by Cliff McNish
As Elliott paused the map’s contours crumbled. He despairingly turned it this way and that.
‘Do you have any idea where the exit is?’ he said.
‘No, but Cullayn won’t be lying.’
‘Where’s the most likely place?’
As Janey chewed her lip, the remnants of the spider-map blew away.
‘The rear of the East Wing,’ she said, reading its dregs. ‘Most of that borders the garden, not the house.’ Already grey with tiredness Janey ran on, leading the way this time.
‘You can’t carry on at this pace,’ Elliott told her.
Without slowing down, she said, ‘I’m not going to live through this anyway. If I can help get you out of here, I will.’
They raced through the corridors. Elliott had no idea where he was: the carpets, the walls and intersections all looked the same. How long had it been since the hunt started? It doesn’t matter, he realised. Cullayn decided the time here. He was the clock.
‘One minute to midnight!’ chirped a high voice behind them.
It was Eve, slipping in their wake so quietly that they’d been unaware of her.
‘I am the timekeeper,’ she announced. ‘I ensure the fairness of the game. I am going back now to make sure Cullayn is still in the knight’s room. I won’t let him leave early, though he may wish to.’ She gave Elliott a warm look, but he couldn’t tell if she really meant him well or if she was just enjoying the whole experience of the chase as much as Cullayn.
‘Eve,’ Janey said, trembling with fatigue. ‘Do you … do you know the way out?’
She nodded.
‘Won’t you show us?’
‘I can’t do that. It’s against the rules.’
‘They’re Cullayn’s rules, and we should not live by them,’ Janey told her.
‘Shouldn’t we?’
‘No, there are other rules. Better ones. Better games. We can take you out of here. Don’t you want us to?’
Eve rolled her eyes as if Janey had just said the funniest thing in the world. ‘You have one minute left,’ she said. ‘I’ll hold him back till midnight. I’ll try, anyway.’ She smiled fiercely at them both, raising her fists to remind them to get ready. Then, with Janey pleading with her to come back, Eve flitted back into the dark in a flurry of dust.
Elliott watched her go. Above Janey’s head a portrait of Cullayn gazed down at him with unending acquisitive interest.
‘This way,’ Janey groaned.
Elliott had no idea how she kept going. She pressed him on, one corridor after another, a snaking, horrendously complex route that took them gradually towards the back end of the East Wing. Finally they reached a wall where the corridor could go no further forward, only right and left. They were in the correct area, and ran frantically back and forth searching for the exit.
Moments later, they heard a clock tick. Then Eve’s small voice began counting down from ten. A boom like a futile bell clanged in time with her countdown, matching it, underlining it, and on the final brutal chime Cullayn’s confident voice rumbled a distant, resonant, ‘Midnight!’
Elliott glanced at Janey. Her face held no answers.
From the heart of the East Wing behind them came a huge breath of stale wind. It ricocheted past their faces, stretching their cheeks.
‘I am coming! I am on my way to you!’ Cullayn bellowed, his words issuing from all directions at once.
Janey lay down in a crumpled heap on the floor, utterly spent. ‘Go on!’ she rasped. ‘I’ll keep Cullayn here as long as I can.’
‘No,’ Elliott said, and before Janey knew what he was doing he’d lifted her onto his shoulder. She was as light as a girl. She tried to protest, but she didn’t even have the breath left for that, and Elliott didn’t waste time with talk of his own. Adjusting Janey’s weight on his back, he ran. From the limits of exhaustion Janey raised two fingers, enough to light the way for a dozen more corridors. Then even that light started to fade.
Panting for breath himself, unable to see a thing, Elliott’s feet faltered in the darkness. But Cullayn did not come, and after another minute he still did not come. And then Janey’s finger-light finally guttered out, and only then did Elliott understand why Cullayn had delayed. Of course. He’d been waiting until Janey had nothing left. Janey had to know that she’d failed Elliott before Cullayn dispatched her.
Abruptly daylight was allowed back into the corridors, and Elliott sensed it was because Cullayn wanted him to see Janey’s exhausted face.
Janey protested for Elliott to go on without her. She clawed at his back until he laid her down, on her side. By a chink of ceiling light he could see how drained her face was. ‘I can’t go on,’ she said. ‘But you must. He’ll stop here first to gloat. That’ll give you at least a couple more minutes. Use them.’
‘But—’
‘No, enough. I’m dead already. Get out if you can.’
‘Wait,’ Elliott said, thinking furiously. ‘What if I give you time to recover? Get Cullayn away from you? Maybe that way he’ll ignore you, and you can get back to Dad and Ben – get them out by the main entrance. Do you know where they are?’
‘Yes.’ Janey opened her hand, allowing a splinter of light to spill between her fingers – a final moment of brightness between them. ‘A chase, then? One to lead Cullayn away?’ She hesitated, turning the idea over in her mind. ‘Even that might not distract him enough. But …’ She felt for Elliott’s hand. ‘All right, brave boy. Go now! Run and don’t stop. Give him his hunt! And I’ll do my best to rescue your family.’
Elliott stood, preparing himself. He took three deep breaths and then yelled at the top of his voice to get Cullayn’s attention. He wasn’t sure he’d drawn the owner’s focus away from Janey until he heard feet bounding into an adjacent corridor.
The hunt was on.
Shuddering, Elliott tore down three corridors, using clefts of ceiling light to steer him.
Cullayn made no attempt to hide his pursuit. He came one moment in a thumping slog, a giant’s terrifying stamp, in the next light and elf-swift and full of bubbling, hummed tunes.
‘Too easy! Too easy!’ came his close cry, adrift in its own joy. ‘Too timid! Is this all you’ve got to offer?’ Twin beams of white light lanced into the rich red of the carpet ahead of Elliott. He turned to see Cullayn’s eyes glowing like strips of polished new mirror. ‘Come on!’ Cullayn roared. ‘Don’t make this too simple for me! I’ll kill Ben if you do! I’ll kill him anyway, but I’ll kill him slowly. Give me a good hunt and I’ll make it quick!’
Elliott launched himself forward again. Two intersections later he blundered into a large fragment of wood. He realised at once that it was the same improvised weapon Dad had carried inside the East Wing. Cullayn had obviously deliberately left it for Elliott as a reminder of what had happened to his father. With nothing else on offer, Elliott picked it up anyway. He tested using the fragment as a knife.
A sigh of warm approval came from behind him.
Elliott ran on. Kicking open the doors off the corridors, he searched for a better weapon. In one bedroom he found a fireplace. He felt his way around the grate and his fingers finally came across a metal poker. Throwing the piece of wood down, Elliott tested to see if he could handle the poker. This time a definite snort of appreciation came from behind him in the corridor.
I’m just helping him enjoy this more, Elliott realised. But that, after all, was what Janey needed. That was OK. Let Cullayn bask in his enjoyment if it gave Janey time to get to Dad and Ben.
The poker was useless. Too heavy. He could only swish it in a wide circle. Picking the wooden fragment up again, Elliott ran on, experimenting with grips.
He threw himself into a long corridor. All the doors off it were closed, but he pushed them wide, hoping to confuse Cullayn. Redoubling his efforts, he flung himself forward, smashing into walls and running on, the only thought in his mind being to keep the hunter’s voice behind him. That voice came as a series of intermittent, happy r
oars.
Cullayn lingered in the long corridor, but not for long.
Elliott thrust recklessly on, extraordinarily tired now. His one hope was that he might blunder accidentally across the East Wing’s main entrance, and have a chance to get into the garden. He was turning into another corridor, with Cullayn crowing with excitement behind him, when his temple struck a jutting wall.
With his skull ringing from the impact, Elliott slumped to the carpet. Swaying, he raised his face. He was in a place where the floor descended. Ahead of him was a small set of steps.
‘Dad! Ben!’ Elliott yelled, sensing that if they were anywhere it was here.
Then he shushed himself, pressed away from the dark passageway. What was he doing? He had to give Janey more time to get to Ben and Dad, not lead Cullayn to them. ‘Come on then!’ he yelled back over his shoulder, deciding that if he was going to be caught anyway he might as well insult Cullayn instead of always being the one taunted. ‘Where are you, old man?’
‘Good!’ Cullayn yelled. ‘You promised me a fight! You promised!’ The voice was a child’s spoilt whine, but it was also gleeful, delighted, excited and looking for Elliott’s death.
Hearing it, Elliott knew beyond any doubt that Cullayn would kill him as soon as he stopped being an interesting enough chase.
Above Elliott there was a triangle of glass. Smash it, he thought. The ghost children must still be out there somewhere. He rammed the shard of wood into the glass. The glass shattered. Air burst inside and for a moment Cullayn’s roar lessened. Then, when it was obvious the ghost children were not coming through, his voice swelled with confidence again.
Elliott hurled himself on. He dived into rooms, kicked past furniture, jumped over beds. He threw himself down corridors, and all the while, behind him, he could hear Cullayn. He was imitating Elliott between bouts of laughter, pretending to be tired, huffing and puffing.
Elliott was now beginning to feel physically sick with exhaustion. But he didn’t let that slow him down. Sheer tiredness meant he kept bumping into walls, tripping and falling, but he was beyond caring. He let his anger fuel him, let the burning ache of Cullayn’s voice pitch him headlong into the darkness.
When he did eventually rest a moment, he dared for the first time in several minutes to look behind.
Cullayn was there, of course. But he had changed – from the growling monster into the silent pursuer. He looked like something mythic: a silhouette outlined in streaming white starlight against the dark grey of the corridor.
Elliott pushed himself onward again. Every part of him was sore from working so hard to stay in front, but he was slowing. And suddenly, with a sigh that might have been contentment, Cullayn’s star-studded back rose against the wall of the corridor ahead of Elliott. The wall was utterly engulfed by shadow as Cullayn reared up like a wave, and Elliott closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.
When that impact did not come Elliott leapt forward again, but his heel slipped on the carpet, his knee slamming into the floor. He sat up immediately, suppressing a yell as he flexed his leg to test the damage. At the same time he gazed back to see how close Cullayn was. The answer showed him that the chase was finally over.
Cullayn had assumed a heroic pose. He was in fanciful flight, a mid-air lunge, his boots on the rise, his head thrown back. Snatching his hat aloft in triumph, he licked the fingertips of his weapon-hand and his mouth became a shout of delight, a raw crescendo that made the carpet and walls vibrate. Elliott braced himself and the air felt suddenly ice-cold. Cruising overhead, Cullayn lifted Elliott with one colossally strong arm and held him high and then higher still. In that moment Cullayn fully intended to kill Elliott. He wanted to, would have done, except that he had waited so long and so keenly to hunt anything at all that instead of grinding Elliott’s life into the carpet fibres he decided to postpone the final hunt for later.
As Elliott tensed for the impact, Cullayn laughed, crushing the side of Elliott’s head. Elliott felt his cheek shatter and break, and a wave of pain washed over him that briefly left him unconscious.
When he woke again a few seconds later, Cullayn was sitting beside him. The hunter looked calm. He looked happy. A fulfilled gleam gladdened his eye as he fondly ruffled Elliott’s hair. ‘I’m going after Janey now,’ he said. ‘I delayed that pleasure, as I did your death, and now I’m glad I did both.’ Looking pleased with himself, he flowed down the corridor.
As Elliott watched him, he knew that Cullayn could catch up with Janey without having to run. His strides could be as wide as he liked without him seeming to hurry.
Feeling the broken bones in his face, Elliott staggered away. But Cullayn was soon back. The owner of Glebe House sat against a corridor wall ahead of him, breathing lightly and easily.
‘Thank you,’ he said in all sincerity, once Elliott could focus on him. ‘I have not had such a chase since Sam. And as reward, because I am not an unreasonable man …’ Cullayn traced a doorway with his finger.
There it was, no more than a footstep away: a path into the grounds. Outside was freedom: trees, sunshine, birds and ghosts. The ghost children floated in the sky. They had been following the progress of the hunt from outside. Elliott could only see them because he and they were so close to Cullayn. They stirred with concern for him and the others within.
‘Ah, Elliott, they’d love to get in here with me and have a chase of their own,’ Cullayn said with satisfaction. ‘But they’re too scared, as they’ve always been.’
He sat next to Elliott, comradely. ‘You know,’ Cullayn said in a quiet, sated tone, ‘it’s a whole world out there. I’ve missed it to be honest. Missed my slope, yes, missed my hunting ground, but maybe I stayed here overlong. I got too comfortable in Glebe House. That’s how I got caught. But at least when your brother’s dead I’ll have all that extra energy for myself. I can pack it inside me, squirrel it away.’ Cullayn sniffed, patting Elliott’s shoulder in an almost fatherly way. ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re paying attention. Because what’s the point of fine plans with no one to share the wonder of them, eh? See, Elliott, truth is, I want to bring the hunt everywhere. When Ben’s dead I’ll have enough energy to make a start, and following that I’ll drain Janey as well. I’ll do her last of all. Her spirit won’t go quick like the rest of the adults. She’s different. And then I’ll go right through this door you see before us – right out into the garden and beyond.’
Cullayn snapped his fingers, laughed. ‘See, I’ve planned my exit, Elliott. It’ll have some poetry, I promise you that. I intend to stop a moment to smell the garden fragrances, something small and trivial and innocent like that, something Janey might have done to comfort the ghost children. And then, do you remember that white steed beneath the knight? That impressive horse? Well, that will be me. I’ll pass like Pegasus himself over the gathered ghost-children. They probably won’t even try to stop me, they’re such weak wretches, but even if they do it’ll be too late. With Ben and Janey inside me I’ll outfly them, soar over them, and they’ll be left behind knowing that they stayed here all this time for nought. That’ll be something worth dwelling over, won’t it? That’s an exit!’
Cullayn stood, smiling. ‘Anyway, I don’t really need you, that’s what I’m coming to in this little chat. Ben and Janey are enough. You can go.’ He gazed down at Elliott. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? I never make an offer twice.’
Elliott didn’t move. He knew by now there must be conditions attached.
Cullayn laughed. ‘I like you, Elliott. You haven’t whined yet. That’s what’s kept you alive, not your speed. So then, here’s the charity I’m offering. Leave freely now, or try to make it back to my secret room. That’s where your father and Ben are. They’re both still alive. The room’s not far from here. It’s never far from wherever you are in here, eh? And if you make it there before me, I’ll let you all go. I promise. I’ll even free Janey. Oh yes,’ Cullayn said, when he saw Elliott’s eyes widen. ‘I caught her. ’Course I
did.’
‘What if I don’t get there before you?’
Cullayn grinned good-naturedly. ‘Do you really need to ask that?’
Elliott shook his head.
‘That’s it, then,’ Cullayn said, tightening his belt. ‘I’ve given you plenty of chances, Elliott, and so far you’ve not availed yourself of any. What do you say to a gallant ending? Or do you just want to leave? Take my first offer? Save your skin?’
Cullayn flicked his hand towards the opening into the garden – a you-may-go gesture. Elliott could hear singing birds out there. He could smell the grass Dad had mown yesterday. He turned to face Cullayn.
‘Excellent!’ Cullayn rasped, seeing the decision he had made. ‘Good boy! No wonder your father’s so proud of you. Let’s make him even prouder, eh?’
‘No tricks if I race you back to the passage?’ Elliott said, knowing how pointless a question it was.
Cullayn’s eyes twinkled. ‘I can’t promise that.’
‘I want a head start.’
‘I’ll bet you do. I’ll give you one minute. I’ve already given you more time than you deserve.’
‘My leg’s broken,’ Elliott said, finding it hard to speak because of his shattered cheek. ‘What kind of contest is it unless you give me a fair start?’ He rose, testing his swelling left knee. The ligaments pulled, knifing pain up his thigh, but nothing was broken. He’d lied, hoping to gain a few more seconds. And another thing: he didn’t remember much about the spider-map, but he thought he recalled the details of how to get back to the dark passageway.
‘Broken?’ Cullayn tutted disinterestedly. ‘You’ll have to hop, then. A man did that once, a sort of hobble to get away from me.’ He stood up to show Elliott what it had looked like.
Elliott practised the gait once, and limp-strode up the corridor.
As soon as he was out of sight, he ran as hard as he could. Three teeth on the left side of his jaw felt loose, but he ignored the pain, desperately trying to recall the details of the spider-map. Time passed – a haze of minutes – and suddenly Elliott felt the corridor descending.