The Book of Beasts

by John Barrowman

  In the tapestry, the hideous army of half-faced knights trailing behind Malcolm were captured in lush black and silver threads. The Grendel dominated the narrative, its grotesque presence looming over the scene.

  The worst section of the tapestry was the one that Em could not bear to look at for more than a second. Matt lay slumped and bleeding, the bone quill jutting from the flesh above his hip.

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’ she choked.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Henrietta, removing her gloves. ‘We need you to take us to Malcolm. We plan to help him finish his quest, and then we need you to return us to the present where, in return for your help, you and your brother will be spared the same consequences as the rest of your family.’

  ‘I don’t know of any way to get back to the Middle Ages,’ Em stuttered. ‘If I did, I would have returned for my brother before now.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Henrietta softly, ‘but I think you do. And if you choose not to tell me of your own volition, then I will have to persuade you.’

  The older woman’s fingers pressed into Em’s head, melding to her flesh and feeling their way into her imagination. Em screamed in anguish.

  ‘Stop! Please!’

  The pain was excruciating.

  And then it wasn’t.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Em was walking on the beach with the sun a blazing orange ball above rugged cliffs. The sea was calm and shimmering in the light. She waved at two boys dressed in rags, fishing off the shore in a rickety rowing boat piled with nets. They looked curiously familiar. Em studied the landscape surrounding the bay, the high peaked cliffs, the tiny cove. This wasn’t Auchinmurn.

  Where was she?

  Another stab of pain jolted her.

  ‘My, she is a strong one,’ she heard Henrietta say in surprise. ‘She must take after her grandmother. She’s blocking me.’

  Em recognized the boys now. They were from Winslow Homer’s painting, Boys Fishing. The painting was in Renard’s study, hanging near Van Gogh’s Poppy Fields. Em remembered with a shock of excitement how she and Matt had projected themselves into Poppy Fields when their grandfather was in a coma. She had clearly done something similar just now, fading into Homer’s image to get away from Henrietta. Her mind rushed on in exciting leaps. If she could escape into Boys Fishing without even looking at it, what could she do with a picture of her own?

  ‘I may have underestimated your abilities, Em, my dear,’ said Henrietta. ‘But do not underestimate mine. What are you planning?’

  She put both hands on Em’s head this time. The resulting pain scalded Em’s temples for a moment. Then suddenly they felt soft and warm and comforting, and the pain disappeared. Em missed Matt so much. He was all alone, and so far, far away…

  Em gulped at the air. ‘I won’t tell you!’

  Her chin dropped to her chest, her breathing slowed.

  ‘Damn it! She’s gone,’ said Henrietta, lifting her hand from Em’s head. ‘I pushed too hard.’

  ‘She’ll wake in time. Did you learn how she plans to travel back to the Middle Ages to fetch her brother?’ Tanan asked eagerly.

  Em remained still. It was important that Henrietta and the others believed her to be in a deep inspirited sleep. She detected anger emanating from her grandmother, but admiration too, and another oddly disconcerting emotion – pride in a job well done, in having somehow been responsible for her own granddaughter’s considerable powers.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Henrietta said. ‘Watch her closely, Tanan. This is not over.’

  ‘Her hands are bound, Henrietta,’ said Tanan with a disbelieving laugh. ‘Her eyes are covered and you’ve inspirited her. She’s not going anywhere.’

  Em heard her grandmother snort with derision. ‘Tanan, you may be a powerful Animare, but sometimes you are a fool. She and her brother are unique. We do not fully know what they can do.’

  Em sensed her grandmother probing her mind again. She stiffened, but it was too late.

  ‘Not sleeping after all?’ inquired Henrietta, giving Em a cruel pinch. ‘Then let us continue. My son needs me and I will not let him down.’

  SIXTY-TWO

  Auchinmurn Isle

  The Middle Ages

  Malcolm dragged Carik away from the machine and dumped her in the corner beside the old monk’s body. He pried Matt’s fist open, shoving it away from the parchment. Matt’s sketch of the Grendel was visibly throbbing.

  ‘It’s not an animation,’ Matt said defiantly as his father made to snatch the parchment from the machine. ‘I’ve summoned it. It’s coming to get you whether you tear that up or not.’

  ‘You stupid boy!’ he roared, spitting globs of ink on to his chin and neck. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Exactly what Jeannie told me to do,’ snapped Matt, his voice muffled behind the mask.

  Malcolm slapped his hand on the side of the mask in fury, bouncing Matt’s forehead against the unyielding metal. ‘Then you will draw something else to fight it for me.’

  He put a fresh piece of parchment in the machine and shoved a nub of charcoal between Matt’s fingers, then hurried round the wooden contraption.

  The iron glove prevented Matt from throwing the charcoal away. The gears began to grind, the belts and pulleys stretching and turning as the machine sparked to life. With Malcolm’s first few steps, Matt didn’t feel anything. But as his father walked faster, Matt’s fingers curled against the charcoal, his skin tight and on fire. He could feel his father’s malevolence worming into his thoughts.

  Matt bit back the pain, the burning sensation spreading up his arms. He felt as if he was being immersed in boiling water. His dad’s presence in his head was overpowering. Malcolm was pushing an image into Matt’s mind, and Matt could no longer block it.

  At first the image was merely a silhouette, a black-and-white outline of a beast. Then the image fattened and fleshed out. Its hindquarters became the heavy haunches of a lion with a tail as thick as cable. Its head and chest grew into the body of a majestic eagle, its wings tipped with white, its eyes blazing green.

  ‘The griffin is one of the guardian beasts of Hollow Earth,’ snarled Malcolm, his movements on the treadle becoming erratic. ‘It will fight for us. Animate the griffin or the girl will truly suffer!’

  Matt couldn’t stop himself. The iron glove creaked and groaned as he sketched the bottom half of the griffin, then its wings and finally its head with its ferocious hooked beak. But before he could bring it to life, a rumbling shook the chamber and a stench worse than rotting meat seeped through the walls.

  With a crash, the Grendel – the death-eater, the mud-monster – entered the chamber, smashing through the rock as easily as if it were made of paper. Its boneless, hulking, stinking shape began sucking hungrily towards them. Carik woke, screamed and scrambled across the rocky floor to take shelter behind the wooden machine.

  Malcolm was galloping on the treadle now. ‘Faster!’ he screamed. ‘Faster!’

  Matt felt as if he was suffocating from the pain. His hand was moving in a blur. The griffin was taking shape, filling in and flexing its wings.

  The Grendel’s ape-like head scanned its surroundings. It raised its nostrils into the air, scenting death. Lumbering across the chamber, it hovered over the old monk. Matt watched, paralyzed with horror, as the beast sucked out old Brother Renard’s heart, then spilled its thick muddy torso over the old man’s body and absorbed the rest of his flesh.

  Behind him, Matt could hear Carik slipping her knife from the strap at her ankle. With the little strength he had left, he whispered to her.

  ‘Don’t, Carik. I know what I’m doing, and I need that monster to do it.’

  He heard the slow sheathing of the knife again, and exhaled. If he could just stop drawing the griffin… One monster he could handle. Two, he wasn’t so sure.

  At that moment, Jeannie dropped into the cave, screaming like a banshee.

  ‘Malcolm Renard Calder, release those weans or I’ll make you fe
el pain like you’ve never felt before!’

  Malcolm stumbled in shock and slipped from the treadle. Matt’s fingers slowed and stopped as Jeannie advanced across the cavern.

  ‘Yer schemes will come to naught, son,’ she warned. ‘Stop all of this and I can help ye make good the damage.’

  ‘This isn’t damage!’ Malcolm screamed. ‘This is my destiny!’

  He threw himself in fury at Jeannie, but she was expecting his attack and dodged out of the way. Carik’s knife flashed from its sheath again as, stumbling and roaring, Malcolm bore down on Jeannie once more.

  The Grendel sniffed the air and roared, filling the cavern with noxious fumes its oozing body threshing from side to side in search of a fresh victim. There was was one more thing Matt needed to do.

  Control the beast, son. You can do it.

  Matt spat on the parchment and erased the Grendel’s eyes. In their place, he imagined his own.

  SIXTY-THREE

  All at once Matt’s perspective fractured, as if he was looking through the thick glass bottom of a bottle. He saw himself, lashed to the foul machine. He saw Jeannie and Malcolm weaving from side to side, Carik’s knife poised and ready to slash. He had done it. He was the Grendel.

  He looked down at the corpulent mass of festering muck that was the Grendel’s body. Across the cavern he saw his human body gagging, and he tasted bile. The Grendel was a conflagration of millions of sucking, faceless mouths, like flames licking out from the thick black sludge. Matt felt them all pressing in on him. Swallowing his disgust, he urged the beast forward, controlling its will… controlling its hunger.

  The Grendel lumbered towards Malcolm who stood defiantly in front of Jeannie, his eyes darting between Matt’s blank eyes and the monster’s ravenous ones.

  ‘Very clever, Mattie. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint. Your abilities are beyond what I ever could have imagined.’

  The Grendel moved closer. Malcolm stepped back. ‘Mattie, think about what we could achieve together, you and I! Father and son.’

  Matt heard his father’s words as if he was under water. This man in front of him, this abomination, was no longer his father. Never really had been.

  ‘Lass,’ said Jeannie to Carik, ‘help me get Matt out of this contraption. Then ye must leave. Any minute now, a whole world of terrible is going to break open, and I’d like you not to be here when that happens.’

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ said Carik at once as she helped Jeannie wrench open the locks binding Matt’s ankles and feet, tearing off the vile metal gloves on his fingers. ‘I can fight.’

  ‘This isn’t yer battle, lass,’ said Jeannie.

  Controlling the Grendel, keeping Malcolm pinned in the corner of the cavern, was draining Matt of everything he had.

  ‘Jeannie, I feel sick,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know how long I can do this.’

  Jeannie squeezed his hand. ‘Not much longer, son. Promise.’

  Matt felt the smash of something heavy breaking open the clasp on his iron mask, the blessed relief of air on his face. Still he held the Grendel’s mind, and watched Malcolm with the Grendel’s eyes.

  ‘Go,’ Jeannie ordered Carik.

  Carik glowered. ‘I will not—’

  ‘I need you to trust me, lass. If you don’t leave now and join Solon, with the old monk’s death there will be no future for Matt or his sister.’

  Matt’s head was splitting open. The Grendel’s bloodlust was powerful. He could feel how strongly it wanted to rip Malcolm apart. How much longer could he keep control?

  He suddenly felt Carik’s cool hand on his. ‘You have my pledge forever, Matt of Calder.’

  Matt’s voice felt unsteady. He had grown fond of the fierce Viking girl. ‘And you have mine. You and Solon. For what it’s worth.’

  ‘Climb up through that hole and ye’ll find yerself out on the hillside, lass,’ Jeannie instructed, guiding Carik away from the foul stinking slime of the howling Grendel. ‘The North Star will be high on your right side. Find yer way to the mill where Solon is waiting for you.’

  Matt’s concentration had slipped as Carik looked into his eyes – the Grendel’s eyes – in farewell.

  It was a mistake.

  Carik’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Look out!’

  Her warning was too late. Matt felt a piercing agony in his side.

  His father had plunged the sharp white tip of the bone quill deep into his own son’s flesh.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Auchinmurn Isle

  Present Day

  Zach woke up with a hollow silence in his head and a really bad feeling in his gut. His clock read 4.20 a.m. It was still dark outside and would be for a few more hours, but his stomach was doing somersaults and he tasted salt in his mouth.

  He burped. His stomach rumbled. His gut twisted. Throwing off his duvet, he dashed across the hall to the bathroom.

  Oh, man, he thought, holding his hand to his mouth. Sandie must not be allowed near the cooker any more.

  Since Jeannie’s absence, Sandie had decided that it was her responsibility to cook for everyone and insisted that Renard not replace Jeannie with anyone else. They didn’t need any strangers in the house at this time. This was the second night in a row that Zach had woken up with an ugly stomach ache.

  He flushed the toilet then quickly brushed his teeth, staring at himself in the mirror. His short blond hair stood up in spikes and the skin under his hazel eyes was puffy. He spat, rinsed and splashed water on his face.

  He was hardly back in his bedroom when his gut clenched again. The taste in his mouth was stewed cabbage. He moaned and headed back to the bathroom, glancing absently at Em’s bedroom door as he passed. It was open. He could see from here that her bed was empty.

  And then it hit him.

  What if it wasn’t Sandie’s burgers that had woken him? What if it was Em? What if she was wandering outside again and was now in trouble?

  Ever since he had met her, Zach had felt Em’s presence in his head. A soft purple wrapped around his thoughts, a wisp of pale violet cushioning his ideas, a pale light always in his mind.

  Standing in the hallway in his boxers, Zach closed his eyes and listened for her. Nothing except a tight knot that he’d blamed on Sandie’s cooking.

  Yanking on a T-shirt, thick checked shirt and a pair of jeans, Zach ran into Em’s empty bedroom, doing his best to keep the rising panic at bay.

  Em! Can you hear me?

  Nothing.

  He closed the door and turned on the light. Then he sat on her bed and looked around. The room was not only void of her presence, but she had been gone for a while. The only sense of Em was emanating in a barely visible blue aura from her three-panelled comic strip of the warrior princess, lying open on her desk. The princess looked ferocious, a lot like Em. Zach threw off the memory of their recent encounter with the princess’s arrows at the Abbey gates.

  All the other posters and prints of her favourite comic-book characters and the shelves of her books were still. Usually, Em’s imagination kept everything around her perpetually pulsing, almost alive.

  Zach switched off the lamp, pulled open the curtains and let a shaft of moonlight illuminate the room. He could sense things better in the darkness.

  Almost at once, he was aware of something significant.

  Since Matt had disappeared, Em had taken to wearing one of his hoodies all the time. Last night, the hoodie had been over the back of her desk chair. Not any more.

  Zach did a quick search of her laundry basket. As he did, Em’s scent hit him hard. He slammed the lid on the basket and sat on it for a few minutes until he felt he was back in control of himself. The hoodie wasn’t there.

  Em? Where are you?

  White noise buzzed in his head.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Auchinmurn Isle

  The Middle Ages

  Matt was dimly aware of a howl of horror. His grip on the Grendel’s mind was loosening, and his eyes couldn’t focus and his head felt cl
oudy. He looked up at Jeannie and Carik from his own body. He could feel the wound directly above his hip bone, deep and bleeding profusely.

  ‘It is bad?’ he mumbled.

  Jeannie snatched Carik’s knife and charged at Malcolm.

  ‘Yer own flesh and blood, Malcolm! How could you?’

  Malcolm whipped his armour-plated arm at her head. Jeannie dropped to the left and took the brunt of the attack on her shoulder. She gasped, but didn’t slow down.

  ‘You heard the boy. He has no use for me,’ Malcolm snarled. ‘We could have ruled the world, but he turned my glory down.’

  Jeannie thrust herself forward, the knife blade aimed for Malcolm’s heart.

  Matt could feel himself fading. There was noise. Howling. Shouting. The sound of feet dropping to the cave floor and a familiar voice – Solon’s. Matt struggled to stay awake, but it was hard. His side was on fire. Blood was dripping through his fingers where he pressed the wound. The Grendel was shaking free of his control.

  Matt heard a scuffling behind him grow louder and turned in time to see Solon leap from the ledge above.

  Solon’s sword was sharp and swift, sweeping with deadly accuracy. Malcolm’s head toppled to the cave floor. Carik made an inarticulate noise and ran to Solon, throwing herself into his arms and kissing him.

  Jeannie was with Matt again, checking his wound. ‘Son? Speak to me.’

  ‘Still… here,’ Matt whispered.

  Solon kneeled next to Matt.

  ‘Your sister?’ Matt asked.

  ‘She and the others are safe.’ Solon slipped a folio from under his tunic. ‘Take it. Use it. End this.’

  Matt pulled himself up against the cavern wall. He ran his fingers over the manuscript. He held The Book of Beasts at last.

  Only a few feet away, the Grendel seemed fascinated with Malcolm’s severed head. Matt wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t.