by T C Shelley
What have I done? Sam thought.
The sword lay silent, except a single piece, which rattled.
Lights peeled from it one by one and circled Sam, floating over his face and brushing his cheeks.
The monsters got busy climbing, shoving, falling and cheering, all desperate to be the first one to break free from The Hole, to start the hunt. None of them noticed the tiny floats of light.
Even Maggie fixated on the breakout and clapped as ogres and trolls and imps of all kinds swarmed up the sides of the cavern.
Only Sam saw the first shape re-form. A sliver of the sword glowed, and the soul of the little girl in the ragged dress grew from it. She stepped towards Sam, blew him a kiss and dogged the heels of a younger ogre at the back of the horde. The creature was busy cheering, but Sam saw its ravenous expression. The soul tapped the ogre’s shoulder and the joyous, drooling beastie turned. Its triumph solidified as its face became stone, and after a flick of her finger, the statue dropped into an ash pile on the floor.
The brutes wanted out, to be free in the world above, so the ash pile went unnoticed.
Sam looked to the sword again, the pieces glowed and shrank as souls formed out of them. A young woman soared up, diving towards the dark ceiling, illuminating the walls above. A few brownies at the top threw their arms over their faces and melted on the ledge. A bunch of boggarts behind them screamed and tripped through the ash piles with shrieks of disgust, their speed increasing from eager to panic. The soul of the young woman turned into a golden bead, and she disappeared through the roof.
A group of children’s souls, a dozen or so, formed out of a single, broken splinter of the blade. Sam heard their laughter in his head as they burst towards three ogres on the lower tier and turned a dozen goblins to dust.
The monsters on the floor screamed, and those above who had not noticed beforehand began gawping at the bawling and watched fleeing monsters kick an ash spray of goblin debris. The whole swarm looked down.
Maggie turned to Sam, her beautiful face confused.
Then a larger sword piece melted into thousands of souls.
Their brightness burned Sam’s eyes. He heard thin yelps behind him but could not turn from the faces of ancient spirits floating up to the cavern roof and lining the ledges. There were so many they doubled over each other, faces upon faces upon bodies blending like waves of water. They sailed up into the ceiling, out of the exit, through solid dirt.
The group of monsters around Maggie stampeded past her.
The screaming continued. Ogres rushed for the exit, several trying to enter together. The larger ones pushed smaller ones out of the way and flung them a dozen storeys to the ash-covered floor. They shrieked as they fell.
Thunderguts watched it all. His stone fist raised above his head, his laughter gone, as he roared to the roof. Dust and ash fell on him. He turned and snarled, but his gaze looked beyond Sam, to where lights continued streaming out from the broken blade. His eyes widened in animal terror.
Thunderguts ran, but a bright orb zipped over Sam’s head, towards the ogre king. It settled an inch in front of his face, then nipped forward and tapped his snout. The king whined, high and horrible, and his feet locked to the ground. From his toes up, his sallow body turned grey. The change moved faster, his solid calves, his boulderish knees, his thighs, belly, chest. As the change hit his neck, he thundered and his face fixed in a yell, which turned to stone. The glow of souls filled the space from wall to wall and the force of heat and light disintegrated Thunderguts into an ash statue, his face growing brighter until he glowed from inside.
Then his hands crumbled finger by finger; the great flaps of his ears fell apart, arms and mountainous legs dissolved. His mouth remained open in an angry bawl as an explosion burst through his last scream.
He wasn’t the only one. Ogre statues littered the floor, in many positions of misery and fear. They collapsed as monsters fell against them, slipping on the ash piled between them. One raced into the wall, both hands over its face, and erupted into a cloud.
Sam looked around the walls. He had to escape before the exits became cloyed with brutes.
The dash of joy had turned to one of panic as all the beasts tried their best to move away from the dissolving sword, so the wall above the cave was a clear road to the top, the one patch of rock free from fleeing monsters.
The soul of a woman with bright hazel eyes gestured for Sam to follow her. ‘Time to leave, Samuel.’ She tried to pick up the black cloth, but her fingers passed through it. ‘For the baby.’
Sam nodded, and ripped a couple of strips of fabric from the piece, and strapped Beatrice to himself, tightening knots to hold her to his back, and he climbed. His hands were still raw from the fall down the succubus’s well, but he felt the pain as a distant annoyance. The woman’s spirit followed beside him. She looked a bit like Michelle, her soft eyes watching him as he ascended. He looked down at the sword as the last pieces shrank and melted away into individual souls.
‘Look to me, young man,’ the woman’s soul said.
Sam’s feet carried him further up the wall, under the main exit. But here the clutter of escaping monsters filled it like mud in a sewer drain; he knew he could never hope to get out while they fled. He waited underneath and clung on as a party of souls flew by him, capering around him, laughing, celebrating, brushing past him with golden kisses. An ogre threw itself back in terror, plummeting many feet below, causing a huge cloud of ash to powder up from the cavern floor. The rest of the monsters backed away from the doorway, letting the souls claim it.
One foolhardy boggart dashed forward: a soul, a young man with wild matted hair, reached out and touched it. The boggart blew away as wind from the tunnel gusted its grey powder into the polluted air.
The other monsters hung back, mostly brownies and pixies, Sam noticed. There were few of the Great Monsters left to climb. Some of the remaining imps had even descended the way they’d come.
The souls waited for Sam to move to the door.
He gave a last glance back at where the sword had lain. He no longer saw any glowing pieces on the floor below. The last few souls floated upwards and dissolved two ogres who huddled on the third tier. A few shivering pixies and brownies huddled in the shadows on the cavern ground.
Maggie had not moved from her spot. She stared after Sam. He had the strangest impulse to wave to her.
‘Come on, Sam,’ the woman said. ‘It’s time for all of us to go home.’
Sam clambered up through the doorway. The last of the souls turned into beads of light and floated by him upwards to the cavern roof.
Sam twisted Beatrice around to his chest and ran into the tunnel.
CHAPTER 21
‘Sam!’
A lion’s face peered in from the top of the door.
‘Bladder? Bladder!’
‘Come on.’
‘Yes, they’re all …’
‘… on the move. Let’s go!’
They plunged inside the exit tunnel, hearing confused voices of patrols echoing in the corridors. Guards had heard the yells from the ogres’ cavern and already someone had reported seeing hundreds of piles of ash everywhere. Had the sun got underground? Panicked voices spread the news. They ran forward faster than Sam and Bladder could, each monster asking another what had happened.
A cluster of pixies argued about the noises. ‘Did you hear the screams?’ asked one. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Bladder motioned to Sam, and they fell in with a thickening swell of imps.
Huddles of impkind rushed together, broke off and escaped down smaller side tunnels. Pixies ran by them asking the whereabouts of Thunderguts. The afternoon’s batch of droppings had arrived, they said, and they needed the ogre king. But the crowd pushed on, running from roars building in the rear. The charge gathered brownies, leprechauns and a few tiny trolls.
The mass turned into a larger tunnel. Sam pushed against them, inching to the side. The hub-bubbling pulled
at him; he staggered on, unable to slow as Bladder bustled above him on the ceiling. An army of small ogres joined in, looking around for guidance from the old ones, but there was none to be had and they cried out in confounded roars. Sam swam from clumsy, meaty paws swinging near Beatrice’s head. The stampede noises grew louder and the weight of terrified bodies flowed onwards. Where was Bladder now? Sam sought the gargoyle, but he’d lost him in the throng.
The surge drove forward towards the ledge overlooking the Great Cavern. Sam fought the flow, but as the widening cavern entrance opened, he knew he would plummet with the others if he did not escape. He saw a few quick-witted imps, light and fortunate, jump from the doorway on to the vertical face of dirt outside. Sam hurled himself sideways after them and, as he threw himself, hoping for solid earth under his hands, Bladder grabbed his shirt and wrested him up the rest of the way. The gargoyle pointed to the tier above, and once Sam’s feet found the ledge, the pair ran in the direction of the gargoyles’ hideaway.
The cavern floor far below them gagged with imps and monsters, crushing and pushing. Sam saw a few anxious trolls below them, maybe half a dozen. A few smaller ogres too, little bigger than Sam himself. The huge monsters, goblins, trolls, all those others, had gone. The souls had thinned the herd.
‘Stop gaping. Inside, inside,’ Bladder said.
Sam slipped into the hideout. The baying continued but grew no nearer. He unstrapped Beatrice and laid her gently on the stony floor.
Bladder bared stony fangs at him. He was grinning.
‘You should have left, Bladder, it was safer,’ Sam said, panting.
Bladder shook his head. ‘I would have lost you for good then. What if you died?’
Sam flung his arms around Bladder’s neck and buried his face in the stone mane. It felt soft and warm like sand under his face.
Bladder tolerated the hug. ‘Will that thing cry if it’s hungry? They do that. It’ll get us killed.’
‘I don’t know. She’s asleep right now, but when the spell breaks … she could wake any time soon.’
The gargoyle fell back on his haunches. ‘Then we need to get out now. Straight up! To Mên-an-Tol.’
‘Mên-an-Tol?’
‘It’s one of the old places. A door. Where humans would bring changelings way back. It’s a long old climb, but at least we’ll be safe up there, and it’s centuries since it’s been used so it’ll be quiet. If we’re lucky, it might even be easy to open.’
‘Might be?’ Sam said.
Bladder studied his face. ‘I can’t think of any other way out right now. Using a corridor will get us killed. I saw what happened down there, and there’s enough left alive that will make sure everyone will know what went on. Word will spread. There’ll be big, bad monsters looking for you and that baby, an’ they’ll all be out for blood.’
‘Sam walked to the door. He looked at the floor and saw the hubbub of bodies boiling together in excitement and anger. Yells and moans buzzed the air. Imps moving up and imps moving down covering the stairs and walls.
Everything above disappeared into black ceiling.
‘I will stay with you, Sam,’ Bladder said. ‘No matter what.’
‘You really think it’s our only choice?’ Sam felt tired. He didn’t know if he had any climb left in him.
‘Sorry,’ Bladder said. ‘We can’t stay here.’
Beatrice shuffled in the dim light, proving the gargoyle’s point.
Sam hoisted Beatrice and followed Bladder out of the burrow.
They climbed up into cold, sticky black.
Even in the dark, the cavern went on; ledge after ledge littered with hole after hole. When Sam’s arms got too sore, the pair sat down to rest on a ridge. This high up the mass of monsters and imps below blurred into puddles that gathered, separated, then gathered again.
‘Let’s have a look then,’ Bladder said.
‘A look?’
‘At the baby.’
Sam turned so Bladder could see Beatrice and her popping, sizzling sparkles.
‘You did all this for one of those?’
‘For this particular one,’ Sam said.
Bladder sniffed her. ‘Cos she’s pack. Each to his own, I guess.’ He grinned at Sam. ‘She makes you do good things, don’t she?’
‘Her. And the Kavanaghs. And you.’
‘What? No,’ Bladder said, but he was purring. He realised what he was doing and covered it with a cough.
They climbed more ledges, trudging up endless black levels past murky-eyed burrows.
Sam shuddered.
‘Don’t think it, boy, nothing lives here any more.’ Yet the gargoyle scurried away from one entrance, and something rotten scratched inside.
The dark thickened, but Sam felt he could climb forever. He had Beatrice, he had his friend. Even if that was all he had, for the moment it was enough.
‘Time to rest now, lad.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘You’re slurring. You feeling … what’s one of them things you feel again?’
‘I said I’m fine.’
Sam stepped on to a ledge. Something screamed far below. Bladder darted up the wall, and Sam lurched up after him, guided by the sound of Bladder’s tapping feet. The earthy face ran smooth except for a few short, distant ledges and then it curved gradually towards the middle.
‘Getting close to the top,’ Bladder said.
‘Good, I have to get out soon. I need a drink.’
Their hands, feet and claws pattered like water against the walls. Sam tutted and his dry tongue held to the top of his mouth.
As they climbed the final bend into vaulting space, Bladder cheered. Beatrice burbled in her sleep. Below them black space dropped into nothingness.
Sam licked his mouth again. He wanted water more than anything. There definitely had to be a word for that.
They scrambled faster, and Sam forgot his mouth.
Beatrice’s light was dimming.
‘Sam? Sam?’ Bladder’s voice drifted in from the distance.
‘What?’
‘You have to rest.’
‘Not now. So close.’
‘You don’t smell right. You’re not well.’
‘I just … need a drink.’
Bladder looked around. ‘I can’t get you one. I don’t know where I’d go and …’
The world blurred.
‘There’s a ledge, three, four paces that way …’ Bladder was saying.
Sam’s hands slid from the wall, his bare feet slipped, and he fell.
CHAPTER 22
‘’At ’akes ’ree ’imes I saved your ’ife.’
Sam screamed at the pain of being dragged on to the ledge by his hair.
Bladder spat strands back at him. ‘It’s lucky you got that much fur, but it tastes awful.’
Sam touched his sore scalp.
‘Look,’ said Bladder, ‘we’re here, but the way is definitely filled in.’
Sam looked past the ledge and into a circular cave behind it. There was an obvious difference in shade, black earth around, brown earth choking up the middle. The faintest smell of air.
Sam touched Beatrice. She sent out clear pink sparkles. She was waking. He couldn’t take her back down there again, and he couldn’t stay here.
Bladder chuckled. ‘Check these out!’ He showed his claws to Sam. ‘May be made for rending and slicing, but they’re useful for digging too. Good thing we don’t have to rely on your little mitts.’
As Bladder dug through the hardened dirt, Sam wondered what the creatures below thought of the earth falling on them. If Maggie was down there somewhere stomping and yelling, they might think she was shaking the ceiling on to them. He was impressed by how fast Bladder’s claws tunnelled and coped with the occasional slap in the face of Bladder’s swishing tail.
‘What are all these ropes for?’ Sam asked.
‘Ropes?’ Bladder glanced at the dark tendrils that had appeared as he shifted the earth around them. ‘They’re
tree roots, you great nit. They mean we’re close to the way out.’
Beatrice’s sparkles lit the way three feet ahead, revealing mud, clay and more of the tree roots curling through the tunnel Bladder had excavated. His stone tail wagged as his fat stomach and forepaws worked against dirt.
The dirt fell with an abrupt plop, and Bladder led them into a cool, dark space. Three white rocks sat near the opening. One was strong and circular, with a hole running through it like a stone tyre from a stone car. Rough, green vegetation sprang up everywhere.
Sam groaned. Above him spread the expanse of another endless cavern, lit by an odd silver orb like a small, weak sun.
‘Who lives in this cavern?’ he asked. ‘It’s dark. Except for that. What’s that?’
‘That’s the moon, you nit,’ Bladder said. ‘It’s night-time.’
‘We’re above ground?’ Even though every part of him ached, Sam thought he could run. The tiredness slipped away.
‘Seriously mentally deprived,’ Bladder said to a rock. ‘And I almost thought he was getting there.’
Beatrice stirred. Sam stroked her head and hushed her, then looked up at the sparkles above and grinned. ‘Bladder …’
‘The twinkly things are called stars,’ Bladder said.
‘Thanks.’
‘It doesn’t take much research, you know? Documentaries. A quick internet search …’
‘I meant “Thanks for everything”.’
Bladder sat down on his dirt-covered haunches and purred. ‘You’re welcome. I wouldn’t be out here if you hadn’t come back for me.’ Bladder rubbed his head on Sam’s legs. ‘Although you did get me banged up in the first place.’
From the other direction, the smell of fire filled the air; perfumed as if spices had been thrown into its flames. It invited Sam to investigate.
‘Come on, Bladder. Just a little bit more.’
Bladder’s bum wiggled between the carved white stones and together they followed the smell.
Sam stared up at the stars again – a delicate spray of lights dotting the gorgeous black expanse, gathering together in swirls of hot white. They could have been souls spread out against the all-spanning sky, which went on and on like a cavern roof but glittered with light and energy. Real endlessness, more precious than a world of leprechaun gold.