The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1)

by Robert J. Crane

  I shouldn’t have stayed to argue, I realized later. But for some reason, some little part of me thought I could convince him, that within the short period I’d been in Carson’s company I’d got the full picture of him—mild and quiet and scared witless. And that with just that bit of force, he would back down and give up.

  Instead, his face flickered with defiance.

  “No.”

  I opened my mouth to argue—

  Then Sourpuss’s voice echoed up the corridor—”Not my job to find her!”—and it was coming closer.

  No time left. Eyes on Carson for one last moment, I pleaded, “Stay.” Then I leapt through—

  His hand caught me.

  And as the door handle jiggled behind us, I fell into that ever-present, unending spiral of light … with Carson hanging on tight.

  8

  We fell into the forest my compass had promised, a landing made slightly harder by him thumping against me as we came down in a stumble, bright sparkles clouding my vision as my eyes reset after passing through the lightshow of the gate.

  I whirled the moment my feet touched ground.

  “You idiot!” I cried, shoving Carson in the chest. “Why did you follow me? I said to stay where you were! They would have let you go in—”

  But Carson was not present for my reprimands. His gaze was past, sweeping over my shoulders and head. A look of pure astonishment covered his face, like a child setting sight on snow for the very first time.

  I turned back a half-step, and took it in with him.

  It was dark out. No moon here, but the sky was clear, and filled with stars.

  Beneath the canopy, we ought not to have been able to see them. But here, every trunk, every leaf, was like glass. Starlight came through, bounced and refracted in every direction, filling every last point, gleaming down each and every tree, diamonds scattered on black. Refracted so many times that the forest had converted some ten thousand stars into millions.

  “It’s incredible,” Carson breathed.

  I let him have his moment, caught in the majesty of it alongside him. If he hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have taken any notice of this, because I would have been too busy trying to find a cutover back into London. I stared at the nearest tree, alive with the light, a crystalline sculpture alive with a rainbow of light here in this place of darkness. They really did remind me of diamonds, how they caught the light and sparkled.

  Then it was time to move. Because if I was going to ever be in a position to buy some real diamonds, I needed to get moving.

  “Come on,” I said, pulling him into motion. “Enjoy sightseeing while you can, because we’re not here long.”

  He came, feet dragging, eyes overhead. Good thing I had the sense to keep my eyes on where we were going, because he’d have careened into the dirt within less than four steps.

  No path had been carved here, so I weaved in between trunks, one eye on the compass to ensure we continued in a straight line. I’d heard that without proper visual markers to orient themselves, a person ended up walking in wide circles. And although this place was pretty, it wasn’t where I wanted to test that theory.

  There were shrubs closer to the ground, creepers that had woven around the trees. They were glassy too, and each thin cable shone where the light from above seemed to condense in a speckled bar on its surface. It seemed a pity to traipse over them. But they sprung up behind us as though we’d never passed through, so I felt less guilty.

  “Forest of Glass,” Carson murmured some fifty meters from our starting point.

  “Huh? Oh, uh, yes, very pretty.” I squinted at the compass, then almost slammed face-first into a tree. “Look, can you watch where you’re going? I’m not your minder; I can’t deal with pulling you along and navigating at the same—”

  A long howl went up in the night, too high, with an almost wheezing quality.

  Three more answered it … close.

  I froze.

  Carson, beside, did the same. His eyes found mine. “What was that?”

  I grabbed his sweater. Eyes frantic, I motioned a chopping action, neck-height: Shut up!

  He understood—or maybe was too scared by my reaction—because the only noise he made was a strangled-sounding swallow.

  I surveyed, quickly.

  Another wheezy howl, from maybe a hundred meters back the way we’d come …

  I pointed at a tree with a split trunk, low boughs protruding at forked angles. “Up here,” I mouthed to Carson, then jogged to it. He followed. I cringed at the sound of creepers shifting underfoot as we moved through them.

  “You first,” I mouthed.

  He eyed it. Then, in a soft whisper, almost too silent to hear: “I can’t climb!”

  “You have to, damn it!”

  The wheezing howl filled the night air again. A friend joined it. Even closer, now; any second, those things would stumble upon the place where Carson and I had just entered this forest.

  The noises galvanized him into motion. Planting a foot between the V where the trunk had split in two, he gripped for the nearest bough, and hefted himself up. Then, awkwardly, suppressing a grunt through a pained grimace, he shimmied higher.

  “Next one,” I breathed, climbing behind him.

  He pushed onto his feet jerkily, bracing against the trunk. An image of him falling, trunk between the legs, conjured itself in my mind. Not funny; not right now. Nothing in the world could make me laugh at this moment in time.

  Carson clutched the bough above. Legs wrapped around the trunk, he somehow ascended, looking like some kind of strangely gangly monkey kitted out in a Halloween costume: Class Dork.

  When he was up and settled, I climbed into the space Carson had just been … and waited, breath held.

  Above me, Carson’s breathing was only too loud.

  “Quieter,” I whispered up at him.

  Something scuffed in the dirt.

  I tensed.

  Ten meters away, maybe less, a dark streak passed by illuminated trunks. Blotting out stars like an eclipse blocks the sun, it seemed to carve out a spot of perfect darkness.

  Then, a little farther up, another.

  Scuffling.

  One of the creatures howled. But this close, it was not at all like a howl—this was more like a baby’s cry, high-pitched and warbling and breathy, coming through lungs caked with tar.

  Its partner joined, and the whine drove into my ears, deep and penetrating and awful. I thought I would scream—perhaps this was how they found their victims, by driving them to such madness that they gave themselves away—and then it was over.

  I closed my eyes.

  I never, ever, wanted to hear that noise again.

  More scuffing noises. Closer … closer …

  They were right on us.

  I dared to creep an eye open, and look down.

  One of the things had stopped at the base of the tree Carson and I so frantically clutched.

  It was almost a wolf … almost. There was some boar in it too, making it both sleek and yet bulky. Two short tusks protruded from its mouth, perfect for stabbing, pinning. Its snout was squat, flat at the end, and working overtime as it sniffed.

  Despite the millions of points of light dancing over it, the creature was near-black.

  It dug around in creepers like a pig hunting for truffles—

  And then, slowly, its head rose, up, up, up … toward me.

  The breath caught in my chest.

  The wolf in it didn’t appear to touch its face, and except for the snout and tusks, neither did the boar. No, this was something out of a horror movie. A decapitated head starting to rot, there were sunken holes where its eyes should be. Its mouth, too, was a wide open maw, tusks exiting from darkness. There was no fur, and in the Forest of Glass’s refracted light, it caught like moonlight over sand. Two bulbous growths, like tumors, stuck out below wilted ears—proto-eyes, I figured, sensitive to light and gradient changes.

  Which meant, if we kept perfe
ctly still …

  The Sniffer ran its nose up and down the trunk.

  Orc poo. It smelled me. Damn it.

  I held my breath. How did I pick up that stink after just standing around the bloody outhouse for ten seconds?

  The Sniffer reared. Three-toed feet pressed the trunk. It extended … I edged back, knowing in my head I was too high for it, animal instincts terrified I was hopelessly wrong.

  It stood there, waiting.

  Then, from low in its throat, came a low scratching sound. Vocal cords flexing, working …

  Don’t howl. Do not howl.

  It didn’t—

  The noise it made was strangled … too human. “Ahh … lo?”

  —and I instantly wished it had howled.

  “Ahh-lo?”

  Hello? Was it … was it saying …?

  “Ahh-loooo?”

  I closed my eyes. It couldn’t see me, of that I was sure … but I could not look into its haggard face as its throat flexed in a way that it shouldn’t be able to, and call a greeting to someone or something it thought was hiding scant feet away.

  I tried to convince myself that this noise was just its cry. Like ‘meow’ from a cat, or ‘quack’ from a duck. It was not saying ‘hello’.

  “Ahh-lo?”

  IT WAS NOT SAYING ‘HELLO’.

  The Sniffer paused, silenced. After long seconds of quiet, it shuffled its hold on the trunk, possibly looking for purchase—then, at last, it dropped onto all fours again. One last snuffle in the creepers underfoot, and it skulked away.

  From somewhere far off, another in the pack loosed a howl. Much farther this time.

  This one joined it—I pressed one hand over my ear, gritting my teeth—and then it disappeared.

  I tracked its black shape vanishing among the lights shining throughout the trees.

  When I was certain no shapes moved among their glow, I started to count Mississippis. Two hundred should do.

  At sixty-eight, Carson whispered, “What was that thing?”

  “Don’t know. I think it was a predator, though.”

  “It sounded like it was saying …”

  “I know,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t want to think about it. Undoubtedly I would have plenty of time to do so over sleepless nights in the days and weeks to come—if I ever ended up back home. The way today was going, I was becoming less and less sure of it.

  “Can we get down now?” Carson asked.

  Part of me wanted to finish the count to two hundred. But I was sure enough that the Sniffer and its pack had gone, and as long as we were silent—and I directed us in the opposite direction to that last howl—I figured it was safe enough. Worst case scenario, we climbed another tree.

  Actual worst case scenario: Carson and I got devoured by something out of The Hills Have Eyes.

  I climbed down, and waited for Carson to follow. He was careful, and I almost wanted to shout at him to hurry it up. I’d only invite our friends back doing that though, and if Carson did hurry it up and ended up snapping an ankle on an accelerated climb down, we were both in trouble.

  As he reached the bottom, I eyed the compass.

  I wasn’t quite sure where a gateway here might open out. It wasn’t London, though; too run-down for that, unless it dropped us into a particularly grubby part of the city. If push came to shove, I’d take it … but I wasn’t quite there yet.

  “Come on,” I whispered once Carson joined me.

  Pushing through the trees, we trekked.

  Once, another howl made its way to us, and we both froze. But it was so far off that the awful baby’s cry really did sound like a real-world wolf, so we set into motion again, paces only very slightly quickened.

  I kept my eyes glued to the compass, willing it to change, while trusting my ears to warn me of impending danger. It showed savannah, endless grasslands stretching off to mountains in the distance … America maybe, or Sub-Saharan Africa. Hell, outer Mongolia for all I knew. And then, just as the trees around us began to thin, the image on its face flickered, transitioning to—

  “The O2 arena,” I breathed.

  At the same moment, Carson said, “Beach.”

  I looked up dumbly. “Huh?”

  Sure enough, past a last small scattering of thinner, shorter glassy trees, the creepers underfoot petered out, and dirt was replaced with sand.

  Carson jogged past me, out into the open.

  “Wait!” I whispered. “You don’t know if it’s safe!”

  Not, of course, that I’d have done anything different. So I followed, keeping half an eye on the compass to ensure it still showed the O2 as our exit.

  The sand was almost perfectly white, and incredibly fine. It shifted gently under my feet as I stepped out, forming small divots that softened but remained as I passed. There were no other impressions in it, which meant either that the Sniffers didn’t come out here, or that they did, and the tide had come in, smoothed it out, and it dried before this stretch was walked again. Either way, no complaints.

  And the sea … so deep, and so perfectly still; not a wave in sight. Starlight reflected perfectly, as though someone had laid a mirror beneath the heavens.

  For a second, I was overtaken by wonder. Part of it was childlike: the desire to plonk down on this beach, run my hands through the sand, dig holes that would forever fill themselves back in before I could go down more than a foot, or try to construct sandcastles, first with this dry stuff, then with water scavenged in a plastic bucket from the place where sand and sea kissed.

  The other half was more adult. This part of me wanted escape. As though a fishing hook had impaled itself behind my belly button, compulsion pulled me to the water’s edge. I would throw my shirt and jeans off, and just careen into this beautiful velvet ocean, sending ripples of my own over its perfect surface, making the reflected stars glitter and sparkle. It would be cold, perhaps, make my breath catch at first … but then I would lay back, held afloat, eyes closed, breathing in the cool scent of this glorious night, and just let the water wash my aches, my bruises, my blood, away.

  I closed my eyes, imagining, holding onto it for just a second … and then let go. It was a nice fantasy—but it could be only that. There were things to do yet. Glory had to be sought.

  Literally, almost.

  I scoured, turning a slow circle.

  “What are you doing?” Carson asked.

  “I need a flat surface.”

  “Why … oh, for the—the portal thing?”

  “Gateway,” I said. “And yes.”

  “Is that how you found me?”

  “Nah,” I lied. “My constable friend was just as careless as yours.”

  Carson cleared his throat. “There’s, err, a rocky section over there.” He pointed. “See?”

  Huh. “Good eyesight.” I started moving.

  “I should hope so. My prescription changed a lot when I was younger, but it seems to have settled now …”

  “Right.”

  “I thought about laser eye surgery? But I read online that you have to have your eyes open for ten minutes. I mean, they give you drops and everything, but still … and they also, um, they have to cut a flap in your retina.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Anyway, I’m fine with glasses. I like these.”

  I was pretty certain he was alone there, but didn’t say anything.

  The outcropping rose from the sand, and extended far beyond where I could see. Guess we lucked out with the pristine bit. I stepped onto a curving boulder, shaped almost like a buried fist, and looked for the flattest—and closest—area. Still the O2, thankfully, but I didn’t trust it to remain that way much farther.

  I settled for a plateau nearby. It wasn’t perfect; the ends rose in sharp points. But it would suffice—although it meant a jump down, rather than stepping through.

  Checking one last time that we’d still exit close to the O2, I said to Carson, “Come here.” He joined, and with the talisman clutched in hand, I ope
ned a gateway between our feet.

  “We’re going down?”

  “No choice.”

  “Where will we end up?”

  “London.” I flashed him the compass. “Not exactly where I want to be in the city, but far enough away from the station that we’ll manage for a while.”

  “The station,” Carson echoed. “Do you think they’ll be looking for us?”

  “Course not. Why would they? We only vanished in front of their eyes—me on camera.”

  “You were on—?”

  “The table blocked the gateway. As far as they know, I just … fell into the floor and vanished. Now do the same here, will you?”

  Carson hesitated. He looked ready to ask another question—then I nudged him with my elbow. He teetered, and then stepped through the gap, disappearing.

  I gave the beach a melancholy last look, and followed.

  We didn’t come out exactly at the O2, but close-by. It was just visible from the street we exited into, white edge curving like an upside-down bowl between two buildings.

  Night was coming. Twilight had not arrived, but it was encroaching, and the streetlights were just coming to life with their dull sodium glow. In another hour, it would be full dark, and going by the grey blanket beginning to sweep across the sky, we wouldn’t be treated to any stars. Even if we were, the night sky here on Earth would never compare to the one I’d just left behind.

  Still, I glanced back at the mottled network of brick we’d come from, taking pains to memorize it. Maybe I could go back sometime.

  Or not, given what waited in those woods.

  I oriented myself, tracing my mental map for the nearest tube station. Thankfully, Constable Heyman hadn’t seen fit to revoke me of my Railcard. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if he had, but they were expensive, almost extortionately so it seemed to me at nigh on a tenner a pop, and I couldn’t just throw those sorts of funds around willy-nilly.

  It occurred to me that I’d need to scavenge up something to sell again, refill the coffers and all that. I’d have to make a point of finding some new gateways to temples; those were always good for a trinket or two.