by T C Shelley
‘Mouth,’ he said. He smiled at his cleverness, but no one praised him for his first word. The other monsters were busy with grabbing and groping and getting their own new-mades to safety. A pixie gave him attention in the form of a sneer.
Out of the chaos, a huge monster loomed over him and gazed at him with interest. More words sprang up inside the imp’s head. A dozen sound pictures all at once. He chose two that needled him.
‘Ogre,’ he said. ‘King.’
The imp assessed Thunderguts’s gleeful leer, drool sliding off his bottom lip as he approached. Another creature was hurrying up behind the ogre. A crone. The one who had … kissed him? She was wearing a grin that reached to her poisonous green eyes. He didn’t like either look – their faces had something in common that told him to back away. None of his new words quite fitted the expressions on the monsters’ faces, but he grabbed at the closest.
‘Hunger,’ the new imp said.
It was a dangerous word, one he didn’t fully understand. Other words threw themselves up, vying for use – ‘greed’, ‘desire’, ‘yearning’ – but ‘hunger’ seemed the best.
His limbs reacted before he’d processed the meaning. He scuttled backwards, trembling as the crone’s grasping claws came for him. The next word popped into his head.
‘Run,’ he told himself. His legs knew a little of the word and shook as they rose under him.
‘Don’t be afraid kitty, kitty,’ the crone said.
‘Run,’ he told himself again. Then he yelled it. ‘Run!’
The word startled the monsters as he pelted by them. They obeyed its command. Brownies gathered up brownies and hurried away. Leprechauns grabbed bearded calves wrapped in swaddling clothes and dashed off.
Thunderguts roared at the sudden stampede. The crowd fled together, their faces twisting at the king’s rumbling yells. The imp found himself carried with them, bumping along between frantic bodies.
The imp’s feet cycled to make contact with the dirt, and he grabbed his chest, patting at the pumping sound inside. As his toes touched the earth, the rhythm told him to keep running. He shuddered at the king’s continuing bawl. He risked peeking behind, and saw the crone’s stringy arm still stretched for him, but her creaking hips and worn knees slowed her. So did the scuffle of bogies at her feet, and a flight of tiny boggarts squealed as the crone stepped on their fingers. When they nipped at her ankles, the shock of their teeth made her shriek and she tripped backwards, clawing the air. She fell hard on to her bony backside again, her ragged dress tumbling around her, and wailed.
He’d managed to slip her grip, so he darted for the wall with the other escaping imps, increasing the distance between himself and the crone.
‘Is that a boy?’ a brownie asked as the imp followed a pus-eyed boggart into the dark edge of the cavern. The imp didn’t stop to wonder what a ‘boy’ was. A snatch of boggarts rushed into the gloom with him and he found himself surrounded by shaking fur. He peered out to the lit centre of the cavern to see the crone hobble back to the king and hunch next to him. The king’s incoherent bellows shook more dirt down on them both.
A new-made boggart tucked under its pack leader’s hairy armpit sneered at the imp and licked his elbow. ‘Tasty,’ it said.
‘Don’t do that.’ The larger boggart cuffed its head. ‘He’s Thunderguts’s dinner. Carn you see? We gotta get as far from him as we can.’ They scuttled away along the dark rim of the cavern.
The imp boy scanned the mob for anyone who knew how to get away from the awful noise of the king. Most of the creatures were changing direction and hunkering where shadows clung darkest. A creature made of stone stomped past, brushing his shoulder, followed by two more. They gathered in front of him and stopped. Even in the dark the imp boy could see moss growing in patches on their grey stone backs.
The first had four legs and a broad face. It looked about with a grimace. ‘We all good?’ It patted its partner, a creature with a beak and two legs.
‘An’ all in one piece too,’ said the third. This one was also four-legged. Pointy ears stuck through a wash of hair that encircled its big head.
Gargoyles, the imp boy thought.
‘Let’s get out of here then,’ the broad-faced one said.
‘Time to make our exit,’ pointy ears said.
The gargoyles did not see the imp boy, nor hear him. Their heavy feet drummed louder than the thumping inside him, covering the sound even in his own ears. He trailed them as they ran, using their cacophony for cover.
As the ogre king’s rage faded with distance the imp boy began to relax, but even as the bumping inside his body softened, his small mitts wouldn’t stop shaking. He shoved them under the crooks of his arms. The imp followed the stone pack out of the titanic cavern, hoping they headed for a nice, quiet exit.
He studied his surroundings as he trotted. Above him, a vast expanse faded into starved darkness, and holes littered the walls. Nasties of every kind crawled up and down like congregating flies. White, bloated faces peered out of shadows. He copied the gargoyles, who leaned into the dark as the big monsters passed. Great trolls and ogres strode the dimly lit paths, laughing and spitting at flights of pixies skittering along.
The imp boy gasped as an ogre grabbed the gargoyle nearest him, the two-legged one, by the head. It made a disgusted raspberry and threw it across the path. The stone creature clunked on to a walkway fifteen feet away, howling as its foot broke off. He stopped in shock as the broken creature stood up and put its snapped-off foot against the edge of the severed leg. The pieces sizzled and reattached, and the gargoyle hobbled back towards his pack and they all ran on.
The imp boy trailed them, keeping within reach of the feathered tail of the limping pack member. As they passed a herd of imps, the dirt-dressed brownies and pixies in sickly yellow hurled abuse at them. The pointy-eared gargoyle snarled. The pixies giggled.
They ran on again, the imp boy puffing and panting. He started to lag at their breathless pace and almost lost sight of them when they turned into a tunnel. He used the last of his effort to keep up, rushing to where he’d seen them disappear into the dark. It was just a gouge in the wall, but after a breath, he stepped inside. The noise of the Great Cavern cut out with a sharp click and he saw the gargoyles blending into a single shape ahead of him. Their voices were muffled in the tight space.
‘Good grief, that was a bit much,’ one loud voice said. The imp boy tiptoed closer and saw the hairy gargoyle with pointy ears speaking. ‘Hatching Day shouldn’t be such a to-do. Thought the ogres might go on a grab ’n’ smash. How’s your leg, Spigot?’
The two-legged gargoyle, the one the ogre had thrown and broken, gave a gabbled caw the imp boy didn’t follow, but the wide-faced gargoyle nodded as if it understood what it had said. ‘Yes, too right. An’ Bladder an’ me is proud of how quick you did that.’
‘Sizzled your leg right back on, you did. You know how to move,’ said the pointy-eared gargoyle. Bladder, the imp boy guessed. Its circle of stone hair tumbled around its face. ‘What was Thunderguts’s problem today?’
‘Hush, mustn’t talk like that,’ the wide-faced gargoyle replied.
‘Oh, like His Dirtship’s gonna hear us in here. Wheedle, you are soft in the head sometimes.’
Spigot squawked something. It could have been agreement.
The imp went over the names he had learned, happy to be adding to his little store of knowledge. The two-legged feathery one’s name was Spigot, and Wheedle had the wide face. Bladder was hairy and pointy-eared and grumpy, although nowhere near as grumpy as the ogre king.
The imp boy’s sense of achievement calmed him a little.
‘Weren’t anyone watching the hatching before all the chaos started?’ Wheedle stared at Bladder. ‘I thought it was your turn to keep an eye on the beads.’
‘Who can see from the back? Them modern cathedral packs, they’re the ones get all the new gargoyles.’
‘So you weren’t watching?’ Wheedle asked.
Spigot squawked at Bladder.
‘I was not scoffing the toffees,’ Bladder replied.
‘You’re always scoffing the toffees,’ Wheedle said.
‘Almost choked on one when Thunderguts started making that noise,’ Bladder replied. ‘I suspect he spilt his hot mud again. Chucking another tanty. That’s why I hate coming down here. Can’t we give Hatching Day a miss?’
Wheedle scowled. ‘You know what would happen to the new ones if we didn’t come down. We need to be here to look out for them.’
‘Oh, yeah, pushed to the front, you were so eager. It weren’t you two I saw breaking your necks to get to the nearest exit then?’ Bladder said.
Spigot harrumphed.
The imp boy’s legs felt numb as he listened to the gargoyles’ bickering. He slid to the ground, his new limbs trembling. Being away from the noise and the hungry face of the ogre king felt good, but all the other emotions, the wetness and shakiness he’d been pushing down, began to bleed out of him. His eyes oozed water. His mouth leaked moany, groany sobs. Confusing sensations seeped out of his body, and he let them.
The gargoyle pack swung around. Spigot screamed.
Wheedle yelled, ‘What the … ?’, and the trio shuffled back.
The imp boy did not get up from the ground. He watched them, expecting them to race away and leave him shaking in the dirt. They didn’t: they shuffled forward, stepping closer, toe by toe.
They gathered around him, sniffing, growling, mooing.
‘Where’d it come from?’ Wheedle asked. ‘It’s shaking.’
‘More importantly,’ said Bladder, ‘what in the world is it?’
CHAPTER 3
Wheedle sniffed him. ‘Smells like an imp. Not a pixie or brownie though. Could be a gargoyle. We come in all shapes, right?’ Despite the gargoyle’s stoniness, there was kindness in Wheedle’s face and the imp boy found himself leaning forward to meet its gaze.
Spigot screeched.
‘No, it’s not a gargoyle hatchling, can’t be,’ Bladder said. ‘It’s not hard enough. And what’s it doing in our tunnel? No one knows it’s here but us three. Don’t like that.’
Wheedle sniffed the imp boy again. ‘Are you sure it’s not a gargoyle? It found our exit, and it smells new. Plus it’s making a noise inside, thump-thump, thump-thump, like it’s got a …’
‘Shut up! Not here.’
‘Come on, little one.’ Wheedle turned to the imp boy. ‘Up you get.’ The gargoyle nudged the imp under the arm.
The imp boy studied the gargoyle’s face closer. A ring ran through its wide nose and it had flat teeth. Two horns grew sideways out of its forehead.
‘Wheedle? What are you doing?’ Bladder asked.
‘What we always do with the new ones,’ Wheedle replied. ‘Or shall we leave him behind? If he’s a gargoyle, he’ll get smashed.’
‘He ain’t a gargoyle. More like a good meal for a troll.’
‘He don’t look like much, but he smells nice. An’ he’s enough like a gargoyle anyway. I think he is inside. Let’s take him upstairs.’
‘Don’t go sappy on me, Wheedle, it ain’t the inside that counts. Look at that skin, soft as a puck, he is.’
The imp boy put a finger on Wheedle’s ear. Its skin was certainly stone, but it dipped where the boy’s finger touched it.
Wheedle stared at him. The gargoyle brightened as he understood what the imp boy meant by poking him. ‘We’re made of living stone, we are. Right now it’ll give, but there’s sometimes we’re as hard as rock. An’ we break like it too. Did you see what happened to Spigot’s leg?’
The imp nodded.
Wheedle carried on. ‘It’s being made of living stone what protects us from the sun, too. Gargoyles is the only monsters can live in the sun. Leprechauns, brownies and a few others can cope with dusk and dawn, but not noon. All of them, they all turn to ash. That’s what Bladder’s worried about for you.’
‘Ain’t worried for him.’ Bladder said and sniffed, before turning back to the imp boy. ‘But if you come up with us and you see the sun, you’ll turn to ash. Only gargoyles can cope with sunshine.’
Spigot cawed in agreement.
Wheedle ignored them. ‘Sun’s not a bother to gargoyles at all. We can stare at the sun without blinking, not even humans can do that.’
‘But you know this, don’t you? Thunderguts breathed it in you?’ Bladder asked.
The imp boy nodded. Somehow he did know these things.
‘Well, he’s definitely a gargoyle then,’ Wheedle said. ‘Cos he knows his monster knowledge, ’n’ he don’t look like no brownie or pixie or puck, nor nothin’. And we gargoyles is the only imps that you got no idea what shape we’ll turn out to be – animal, vegetable or mineral. He found his way here. And he’s got a, you know.’ Wheedle gestured to his chest.
‘He can have all that, but he ain’t stone.’ Bladder glared at Wheedle. ‘It’s better for him to stay put. All right? You sit! Sit!’ Bladder waggled a claw at him.
The imp boy looked down at his haunches. His bottom was already in the dirt.
‘Good boy. Now, stay.’
Wheedle stroked the imp’s head and sighed.
The trio moved off.
The imp boy peered back to where they had come in, the dark wall behind which thousands of monsters and a demanding ogre king hunted him. He couldn’t go back there, and he didn’t want to sit in this dark hole forever. So he scrambled after the gargoyles and began trotting behind Spigot once more. Spigot screeched.
‘He’s following us, Bladder,’ Wheedle said. ‘Can’t we keep him? Go on, let us.’
Bladder sighed. ‘You’ll be ash before morning’s done. Do you want that?’
Turning to ash sounded less painful than having Thunderguts’s teeth in him. The imp boy nodded.
Wheedle cheered softly and winked at the boy.
‘On your own head be it,’ Bladder said. ‘It’s gonna end with Wheedle in tears, I tell you.’
They wandered up into the dark tunnel, the slope rising higher and higher. The imp boy stared around, marvelling at the neat brown walls curving up and over the group. He put a hand on the brick. It was so different from the rough sides of The Hole. Like someone meant it.
He looked at Wheedle. How did he ask about this place?
Wheedle looked from the imp boy’s face to his hand, and frowned. ‘Are you wanting to know where we are?’
The imp boy nodded.
‘This is a sewer. It’s the midpoint between our world and theirs. Underground, but made by one of them,’ Wheedle said.
The imp boy screwed up his mouth.
‘Wheedle means humans. Wet, soft, pink and stupid. They look like you actually.’ Bladder poked him with a claw. ‘A waste of space.’
‘Ignore him,’ Wheedle said. ‘Bladder is cat by shape and catty by nature.’
‘I’m a lion,’ Bladder said.
The imp boy studied Bladder’s face again. He liked the big head, the jaw full of sharp teeth, and the imp boy wanted to touch the wash of stone around his head, which swayed when the gargoyle moved.
The imp boy reached up to feel his own head. Tufts came out of the top but – he touched his cheeks – nothing grew out of the sides.
Wheedle laughed. ‘I think he likes your mane, Bladder.’
‘What’s not to like?’ Bladder asked. ‘I expect you want one too, Wheedle.’
‘I’m fine with being a bull.’ Wheedle turned and poked his head at the imp boy. ‘See, horns. It’s gonna be great to be a pack of four again.’
‘What?! If he don’t turn to ash you can keep him, you even get to clean up his muck, but don’t start thinking he’s pack.’ Bladder considered the imp boy and grunted. ‘Stupid beggars, the lot of you.’
The imp boy followed the gargoyles as they trotted single file along a footpath by a stench-riddled sewer. He recited the new words in his head: lion, bull, mane, sewer … human.
They’d said he looked human. His hands
certainly didn’t look like Bladder’s claws, nor Spigot’s talons, nor the four-toed feet at the bottom of Wheedle’s legs.
After a short walk, they arrived under a dark circle. Its outline glowed with white light. Bladder scurried up the wall. Spigot crawled up beside him and did a turn, catching his tail feathers in his beak. The pair hung upside down from the sewer ceiling like bats.
Wheedle nudged the imp boy. ‘One hand on the bricks. It’ll stick. Easy.’ The stone bull’s nose ring rattled as he climbed up a few steps. When the imp boy copied this, his slender legs slipped, and he slid knee-deep into the sewerage. It felt cold, nasty and thick.
Bladder snorted. ‘It won’t look pretty for long. Shall we give it a dunking?’
‘No time. Got to get back before dawn,’ Wheedle said. ‘’Sides, it does look human. If we keep it looking nice, we can send it for chocolate.’
‘Pipe dream,’ Bladder muttered.
Wheedle turned to the imp boy. ‘Go on, have another go.’
The imp boy put his hand on the bricking again. This time his skin shucked as it fastened to the surface. He put his other hand higher and pulled himself upwards, holding fast to the wall. His legs flailed and dangled until the balls of his feet hit and stuck to the surface. He looked down.
‘He climbs like a gargoyle,’ Wheedle said beneath him.
Bladder grunted.
The bull-faced gargoyle stared up at the imp boy and pulled its mouth open so the sides lifted into a pleasant curve. The imp boy liked the way it looked and mimicked it. It felt good to do that with his face.
‘Ooh, that looks painful.’ Wheedle laughed. ‘It’s called smiling. Keep going.’
The imp boy clambered towards the opening. He enjoyed the way his arms and legs stretched, and he had no desire to rush, taking time to feel each movement instead of a blur of sensations.
He put his head through the opening and peered out. Outside it was dark like the Great Cavern, but a darkness alive with colour. He knew the word ‘sky’, and ‘sky’ meant the expanse in the background. It started so purple at the top it was almost black, but he marvelled at the other colours, not bitter and cloying, but gentle grey streaked with a wash of reds and pinks near the bottom. In front of this, one clean light shone from a street lamp and cast a glow on to the path of a huge, dark building.