The Lightning Key (Wednesday Tales (Quality))

by Jon Berkeley

  “Nobody going to say Fawlche, then?”

  “What welcome do you expect?” asked the brass-bead man, “when you arrive without invitation, and the strangers who fell on our heads are your friends?”

  “Pure coincidence,” said Fabio.

  “We know everyone,” said Umor.

  Gila opened his mouth to speak, but to Miles’s delight Fuat reached out, quick as blinking, and tweaked his nose hard. “Ommadawn!” she said.

  Fabio sidled up to Miles and Little, eyeing Varippuli cautiously. “Do you have the you-know-what with you?”

  Miles nodded.

  “You haven’t told them,” whispered Fabio, “how you came to have it in the first place?”

  “No,” said Miles.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Fabio.

  “Not really,” said Miles. “But I know what needs to be done, and I suppose that’s a start.” He realized that he was out of time. The Null was here, the Fir Bolg were waiting, and there was no sign of Nura after all. He would have to interpret the key by himself. He began to run it over in his mind:

  What time has stolen, let it be.

  That part didn’t sound too hopeful. It must refer to his mother, he told himself.

  A flash of lightning spread across the sky, closer now and brighter. The Fir Bolg clashed their spears and howled as one, covering their eyes with their hairy arms. They were answered by a cackling laugh from the circus van, and Miles looked apprehensively at Varippuli. The tiger, however, seemed to have no energy left to react. Behind him Miles could see the hunched figure of Baltinglass, rummaging through the wreckage of the flying machine as though searching for something. He wondered vaguely what it might be.

  Power grows from two to three, thought Miles.

  This was the most puzzling bit. What could it mean? Was it his power, or that of the Tiger’s Egg? If it was both, then who were the “three” to whom the power would grow? The Null, Barty Fumble, Varippuli? Did The Null and his father, or for that matter his father and the tiger, count as one or two? The whole thing seemed frustratingly obscure.

  “What do you want us to do, Master Miles?” said Umor.

  “The boy is here to fulfill his mother’s promise,” said Fuat, daughter of Anust.

  “What promise?” said Gila, glancing nervously at Miles.

  “His mother swore to lift from us the burden of living underground,” said Brass Beads.

  Embrace the fear and set soul free, thought Miles.

  That was simple enough. He remembered the crushing embrace in which The Null had held him at the Palace of Laughter. It was true that it would have killed him if Little hadn’t come to his rescue, but as he had learned more about The Null’s bleak history he understood that embrace as the desperate echo of a father’s love for his lost son. This time he would return it, and hope that the Tiger’s Egg could work its magic quickly.

  Varippuli was getting agitated now, and he answered the thunder with a rumbling growl that made the nearest Fir Bolg gnash their teeth. Little rested her hand on the tiger’s shoulder and whispered softly in his ear.

  Miles racked his brain for the last two lines.

  To drink the sun in place of me.

  That was it. He didn’t want to think too hard about this one, and it was almost a relief when his thoughts were interrupted by a shout of triumph from Baltinglass of Araby.

  “Found it!” yelled the old man. He stood up clutching in his hand a domed copper hat with a tall spike rising from its center. “You there, Master Miles?” he shouted over the rain.

  “I’m here,” said Miles distractedly. All his concentration was on the key. Another flash of lightning split the sky, and the Fir Bolg roared and clashed their spears for a second time. “A second time,” thought Miles. Who knew what a third strike would do to the already enraged Fir Bolg? Power grows from two to three. The answer to the puzzle came to him in a sudden flash that seemed every bit as bright as the lightning itself. Baltinglass was weaving toward him, clutching the strange copper hat in which he had been struck twice by lightning. He had told them in the airship that the energy from those two lightning strikes still popped and fizzed in his body. Maybe the energy needed to unlock the Tiger’s Egg could come only from someone who was struck a third time . . . .

  “The Tiger’s Egg,” Baltinglass shouted in his general direction. “You have to give it to me.”

  “Why?” said Miles. “How do you know?”

  “The key,” panted Baltinglass. “It’s just a riddle. Every sailor knows how to unpick a riddle. There’s not much else to do on a long voyage. You need someone who’s been struck by lightning twice, Master Miles, and folks like that aren’t two a penny.”

  “But it says, ‘from two to three,’” said Miles.

  “That’s right, boy; I need a third strike to do the job. Maybe with that I’ll use up the whole charge in one go and finally get some peace. It’s worth a try.” Baltinglass reached out his hand, palm upward, and with the other hand he placed the unicrown firmly on his head.

  Miles took Tangerine from his pocket and handed him numbly to the blind explorer. He hoped that Tangerine could feel no pain, but there was no time now to try to extract the Egg. “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Sure as thirst, Master Miles. Let’s get on with it.”

  Miles turned to Fabio. “Can you get Silverpoint and Lady Partridge, and bring The Null too?” he said. “I don’t think it will give you any trouble.”

  “What makes you so sure?” said Gila.

  “We’re bite-sized individuals, remember,” said Umor.

  “Do what the boy says,” shouted Baltinglass, “or I’ll bite you myself.” He had found his way to one of the tall teeth of rock and was climbing it like a copper-hatted gecko, Tangerine tucked firmly into the waistband of his trousers.

  Fabio disappeared in the direction of the circus truck, and Miles tried to prepare himself for the appearance of The Null. His head was spinning and he thought he might faint. The chaotic events of the night had left him no time to prepare for what he had to do, but Miles had inherited from his father an unshakable determination, and from his mother a mind that worked best on the fly. A plan was rapidly forming in that mind, a plan in which even fainting might have a part to play.

  A howling cackle rang out through the storm, and Miles stared into the night until his eyes stung. The rain pelted down and the thunder rumbled, and suddenly there was the terrible shape of The Null shambling between the stone teeth, darker than the darkness itself, while the Fir Bolg scrambled over one another to let the monster through.

  “I think,” said Varippuli wearily, “that this is no place for a tiger.”

  “Too noisy,” agreed Umor.

  “Not sufficiently jungly,” added Gila.

  Umor turned to Varippuli and looked him up and down with a professional eye. Miles could tell he was concerned at the tiger’s dejected condition. He placed his hand on Varippuli’s neck, and to Miles’s surprise the tiger made no objection.

  “The wagon we brought has a bed of dry straw in the back,” said Umor to the tiger.

  “You could get some rest,” said Gila.

  “We can leave the door open,” said Umor, who knew Varippuli would not willingly be caged.

  The tiger turned to Miles. “That sounds like just what I need. A long journey calls for a sound rest.” He looked Miles in the eye and smiled, but though his smile was full of warmth it made Miles feel sadder than he could ever have imagined. “Just remember, Miles,” said the tiger, “keep your eyes clear and your claws sharp.”

  Miles could think of nothing to say in reply. Even if the words had come he could not have said them for the painful lump in his throat. He nodded at the tiger, and managed a watery smile.

  “I’ll go with him,” said Little to Miles, “just to check that he’s comfortable.” The tiger and the Song Angel turned toward the van, giving the approaching Null a wide berth. Miles felt a hollowness that threatene
d to overwhelm him. As he watched the tiger retreating and The Null getting closer, that emptiness grew to be an unbearable ache, and for the first time he wondered if he was really doing the right thing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  A NEON SCARECROW

  Miles Wednesday, bright-handed and crash-landed, stood in the bleak jumble of Hell’s Teeth waiting for The Null, that terrifying hairy emptiness into which he hoped to pour the lost soul of his father. The creature’s red-rimmed eyes spotted him and its mouth opened in a soundless howl. It broke into a lumbering trot and met him with such force that it knocked him clean off his feet. Its massive arms enveloped him and began to squeeze, and Miles reached around The Null’s barrel chest and squeezed back for all he was worth. The air whooshed out of him in the monster’s deadly embrace and the pain of his already bruised ribs made him dizzy. “I’m here,” he said. “It’s me. It’s Miles.”

  Over The Null’s shoulder he could see Baltinglass straighten himself up on top of the slippery rock, the unicrown clamped onto his head like a second skin. “Where’s that electric vandal?” the old man roared through the storm. “Silverpoint!”

  “I’m here,” said Silverpoint. He emerged from the darkness and stood at the base of the rock, for once looking a bit lost.

  “Light me up, Spark Boy,” roared Baltinglass, holding Tangerine in his clenched fist. “Let’s see what I’m made of!”

  Silverpoint hesitated for a moment, then raised his face to the rumbling sky. The Fir Bolg chanted louder, and Miles felt himself sliding into a faint. He was ready to slip sideways into the Realm as soon as he lost consciousness, and almost before he knew it he was standing beside himself, looking at his own limp body clamped in The Null’s hairy embrace. There was no time to lose. He had to guide his father’s soul from the unlocked Tiger’s Egg to the empty Null just as soon as Silverpoint called down the lightning. He wondered what was taking the Storm Angel so long, and he suddenly remembered that he had not yet fulfilled the promise to the Fir Bolg. He turned to speak to Silverpoint, but what he saw made his heart plummet, and drove all thoughts of the Fir Bolg from his mind.

  Silverpoint was no longer standing with his face raised to the sky. He lay in a crumpled heap at the feet of a dark figure, whose smoky edges made him immediately recognizable. It was Bluehart, standing over the lifeless Storm Angel like an unwanted guest come to spoil the party. The Sleep Angel moved in a sudden blur and appeared right in front of Miles, who stood outside his own body in the dark and the rain, feeling like something peeled for the pot.

  A cold rage shimmered around Bluehart, which was visible to Miles as a faint bluish light. “You’ve thwarted me for the last time,” hissed the angel.

  “I’m about to empty the Tiger’s Egg,” said Miles desperately. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Bluehart laughed. “The last thing I want is to damage the Egg. It’s not yet ready.”

  The chanting of the Fir Bolg seemed to be tuning in and out like an old radio, and Miles could see Baltinglass swaying slightly on top of his rock, his mouth open wide. It was as though time had hit a sticky patch, and only his conversation with Bluehart was entirely real.

  “Ready?” he said, desperately trying to think of a way to distract Bluehart. “What do you mean?”

  The Sleep Angel waved dismissively. “It’s customary to get a swift rerun of your life in the seconds before your death, sort of like a goody bag at the end of a party,” he said. He glanced across at Miles’s inert body, counting down his last breaths, and sighed. “Stubborn little fellow, aren’t you? Frankly I can’t be bothered with the rerun, so I’ll answer your question instead. This Tiger’s Egg was created on my orders many centuries ago, and I left it with the Fir Bolg to mature. There are six other Eggs, one on each continent, all in the charge of hidden peoples. At least they were until these witless wonders lent one to a fortune-teller and started all this trouble. You have eight breaths left, by the way. Make that seven. Can’t that . . . thing squeeze any harder?”

  “Why did you have them made?” asked Miles. He was looking around for something he remembered from the jumbled visions that had come to him on the Runaway Cloud. He had seen his own death, but that was not supposed to be possible, and in any case something didn’t match. In the vision he had seen Stillbone reaching out from behind him to touch his shoulder, but behind him now there was only a tall column of rock.

  “I created them to gain power,” said Bluehart. “Why else?”

  “You already have power,” said Miles, stalling for time. He thought he could see Stillbone now, smoking toward them through the rain. Something was falling into place at the back of his mind, but he could not quite see it yet. Something to do with what Baltinglass had taught him, about putting himself in his opponent’s shoes.

  “Angels are made of pure thought,” said Bluehart. “We control the elements, but we exist only because enough people believe we do. Whoever controls what people think down here ultimately controls the Realm. It’s a sort of chicken-and-egg thing, and I’ve never been happy about owing my existence to something as fickle as the human imagination. Once these Eggs have matured I will be able to use them to control the beliefs of millions of people, and that,” he said with a humorless smile, “will make me the poultry farmer.”

  Miles gave a deliberate yawn. “I think I would have preferred the goody bag,” he said. His comment had the desired effect—the Sleep Angel glowed blue with renewed anger. Miles could see Stillbone coming up fast behind Bluehart, and suddenly he knew exactly what to do.

  “Power is no good without courage,” he said, allowing his features to become just a little smoky, like those of the Sleep Angel he faced.

  “You have two breaths left,” said Bluehart. “You think I lack courage?”

  “Of course,” said Miles. “You take people’s souls, but you don’t know how that feels yourself. I bet if you took on the form of your victim properly you wouldn’t be able to do it. It would be like staring your own death in the face.”

  “Watch me,” said Bluehart coldly. He solidified rapidly into the shape of Miles, becoming a perfect replica of the unconscious boy hidden in The Null’s embrace. Stillbone arrived behind him at that moment, and in an instant Miles transformed himself into the smoky image of Bluehart. The image of Miles stared at him in puzzlement. “What . . . ?” he began, but Miles glanced past his shoulder at Stillbone.

  “He’s all yours,” said Miles, copying Bluehart’s dismissive wave. “I’m knocking off for the night.”

  He looked away as the Sleep Angel reached out to touch Bluehart’s shoulder. He didn’t need to see that again. There was a sudden rushing sensation, like the wind at the end of the world, bringing with it a horrible sucking sound that seemed to pull at his very core. When he looked again Bluehart had vanished completely, and he knew that he would never be bothered by the Sleep Angel again. Stillbone was looking at his own hand in surprise. “Funny,” he said, “they don’t usually do that.”

  “That one was rotten,” said Miles, keeping the likeness of the vanished Bluehart with difficulty. “You can go now,” he said. Stillbone nodded distractedly, and, still staring at his fingers, he turned slowly to smoke and drifted away on the breeze.

  All at once it seemed as if time were freed from its jam. Silverpoint got shakily to his feet, and there was a shout from the top of the pillar. “What’s the holdup? Get the finger out, Sparky!” Silverpoint looked up at Baltinglass, and his serious expression gave way to a flash of annoyance. He nodded sharply in the old man’s direction, and the sky was instantly split by a twisted rope of lightning. The Fir Bolg flung themselves, howling, on their faces as the lightning found the tall spike in the unicrown’s center. Baltinglass’s entire body lit up with a crackling blue-white glow, and he flung his arms out like a neon scarecrow. His grizzled fist clasped the small bear, and he let out an incoherent roar. Miles thought he heard an answering roar from somewhere in the darkness, drowned out an instant later by
the loudest blast of thunder he had ever heard.

  The crackling energy from the lightning snaked down the old man’s outstretched arm and his fist glowed with a dazzling light that even Miles could not face.

  Miles turned away and found himself buried in coarse hair, his ribs on fire. He had not meant to look away for fear of missing Barty Fumble’s soul as the Tiger’s Egg was unlocked, but somehow he was back in his own body and he was being held too tight to turn around. There was nothing he could do but say, “I’m here, it’s me. It’s Miles,” over and over again into the darkness.

  The howling seemed to recede, and the downpour eased. The hairy arms that held him relaxed a little, and he found he could breathe once more. He heard a voice that was at once familiar and strange. “Miles,” said the voice thickly. “Now, why does that ring a bell?”

  Fuat, daughter of Anust, daughter of Etar, tugged sharply on Miles’s sleeve and said in her crowlike voice, “That was a fine cure you devised for us, Miles, son of Celeste, and it will be remembered well in stories.”

  Miles looked at the little tattooed woman in surprise. He sat on a fallen stone beside the hairy hulk of his father, nursing his aching ribs. The chanting had stopped and the Fir Bolg seemed to have melted away before he had even had time to think of how he might have fulfilled his mother’s promise to them. “It was?” he said.

  “Cyart go lore,” said Fuat. “Your mother promised to lift from us the burden of living underground, but I did not understand until now the true meaning of her promise.”

  “You didn’t?” said Miles. He was still completely at sea.

  “It took your sharp wit to whittle the truth from it,” said Fuat, “and you made it so plain that even we simple folk could understand. You have cured us of the foolish notion that we might live happily on the skin of the earth.”

  “So you’ve changed your minds,” said Miles.

  “You changed them for us,” said Fuat. “It’s true that our lives can seem as gristly as an old rabbit’s ear, but the life of aboveground folk is strong meat indeed. Giant bat-trees falling from the sky, blind men drinking fire from the clouds and boys death-wrestling with monsters are not the easy life that we had pictured in the long nights underground. Our ancestors wisely chose the bosom of the earth as a refuge, and that wisdom has returned to us with alacrity. We will stay where we are truly happy, and look on our home with more fondness from now on. It seems you have undone the power of the Uv Reevoch, but we have no further need of it, and we deem your mother’s debt satisfied nonetheless. Ah mor-ort! Good luck be with you, Miles, son of Celeste.”