Hartlepoole Sean Pitt walked Anna Powell home along the side path of the motorway that skirted their city. It wasn"t a very scenic route to walk-it was littered, noisy, and polluted-but it was nicer because Sean liked Anna, and he thought that Anna liked him back, even though she ignored him at school. But on Wednesday evenings, when they both had orchestra, he was able to walk her home, just the two of them together, alone.
The route was well known to him, and he had long-standing fantasies of, at certain bends and turns, either taking her hand in his, or putting his arm around her, or maybe even leaning over and kissing her on the cheek. These fantasies were so tied to different parts in the route that they were virtually landmarks.
But they were still fantasies nonetheless. For some reason, he never got the courage up to do any of it. Part of the reason was that she was always rumoured to be going out with Mark Morris, but most of it was that he was paralysed by the idea that she would stop walking back with him on Wednesdays. Some time with her every week was better than no time with her at all. And so every week he did nothing, and every Wednesday evening he kicked himself for his cowardice.
But it couldn"t last forever. School was ending in a few weeks, and he resolved to take some action. Today, he told himself, was different. The fact that he"d told himself that every Wednesday before this one was "different" was irrelevant and didn"t detract from today"s difference. Today his courage wouldn"t fail.
"I can"t stand Megan anymore," Anna was saying. "We used to be really close, but now she"s just ignoring me."
"Yeah," Sean agreed. He couldn"t recall who Megan was. He was pretty sure Anna had never mentioned her before.
"She"s always been a moody cow, but we used to get on, at least. And Jenna told me what Megan told her about me, which was all lies, obviously, saying Mark and I got it on, when we never have. She"s such a big liar."
"Yeah," Sean agreed again. The path was taking them beneath the overpa.s.s, which was always busy with traffic but was also the most secluded of all the spots on their winding way home.
"I like you, Sean," Anna said after an uncharacteristic moment of quiet. "I always feel like I can talk to you. I"ll miss you when school ends."
"Well," Sean said, flushing, "you know . . . I . . ."
Anna stopped. "Who"s that over there?"
"Where?"
Propped against one of the columns was a heap of something or other that, in the low light, gave a silhouette like a person, but it was a trick of the eye; it was far too big to actually be someone.
"It"s nothing," said Sean. "Just some bin bags or something."
"No, it"s moving," Anna said, moving up the concrete ramp toward the pillar.
"It"s just the wind," Sean said, faltering. The news had been going on about some missing children lately, and he suddenly wanted to be away from here. Quickly.
"All right," said Anna, and she turned back toward him just as the silhouette leaned forward and stood up.
Anna caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, shrieked, and froze. Sean"s legs convulsed beneath him. His instincts told him to run, but he couldn"t leave Anna here alone.
"Anna, come away," he said, tugging her sleeve.
Anna shook her head.
"What"s wrong with you? Move!" Sean growled.
"I-I can"t. I"m too scared."
"Be scared of what will happen to you if you don"t," Sean said as the inhuman thing straightened to its full height. It was not just tall but bulky, chunky. It was either made of dirt and rubbish, or that stuff was embedded in its skin. As it moved bits fell off.
It growled as it started to slide down the concrete escarpment. It stopped directly in front of Anna. Its face lowered; instead of skin it had black sludge, which oozed itself into a grin that revealed ma.s.sive, yellow, pebble-like teeth. "Pretty," it said, lifting an arm and hand. "Tasty," it said, reaching out for her.
In a flash, Sean picked up a length of metal pipe that laid nearby-part of a mangled signpost. He hefted it above his head and ran forward, bringing it down heavily on the thing"s shoulder, just above an orange traffic cone that appeared to be a part of its back.
It felt the blow-barely. It reacted as Sean would react if a three-year-old hit him with a cardboard tube. He got the monster"s attention though.
"Run, Anna!"
Anna broke into a sprint, across the field toward home, not daring to look back.
Sean dropped the heavy bit of metal in his hands and made to follow her, but the monster took two large strides toward him and swiped with his arm. It was like being hit by a falling tree trunk, and the blow sent him flying through the air where he smacked into one of the concrete pillars of the overpa.s.s.
His head swam and his perception rippled, like jelly tossed into a swimming pool. He was dizzy and sick, and wondering why everything had become so dark.
He shook his head to clear it, and through a dim tunnel of fuzzy grey, he saw an enormous head with even more enormous teeth grinning at him, as though it was very far away, but he could feel and smell a breath that stank like rancid ditch water.
"Tasty," the face said, and Sean felt a ma.s.sive hand wrap around his arm and he was lurched upright, which made the world spin horrifyingly. There was intense pain and a chomping noise and then nothing more.
* II *.
Freya clutched at her chest and fought for control of her breathing. In the sea of terror, she found a brick and then another and set them together. Piece by piece, she rebuilt the wall until finally she and Fear were two separate ent.i.ties again. But when, in her mind, she stood on solid ground, she found that Rage had made her higher, and drier. These were the two opposing forces inside her now: Fear and Rage. The Rage she felt she could control, and use it against the Fear.
She felt Vivienne"s hand on her shoulder and her warm presence behind her. "Deep breaths, Freya darling. Deep breaths."
Stronger now, she pushed herself up, bracing herself against the wall of what seemed to be the end of a long pa.s.sage. Stairs rose up behind her and terminated in dark stone. The portal had already shut. Daniel was exploring; he had flicked on a small flashlight and was inspecting the area.
"See anything?" Freya asked, her voice barely more than an inaudible whisper. She took a deep breath and asked again, "What do you see?"
Daniel shined the light back at her; its brilliance cut into her eyes. She was already getting used to the darkness.
"It"s just a cave."
"Are you okay?" Vivienne asked.
"Yes."
"Anything broken?"
"No."
"Do you need-"
"I"m fine, I"m fine," Freya snapped testily. "I don"t need to be coddled."
"Right, good." Vivienne shouldered her pack again. "Let"s get moving; it"s just a few miles."
Freya hoisted her pack up on her shoulder as well and then fell into step behind Vivienne and Daniel. The pace and sensation of walking in the dark was sickeningly familiar now.
They walked for about an hour in what felt like a fairly straight line. Freya dwelt on the anger inside of her, trying to stoke it by meditating on all that she had unfairly suffered, the last time she was here and ever since, but found that she couldn"t hold on to the flames-it was just too exhausting. After a time she found that it had fallen away from her, leaving her alone with just the cold emptiness of the Fear.
The tunnel dipped and Vivienne stopped.
"What is it?" Daniel, behind Freya, asked.
"It"s a door."
Freya took a deep breath. "So open it," Daniel said.
"Here we go," Vivienne said, and there was a metallic rattling and then a creak as an ancient metal door swung open. Stepping through it, they found themselves on a landing where a circular stairway continued downward.
She wasn"t prepared for the smell. It wasn"t overtly unpleasant, but it so instantly and so fully brought back the emotions of her first time here that she wanted to weep.
She sucked her breath in, inflating herself, doing her best to bury all the emotions within her. Not even a day into her new mission and she was nearly an emotional wreck. She stepped through the doorway and almost automatically took a step back in order to re-enter several more times, but then she thought, Why bother? I"m already here.
"I don"t believe it," she muttered loudly. "All this time-there was a door at the top of the Langtorr. We could have gone back anytime we wanted."
"Yeah," Daniel said. "But you wouldn"t have left, even if you knew about it. You would have gone on the quest anyway, just like me."
"Now come you two, no squabbling," Vivienne said. "We"ve got other things to-"
"No, actually, I think I would have just liked to have gone home," Freya cut in. "Having had a chance to think about and reflect on it at length over the past eight years . . . I think I would have just liked to have gone home."
"I don"t think so. You would have done the right thing in the end."
"We"ve got other things to focus on," Vivienne said.
More Rage boiled up inside Freya. That"s good, I can use that, she thought. "Really? The right thing? Trick two thirteen-year-old children into going on a dangerous, top-secret mission?"
"That"s enough now," Vivienne said.
"Well, I"m glad I went," Daniel said. "And you are too, deep down. What we did made a difference. We killed Gad."
"I said enough!" Vivienne exclaimed in a hushed, urgent voice. "If you two weren"t so busy sc.r.a.pping just now, you"d have heard what I"m hearing."
Freya swallowed a breath. "What is it?"
"Listen."
Up from the twisting stone pa.s.sage came the sound of leathersoled shoes on stone stairs. Standing very still, Freya watched as Daniel slowly shrugged open his coat. He quietly adjusted the leather strap that held his sword"s scabbard so that it hung freely at his side and not hitched up to his chest. This action was not unnoticed by Vivienne, who turned slightly and placed a hand on Daniel"s shoulder.
Freya blinked in the blackness but soon found that a light was growing from the stairwell beneath them. She stood her ground, tentatively, standing on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet. She watched the farthest corner of the wall below them to see what would appear.
The face was the first thing she saw-it was white, haggard, and surrounded by a black halo of frizzy, unkempt, and matted hair. It was illuminated from below by one of the silver lamps of Niergeard.
"Frithfroth!" Daniel exclaimed.
"Frithfroth, it"s us-it"s Daniel and Freya. Do you remember? We were children-" He broke off.
Freya wondered if the old man might be blind. The way his lamp cast its light, it was hard to see his eyes; she could only spot two dim gleams of reflected light. When Daniel started speaking, Frithfroth stopped.
"Who is he?" asked Vivienne.
"He"s the Langtorr"s sort of . . . housekeeper person," Freya said a little uncertainly. "But when we knew him, he wasn"t-" Freya didn"t have to describe the unfortunate man in order to make her point clear. The long, gaunt face was definitely that of Niergeard"s ward and the Langtorr"s protector, but he was wasted away, almost literally a shadow of the already slight and wiry man whom they had first met. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks collapsed in on themselves. He kept advancing, and now Freya could see his hunched shoulders and thin limbs. He held his arms up to his chest, but he had no hands-only two terrible-looking puckered scars at the end of his wrists. He wore a dusty, fraying tunic that had decayed through in places. Leather garments beneath his shirt were similarly deteriorating and, she believed, rotting.
Daniel and Freya both retreated back a step. Daniel found his voice first.
"I remember," Frithfroth said then, in a voice that came from a very long way away. "I remember . . . Daniel and Freya, the lifiendes. Have you come to destroy this place?"
Yes, thought Freya. Perhaps.
"No," said Daniel.
"Pity." Frithfroth looked down at his scarred wrists. "So what do you want?"
"We want to help," Daniel said, turning back to Frithfroth, whose face was impa.s.sive, showing no thought or emotion. "We"re here to liberate you. We"re here to run the yfelgopes right out of the city."
"First, however, we want answers," said Vivienne firmly.
"Answers," Frithfroth repeated, staring into nothing. "Answers depend on questions." He turned and started walking awkwardly down the stairs-a slow, unbalanced walk, halfway between a lurch and a limp. He led them down the corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g stairs into the Langtorr, the last stronghold at the centre of Niergeard.
They hadn"t gone far before they pa.s.sed a small hole in the thick wall that afforded a view down to the city. Daniel was the first to pa.s.s by it, and he stood, looking wordlessly through it. Freya joined him and crowded her face near the window as well. Frithfroth, aware that they were no longer following, waited silently a few steps below.
"Let me have a look," Vivienne said, and Daniel stepped back to allow her room at the window to look through.
The plunging feeling in Freya"s stomach wasn"t caused just by the dizzying height, but by the familiar sight of the city. Far below them, Freya could make out the dim lights that illuminated the streets and what looked like a perfectly curved pile of rubble.
"The wall is gone," Daniel lamented. "Crumbled away into nothing."
"And there are other ruined buildings," Freya said, spotting irregular piles of stone in the square stone buildings below them.
"They attacked . . ." Frithfroth said, continuing his slow, awkward gait down the stairs. "They attacked . . . It is hardly what they . . ." Frithfroth paused and put the stumps of his wrists to the temples of his head.
"I see it all as if before me every moment: The girl-now, the girl I judge to have a good head on her. But the boy is too skinny by half-he looks sickly. A boy of that age should already be filling out and gaining strength. And his eyes are constantly wide and goggling-eager though they may be, he has not yet seen the sights that turns a boy into a man, much less a warrior.
"I hear G.o.dmund giving final cautions and advices-they fall on inattentive ears, and I fancy even he does not mark fully what he is saying. That"s of little matter. We are all just marking time until Ealdstan deigns to grace us with his presence.
"The watch bell tolls for change. G.o.dmund makes an excuse to leave. I stay. The old man finally arrives and gives his bitter benediction. He no sooner lowers his hand before the alarm bells ring.
"Another attack!"
Frithfroth"s face was horror-stricken as he stared sightlessly in front of him. Daniel, Freya, and Vivienne just followed, wide-eyed and bewildered. They were afraid of what might happen if they interrupted him, just as they were afraid of what might happen if he were to continue.
"I leave in the company of the twice-cursed Cnafa and Cnapa-to go back to the Langtorr, to secure the tower, to protect the ruler, and to provide for the citizenry.
"Arrangements made, I climb the walls of the inner courtyard in order to observe the attack. I find Breca there, standing also. It is he who holds the responsibility of defending the inner court and the Great Carnyx. He is the last defense for the citizenry of Niergeard, but his first responsibility is to the Carnyx.
""I do not see them. What are they doing?"
""They are making feints," Breca informs me. "They are masking their true numbers and movements. All we can do now is fend them off where we can and wait for the main body. But it could come from any angle-or several."
""Where is Ealdstan?"
"Breca shakes his head. He does not know, but he is certain he will arrive. Ealdstan has always been our defender against the yfelgopes-he stood always on the first line against the attackers. He will not fail us.