by Caro King
The jackal-headed demon glared at him irritably and ruffled his wings. For the first time Grimshaw registered that Hanhut’s all-over deathly grey colour did rather match his surroundings. He also realised that after their sudden exit, Hanhut’s Architect might decide to summon him back before they had a chance to talk. He’d better move fast. Taking a deep breath, Grimshaw went for it.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘You are the greatest demon …’
‘Ahem,’ coughed Tun meaningfully.
‘… one of the greatest demons in history, apart from the Mighty Curse which is most powerful of all, and yet your third Sufferer survived the first time you tried to kill him. Then you didn’t try again for three whole years. And then you got him. So my questions are: why did he survive? Was it Destiny, like Fish Jones? And how did you get him in the end? Please tell me. I know I’m only a small curse, but I lost my chronometer, my Sufferer keeps surviving and I’d really really like to know.’
Aloof and chilly, and with his arms folded in a forbidding, headmasterly kind of way, the jackal-headed demon studied Grimshaw. Tun hummed tunelessly, making patterns in the sand with a bony toe and trying to look disinterested.
‘Why?’ asked Hanhut finally. ‘Do you, pathetic little failure that you are, truly have the nerve to challenge Destiny?’
‘Yes!’ cried Grimshaw. ‘I did already! I tried and tried, though it didn’t work. But if there’s a way, if you know a way, then I’ll try again till it does.’
Hanhut glared at him some more, but there was a hint of curiosity in the look.
‘You are a strange one,’ he said, ‘I’m almost tempted, but …’
‘He won’t tell you,’ put in Tun. Deep in his cowl, his unseen eyes were alight with cunning design as he steered events in the right direction. ‘He wants you to go on thinking that he’s a powerful Avatar who bested Destiny in some mysterious way, when for all we know he failed the first time because he made a mistake.’
There was a furious roar from Hanhut, ‘You … you moth-eaten BATHROBE!’
Tun sneered. ‘Everyone knows that one, it’s not funny any more. But if it’s the best your dog-brain can come up with …’
Hanhut threw back his jackal head and howled at the sky, making Grimshaw cower. In response, Tun raised his arms, his night-dark robes swirling. Around him the air shimmered, and Grimshaw knew that if they had been in Real Space it would be growing dark and chill. Hanhut spread his wings, casting a shadow on the air, even in Limbo, which was no mean feat. The two demons faced each other, poised as if ready to strike.
Grimshaw glanced nervously at the sky. Such a display of power was likely to attract attention.
‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘The Horsemen will hear you!’
The warning got through. Tun and Hanhut stopped glaring at one another and sent worried looks up at the sky. Hanhut abandoned his angry pose and reached for his chronometer of carved alabaster, intending to zap somewhere else just to be on the safe side.
‘TELL ME!’ howled Grimshaw.
‘If there’s anything to tell,’ murmured Tun.
The Egyptian demon paused. Tun’s point had hit home, and Hanhut couldn’t bear for anyone to think he had failed to kill a Sufferer because of a mistake. He glanced up, checking the sky once more. It was empty save for one tiny dot far in the distance. It wasn’t the Horsemen, so he ignored it.
Tun was almost sure he knew what Hanhut was going to say, and if so then it would push Grimshaw further in the right direction. Of course, he might be wrong. If it wouldn’t have been beneath him to do so, he would have held his breath.
‘It was Destiny,’ Hanhut said at last in his rasping voice. ‘My third Sufferer was protected by the Higher Orders.’
‘But you killed him in the end!’ cried Grimshaw.
Hanhut laughed, ignoring the intensity of Tun’s gaze that would have bored holes in steel.
‘I was lucky. The man’s destiny came upon him while I hesitated, wondering what to do next. He made the scientific discovery that he was born to make and then his days of protection were over. He was mine for the taking. And I took him.’
Grimshaw stared at Hanhut in dismay. ‘You mean I have to wait!’
‘It’s the only way,’ said Hanhut. ‘Destiny trumps curses, even curses as great as mine. Only the Mighty Curse, the most terrible of us, would be strong enough to overcome it.’
‘But how long will I have to wait?’ cried Grimshaw.
‘Who knows?’ put in Tun quickly, well satisfied with the way things were going. ‘The boy could be an old man before he does whatever it is he’s destined to do. You will just have to bear the disgrace for a few … well, probably many … long years. Still, what does it matter? You are only a small demon, after all.’
‘IT MATTERS TO ME,’ shrieked Grimshaw, his anger rising through him in a flood.
‘Well then, what are you going to do about it?’ said Tun, cheerfully. On Tun, cheerful sounded like the crack of doom, but there was something in his voice that made Grimshaw glare at him accusingly.
‘You know something!’
Poised to press send, Hanhut paused, his curiosity getting the better of him. In the sky, the distant dot grew larger, flying purposefully towards the group at the foot of the pyramid.
Tun cleared his throat. ‘I have been thinking about your situation a lot, my small friend, and it has occurred to me that there is one possible solution. If you were daring enough to carry it through. As you know—’
‘Get on with it,’ snarled Hanhut. ‘We can do without one of your monologues.’
Tun glared, but got straight to the point anyway.
‘You could wake the Mighty Curse,’ he said, his voice a deathly whisper in the still Limbo air, ‘and call its doom upon the world and everything in it. Including Fish Jones.’
There was a stunned pause, then Hanhut threw back his head and howled with laughter.
‘Idiot,’ he sneered. ‘The Mighty Curse is lost and no one knows where. Besides, you would destroy the world!’
‘Exactly,’ murmured Tun to himself. ‘And more than that.’ Deep in the shadows of his cowl, the terrible eyes gleamed.
Still howling with laughter, Hanhut vanished. Grimshaw barely noticed him go. True, the Mighty Curse was lost, but Tun’s idea filled him with restless excitement and he wanted to talk about it. Neither of them had spotted the shape on the horizon, close now, looking like a small winged serpent flying swiftly their way. But not all serpent. Its long hair flew out behind it in a golden veil, bright against the dull grey of the sky, and even from this far away the green glow of its eyes was visible.
‘But … I mean … how would we find out where the Mighty Curse was? It can’t be in Limbo with its Architect or we’d know.’
Tun waved an arm airily. ‘That, my friend, is a point I have often considered. And I believe,’ he spoke softly, his dark monk-shape leaning closer to Grimshaw, ‘I have at least half of the answer. Imenga the Mighty made his curse to act once and once only and then to come to an end. So, when he died, his soul was sent on to wherever it is that immortal souls go when they have tried to kill the world.’
Grimshaw flattened his ears back against his bony skull. Tun stepped back, giving Grimshaw time to work it out.
‘So … what you are saying is … it’s with its Sufferer? With the World! It’s in Real Space, isn’t it?’
‘Exactly!’
‘But where in Real Space?’
‘That is the half I don’t know. But I was wondering … You were brave enough to ask the Sisters for answers before. Perhaps you could try them again. They are angel Avatars, even if they are lowly ones, so surely they will know.’
Grimshaw smiled up at Tun gratefully, but inside something was bothering him. A frown began to creep over his brow. ‘It’s very good of you to come up with all these ideas,’ he said slowly, ‘when it could have such consequences for you too.’
‘Whatever do you mean, small one?’ Tun turned his cowled head
and Grimshaw felt his friend’s terrible gaze settle on his face.
‘Well, with no one left alive in Real Space to invoke the curses, won’t they all be broken? Our Architects will die properly and will move on to Whatever Comes Next. And all of the Avatars, angel or demon, well … who knows what will become of us?’ Grimshaw flicked his ears and glanced up into the depths of the cowl that hid Tun’s cold eyes, watching him so steadily.
‘Especially,’ he went on slowly, ‘when you went to the trouble of making it so that your curse, and you, could never end.’
And then, out of the blue, Grimshaw saw the full truth of it. He understood why Tun always seemed unhappy, and why he had really killed the last family member of the House of Ombre – not to live forever, but in an attempt to end his curse!
‘It’s what you want me to do!’ cried Grimshaw. ‘End all the curses so that you can end too.’ Hunching his bony shoulders, Grimshaw hissed at Tun as the hurt went deep. ‘You’re using me!’
The words hung in the still Limbo air. All the concern, all the help, was nothing more than Tun’s plan to break free of his doom.
Tun gazed at Grimshaw steadily, then gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘So, small one,’ he said coldly, ‘do you want to discuss tactics or not?’
‘NOT!’ cried a familiar voice over their heads.
‘Flute!’ Grimshaw screamed as a lithe body swooped down from the sky and two clawed hands grabbed him by the shoulders, jerking him from the ground. Startled, Tun took a moment to react, but then reached out and seized one of Grimshaw’s disappearing back paws.
‘He’s mine!’ howled Tun. ‘I had him just where I wanted him! Let him go you … you harpy!’
Flute shrieked with laughter, still pulling Grimshaw away. Tun held on, while Grimshaw yelled and struggled, wanting them both to let go. But for all that Tun was a fearsome demon, Flute was stronger and had a better hold. Feeling Tun’s cold grip on his back paw slide away, Grimshaw yelled even louder.
‘Find me,’ commanded Tun as the Sister tore Grimshaw free. His deep voice rang on the air like a death knell. ‘Find me, small one, and I’ll tell you what to do next to give us both our heart’s desire!’
25
THE GLASS OCEAN
‘So, this is cosy, isn’t it?’ said Flute’s cool voice above Grimshaw’s head.
She had dropped him on his front on a rock at the foot of a cliff, looking out over the Limbo ocean. Scrabbling upright, Grimshaw looked round to see her settling on the rock next to him. The lack of legs made it difficult for the Sisters to land anywhere as they had to lie on their middles and prop themselves up with their slender arms. Mostly they stayed in the air, hovering ceaselessly or flying high against the grey Limbo sky. But here was Flute, perched next to him with her wings folded and her lamp eyes studying his face.
Any other time, Grimshaw would have been impressed that one of the Sisters wanted to talk to him. Now, he just glared at her. The memory of his exchange with Tun still seethed in his head.
‘I thought you might have some questions for me,’ said Flute.
Grimshaw shrugged irritably and looked away, over the ocean that rolled out beneath him. The sea in Limbo was always grey and totally still. There were no waves or even ripples, and certainly nothing as exciting as a tide. It looked like an endless expanse of lifeless grey glass, a mirror of the sky. The only mirror that existed in Limbo.
Flute pinched his arm to get his attention.
‘My sisters don’t want me to be here,’ she hissed. ‘We had quite a row about you. They think you are a dismal disappointment who should be left to moulder away in the company of your tiresome Architect until his remains are dust and your curse ceases to exist and you along with it. They think you are a sad, pitiful, pointless waste of half-life. I, on the other hand, don’t.’
Grimshaw flicked his ears. He didn’t want to listen to Flute, he didn’t want to listen to anything but his own anger snarling away in his head, but he couldn’t help going back to the problem of Fish Jones. He turned his inky gaze to look at Flute.
‘Here’s a question for you,’ he said, ‘my Sufferer has a destiny and I want to know when his destiny is going to happen so that I know how long it will be before I can kill him.’
‘Oh,’ said Flute, sadly, ‘you don’t want to know anything about noble humans, or Beyond, or Choice or any of those things?’
‘No,’ said Grimshaw coldly. ‘They don’t really matter. Not in the way that killing my Sufferers and being a great demon matters.’
‘Oh,’ said Flute again, and Grimshaw thought he saw something like disappointment in her glowing eyes. It made him even angrier. He was only trying to do a good job, to be the best demon he could be, so what right had she to be disappointed? He glared at her, letting the rage well up inside him, driving out all the terror he would normally feel in the presence of any of the Sisters.
‘Well,’ she said after a long moment, ‘humans of that kind can have one destiny or many. Or they may have a destiny that takes them a lifetime to complete.’
Grimshaw kept glaring straight into her green lamps, his paws clenched. She blinked at him.
‘And Fish Jones …?’
‘Has many tasks over many lives to perform in the service of Fate.’
Hunching his shoulders, Grimshaw turned away to stare out over the sea.
‘So here’s another one then,’ he said softly. ‘Where in Real Space is the Mighty Curse?’
Flute sighed. Her voice dropped to a soft whisper and her lamp eyes bathed the side of his head in their light as she leaned closer. ‘We knew about Tun’s plan to use you, and we guessed long ago that you would try asking us about it sooner or later. My sisters made me promise not to tell you where the Mighty Curse sleeps.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ snapped Grimshaw. ‘I may only be a small demon, but I’m not stupid. I worked it out. Everything would be destroyed, including all the Avatars.’
‘Possibly, nobody knows for sure. But still,’ Flute went on, ‘even though I don’t know what will become of me and of my sisters, I am here for a reason. I will give you what you wanted long ago when all this was just beginning. I will give you the gift of choice. You can choose to unleash the Mighty Curse and destroy every living morsel of humanity and all the curses with it. Or you can choose to step back and let Fish Jones carry out his destinies, while you accept your disgrace and live out your half-life to its natural end.’
Grimshaw turned back and glared into her emerald eyes again. ‘What choice is there,’ he snarled, ‘if you won’t tell me what I need to know?’
Flute shrugged. ‘Work with me here – I’m taking a big risk for you. And do you know how hard it is to give my sisters the slip! Look, just because we’re cruel, doesn’t mean we aren’t good. I’m sure in my heart that you will choose to let the noble humans live. I believe you have it in you to be a better being. But I could be wrong, and if I am … who knows what I will have unleashed? What we will all have to face?’
The angel leaned even closer, so that her cheek brushed the demon’s forehead and her lips tickled his pointed ear. ‘I promised my sisters not to tell you where the Mighty Curse is hidden,’ she whispered, ‘but I don’t need to tell you. You are a half-life and have it in you to divine the answer for yourself. You do it all the time. So do it, if you choose.’
She drew back and peered into his corner-to-corner black eyes. ‘Just one last thing before I go. You were given a glimpse of Beyond, remember? There was a promise in that, a promise of something more than all this, and that is a rare thing for a curse demon to have. So now, a warning. Look. Down.’
Unfolding her wings, Flute shot upwards in a flurry of air and a wave of tail and was gone, leaving Grimshaw staring after her. He hissed quietly, his brain turning over what she had said.
A choice. Kill the world and Fish Jones with it. Or let the humans live.
And a warning.
Almost without thinking about it, Grimshaw turned his ey
es to look down. There was the Limbo sea, as blank and dead as ever. Except … His eyes went wide with shock.
Except that now, suddenly, Grimshaw could see through the grey glass surface of the ocean. As if there were something beyond the still, dead water. And what he saw made his flesh crawl and his insides tie themselves in knots. What he saw beneath the glass ocean was a darkness so deep and so endless that he could feel the chill of it in his blood. It was the darkness of the darkest of nights, and looking at it gave Grimshaw a gaping hole inside, even though he didn’t understand what it had to do with him. He stared, horrified, for a long moment, all thoughts of the Mighty Curse and Fish Jones temporarily suspended.
But slowly they came back, and when they did he spun the dials of his chronometer and went to Real Space to think things through.
Grimshaw drew in a long breath of sharp, salty air. Above him, the Real Space sky was clear and filled with stars, and a sliver of moon cast its cold light over the heaving waters. The whole effect was about as far away from the glass sea in Limbo as anything could get. Although there was no endless dark beneath the waves in Real Space, still the sense of mighty depth and sheer size was breathtaking. Watching it with his unblinking eyes, Grimshaw thought that he had never seen anything so amazingly lonely, or so amazingly beautiful. Or for that matter so amazingly powerful. It was far, far better than BOOM.
He was sitting on the same rock that he had just left in Grey Space, but here the waves broke and frothed around his perch, dashing icy spray across his skin. Behind him, the great cliff reared darkly against the night sky, towering over the cluster of rocks at its feet. Grimshaw’s was the one furthest out. The one nearly on its own, surrounded by the restless energy of the water that seethed about him with barely contained power.
He shivered, coiling and uncoiling his tail. His clawed paws dug deeply into the seaweed, grazing the rock beneath. The smells of night air and salt filled his nose and the ceaseless calling of the waves roared in his ears. It all matched his dark, unsettled mood so perfectly. He could feel the ocean seeping into him, reaching deep into his heart and filling him with its deadly power.