The Cockatrice Boys

by Joan Aiken

  Which other creature? Which?

  Then the muscles of his mind finally released their grip and let go. With a gulp of relief he remembered. Basilisks, of course. You turn, the archbishop had said—he had a wound in his heel—you turn and look at them over your shoulder. Throw something. They detest bright colours.

  Dakin dropped his weapons and plunged his hands into his pockets. What in the name of goodness was this?

  He pulled it out, all the time envisaging that immense piece of live danger approaching him down the track, coming closer and closer—

  The thing in his pocket was a little string sack of coloured candies; Pollylollies. How in the world could they have got there? He had not seen candies or sweets for ten years—longer. But it was precisely what was needed in the present crisis. He undid the string and flung handfuls of the little hard things over his shoulder at the advancing beast, staring into its gloomy face as he did so.

  The Mirkindole paused, and brayed angrily: a sound that was more a bellow than a roar. It shook its head—one of the candies had evidently lodged in its eye. Staggering, it shook its head again; then lost balance completely and lurched over the edge of the track. Down it went, plunging and somersaulting, until it vanished from view among a clump of pines.

  “Save us!” said Dakin. He drew a huge breath.

  Uli, rather subdued, came and rubbed his head against Dakin’s thigh. Then he shook himself, as much as to say, That’s enough of that, and went loping on up the track.

  Dakin, on legs that trembled a good deal, followed.

  They reached a clearing. In the last of the daylight Dakin could just see a little house; and that there was a dim glimmer at the window.

  Outside the door Uli barked his head off. Dakin beat a terrific tattoo on his drum.

  Uli did more than bark. He launched himself at the door like a battering-ram and burst it open. Without losing impetus, he hurled himself inside, and instantly Dakin heard a wild noise of battle; barks, snarls, growls, shrill, ugly screams, thuds, human cries, shrieks—

  Dakin thundered on his drum as if possessed. He did not know why. He simply knew that he had to. This was why he had brought the drum all the way from London. It had nothing to do with battles. If I drum loudly enough, he thought, if I make enough noise, something crucial will happen. I have got to keep on. I have to. Thank heavens I brought it.

  His wrists ached, his fingers were numb.

  Out through the cottage door burst his cousin Sauna. She was thin, terribly thin, pale, and wild-eyed.

  “Oh, Dakin!” she cried. Oh, Dakin! You’re here! Oh, Dakin!

  She caught hold of his arm and dragged him, still drumming, away from the cottage to the other end of the clearing, where the track made its entry.

  Uli tore out of the cottage door after Sauna. He was still engaged in a fight, battling with something that was smaller but extremely savage, something that screamed and writhed and tore at the big hound. But finally he tossed his bleeding head in triumph and hurled away some heavy body that flew across the snowy space and thumped down out of sight.

  “Uli!” cried Sauna. “Come here, come quick. Let’s get away. Quickly, quickly!”

  As they reached the edge of the clearing, Dakin had a view of something standing in the cottage doorway outlined against flickering light, something so horrible that he quickly slammed his mind down like a shutter against the memory, and never in all his later life raised that shutter again.

  Now there was a queer noise overhead. Voices? Thunder? More monsters?

  “Keep going!” shouted Sauna in his ear. “Come on, Uli!”

  Next moment an unbelievably loud roar further up the hill rose in volume until the sound was past anything that could be accepted by human ears—and a whole hillside of snow fell down from above on to the cottage, and then swept it hurtling down into the forest beneath the open space. And lower down the hill, out of sight. Not out of hearing though; they could follow its progress for many minutes crashing and booming its way into the valley far below.

  “An avalanche!” breathed Sauna. “We got away just in time. Oh, Dakin!”

  Speechlessly, they hugged one another.

  Uli whined.

  “Uli! Meinhund! Liebhund! Beautiful, beautiful dog!”

  Sauna knelt down and hugged him too.

  Then she cried out. “Oh, Dakin, he’s hurt! Terribly hurt! He has a most awful wound in his neck. That rat—that foul rat—must have done it.”

  “Was that what it was? A rat?” Dakin said. “It must have been the biggest rat in the world.” He shuddered, thinking of the other thing he had seen, the thing in the doorway. “Are you all right, Sauna? Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said hastily. “Yes, I’m all right. But we must get Uli back to the train—he’s in a bad way.”

  Indeed, when the dog tried to stand, he staggered and fell down again.

  “We’ll have to carry him,” said Dakin. “But how?”

  Sauna frowned. Then she plunged a hand into her pocket and brought out a tangle of cord.

  “I knew this would come in useful. We’ll find two straight branches and lace the cord back and forth, to make a litter.”

  Although it was now dark, they could find what they needed easily enough in the snow. Dakin hacked a couple of branches with his Kelpie-knife. There was not quite enough cord, even with Sauna’s skipping-rope, so Dakin undid the lacings of his drum and they made a kind of stretcher. Lifting Uli on to it was no easy job, for he was a massive weight and whined pitifully when they shifted him. But at last he was arranged with his weight well distributed and nothing important dangling over the side.

  “It’s going to be an awful job,” said Dakin forebodingly.

  “We’re not leaving Uli behind,” said Sauna. “She was going to set the rat on me. He came in just in time to save me.”

  It was an awful job getting Uli down Sorrow Glen. Sauna’s feet were in agony from the too-tight boots. But at least the snow had frozen hard over the muddy stretch; and the fallen fir had been shaken from its perch by the thunder of the avalanche, and had slid further down the hillside, so they were able to get past it without difficulty.

  “It was your drumming that started the avalanche,” said Sauna. “Loosed a great canopy of snow that was dangling from a cliff up above. I’m glad the cottage is gone,” she added in a trembling voice.

  She said nothing about its occupant.

  “I knew I had to bring my drum,” said Dakin.

  He was worrying about Major Scanty. What would they ever do, how would they ever manage, if they found the major still lying where he had fallen, pierced by the Telepod tusk? They could not possibly carry both him and Uli. But they could not leave Uli behind …

  Also, Dakin doubted if he and Sauna could actually carry the major, even between them. He kept an anxious lookout for the spot where the major had fallen, which he had memorized with care at the time: there was a slanting rowan tree and a split rock with heather growing in the crack.

  Fortunately the major was gone. They found a few drops of blood on the snow, but no body.

  “I do hope that means the old boy’s all right. I do hope he managed to struggle back.”

  To their huge relief the Cockatrice Belle, seen across the water-meadows a few minutes later, was a blaze of light and activity. Dakin had nursed another secret fear, that the battle might have gone badly for the Belle and her crew, but no; there was the colonel on the observation platform, there was Dr. Wren …

  “Sir, Sir!” yelled Dakin. “I’ve brought back Sauna! Here she is!”

  Half a dozen willing helpers immediately jumped down to relieve Dakin and Sauna from the burden of Uli, who, to Sauna’s great joy, had faintly wagged his tail at sight of the brilliantly illuminated train.

  But then he suddenly let out a long, rolling, terrible growl.

  “Why, Uli, what’s up? There’s naught but friends here.”

  Uli growled again, and they heard a faint voice cry
ing in the darkness: “Help! Help, for pity’s sake!”

  They were standing in swampy, tussocky ground, the marshy meadows that lay between Dollar and the steep-sloping Ochils to the north. Behind Dakin a muddy ditch or brook wriggled like a black crack across the plain. And from this crack a black hand extended in supplication.

  “Oh, please help me! I can’t lift myself! I am in such pain! Please, please, for the love of mercy, don’t leave me here to drown. The tide is rising! And I can’t move.”

  “Oh, no! Not again!” muttered Mollisk. “It can’t be! Not that slimy, dripsy squint-eyed Flint? What does he take us for? Sir, Colonel, it’s that feller we rescued twice afore. Don’t you reckon there’s summat downright fishy about the way he keeps turning up? He takes us for sapheads. Don’t you think we should just leave him there to drown when the tide comes in?”

  The colonel had bounded down from the observation platform and was heartily congratulating Dakin and Sauna on their safe return.

  “Happy to see you, Dakin, my boy. Excellent work, excellent! And little Miss Sauna too! Everybody on this train will be as pleased as can be to have you safe back. Dr. Wren especially—”

  But at the news that Tom Flint had reappeared he spun round.

  “What’s that you say, Mollisk? Flint? Great Scott, that man must have the impudence of the devil himself to show his face again. But no, we can’t leave him to drown, richly as he deserves it. The archbishop will certainly wish to interrogate him. Hoist him out, Mollisk and Clinch. Fetch him along, but don’t leave him for a moment, keep him under close guard—”

  Tom Flint’s piteous cries and moans, as he was carried (none too gently) on board made the dog Uli growl even louder, and Sauna, who had been rapturously hugging Mrs. Churt, started violently and began to shiver.

  “That voice of his! He was one of the two in the carriage. Don’t let him near me!”

  “Don’t you worry, lovey, Sergeant Mollisk’ll have him clapped in irons afore you can say parsley sauce. Now you lads come along and bring the dog to my nice warm galley—and you, too, dearie. You look as if you need a deal of feeding-up—ginger and treacle pudding!”

  “Oh, thank you, darling Mrs. Churt, only not ginger! Any other! But you said Sergeant Mollisk—has he been promoted? Where’s Sergeant Bellswinger?”

  “Oh, dearie! He got gobbled up by one of those nasty Mirkindoles! He didn’t turn round quick enough, Private Clinch said—”

  “Oh, no!” Sauna burst into tears. “I was s-s-so much looking forward to telling him all that happened to me,” she sobbed.

  Dakin, at that moment, was hearing the same news from Colonel Clipspeak. He was within an inch of weeping too, and had to swallow several times and bite his lip. Never again to have a fist like a leg of mutton thump him between the shoulderblades! Never to hear that friendly roar address him as “You little article.”

  “Wh-what about Major Scanty, sir? And Lieutenant Upfold?”

  The colonel sighed. “I’m afraid Upfold got demolished by a Troll. But Major Scanty was, happily, rescued by Dr. Wren who—with great intrepidity—dashed out through the thick of the battle when he saw the major dragging himself towards the train; and then cleverly packed the tusk that had stabbed the major with ice, so as to prevent excessive bleeding when it was withdrawn. Scanty is doing well, I’m glad to say. But now we must put a few questions to that miserable Flint. Dr. Wren is already with him. You had best come too, my boy; you were with the party that first encountered him at Willoughby.”

  “What about Sauna, sir? Shall I fetch her?”

  The colonel pondered.

  “She may not be ready for a confrontation just yet; poor gal, she looks as if she has been through a bad time.”

  Flint had been carried to his former quarters, the small cabin behind the engine. Clinch and Tussick stood guard outside the door.

  “Dr. Wren’s in with the blighter at the moment,” Tussick told the colonel in a low tone. “It’s a mighty queer thing, sir—you’ll hardly believe this, but it’s a wonder the cove is alive at all. He’s hardly any right to be. Both his feet have been burned off at the ankles.”

  “What? Can you be serious, man?”

  “True as I stand here, Colonel. Dr. Wren’s bandaged the stumps with honey and cobwebs; he and Mrs. Churt say that’s best for burns. Unusual sort of mishap, though, ain’t it? We don’t get many burns among our battle casualties.”

  Dr. Wren came out of the cabin. He looked grave. A wailing, pleading voice from inside the room sobbed. “Please bring her! Oh, please bring her here! And tell her to bring the doll as well! For pity’s sake!”

  “What the deuce is the fellow on about?” demanded the colonel. “Has he admitted that he was the one who abducted the gal? Or why he took her?”

  “He has done so in a way. I’m afraid he is without doubt a lost soul.” The archbishop looked rather sick. “He has told me a long, long rigmarole, beginning with the very first shameful bargain he made with the Evil One at the early age of seven—he did something he shouldn’t, something disgusting, and then bought immunity from punishment, in exchange, you know, for the usual servitude, and so it has been all his life, ever since. Now, his only hope seems to be that Sauna can rescue him.”

  “Rescue him from what?” demanded the colonel.

  Dr. Wren shrugged.

  “The last, worst fate of all.”

  “But why should Sauna be able to? Why should she want to?”

  “That would be for her to say,” said Dr. Wren.

  “Shall I fetch her?” offered Dakin.

  “Only if she is entirely willing,” the archbishop told him. “And, Dakin, he keeps talking about dolls. Tell her to bring the dolls, if she has them.”

  “What dolls? Oh, yes, I remember.”

  As Dakin ran away down the corridor he heard Dr. Wren say, “She is a good, courageous child. I think it likely that she will come.”

  In the galley Sauna said, “Dolls? But I only have one left. One got burned up. I fell asleep by the fire … and, when I woke … one of them was quite gone … and the other … I just managed to snatch it out—”

  She plunged a hand into her pocket and exhibited the tiny singed mannikin in his black hat and blue cravat. “Poor little object—I doubt he’s not worth mending.”

  “Well, bring him along; if you really don’t mind coming, that is,” Dakin told her. “Dr. Wren said, only if you are truly willing—”

  “Now, don’t you do a single thing you don’t want to, dearie,” said Mrs. Churt.

  Sauna sighed.

  “Oh, yes. I’ll come. I feel better now. And I don’t think anything could be as bad as what I’ve seen already.”

  Dakin felt, as he followed her along the corridor, that she seemed ten years older. He had a lot of catching up to do.

  As soon as Tom Flint laid eyes on Sauna, he started to cry and hiccup.

  He was lying on a narrow bunk, wrapped in white bandages from neck to knees. The bandages ended below his knees.

  He wept and wailed and prayed, his mud-coloured eyes fixed all the time on Sauna.

  “Oh, please! Oh, please! I’m in such pain! All over! Burning, blistering pain! You are the only, only one who can help me!”

  The archbishop laid a kindly, supporting hand on Sauna’s arm as she stepped into the confined space of the cabin. But she gently shook her head and moved forward.

  “Why should I help you?” she asked the man in the bunk.

  “You escaped, didn’t you? You got away? I didn’t take you—right—up to—to—the door. You had a chance to get away. Didn’t you? And you took it. You did get away. Here you are, now!”

  The eyes, like pools of slime, beseeched her.

  Sauna said calmly, “You stopped where you did because a tree had fallen. You couldn’t get by.”

  “Oh, please, oh, please. Don’t hold that against me. Perhaps the tree was meant to fall. And you could do such a noble, noble deed. You could save me for ever.”


  “I rather doubt if that is the case,” remarked the archbishop dispassionately.

  Sauna looked with care into Tom Flint’s bony, damp, beseeching face.

  A thoughtful pause ensued. Then she said slowly, “Aren’t you still hoping to catch me? Isn’t this another try for a last-minute bargain with—with Somebody?”

  “No!” screamed Flint, looking wildly round him. “No, no, no, no! I swear it! Never! I swear!”

  “Swear by what name?” demanded the archbishop in a voice of iron. “By what authority?”

  The man on the bed winced and writhed, as if he had been exposed to searing heat.

  “Only help me!” he begged Sauna. “It can’t do you any harm. And it will deliver me out of torment. Just give me the dolls.” He kept his eyes away from Dr. Wren.

  “But only one doll is left,” said Sauna.

  She drew it from her pocket—the small, soiled puppet in his black hat, white shirt, and blue cravat. The trousers were torn. The wooden feet were merely charred stumps.

  Tom Flint’s eyes lit amazingly at sight of it. They glowed. He made a restless movement. But his hands, Dakin saw, were manacled together.

  “Free my hands, please, please! I can’t run. I can’t possibly escape. How could I?”

  Wren and Clipspeak looked at one another.

  “What do you think, Archbishop?” asked the colonel dubiously.

  The archbishop rubbed his chin.

  “I must say, it’s hard to see what he could achieve.”

  “Undo the handcuffs, then, Clinch,” ordered the colonel.

  Clinch stepped smartly forward and did so. The hurt man on the bed rubbed his hands slowly together several times. The movement reminded Dakin of a snake he had once seen, rubbing off its shed winter skin.

  He felt a sudden sense of alarm and mistrust. He leapt forward.

  “Don’t let him touch Sauna!”

  The man on the bed had reared up, like a cobra about to strike, reaching for Sauna. Dakin pulled her back. She let go of the tiny doll, which fell into Flint’s groping, grabbing hands. Instantly there was a blinding flash and a shatteringly loud crack of sound, as if from a chemical explosion. The cabin filled with thick, acrid, white smoke.