darkness with your will.
Conscience continued to whimper in her head. She could hear his pitiful moaning, but she ignored him. He was a coward; he would always be a coward, but she was not a coward. She was a hero in this world—a knight, a Childe.
Childe Lucy to the dark forest came. She wasn’t thinking with the conscious parts of her brain anymore. She was riding along on a tsunami of instinct. It flooded around her, bore her up and carried her in a droplet of unfathomable prophecy. A glow was growing in her belly. It came from below the coercion spell, like a geyser, obliterating that spell’s monotonous pounding as it rose to her chest.
“Who are you?” she said to the darkness again, as the chittering continued all around her.
ChitterClick, ClickClick, ChitterClickChitter.
The noise grated at her, biting at her ears. It gnawed at her mind. Even as her brain’s conscious part was swept along the tide of prophecy, she felt the chittering eating at her soul. Then, she heard the words within the static, a cacophony of voices, each one raspy and inhuman.
ChitterClick—we are the dark. ClickClickChitter—we serve the dark. Click—who are you? Click—little girl? Chitter—who would stand in our dark forest—Click—and command us? Urge us—Click? Persuade us? ClickClick.
“I am not afraid of you. Who are you? I charge you to answer!”
I charge you to answer? asked Conscience. You’re not talking like you normally do? Come on, let’s get out of here, please?
“I am one who has come before,” she answered.
ClickChitterChitter—one who has come before? There is no such one. Click—you will feed us. Give us—Chitter—nourishment. We are the night. We are hungry. ClickClick—hungry!
The glowing ball of hot fire burned in Lucy’s guts. It comforted her. It told her the truth; this thing was nothing. This place was nothing. If she wanted to be something, then she would have to change the world, and she could do that. It told her the facts and gave her backbone. She was not afraid of this buzzing thing, this night terror, because she was the thing the monsters feared—she was a knight, she was a Childe.
“Go away, thing,” she commanded the monster.
You—Click—do not command here. You are our prey. Kneel and beg for a quick death—Chitter.
“I won’t beg for my life.”
Tell us—Click. Tell us who we feast on today.
That was it. The line had been drawn, and the darkness had crossed it. The rage of a thousand unpleasant, torturous days at the hands of her tormentors in school bubbled up in her. She felt the rage of the put upon, the rage of the innocent, the rage of the vengeful. It rose up in her from the very pit of her being, breaking through and spilling out of her.
“I am Alice of the white, Alice who killed the queen and tamed the cat. A Childe, who broke the mirror. I am Lucy, who conquered the wardrobe and who holds the lion in her thrall. I am the Gayle, who arrived in a twister to kill the witch and find her way home again. I am Zara, daughter of Ethan, who died at my hands. I have travelled through mirror, desert, forest, time and space to be here.”
The rage was fully in her now. It was the rage she’d u
sed to shout at the Cheshire Cat for prophesying all of this and putting her in this mess to start with. It was the rage she’d used to strike the Walrus. It was the rage he had uncovered for her. A sword of anger and truth was what it was. The Walrus had found the iron in her belly and told her how to forge it. It was tempered by her temper.
“I am not afraid of you,” she continued. “If you are the darkness, then come and meet me. I am the light!”
The bubbling cauldron of rage burst forth from her chest. The wave of pure energy and boiling anger streaked from her in a glowing, mazarine ball, lighting up the woods around her with a blue fire. The foul buzzing voice now had a face.
It was a wolf shape, but it wasn’t a wolf. It was a mass of buzzing insects in the shape of a wolf. They were chittering and cowering back from the blue light. A putrid, dripping goo ran from the mass forming a puddle of foulness all around the wolf shape. It smelled disgusting, like a mixture of vomit and rotting flesh.
The insects themselves were black beetle things covered in the nigrine goo. They had tiny sharp wings, which vibrated constantly to form the buzzing sound. The chittering came from their twig like legs as they brushed passed past each other in the spinning mass that was the wolf.
The ball of Lucy’s anger split and changed shape into that of a lion, a great, glowing blue lion. The cat bared its teeth, roared and charged at the wolf-thing, catching hold of it by the throat. The lion swung its head back and forth, savaging it.
Thick, black ichor ran from the wolf’s throat as the chittering got to an almost unbearable level. The ichor’s stench was even worse than the ordinary smell of the thing; it was like rotting flesh, pus and grease mixed together and boiled.
The insects dropped away as the lion shook the wolf-thing. They fell to the floor and scuttled for cover, clicking in the darkness as they retreated. Soon, there was nothing of the wolf left but a puddle of goo and the retreating insects’ soft chittering.
The lion, having done its work, padded back to Lucy. It was totally ethereal, like a cloud, but she could see it was also real in some sense. It moved the world around it. The grass bent beneath its feet and the dirt had paw marks in it. Even so, she could see through it like blue glowing dust.
The lion sat in front of her, staring like a father staring at a child for the last time. It felt warm and comforting to have the great cat there. It was her anger, her protection. It was a part of her, a sterner side that would always be there to help.
She could see it was becoming more ethereal by the moment, fading, like paint with too much water in it. The lion was being dragged out of this reality, passing out, scraped away. She kissed its nose, and it disappeared on the breeze, like a dandelion’s head.
Lucy? said Conscience, quietly. Did that just happen?
Yes, I think it did.
Right. What was all that “I am the light” stuff?
I don’t really know. It just, sort of, came out. It seemed to fit.
Okay. And what was that blue lion thing?
That was part of me. It was my anger. I think it was part of the spell that the Walrus gave me. I think it was my sword.
Lucy noticed that the grass in a circle around her was now dead. The trees were also scorched, looking as if something had drained their life’s essence away.
Didn’t the Cheshire Cat say that the magic flowed through everything and that there wasn’t much around? If you used up some for your lion-sword-thing, then you must have drained the surrounding area.
This land really does need the magic to exist, doesn’t it? she thought, in wonder.
Yes, it sort of justifies our quest.
Hey! What’s that? Lucy asked.
She wandered over to the little lump she’d spotted, still marvelling at the devastation caused by the spell. The lump was a dead bird. It wasn’t one of the ravens that cawed and crowed overhead. This was smaller, daintier.
She could just make out by the moonlight the slight glossy greenness of the head feathers. Its tiny head and beak were turned to one side where it had fallen from the tree.
Oh, it’s a starling, said Conscience, still keen on all matters ornithological, as her grandfather had been. A tenderness entered his voice that she had never heard there before. A common starling, Sturnus Vulgaris. The poor thing. Check the tree for its nest.
On a lower branch, Lucy found the nest that the starling must have fallen from.
Climb up, I need to check something.
She climbed the tree and got out on a branch to the starling’s nest. Inside were three dead chicks, grey and downy. All of them were sprawled across the nest floor, like discarded toys in a nursery.
What happened to them? she asked, as she climbed down.
You happened to them, Lucy, he said, without any malice. Your spell, it killed all the plants and drained the starlings. It’s dangerous, Lucy. It killed the starlings. It can kill things. You can kill things. You shouldn’t use it.
But, I never meant to, she thought, stunned at the death she caused.
No, you didn’t mean to, but you still did. That spell in you is dangerous, and you shouldn’t use it. Magic is unbridled power. No one should have that. I want you to promise me.
But…but I might have to use it.
Then, I want you to swear you won’t use it unless you absolutely have to. Magic is dangerous. You can’t foresee its consequences, said Conscience.
All right, I swear. We’d better get back to Talbot, she thought, picking up the underbrush for the fire.
She made her way back through the woods to the camp. The faun sat in the clearing with an already blazing fire. He poked at it every now and then with a long stick, whilst he sang the song about Old George the spider.
And once you’re in the darkening woods, don’t give me a distant cry, Old George, he sang, as his web he span, as the ravens did fly by.
And if you meet the spider-queen, flee, or you will die, Old George, he said, ’til he was dead, when the ravens did fly by.
She sat down next to Talbot and stared into the fire’s heart for a few moments. The flames danced and pirouetted as the fire ate the wood. They waited in silence both engrossed in the light as Lucy came to terms with what had happened.
She had killed something. The magic she had used drained the life from creatures around it. She caused the starlings’ death. She had sworn to Conscience she wouldn’t use the spell again, but she thought she wasn’t going to get much of a choice in that. If the Ega attacked again, then she would have to defend herself, and that might lead to something else dying. Could she do that? Could she now use the spell, knowing what its cost would be? Would she get a choice? She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions.
“You started the fire without me,” she said flatly to Talbot, without moving.
“Yes,” he replied.
“You didn’t come looking for me.”
“No,” he said, shifting uncomfortably, “you needed to face that on your own.”
“Did you know about the wolf-thing?”
“Not exactly. I heard the howl. I almost came for you but then…something stopped me. A little voice that sounded like Ravel Magi told me to let you face it on your own. And then you returned,” he turned his head, gave a her a broad smile, and, not getting a response, he stared back into the firelight. “Was it bad?”
“Yes.”
“From the howl it sounded like a Tec-heeler,” he said.
“What’s a Tec-heeler?” she asked.
“Bad spirit,” he replied. “Do you know what the trouble with iron is?”
She shook her head.
“The trouble with it is,” continued Talbot, “if it’s not used it rusts. You have to use it, or it’s worthless. The Walrus said that there was iron inside you. If we want you to complete this quest, you’ll have to sharpen it and keep it keen. Do you understand?”
Lucy thought about it for a moment, then nodded her head. Yes, she did understand, and the idea was both wonderful
and horrific at the same time. She continued to stare into the fire.
“Will you teach me how to make a fire tomorrow?” she asked.
“No,” he replied, “I won’t have time. Tomorrow we’ll be in town.”
She was going to question him, but he pointed to a sign which she had totally failed to see through the gloom. It was a plain white piece of wood nailed to a tree.
Childish writing covered it. Capital letters were strewn along the sentence like daisies in a lawn. Someone had decorated it with some badly drawn stars and a smeary rainbow in one corner.
The sign read: EiGht MiLes to THe land oF tHe SniPPets and NiDZ: mERcENAriez wAnteD, fORtuNe aNd GloRy.
And below that it read: TwelVe MiLes tO the StaTUes of CleVernEess: PleaZe pay aLL necEssAry toLLs.
“Snippets and Nids?” she asked.
“Fortune and glory,” smiled Talbot.
They both remained motionless for a long time after simply entranced by the fire and being in one another’s company. The stars turned overhead as the hours drew on. The great wheel of prophetic destiny slowly cranked on another notch.
Chapter 19 The Land of the Snippets and Nids
“Fighting a war is like trying to stop an earthquake by bribing it to go away: it is often fruitless and expensive.”
Franches Verns, Year after Ice 19450.
Alice, moving ever on,
closer to her home,
on a golden road,
she proudly strode,
to statues made of stone.
Found engraved, anachronistically,
on the inside of a suit of armour
belonging to Lord Falcrum after his victory
and his death, at the Battle of Cantab,
Year After Ice 15099
The forest gradually turned into fields of oilseed rape and corn as Talbot and Lucy walked the stone cobbled road. Most of the morning they picked their way along a dirt path. Even so, as lunchtime approached the woods died away to luteous fields of crops bounded by large hedgerows.
Then, the trail turned from dirt to stone. The stones became more regular as they continued on until they were on a brick highway.
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 22
