by Tim Willocks
This time the journey took longer, because he could only walk, not run. He could feel Nessa’s heartbeat, but it was as weak as the beat of a butterfly’s wing. He grew more and more afraid. When at last he saw the light from the cavern, he trotted the rest of the way to the turquoise lagoon. He laid Nessa down on her side by the water’s edge.
Nessa was still asleep. Furgul splashed the cool, sweet water on her face. He splashed and splashed and splashed. Just when Furgul was afraid that she would never wake up again, Nessa opened her eyes. She looked at him and smiled.
“Hello, Furgul.”
“Nessa.”
Nessa saw the immense columns of rainbow-colored rock. She saw the sparkle of light on the turquoise lagoon. She panted hard to get her breath.
“Where are we?” she said.
Nessa raised her head to get a better view. As she did so she shifted her foreleg, and Furgul saw the buckshot wound that had pierced her through the ribs. It must have caused her tremendous agony. She had lost a lot of blood, which was matted into her fur. But Nessa had been so brave she hadn’t even mentioned it. And she didn’t mention it now. She gazed about the crystal cavern in wonder.
“Are we in the Doglands?” asked Nessa.
Furgul was so sad he could hardly speak. “Yes,” he said. “We must be.”
“I wish Mama and Eena and Brid could be here too.”
“They’ll be here soon,” he said, “you’ll see.”
Nessa said, “I’ve never been anywhere so beautiful.”
“Neither have I.”
Nessa laid her head back on the shore of the lagoon. She looked at him.
She said, “I love you, Furgul.”
Furgul said, “I love you too.”
Nessa smiled and closed her eyes. Her body went limp. Furgul nuzzled her throat to try to wake her again. But the scent of life had vanished from her body.
Furgul choked with emotion. Nessa had never harmed anyone. She wouldn’t even fight for her food at the stinking troughs. She was kind and gentle and sweet. And now she was dead. Furgul wanted to cry, but he clenched his jaws and stopped his tears from falling. He promised himself he would never cry again.
Instead, a mighty anger rose inside his chest.
The masters had done all this. So many cruel things they had done. To Keeva and Nessa and Eena and Brid. To all the poor greyhounds they shut away in crates and bullied to race at the track. To all the greyhounds and lurchers they had shot and dumped in the chasm. Furgul decided he wasn’t going to die. He was so angry, he was going to live. And he made himself a solemn promise.
One day, when I grow up, I’ll set Keeva free.
I’ll set all the greyhounds free.
I’ll return to Dedbone’s Hole, and I’ll set the wrong things right.
Furgul craned his neck back and let out a long and terrible howl. The howl was full of mourning and full of anguish and full of rage. It echoed through the belly of the mountain and through the cavern and through the tunnels and through the solid, hard and timeless rock itself. And the mountain’s heart was so sad that drops of water fell from the witch’s fingers, as if the mountain wanted to cry instead of Furgul.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE RIVER
Three tunnels led out of the crystal cavern on the far side of the lagoon. Furgul chose the one in the middle because somewhere far down inside it he could hear a rushing, roaring sound. He didn’t know what was causing it, but the rushing and roaring felt like an echo of the sound inside his head, the sound of the wind, so he followed it.
This tunnel also went down and down and the light behind him grew fainter until it disappeared. The scent of Nessa disappeared too. Now Furgul was alone. He had no one left to lose, except himself.
The rushing sound became so loud it felt like walking down the throat of a roaring lion. Furgul stopped as he almost fell—his front paw had stepped out into thin air. He explored the edge of the rock and found that the tunnel ended in a sheer drop into the blackness. The endless roar came up from directly below. He sniffed the rising vapor. It was a torrent of water. An underground river.
He’d never met a river before, but he knew what it was. His instinct—his inborn dog memory—recognized it. He thought about it. The river must be going somewhere, but where? If it went back into the mountain, the mountain would fill up with water, which was impossible, so the river must be going out of the mountain, which was where Furgul wanted to go too.
Furgul had never been in deep water. Did he know how to swim? He knew he didn’t look like a fish. His instinct told him to take the risk. His only other choice was to go all the way back to the cavern and follow another tunnel. He didn’t like that idea. The crystal cavern was Nessa’s tomb. A beautiful tomb, but a tomb just the same. A tomb felt like death; the river felt like life.
Furgul retreated back up the tunnel a few steps and turned. He took a deep breath. He sprinted forward, and when he felt the edge of the tunnel beneath his pads, he whipped his hind legs under him and pushed and jumped as far as he could. He sailed out into the nothingness. Then he plunged down into the dark.
The wind rushed in his ears. He became a part of the roar. He expected to fall forever. Then suddenly he splashed into a deluge of icy-cold water. He wanted to gasp as he went under, but he held his breath. He found himself paddling with his paws. He pushed upward, and his head broke the surface and he panted. Water went in his mouth, and he swallowed. For a second he felt panic flap inside him like a pair of monstrous wings. He made himself think about Argal. He paddled harder to keep his head higher. It worked. If he paddled hard enough and stretched his long neck far enough, he could breathe.
His instinct had been right. He could swim.
The force of the river was incredible. It swept him along at fantastic speed. It was terrifying. But it was exciting. Almost before he knew it, he found that he could see the wavy black surface of the water. White foam splashed against the walls of rock on either side. Total darkness had retreated. He looked up and craned his head above the waves and saw a bright yellow light way up ahead. The river swept him onward, and the light became brighter and brighter till it almost dazzled him.
He blinked until the light didn’t hurt anymore. He was rushing toward a hole in the side of the mountain where the river escaped. Just beyond the hole he saw something he could hardly believe. It was the curve of a rainbow. What was a rainbow doing in a river? Then the river swept him out of the hole in the mountain’s side—right into the rainbow itself—and Furgul found out why.
When the river left the mountain, it became a waterfall.
He fell through the air—through the colors of the rainbow—with the wild cataract roaring under his paws. He looked down. Far below was a bubbling white vortex. He plummeted straight toward it. He took the biggest breath he could take and—WHOOSH—he splashed through the foam and went down and down.
He struggled underwater in a turbulence of bubbles and swirling green whorls. Just as he thought his lungs would burst, the current thrust him back to the surface and carried him onward. By the time he caught his breath, Furgul had left the waterfall and its rainbow far behind.
He looked back at the mountain. The sun was going down behind it, and the sky was all red and gold. The mountain had a double peak, and to Furgul it looked like a greyhound’s snout, with its jaws wide open and howling up at the sky. Furgul decided he would call it Dogsnout Mountain.
As Dogsnout Mountain got farther and farther away, Furgul felt sad. He had almost died in the mountain, but it wasn’t the mountain’s fault. He felt as if the mountain had helped him escape. He believed that Nessa’s spirit would find peace there, inside the crystal cavern, which she had loved. He hoped that Nessa would find Eena and show her the rocky witch’s fingers and the beautiful turquoise lagoon. He hoped that Nessa would guide the spirits of all the murdered dogs to rest in the cavern. They deserved peace too. Then the river swept Furgul around a bend, and he saw Dogsnout Mountain no more.
Yes, he would let the river cradle him to sleep, just for a while.
Something stung him in the scruff of his neck, and he woke up. He thought it was a hornet or a wasp. But then something started to pull him, and the stinging got worse. He tried to raise his hind leg to scratch it with his claws, but he was too weak. The pulling got even stronger. It yanked him in violent tugs toward the riverbank. The more he tried to swim away, the harder he was jerked and tugged.
Furgul turned toward the bank. A man stood there in high rubber boots, holding a long, thin, bendy pole in his hands. From the end of the pole a thin, shiny wire stretched all the way to Furgul’s neck. The man cranked the handle of a little machine on the pole, and the more he cranked the more the wire pulled. Was he a friend of Dedbone who’d been sent out to recapture him? Furgul tried to reach up for the wire and chew it with his teeth, but it was just too high and he was just too tired. Little by little Furgul felt himself reeled in to the shore.
By the time he got there he was too worn out to fight. The man waded over in his high rubber boots and looked at Furgul with amazement. He pulled a hook out of Furgul’s neck and picked him up by the scruff. He carried him dripping to the shore and laid him down on the sand beside a small heap of dead fish. Furgul stood up, but his legs were as weak as grass and he fell down again. He curled up by the fish, feeling as cold and lifeless as they were, and started to shiver. There was nothing he could do.
The Fisherman knelt beside him and Furgul waited for something horrible to happen. But the Fisherman looked concerned. His eyes seemed kind. Furgul was confused. He’d never seen a master with kind eyes before. The Fisherman patted him softly on the head.
“Soothe, soothe, soothe,” said the Fisherman.
Furgul panted and shivered. He shivered and quivered and chattered so hard he thought his teeth would fall out. The Fisherman saw the wounds from the buckshot in his haunches. He became even more concerned.
“Mutter, mutter, mutter,” said the Fisherman.
The Fisherman stood up and disappeared. Furgul closed his eyes and shivered. One moment he felt burning hot, the next freezing cold. The Fisherman returned with a blanket, which he spread out on the ground. He picked Furgul up and put him on the blanket and wrapped him up snug and warm.
“Murmur, murmur, murmur,” said the Fisherman.
The Fisherman picked up Furgul in his arms and carried him toward a shiny green truck. It looked quite different from Dedbone’s. The Fisherman put him inside, on a seat that smelled of leather. It was the softest thing that Furgul had ever laid on. The Fisherman loaded his gear into the back. Then he sat in the front next to Furgul, behind a wheel. He took out a little machine that made beeping sounds when he touched it. He put the machine to his ear and started talking.
Among all the talking, Furgul heard the human word “vet.”
Keeva had told Furgul about vets. Sometimes Dedbone took Keeva to the vet, when she was sick or injured. Dedbone had to give the vet money, so he didn’t like going there. He took Keeva because, as his best racer, she was worth it. Sometimes the vet put dogs to sleep with “the needle,” she said. Furgul wondered if the Fisherman was going to put him to sleep. At that moment sleep was all Furgul wanted.
The green truck started to rumble and move. Furgul fell into a snooze on the soft leather seat. He had a horrid dream and woke up and it had gone dark. The green truck was speeding along. Patches of artificial light flashed by outside the windows. Furgul wanted to look out the windows and see more, but he was too weak and the blanket was too tight. After a while the truck slowed down and stopped, and the Fisherman switched off the rumbling. He picked Furgul up in his blanket and carried him out.
They walked across a small black field that had no grass and which smelled of bitter smoke. There were lots of other cars, and Furgul realized that this was a parking lot, like the one Keeva had described at the racetrack. The Fisherman carried him through a door into a room full of harsh bright lights. Furgul had never been inside a room before, and it frightened him. He felt better when he saw that there were other dogs here, of different breeds, each with a master or a mistress. The Fisherman talked to a man in a white coat behind a counter. Furgul couldn’t tell what they were saying, but he could hear the talk of the other dogs.
“That poor little mutt’s in bad shape,” said one dog.
“I wonder what happened,” said another.
“Must have been up to some mischief,” said a third. “He’s been shot.”
“If you ask me,” growled the second, “it doesn’t look like he’ll make it.”
The man in the white coat took Furgul from the Fisherman and carried him into a second room where the lights were even brighter. Furgul guessed that this man was the Vet. The Vet unwrapped the blanket and laid him on a shiny metal table. Then he poked and squeezed Furgul all over. It hurt, badly, but Furgul was too exhausted even to yelp.
“Tut, tut, tut,” said the Vet. “Worry, worry, worry.”
The Vet went away. Furgul started to shiver again. Then the Vet came back. In his hand he held a little plastic cylinder. In the end of the cylinder was a sharp, thin, gleaming thread of steel. Furgul felt a sharp jab, like the hook that had gone into his neck. He tried to get up from the table, but he couldn’t move. Then his eyes closed, even though he didn’t want them to, and everything went black.
• • •
Furgul came around to find himself standing in the first bright room again. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. His brain was all fuzzy and foggy and blurred, and so was his eyesight. He could hear the other dogs woofling, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. His legs felt weak. His haunches ached. Yet he could feel that the buckshots had gone. All he really wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep.
The Fisherman bent down and smiled at him. He didn’t seem so concerned anymore. He picked Furgul up and carried him back to the green truck. Furgul was happy to curl up on the soft leather seat, where he went to the land in his head where dogs made dreams.
After that everything seemed like he had made it in a dream. There was more rumbling and more driving through the night. The Fisherman took him inside a house that was full of strange smells, many of them wonderful. There was a woman there. When she saw Furgul, she glared at the Fisherman and started ranting.
“Rant, rant, rant!” she said.
The Fisherman waved his hands as he tried to explain himself. Furgul thought he seemed a bit scared of the woman. Eventually the woman patted Furgul on his head. She cooed with pity when she saw his wounds. Then she put something in his mouth. Furgul crunched it up and swallowed. Whatever it was, it was delicious.
Perhaps it really was all a dream.
Finally a dog wandered into the room. He was a bulldog, and his belly was so big it almost scraped along the ground. He sniffed around Furgul, and the woman wagged her finger. The bulldog shrugged and lay down next to Furgul. Then he looked at him.
“Hello, mate,” he said. “My name’s Kinnear.”
To Furgul that didn’t sound much like a dog name. It must be the name the masters had given him. He said, “I’m Furgul.”
Kinnear chuckled. “They’ll soon change that,” he said. “You’ve had a rough time, from the looks of you, but your luck’s just changed for the better. In fact, you’ve hit the jackpot.”
“Where am I?” asked Furgul.
“In the Household.”
“What do they want?”
“They want you to be a pet.”
Kinnear chuckled again, in a way that made Furgul feel stupid.
“You’ll learn,” he said. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’m the dominant dog in the Household. At least, in theory, I should be. After all, you are only a puppy, whereas I’m a fully grown dog. And I have been here a lot longer than you, so you could say, in theory, that this is my territory. Although, of course, it’s the master’s house—or, I should say, the mistress’s—not ours.”
Furgul stared at him. Compared to the dogs he had known at Dedbone’s Hole, Kinnear was about as dominant as a pigeon. Furgul’s stare seemed to make Kinnear feel uncomfortable.
“However,” said Kinnear, “that’s always something we can reconsider, from time to time, especially if it causes conflict in the Household. In the Household only the Grown-Ups are allowed to have conflict.”
Furgul had no idea what he was on about.
“Let me go to sleep,” said Furgul.
“Righty-ho,” said Kinnear. He all but bowed. “I’ll show you to your bed.”
PART TWO
THE DOG
WHO RUNS IN
DARKNESS
CHAPTER FIVE
THE HOUSEHOLD
Nine months later Furgul was fully grown. He was healthy, strong, solid with muscles, and could jump a four-foot fence from a standing start (though he kept this ability a secret). He was still living in the Household with the bulldog, Kinnear, and the two Grown-Ups—the kindly Fisherman and his wife, whose names, he had learned, were Gerry and Harriet. He had a soft, warm place to sleep and two large bowls of chicken-flavored food pellets per day. He got his share of patting and stroking, which he had to admit was rather nice. And from time to time he got crunchy treats and spectacularly tasty leftovers from Gerry and Harriet’s meals.