The Dark Ground

by Gillian Cross

  The light swept over him, and then he was plunged into darkness and engulfed by a gigantic roar. It was a hundred times louder than anything he had heard from the top of the pillar. It was all around him and in him, in every cell of his body. A searing wind rolled him over the rough ground, scorching his skin and filling his lungs with acrid, metallic fumes.

  Don’t let me die, like Nate. Don’t let me die . . .

  The storm machine went straight over him, suspended high in the air on its great, stinking wheels. He choked on the stench of rubber. A hail of sharp-edged grit bombarded every inch of his body, and his mouth was full of the taste of burning gas. Everything was blotted out, except the sheer, blind will to survive.

  And then it was gone.

  The wheels raced away into the distance, leaving a red afterglow behind them. Robert was weak and exhausted with terror and relief, but he knew that he couldn’t recover, lying where he was. He had to get away from the foul, poisonous air that hung over him. Dragging himself up, he stumbled forward again. He was deafened by the noise, and his eyes were streaming so that he could barely see, but he blundered ahead, without waiting for them to clear. All he had to do was aim uphill and then keep going over the plateau.

  Gasping and aching, he struggled on until he saw yellow under his feet. That meant he was halfway. He broke into a clumsy run and almost tumbled down the slope on the other side, heading for the cliff that had to be there. And the safe, welcoming shadow under it.

  Cam and Zak were waiting there. They ran out of the shadow and caught hold of him, pulling him into shelter. As he collapsed against them, they took his weight and lowered him to the ground, letting him lie there and gasp for breath.

  Zak put his face close to say something. Robert saw his lips move, but he couldn’t make out the sounds. His ears were still full of the roar of the storm machine. Shaking his head to show that he didn’t understand, he curled tighter, trying to stay where he was. He wanted to lie there at the bottom of the precipice until his head was clear and his body was rid of poison and fumes.

  But Cam wouldn’t let him. She caught hold of his arm and shook it fiercely, pointing up at the top of the precipice. Then she put her mouth right up to his ear and yelled at full volume, setting his head jangling.

  "We have to find a hiding place. Before daylight." He knew she was right. He knew he would die if he slept down there, on the cold ground. Someone would see him. Something would eat him. He would freeze to death. He had to move . . . .

  Zak caught hold of his other arm, and he and Cam pulled together. Reluctantly, hardly conscious, Robert let them pull him up, onto his feet. He leaned forward against the cliff, with his head resting on the stone, and Cam held him steady while Zak scrambled up their backs and onto their shoulders to reach the top. For a second Robert felt the pressure of his bare feet. Then he was up, and Cam was yelling again. "Climb on my shoulders! Hurry up!" "Too heavy," Robert said drowsily. "You’ll fall." "Don’t be stupid! I’m almost as big as you are!" Cam slapped at his face until he moved, and then she leaned against the cliff to take his weight, cupping her hands to give him a foothold.

  The moment he was up, Zak was reaching down to take his hands. Almost without effort, Robert found himself hoisted up onto the level ground at the top.

  "Lie across my legs!" Zak bellowed into his ear.

  Robert lay across them and Zak hung over the edge, reaching down to catch Cam’s hands. She came up lightly, walking her feet up the face of the cliff.

  "Nearly there," she said, as her head appeared next to Robert’s.

  He couldn’t hear the words—but he saw her say them. And the seeing made him realize, for the first time, that it was getting light. It was nearly morning. The shock brought him to his feet, and he followed Cam and Zak as they ran across the last stretch of lava.

  They threw themselves into a patch of ground covered with cropped, waist-high grass. Ahead was the great wall they had seen from the top of the pillar. They were so close now that it blocked out everything else. Robert stared up at it, still dazed and befuddled, wondering how they could possibly get past it.

  Cam and Zak didn’t waste time explaining. They just pulled him along to the right until they reached the end of the wall. Then they scurried around it, into the shadows behind.

  And suddenly everything was different. They were past the lava and the coarse, sharp grass. Their feet were standing on loose, damp earth, with green leaves stretching all around them and overhead. The air was full of a sharp, clean smell that soothed away the stink of the storm machines. A bittersweet smell of . . . of . . .

  It teased at Robert’s memory, but he was too tired and confused to figure out what it was. He let Cam and Zak pull him in under the leaves, into safety.

  They didn’t bother to dig a hole. They just worked their way into the middle of the nearest clump of leaves, wrapped themselves tightly in their furs, and fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

  25

  ROBERT WAS ROUSED BY THE ROAR OF STORM MACHINES, SO close that he woke sweating. He rolled over quickly, shrinking into the shelter of the wall behind him. His eyes were tightly shut and his hands were over his ears. He was bracing himself for the overarching darkness and the heat and the scorching wind.

  But they didn’t come. The roars rose to a climax and then faded, beyond the great wall that sheltered him. Slowly the air cleared. He rolled over onto his back, opening his eyes.

  And looked up into concentrated, singing color.

  The sunlight filtered down through a canopy of orange, richer than anything he had ever experienced or imagined. In that first waking moment, he had no explanation for what he was seeing. It was simply orange and he lay where he was, staring up into the heart of it.

  Twinned with the color—so close that they were the same thing in his mind—came that fresh, sharp scent that had puzzled him the night before. It was familiar from way back, like the smell of his own skin. Fresh and sharp and orange. He liked it very much.

  (But, somewhere at the back of his mind, he didn’t want to like it.)

  He moved his head a fraction and saw a spear of pale green running underneath the orange. Then another and another. The singing color separated itself into broad rays that snapped together with the light, bitter scent, making a sudden picture in his mind.

  Marigolds.

  As the word came to him, the orange above his head formed itself into great, rayed disks like a galaxy of secondary suns. Marigolds. Emma’s flowers. Staring up at them, Robert knew exactly where he was. He was lying just inside the wall of his own front garden, on the one strip of ground not covered by concrete. Emma had always grown marigolds there, ever since she was old enough to scatter seeds into the earth.

  He was home. If he had opened his eyes a few moments earlier, he would have seen his parents (like two great skyscrapers) sinking into their storm machines. That was the roaring that had woken him. The air was still full of the heat and exhaust fumes they had left behind.

  Leaving his pack on the ground next to Zak and Cam, he wriggled between the thick, bristly marigold stalks to the edge of the bare earth. Pushing his head between two hanging leaves, he looked out at the long spread of concrete beyond.

  Toward the house on the far side.

  It was a mountain. The roughcast walls rose sheer and precipitous, set with sheets of glass like vertical glaciers. Dark trees flattened themselves against the base, and the peaked top stood clear and sharp against the sky.

  Robert stared at it, appalled and mesmerized, trying to take in the mass of it, the vast, impregnable size. There was a rustle behind him, and Cam crawled out of the marigolds, stirring up a rush of scent as she brushed against the leaves.

  "Is this the right place?" she said.

  Robert nodded.

  "So what are you going to do?" Cam said.

  Until that moment, Robert had simply been staring, unable to think beyond that. Cam’s question nudged him into looking at the huge cliff walls with differen
t eyes. He noticed the flattened trees that grew around the base of the walls. He saw how their zigzag branches crawled up right to the foot of the lowest sheet of glass. They had scarlet fruit and thick, rounded leaves, like plates of armor.

  Slowly an idea began to form in his head. He pointed at the top of the zigzag trees.

  "That’s the way up," he said.

  "Not a bad climb," Cam said grudgingly. "But what are we going to do when we get up there?"

  Robert wasn’t sure enough about his idea to share it yet. He smiled and shrugged. "Let’s deal with crossing the concrete first."

  "Better do that before those cars come back," Cam muttered.

  Cars. The word caught Robert off balance. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, he saw his mother’s red Ford and his father’s silver Peugeot. Not monstrous storm machines, but ordinary, familiar cars. They had driven straight past him, while he lay in the marigolds. Too small for them to see.

  And when the cars left, it was almost time to set out for school. Which meant that, any moment now—

  Crash!

  The noise of the back gate came like an explosion. And then the sound of feet, shaking the ground. And the deep, creaking whirr of bicycle wheels.

  He put his face down on the earth and blocked his ears. He wasn’t ready to watch Emma’s giant feet go striding past. He wasn’t ready to gaze up and see her looming against the sky, a hundred times taller than he was.

  When everything was quiet, he lifted his head and saw Cam watching him.

  "Let’s find something to eat," he said gruffly, before she could speak.

  THEY BREAKFASTED ON MARIGOLDS. ZAK SWARMED UP THE bristling stalks and hung like a monkey, holding on with his legs and tugging at the orange petals until they came away with a jerk. They were as big as the blades of oars. Robert found that the only way to eat them was to chew until they were soft and then scrape the pulp off the fibers with his teeth. The taste was strong and strange, but there was nothing else, and he knew that they were safe to eat.

  Marigold rice. Marigold buns. Petals in the salad. There was no escape from them. Emma found a new recipe almost every year.

  He chewed doggedly, eating as much as he could stomach.

  Then Zak said, "It’s going to rain."

  He was right. Within a few moments, the light had dulled, and heavy, isolated drops began to fall through the marigold petals and trickle down the long, hairy stems.

  "At least we’ve got some water to drink," Cam said wryly. "And we can fill the shells while we’re waiting for it to stop."

  But it didn’t stop. An hour later it was still raining hard.

  "We might as well get going," Robert said. "We’re going to get just as wet sitting here."

  Cam grimaced and picked up her spear. "At least the rain’s good cover. No one’s going to stand around looking over the garden wall."

  Zak didn’t even comment. He just slung his pack onto his back and set out across the concrete.

  It was hard going. The surface of the concrete was rough enough to make walking difficult, and there was no shelter of any kind. They were totally exposed to the rain, and within minutes they were drenched.

  Their packs soaked up the water. The falling rain slid straight over them, but when the drops hit the concrete they splashed up again, like fountains, and the splashes found their way into the packs from underneath. They soaked into the furs, weighing them down so that the packs dragged backward. Robert had to put his head down and lean into the rain, just to keep going.

  It ran into every groove and depression in the concrete. Most of the time they were wading through ankle-deep water. Robert’s feet went numb and his bones ached with the cold, but he knew it would be crazy to stop. He kept moving mechanically, with his eyes fixed on Cam and Zak ahead of him and the dark, zigzag trees in the distance.

  It took them two hours to reach the trees. By that time, they were all shivering and chilled to the bone. They ran the last few steps and dived into the shelter of the branches.

  Under the trees the ground was dry and dusty, and there was a layer of crisp, dead leaves covering the concrete. The three of them stripped off everything except their tunics and spread the fleeces and furs on the dead leaves to dry. Behind the trees the wall was warm and solid, and they huddled against it, crouching close together and pulling more leaves around their bodies, to keep in the heat.

  It was a long while before anything happened.

  When it did, Robert was dozing, leaning back against the rough surface of the cliff. Cam nudged him suddenly, almost knocking him over.

  "Who’s that?"

  He woke to see black shoes rising like walls in front of him in the half-light of the evening. Black cloth stirred the air above them, and Robert had a confused impression of metal and rubber whirling past and water splashing up around them.

  Before he could think Emma, there was a scraping noise and then a thud, and she was through the back gate with her bicycle. Robert stood up, scattering dead leaves. He was shaking so much that he could hardly speak.

  "The others will be back in half an hour or so," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. "I’m going to climb up now. Take care of my pack for me."

  Cam looked startled. "Aren’t we coming, too?"

  Robert couldn’t bear the thought of that. "I’ll call if I need any help."

  Cam sighed impatiently, but Zak put a hand on her arm. "Let him be," he said.

  Robert pulled himself into the nearest tree, finding footholds in the bark and scrambling up to the first branch. When he was safely up, he called down to the others.

  "Pass up my spear."

  They did it without comment, standing on tiptoe to lift it above their heads. Robert leaned down and drew it up into the tree. It was cumbersome to carry, and it made climbing awkward, but it was vital to his plan. He went on working his way upward, maneuvering it around the jagged side branches, until he reached the first of the round, scarlet fruit.

  They were almost as big as his head, and it took him several attempts to discover the best way of spearing them. Three or four went tumbling down to the ground before he caught the knack of stabbing them and the sharp twist that would break the stalk.

  When he managed to spear one, he used both hands to work it past the metal point and down onto the shaft. Then he aimed at another. Three of the fruit filled the spear, from top to bottom.

  They were so heavy that they pulled him off balance when he tried to climb again. He had to push the spear up ahead of him and lodge it safely before he could scramble up to the same level. It was hard work, but he kept going, getting nearer and nearer to the glass sheet at the top of the tree.

  Cam and Zak called up to him from below.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Do you need any help?"

  Their voices were thin and distant, muffled by the leaves. Robert shouted back, to reassure them, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden roar and a burst of light. Peering between the branches, he saw the glaring headlights of a storm machine. Mom—

  The light was so dazzling that he almost fell. He closed his eyes and clung tightly to the nearest branch with his left hand. Through his eyelids he saw the first blinding glare change to a gentler red, and he turned his face away from the foul-tasting gases that billowed toward him.

  As soon as the lights went out, he began to climb faster, desperate to reach the top before the second machine arrived. The spear had slowed him down more than he had expected, and he was beginning to worry whether he would make it in time.

  Just before the top of the tree, a white ledge jutted out of the cliff. Robert pushed the spear up onto the ledge and hauled himself after it. It was hard to keep a foothold. The ledge sloped downward, and the surface was wet and slippery. He had to wedge his feet precariously against a branch that straggled up over the ledge to touch the glass.

  Almost as soon as he was in position, the space beyond the glass was flooded with sudden yellow light. It opened up in front of
his eyes, completely familiar—and grotesquely strange.

  Mountainous crimson shapes—too huge to be chairs—towered up toward a vast, glowing globe. A long, raised surface gleamed with reflected light, like a polished tennis court. Patterns of red and blue and green meandered into endless space across the floor.

  Home . . .

  There was no time to make sense of it. A tall shape was moving quickly toward the window, monstrous as a moving hill—but with a familiar tilt to the shoulders. He scrambled closer to the glass, pressing his face against it. Feeling his heart lift. It was . . . it had to be—

  The figure took another step, so that the light caught it full on. Robert saw a vast, coarse face, blurred out of shape. The bones themselves seemed to have bloated so that they lost definition. He knew who it was, even through all that. He recognized her.

  But . . . big was different.

  His eyes homed in on things that should have been insignificant. The lip grooves. The hairs that crawled over the mottled skin. The cavernous nostrils, large enough to take his head—

  It was worse than he had ever imagined, even in the lowest moments of the journey. But he knew who she was. He knew. Pushing the images away—shutting off the part of his mind that was yelling Ogre!—he lifted up the spear with its load of brilliant, scarlet fruit. Holding it in full view, he waved it furiously to attract her attention. And he yelled, as loudly as he could.

  "Mom! Mom!"

  The vast face twisted into a gigantic grimace. The great mouth turned awry, the neck tensed into ropes, and she came across the room in two strides.

  He yelled again, ignoring the message of her expression. Telling himself there was no way he could read a face that size. "Mom! It’s me! Robert!"

  It—she—bent forward until the face was too close for him to see it whole. The open mouth gaped level with his eyes, and he shouted into the great red throat.

  "Mom!"