The Nightmare Game

by Gillian Cross

  The king smiled questioningly, raising an eyebrow. But it was the queen who spoke. (A matriarchy, then?)

  “Who are you?” she said abruptly. “How did you get into our storeroom?”

  He couldn’t tell the exact truth without betraying his rescuer. He settled for the nearest safe approximation and answered quickly, looking her straight in the eye.

  “I have no idea how I arrived. I just—found myself there, ma’am.”

  “Cam,” she said.

  Was that her name or some kind of title? He repeated the word, trying to match her accent precisely. “Cam.”

  She gave him an odd look. “You say you just—appeared in the storeroom?”

  He nodded. It was almost the truth (he had, after all, found himself in that peculiar forest with no idea of how he’d got there) but he couldn’t help thinking that it sounded thin and unconvincing. He would hardly have been surprised if Cam had rejected it out of hand.

  But she didn’t. She glanced sideways at the king, uncertainly. “Has it ever happened like that before, Zak?”

  The king smiled his irritating, quizzical smile. “Each time is different,” he said.

  Maybe he wasn’t the king after all. Maybe he was some kind of witch doctor or shaman, given to spouting senseless mumbo jumbo. Each time is different. What was that supposed to mean? It was a pointless answer.

  Unless—

  The explanation jumped suddenly into his head and he blurted out a question. “Are you telling me this kind of thing has happened before? Other people have suddenly found themselves here, without knowing how?”

  “Unnerving, isn’t it?” Zak said wryly.

  There was a low murmur of agreement from all around the cavern. Was it possible that they’d all been through this strange experience? His mind raced wildly, filled with ideas about mass kidnapping and hallucinogenic drugs. “Are you telling me that none of you knows where we are?”

  Zak’s eyes blanked suddenly, looking through him, and Bando make a low, unhappy noise in his throat. Behind them, people stirred restlessly, muttering words he couldn’t hear.

  They did know!

  “Tell me!” he said fiercely. “What is this place? You have to tell me.”

  For a second, there was silence.

  Then Zak said, “That’s something that people have to discover for themselves. We don’t let them join us in the cavern until they’ve found out.”

  Cam nodded vigorously. “If they can’t cope with that, then they’re no use to us.”

  He looked at her and then at Zak, trying to work out where this was leading. “But I’ve joined you already. I’m here.”

  “A most unusual situation.” Zak’s smile had vanished now and his eyes were grave. “Logically, we should send you out of here, to take your chance above the ground. Until you know.”

  But it’s too cold. I’ll die. He realized, just in time, that he couldn’t make that protest. He wasn’t supposed to know anything about the world outside. Pulling the fur closer around his body, he stood firm, trying to appeal to their sympathy.

  “Are you going to send me out like this? With nothing?”

  What was this terrible secret that they couldn’t just tell him? They must know what the temperature was like outside. Were they really going to send him out into that?

  Cam’s face was unrelenting. And when he glanced over his shoulder, the others avoided his eyes, staring down at the ground and scuffing the earth with their feet.

  “He’s got to go out,” someone muttered. “He’ll never believe it unless he sees for himself.”

  They began to whisper to each other, gradually fixing on a single word. Almost under their breath, they began to chant, falling into a rhythm that hovered on the edge of his hearing.

  “Out . . . out . . . out . . .”

  Soon, Bando was the only one not chanting. He shook his head from side to side, looking wretched, as if he was trying to get rid of the sound. But the others ignored him, and the chant went on and on.

  “. . . out . . . out . . .”

  It was Zak who brought it to a stop. Lifting the little drum he was holding, he rapped on it twice, with his fingertips. Like magic, the murmuring subsided and everyone turned to face him, waiting for him to speak.

  “This is a hard existence,” he said. “We have to trust one another with our lives. We can do that because we all share the terrible knowledge of where we are. Because we’ve all been through the shock of finding out. Everyone must experience that.”

  He nodded at Cam, and immediately she began to give orders. “Ab—open up the tunnel. Dess and Shang—you take him through.”

  Oh no. He wasn’t having that. No one was going to drag him out, like a criminal. If he really had to go, he was going with his dignity intact. Lifting his head high, he turned his back on them all and started walking toward the entrance tunnel, holding the fur around himself, like a robe.

  “That’s our blanket,” Cam called after him. “And we need it.”

  At the same moment, Ab pulled a plug of branches out of the entrance tunnel and a swirl of icy air came billowing into the cave. Even through the blanket, he could feel how cold it was. He clenched his teeth, determined not to turn back and plead.

  SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-RESPECT GO HAND IN HAND

  But he knew he couldn’t do it. It would be suicidal to go out into the cold without even a blanket to cover his body. He was about to give in, about to turn and beg, when something happened that altered the whole situation. From the far end of the cave, a voice shouted urgently.

  “Fire!”

  He did turn then, like everyone else. They all stared down toward the furnace and saw a cloud of smoke come billowing around one side of it, swelling out of the space behind.

  20

  HE EXPECTED A MASS PANIC, WITH ALL OF THEM BOLTING PAST him, like the savages they were. Trampling him underfoot in their scramble to escape. But it didn’t happen. No one moved except for Cam. She raced down the cavern, toward the smoke, and disappeared around the furnace. After a moment, she called out of the shadows.

  “It’s all right. There’s no danger—it’s almost burned out already. But come and look at this.”

  They all went together. If he’d wanted to run away from them, that would have been the ideal moment. But there was nowhere to go—except out into the cold air overhead. And that meant certain death. His only hope was to stick with them until he understood what had happened and where he was.

  And that made the smoke important to him, too.

  He followed them, as unobtrusively as he could, into the cramped, crowded space behind the furnace. There was still smoke hanging in the hot, stale air, but the fire had gone. All that was left was a small heap of gray, fluffy ash, with a few stray sparks running through it.

  And an arrow.

  It was scratched into the earth ahead of them, pointing toward the ramp. Even in the dim light, the grooves were clearly visible. The shaft of the arrow was as long as his arm.

  “What does it mean?” Ab said uncertainly. “Is it a message?”

  “Of course it is.” Cam bent down, moving forward as she traced the line. When she reached the point of the arrow, she stooped and lifted something off the ground. “Look.”

  The others pushed forward. Peering between their heads, he saw that Cam was holding the end of a primitive rope. The rest of it had been laid along the ground, so that it led down the ramp ahead of them and into the storeroom.

  “It’s—Lorn,” Annet said. “That’s what she did before, when she wanted us to come and save Bando. She’s left us a trail to follow.”

  “How can it be Lorn?” someone else said scornfully. “We shut her in behind the wall. She could never have moved those stones on her own.”

  Was that the name of the girl in the tunnels? Lorn? It looked as though she’d saved him again. But how long would it take these savages to work out who had moved the stones? And what would they do when they realized that he’d lied to them
?

  He was the one who almost panicked then. But a lifetime of self-control kept him from running. And it was justified. Clearly, no one was thinking about him at that moment. All their attention was on the rope.

  Cam looked down at the end she was holding. “So what do we do?” she said pensively. “Are we going to do what she wants—after throwing her out of the cavern? How do we know this isn’t some kind of trap?”

  “Lorn wouldn’t do that!” Bando said hotly. “She wouldn’t hurt us!”

  Ab kicked at the pile of ashes. “She tried to start a fire, didn’t she? If she could do that—”

  Zak shook his head firmly. “That fire was never meant as a danger. It was just a signal, to draw our attention. Of course we must follow the rope. How else will we know the end of Lorn’s story?”

  That seemed like a completely ridiculous argument. Why go down into the darkness for something as trivial as a story? Surely even savages wouldn’t be persuaded by such a triviality?

  Clearly he didn’t understand their primitive minds. They muttered to each other for a second and then Cam called out to someone called Perdew to fetch a torch. Guided by the unsteady light of a piece of glowing wood, they all began to move forward, picking up the rope and running it through their hands as they went down the ramp.

  He watched them go, without any idea of following. But as the last person disappeared into the storeroom, Zak turned to him and held out the end of the rope.

  “You, too,” he said.

  What had it got to do with him? He backed away, shaking his head. “No thank you. I’m not interested in stories. I prefer real life.”

  There was no reply. Just the rope end, held out to him, and Zak’s steady blue stare. Something about that stare made him move forward, slowly and reluctantly, and take hold of the rope.

  As his fingers touched it—as they felt the intricate, twisted pattern—he was hit by a shock of recognition. The rope was made of many separate strands (he knew there were twelve, without counting) intricately braided together into a neat, square braid. It was like—exactly like—NO. THIS IDEA IS NOT APPROPRIATE.

  Before his mind could make the comparison, some deeper part of his brain clamped tight, not letting him complete the thought. Recognition of the rope was clearly an impossibility. Smoothly, his mind produced a more correct idea.

  THIS IS A PRIMITIVE ROPE CLEVERLY BRAIDED BY HAND THE DESIGN IS PRESUMABLY TRADITIONAL

  Zak watched him with a small, wry smile. “This is your story, too,” he said softly.

  A flicker of fear danced at the edge of his mind. But he wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated by a shabby, tin-pot shaman. If it was necessary, he would follow the rope, but only on his own terms. As a detached observer.

  Without wasting any breath on answering, he went down into the dark, after the others. And Zak came behind him, bringing up the rear.

  THE TORCH DIDN’T LAST LONG. THEY WERE FOLLOWING NOT A single rope but half a dozen or more, knotted together in sequence. By the time his hands closed around the second knot, the wood had burned away and Perdew tossed it to one side in a shower of sparks.

  That sudden, dying brightness was gone within a few seconds. Now they were in pitch darkness, shuffling along one behind another. What were they expecting? What could there possibly be at the end of the rope that would justify this mindless procession?

  In spite of his own precarious position, he almost took the risk of pointing out what an idiotic waste of energy the whole thing was. The words were actually forming in his mind, when Cam called out suddenly from in front.

  “We’ve reached the end of the rope!”

  Before anyone could react, a loud, clear voice shouted from ahead of them. “And you’ve reached the next part of my story. Make a line across the tunnel, so that everyone can see.”

  It was her, of course. The girl who’d saved him. Her voice was instantly recognizable—even though he had no idea what she was talking about. It seemed to make sense to the others, though. They began to inch sideways, spreading out so that they stood side by side, staring forward.

  He tried to squeeze in at one end, to watch without getting involved. But Zak seized his hand and pulled him right into the middle of the line. Wedged in between Zak and Bando, he had no chance of sneaking away.

  The girl ahead of them didn’t speak until they’d stopped moving. When there was complete silence, her voice rang out again. This time, it seemed to be coming from somewhere higher up. She wasn’t shouting now, but every word was clear.

  “You’ve heard my story about three friends trying to rescue a prisoner. And Zak told you about the man whose daughter was stolen away from under the floor—”

  (What? The words jerked him to attention. How had Zak come to be talking about that? This is your story, too, he’d said. Did that actually mean something? Peering forward into the darkness, he tried to see the girl who was speaking, but he couldn’t even work out exactly where she was. There was only her voice, continuing steadily.)

  “You’ve listened to both of those—but no one has ever asked for the most important story of all. Have you even thought about it?”

  No one attempted to answer her question. After a brief pause, her voice went on, uninterrupted.

  “There’s a story that goes right to the heart of what was happening, down in that black room. That’s what I’m going to tell you now. I’ve brought you here to listen so that you can see and feel the truth of it. Are you ready?”

  A small noise of assent, faint as a sigh, ran quickly along the line. He was the only one who didn’t make a sound. He stood frozen, fighting the voice in his brain that told him to cover his ears and hang on to the truth he knew.

  With a huge effort, he willed himself to hear what she was going to say.

  And then she began. “Once upon a time, there was a girl whose father kept her down in a hole in the ground. . . .”

  “ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A GIRL WHOSE FATHER KEPT HER DOWN IN a hole in the ground.”

  From high on the shoulder of the great THING she’d built, Lorn listened to her words dropping into the silence. As she said them, she knew that she was telling the right story, at last. The one she knew and understood. Her voice grew stronger as the power came to her.

  “Was the girl really precious and beautiful? What do you think? Down there, in the dark, she couldn’t learn the things that other people do. She couldn’t run or jump. She didn’t know how to sing or argue—or even to speak properly. All she could do was make twisted patterns out of her own hair.”

  She paused for a moment, controlling her anger. If she let it loose now, she would ruin everything. The story had to be quiet, right up to the moment of shock. The moment when she lit the fires. Until then, she must tell it softly, softly. . . .

  “Every day, for a few brief minutes, she was pulled up above the ground.” She closed her eyes, remembering the dazzling light and the terrible sickening fear. “Her parents pushed food at her and forced her to try and walk. And her brother gibbered at her, calling her nonsense names.”

  (Prongo Hamster. H.Poor-garments. H.P.Strange-Room.)

  “No one ever told her she was meant to be special. She thought they kept her hidden because she was ugly. Stupid and clumsy and bad. Why else would they shut her away from the rest of the family, when they kept her brother up in the light with them?”

  She could feel the warmth of the snail shell wedged next to her. Everything was ready now. The monstrous shape was made. Its two eyeholes were stuffed with white fluff. The embers in the shell would burst into flame when she blew on them. All she had to do was make sure the others understood.

  That he understood.

  “Maybe Zak was right,” she said. Sounding every word clearly. “Maybe the man did put his daughter into the hole to protect her. In the beginning. But he never told her she was precious. And, in the end, he kept her there because he thought she was his, and he couldn’t bear to set her free. That’s what ruined and s
tunted and crippled her. And do you want to know what it did to him? Do you want to know what she saw, when the hole was opened and his arms reached down to drag her out? Do you want to see?”

  She was shouting now, but it was all right, because she was there, at the right point. She’d told them everything she could—and now she was going to show them what it was like. Wrapping a blanket around her hands, she picked up the snail shell and blew on the glowing embers.

  “He came like a monster!” she yelled. “Like a terrible giant! Like THIS!”

  Tipping the snail shell forward, she held it against the back of the great, hollow eyeholes. Instantly, the fibers inside burst into flame and, for the first time, the dark tunnel was filled with light. The fibers flared wildly, revealing the crowd of people and the hidden space that arched high above their heads. And in the very center of the light, like a shape half seen in a nightmare, loomed the great pillar of earth that she had built.

  She knew how it must look to the dazzled eyes in front of her. Peering down from the shoulder of the monster she had made, she could see the others gazing up at it, awed by its size and terrified by the fire.

  They understood at last. She could see them struggling to stay detached and calm, but they couldn’t do it. The great earth shape compelled their attention, forcing them to see what she saw—a shadow that was too big to be seen clearly, because it dominated everything.

  The wild fire flamed in the darkness, burning away Zak’s cruel distortion of reality. Leaning forward into its light, she shouted down at them all.

  “Now do you know which is the right story? Do you see why the robbers had to take the girl from under the floor?”

  The heads below her turned toward her voice—and his head turned with them. She saw the shock on his face as he saw her for the first time. He took one step forward and then stopped, staring up in disbelief.

  And she stared back at him. Looking down from the shoulder of her monstrous image.