by Eoin Colfer
No1 could do nothing but return to the bench and bear the insults of his classmates. And there were plenty of those, usually accompanied by a missile or blow. But somehow No1 ignored these latest humiliations, staring instead at his own hand. The one that had turned wood to stone. Could it be true? Could he actually be a warlock? And if he was, would that make him feel better or worse?
A toothpick bounced off his forehead onto the bench. There was a sliver of gray meat stuck to the end. No1 glanced up to find Rawley grinning at him.
“Been trying to get that out for weeks. Wild boar, I think. Now, pay attention, Runt, Master Abbot is trying to educate you.”
Oh yes, the history lesson. It was amazing how much Leon Abbot managed to insert himself into demon history. To hear him tell it, you would think that he had single-handedly saved the 8th Family, in spite of the meddling warlocks.
Abbot studied the hooked talons on his fingertips. Each one could gut a large pig. If Abbot’s own stories were true, he had warped at age eight while wrestling one of the island’s wild dogs. His fingernails had actually changed into talons during the fight, lacerating the dog’s side.
No1 found this story highly unlikely. It took hours to warp fully, sometimes days, but Abbot expected them to believe that his warp was instantaneous. Hogwash. And yet all the other imps lapped up these self-glorifying legends.
“Of all the demons who fought in the last battle at Taillte,” droned Abbot in what he probably thought was a good voice for history lessons, but in what No1 thought was a boring enough voice to turn soft cheese hard, “I, Leon Abbot, am the last.”
Convenient, thought No1. Nobody left around to argue. He also thought: You look your age, Leon. Too many barrels of pork fat.
No1 was an uncharitable imp when in a bad mood.
It is the nature of out-of-time spells that the aging process is drastically slowed. Abbot had been a young buck when the warlocks had lifted Hybras out of time, and so the spell, combined with good genes, had kept him and his huge ego alive ever since. Possibly a thousand years. Of course, that was a thousand years in normal time. In Hybras time a millennium meant very little. A couple of centuries could skip by in the blink of an eye on the island. An imp could wake up one morning to find that he’d evolved. A while back, every demon and imp in Hybras got up one morning with a stubby tail where his magnificent long one used to be. For a considerable time after that, the most common noises on the island were the sounds of demons falling down, or swearing as they got up again.
“After that great battle in which the demon battalions were the bravest and fiercest in the People’s army,” continued Abbot to hoots of approval from the imps, “we were defeated by treachery and cowardice. The elves would not fight, and the dwarfs would not dig traps. We had no choice but to cast our spell and regroup until the time was right to return.”
More hooting, plus stamping of feet.
Every time, thought No1. Do we have to go through this every time? These imps act like they’d never heard this story before. When is someone going to stand up and say: “Excuse me. Old news. Move on.”
“And so we breed. We breed and grow strong. Now our army has more than five thousand warriors, surely enough to defeat the humans. I know this because I, Leon Abbot, have been to the world and returned to Hybras alive.”
This was Abbot’s golden nugget. This was where anyone who stood against him withered and blew away. Abbot had not come directly to Limbo with the rest of Hybras. For some reason he had been diverted to the human future, then sucked across to Hybras. He had seen the human camps and actually brought his knowledge home. How all this happened was a bit hazy. According to Abbot, there had been a great battle, he’d defeated fifty or so men, then a mysterious warlock had lifted him out of time again. But not before he’d grabbed a couple of things to bring back.
Since the warlocks had been explosively removed from the 8th Family, nobody had much of a clue about magic anymore. Normal demons had no magic of their own. It had been thought that all the warlocks had been sucked into space during the transferal of Hybras from Earth to Limbo, but according to Abbot, one had survived. This warlock was in league with the humans and had only helped the demon leader under threat of grievous injury.
No1 was highly skeptical of this version of events. First of all, because it came from Abbot, and secondly, because warlocks were being cast, once more, in a bad light. Demons seemed to forget that if it hadn’t been for the warlocks, Hybras would have been overrun by humans.
On this particular day, No1 was feeling a special attachment to the warlocks, and he did not appreciate their memory being sullied by this loudmouth braggart. Hardly a day went by where No1 did not spend a moment praying for the return of the mysterious warlock who had helped Abbot. And now that he was certain of magic in his own blood, No1 would pray all the harder.
“The moon separated me from the rest of the island during the great journey,” continued Abbot, his eyes half closed as if the memory had him in a swoon. “I was powerless to resist her charms. And so I traveled through space and time until I came to rest in the new world. Which is now the world of men. The humans clamped silver on my ankles, tried to make me submit, but I would not.” Abbot hunched his massive shoulders and roared at the roof. “For I am demonkind! And we will never submit!”
Needless to say, the imps went into overdrive. The entire room heaved with their exertions. In No1’s opinion, Abbot’s entire performance was wooden to say the least. The we will never submit speech was the oldest page in Abbot’s book. No1 rubbed his temples, trying to ease the headache. There was worse to come, he knew. First the book, then the crossbow, if Abbot didn’t deviate from the script. And why would he? He hadn’t in all the years since his return from the new world.
“And so I fought!” shouted Abbot. “I kicked off their shackles and Hybras called me home, but before I took my leave of the hated humans, I fought my way to their altar and stole away with two of their blessed objects.”
“The book and the bow,” muttered No1, rolling his orange eyes.
“Tell us what you stole!” begged the others on cue, as if they didn’t know.
“The book and the bow!” proclaimed Leon Abbot, pulling the objects from beneath his robe as if by magic.
As if by magic, thought No1. But not actual magic, because then Abbot would be a warlock, and he couldn’t possibly be a warlock, as he had already warped, and warlocks did not warp.
“Now we know how the humans think,” said Abbot, waving the book. “And how they fight,” he proclaimed, brandishing the crossbow.
I don’t believe any of this for a minute, thought No1. Or I wouldn’t, if we had “minutes” in Limbo. Oh, how I wish I were on Earth with the last warlock. Then there would be two of us, and I would find out what really happened when Leon Abbot came calling.
“And armed with this knowledge, we can return when the time spell fades, and retake the Old Country.”
“When?” cried the imps. “When?”
“Soon,” replied Abbot.“Soon. And there will be humans enough for us all. They will be crushed like the grass beneath our boots. We will tear their heads off like dandelion flowers.”
Oh, please, thought No1. Enough plant similes.
It was quite possible that No1 was the only creature on Hybras who had ever even thought the human word simile. Saying it aloud would have certainly earned him a thrashing. If the other imps knew that his human vocabulary also included words like grooming and decoration, they would string him up for sure. Ironically he had learned these words from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow, which was supposed to be a school text.
“Tear their heads off,” shouted one imp, and it quickly became a chant, taken up by everyone in the room.
“Yes, tear their heads off,” said No1, trying it out, but there was no feeling in his voice.
What’s my motivation? he wondered. I’ve never even met a human.
The imps climbed onto their benches, bob
bing in primal rhythm.
“Tear their heads off! Tear their heads off!”
Abbot and Rawley urged them on, flexing their claws and howling. A sickly sweet smell clogged the air. Warp muck. Someone was entering the warp spasm phase. The excitement was bringing on the change.
No1 felt nothing. Not so much as a twinge. He tried his best, squeezing his eyelids together, letting the pressure build in his head, thinking bloody thoughts. But his true feelings shattered the false visions of bloodlust and carnage.
It’s no use, he thought. I am not that kind of demon.
No1 stopped chanting and sat, head in hands. No point in pretending; another change cycle was passing him by.
Not so the other imps. Abbot’s theatrics had opened a natural well of testosterone, bloodlust, and bodily fluid.
One by one, they succumbed to the warp spasm. Green gunge flowed from their pores, slowly at first, then in bubbling gushes. They all went under, every one of them. It must be some kind of record, so many imps warping simultaneously. Of course Abbot would take the credit.
The sight of the fluid brought on fresh rounds of howling. And the more the imps howled, the faster the gunge spurted. No1 had heard it said that humans took several years to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Imps did it in a few hours. And a change like that is going to hurt.
The howls of exultation changed to grunts of pain as bones stretched and horns curled, the gunge-coated limbs already lengthening. The smell was sweet enough to make No1 gag.
Imps toppled to the floor all around. They thrashed for a few seconds, then their own fluids mummified them. They were cocooned like enormous green bugs, strapped tight by the hardening gunge. The schoolroom was suddenly silent, except for the crack of drying nutrient fluid and a rustle of flames from the stone fireplace.
Abbot beamed, a toothy smile that seemed to split his head in half.
“A good morning’s work, wouldn’t you say, Rawley? I got them all warping.”
Rawley grunted his agreement, then noticed No1. “Except the Runt.”
“Well, of course not,” began Abbot, then caught himself. “Yes. Absolutely, except the Runt.”
No1’s forehead burned under Rawley and Abbot’s scrutiny.
“I want to warp,” he said, looking at his fingers. “I really do. But it’s the hating thing. I just can’t manage it. And all that slime. Even the thought of that stuff all over me makes me feel a bit nauseous.”
“A bit what?” said Rawley suspiciously.
No1 realized that he needed to dumb it down for his teacher.
“Sick. A bit sick.”
“Oh.” Rawley shook his head in disgust. “Slime makes you sick? What kind of imp are you? The others live for slime.”
No1 took a deep breath and said something aloud that he had known for a long time.
“I’m not like the others.” No1’s voice trembled. He was on the verge of tears.
“Are you going to cry?” asked Rawley, his eyes bugging. “This is too much, Leon. He’s going to cry now, just like a female. I give up.”
Abbot scratched his chin. “Let me try something.”
He rummaged in a cape pocket, surreptitiously fixing something over his hand.
Oh, no, thought No1. Please no. Not Stony.
Abbot raised a forearm, his cloak draped over it. A ministage. A puppet human poked his head over the leather cape. The puppet’s head was a grotesque ball of painted clay, with a heavy forehead and clumsy features. No1 doubted that humans were this ugly in real life, but demons were not known for their artistic skills. Abbot often produced Stony as a visual incentive for those imps who were having difficulty warping. Needless to say, No1 had been introduced to the puppet before.
“Grrr,” said the puppet, or rather Abbot said, as he waggled the puppet. “Grrr, my name is Stony the Mud Man.”
“Hello, Stony,” said No1 weakly. “How’ve you been?”
The puppet held a tiny wooden sword in its hand. “Never mind how I’ve been. I don’t care how you’ve been, because I hate all fairies,” said Abbot in a squeaky voice. “I drove them from their homes. And if they ever try to come back, I will kill them all.”
Abbot lowered the puppet. “Now, how does that make you feel?”
It makes me feel that the wrong demon is in charge of the pride, thought No1, but aloud he said, “Eh, angry?”
Abbot blinked. “Angry? Really?”
“No,” confessed No1, wringing his hands. “I don’t feel anything. It’s a puppet. I can see your fingers through the material.”
Abbot stuffed Stony back in his pocket.
“That’s it. I’ve had it with you, No1. You will never earn a name from the book.”
Once demons warped, they were given a human name from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow. The logic being that learning the human language and possessing a human name would help the demon army think like humans, and therefore defeat them. Abbot may have hated the Mud Men, but that wasn’t to say he didn’t admire them. Also, politically, it was a good idea to have every demon on Hybras calling each other by names that Leon Abbot had procured for them.
Rawley grabbed No1’s ear and dragged him from his seat to the rear of the classroom. A metal grille on the floor covered a shallow, pungent dung pit.
“Get to work, Runt,” he said gruffly. “You know what to do.”
No1 sighed. He knew only too well. This wasn’t the first or second time he’d had to endure this odious task. He hefted a long-handled gaff from a peg on the wall and pulled the heavy grille from its groove. The smell was rank but not unbearable, as a crust had formed on the dung’s surface. Beetles crawled across the craggy skin, their legs clicking like claws on wood.
No1 uncovered the pit completely, then selected his nearest classmate. There was no way of telling which classmate it actually was because of the slime cocoon. The only movements were small air bubbles around the mouth and nose. At least, he hoped it was the mouth and nose.
No1 bent low and rolled the cocoon along the floor and into the dung pit. The warping imp crashed through the crust, taking a dozen beetles with him into the muck below. A gush of dung stink washed over No1, and he knew his skin would smell for days. The others would wear their pit stink proudly, but for No1 it was just another badge of shame.
It was arduous work. Not all the warping imps were still. Several struggled inside their cocoons, and twice demon claws punctured the green chrysalis inches from No1’s skin.
He persisted, groaning loudly in the hope that Rawley or Leon Abbot would lend a hand. It was a vain hope. The two demons were huddled at the head of the classroom, poring over Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow.
Eventually, No1 rolled his last classmate into the dung pit. They were piled in there like meat in a thick stew. The nutrient-rich dung would accelerate their warp, ensuring they reached full potential. No1 sat on the stone floor, catching his breath.
Lucky you, thought No1. Dunked in dung.
No1 tried to feel envious, but even being near the pit made him gag; the thoughts of being immersed in it, surrounded by cocooned imps, made his stomach churn.
A shadow fell across the flagstones before him, flickering in the firelight.
“Ah, No1,” said Abbot. “Always an imp, never a demon, eh? What am I going to do with you?”
No1 stared at his own feet, clicking his baby talons on the floor.
“Master Abbot, sir. Don’t you think? Isn’t there the tiniest chance?” He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Abbot’s. “Couldn’t I be a warlock? You saw what happened with the skewer. I don’t want to embarrass you, but you saw it.”
Abbot’s expression changed instantly. One second he was playing the genial master, the next his true colors shone through.
“I saw nothing,” he hissed, heaving No1 to his feet. “Nothing happened, you odious little freak of nature. The skewer was coated with ash, nothing more. There was no transformation. No magic.”
Abbot drew No1 close enough to see the slivers of trapped meat between his yellowed teeth. The next time he spoke, his voice seemed different somehow. Layered. As though an entire choir were singing in harmony. It was a voice that could not be ignored. Magical?
“If you are a warlock. Then you should really be on the other side, with your relative. Wouldn’t that be for the best? One quick leap, that’s all it would take. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Runt?”
No1 nodded, dazed. What a lovely voice. Where had that come from? The other side—of course that’s where he should go. One small step for an imp.
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. The subject is closed. As Lady Heatherington Smythe would say,‘Best foot forward, young sir, the world awaits.’”
No1 nodded just as he knew Abbot wanted him to, but inside, his brain churned along with his stomach. Was this to be the whole extent of his life? Forever mocked, forever different. Never a moment of light or hope. Unless he crossed over.
Abbot’s suggestion was his only hope. Cross over. No1 had never seen the appeal of jumping into a crater before, but now the notion seemed nigh on irresistible. He was a warlock, there couldn’t be any doubt. And somewhere out there, in the human world, there was another like him. An ancient brother who could teach him the ways of his kind.
No1 watched Abbot stride away. Off to exercise his power on some other part of the island, possibly by belittling the females in the compound, another of his favorite pastimes. Then again, how bad could Abbot be? After all, he had given No1 this wonderful idea.
I cannot stay here, thought No1. I must go to the volcano.
The notion took firm hold of his brain. And in minutes it had drowned out all the other notions in his head.
Go to the volcano.
It pounded inside his skull, like waves breaking on the shore.
Obey Abbot. Go to the volcano.
No1 brushed the dust from his knees.
“You know what,” he muttered to himself, in case Rawley could hear. “I think I’m going to the volcano.”