Sky Wolves

by Livi Michael

  ‘We’re going to fight the Guardian!’ he said. ‘Hooray!’

  Boris couldn’t help feeling that Checkers might have missed the point, but he couldn’t think of anything useful and positive to say, so he said nothing.

  ‘Do you think we’ll recognize him when we get there?’ Checkers asked.

  Boris opened his mouth to say that since they were talking about an enormous hound with three heads and serpents hissing along his spine, spotting him probably wouldn’t be a problem, when suddenly there was a mind-mangling explosion of noise.

  ‘Ah, the brazen-voiced Hound of Hades,’ said Charon, when the noise subsided and both dogs lay stunned in the bottom of the boat. ‘He is ravenously hungry,’ he added, failing to cheer them up. ‘It is a while since he has eaten. You wouldn’t have any honey cakes steeped in soporific herbs, would you?’

  ‘Er – no,’ said Checkers, picking himself up. ‘We must’ve forgotten them.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Charon. ‘He likes them.’

  For a while no one said anything else. Then, when the horrific noise blasted through the underworld again, Charon continued conversationally, ‘Now, where would you like me to drop you off?’

  Back home, please, Boris thought, but his brain felt as though it had been hammered by giant bricks and his jaw lolled around uselessly, incapable of speech.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ Charon said, when neither dog answered. ‘I will not drop you at the mouth of his cavern, where one or more of his heads will instantaneously devour you. I will take you a little further down the shore, where you may at least have time to plan your attack. Before he eats you.’

  He turned the boat around, midstream.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, moments later. ‘You’ll excuse me if I don’t stay and watch. I never could stand the sight of blood. I told Zeus that when he gave me the job – but does he ever listen?’

  Neither dog moved, but remained cringing in the boat. Charon poked at them with the pole until, very reluctantly, they clambered out.

  ‘Come on now – I’ve got souls to ferry. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and I’m sorry our acquaintance has been so short. I hope your deaths are quick and easy – the long, lingering kind never did anyone any good.’

  Both dogs watched dismally as Charon plied his boat away from them, rapidly fading from view. Checkers was the first to speak.

  ‘Well,’ he said in what was for him a whisper, ‘looks like this is it.’

  And gazing round the desolate shore, which was even more gloomy than the other side, Boris couldn’t help but agree.

  ‘We might as well get on with it,’ Checkers continued, beginning to walk along the shore. ‘Now, if he’d only make that horrible noise again, we could work out where he was.’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ said Boris, who had just bumped into something unspeakably foul.

  The two dogs gazed at it in silent awe, wishing they’d left their sense of smell behind them. It was a huge mountain of dog poo, about five times larger than Gentleman Jim.

  25

  The Chapter of Being Foxed by a Wolf

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Hati, as Flo appeared in her line of vision.

  She slowed herself down to get a better look. She was so near to the moon now that a few bounds would take her to it, and she was confident enough to believe herself invincible. Besides, it wasn’t every day that you got a chance to see the hounds of Hel roped together in midair by what looked like a pink poodle who was having a very bad hair day. Hati, who was immaculately groomed, licked her shining fur as she waited.

  ‘Why Skoll,’ she said pleasantly, ‘how good of you to join me. And you’ve brought all your friends!’

  ‘Stow it, Hati,’ Skoll growled. ‘Make yourself useful. Get rid of Miss Freak Show here and set us free.’

  Hati laughed a delicate, silvery laugh. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Flo eyed her warily. She could see, without being told, that Hati was in a different class from Skoll and his band, who were little better than a troop of hired thugs. For one thing, she was very beautiful – silver and gleaming in the moonlight. Her eyes too were a pale silver-grey, cold as moonshine, and her pelt looked polished. She emanated enough evil to make Henry look like a cuddly kitten. Flo licked her lips, which were suddenly very dry. She had come this far, she told herself. She was a very different dog from the creature who had slunk away from the croft, anxious only to preserve her own skin. She was a poodle with a mission.

  ‘But you haven’t introduced us,’ Hati said.

  There were mingled cries of ‘Get on with it!’ and ‘Don’t talk to her – eat her!’ but Hati ignored them.

  ‘What is your name?’ she asked Flo.

  Flo tried to disentangle the Thread of Destiny from her teeth.

  ‘My name is Flo,’ she said. ‘And I’m here to stop you devouring the moon!’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Hati. ‘I suppose you’ve stopped Skoll devouring the sun? Yes,’ she said, glancing over to where the sun throbbed with orange light. ‘I can see you have. Well done,’ she said admiringly, and Flo felt a ridiculous urge to preen. ‘When exactly did you learn to fly?’

  ‘I – what?’ said Flo, distracted.

  ‘She can’t fly,’ said Garm, behind Flo. ‘Get that thread off her and she’ll plummet to the earth!’

  ‘Splat!’ said another wolf.

  ‘Pink poodle jam!’ said a third.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Hati reprovingly, ‘let the lady speak.’

  Flo felt hypnotized by the intensity of Hati’s gaze.

  ‘I didn’t learn to fly,’ she said slowly. ‘It just kind of happened.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Hati.

  And the wolves said, ‘Told you!’

  ‘She can’t do nothing without that thread!’

  ‘Get it off her, Hati!’ and so on.

  Flo had enough sense to know when she was being undermined. It occurred to her suddenly that she didn’t need the heckling wolves – they would only get in her way. Hati was enough to deal with on her own. The thread tugged gently against her teeth and she gave in to her impulse to bite.

  ‘’Ere – what’s going on!’ cried Skoll, as the thread broke and the whole bundle of wolves drifted off, still bound too tightly to escape.

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Untie us!’

  Hati watched with interest as they drifted a little way off, then hung around, hovering uselessly, like a malignant parcel in the sky.

  ‘Ah, the female of the species,’ she said, smiling indulgently at Flo. ‘More deadly than the male, they say.’

  Flo said nothing. She still had the ball of thread in her mouth, leading her forward, and she was trying to work out how she would get it round Hati. She could attempt to throw it, of course, but that would mean letting go of the ball. And then she might indeed plummet to the earth.

  Hati was prowling up and down now in midair.

  ‘Is that really the Thread of Destiny?’ she enquired.

  ‘It is,’ said Flo. ‘Perhaps you’d like a closer look?’

  Hati gave a low, throaty chuckle. ‘Those tactics might work on Skoll,’ she said with a twitch of her tail. ‘But really, you’ll have to come up with something much better for me.’

  Flo could see that she was right. As well as menace, Hati radiated a dark intelligence. She was formidable, as well as beautiful. Flo realized with a pang that she did not have a clue what to do. She hoped the thread had some ideas of its own.

  ‘Well,’ said Hati, when Flo failed to reply, ‘I’d love to stay here chatting, but there’s a moon to devour. And you don’t seem to have much idea really, do you? I must say, I’m astonished at Skoll,’ she went on, ‘allowing himself to be defeated by you. Whoever does your hair, dear? Didn’t you try biting them? I’d give them rabies, if I were you. Or maybe you already did. That would explain the overall effect.’

  At last Flo had the glimmering of an idea. �
�It is true that I am not so beautifully groomed as you,’ she said humbly. ‘I don’t know how you find the time to take care of such a magnificent pelt. The way you’ve got it combed over those bald patches is truly remarkable.’

  Hati stopped prowling. ‘What bald patches?’ she said with a flick of her tail.

  ‘Oh, you can hardly tell,’ Flo assured her. ‘It’s just here and there that the scabs are showing through.’

  ‘Scabs?’ said Hati with unutterable scorn. ‘Bald patches? I do not have scabs, or bald patches. I am Hati the Magnificent and my pelt is unsurpassed. No one in all the nations of wolves can compete with me. My beauty is unrivalled and my pelt is as the Arctic snow or the long grass waving silver in the moonlight ’

  ‘Except for the bald bits, where the scabs show through,’ said Flo.

  For a moment she thought she had pushed Hati too far. Her lips curled right back from her terrible fangs and the whites of her eyes shone. Flo was horribly aware that a fight to the death with Hati really wouldn’t take too long. She watched, fascinated, as vanity vied with rage and finally won.

  ‘What bald bits?’ Hati said, in a low voice, but with terrible menace.

  Flo was ready for this question.

  ‘Well, the one between your shoulder blades, for a start,’ she said, knowing that Hati couldn’t see that particular spot, even though she twisted round, trying. ‘And the one on your neck –’

  Hati jerked round the other way.

  ‘And then there’s really quite a nasty one just at the base of your tail. Looks as though it might be infected.’

  Hati writhed round and round, chasing her tail. ‘I can’t see anything,’ she said.

  Quietly, Flo crept up towards her, the Thread of Destiny forming itself into a great loop. Just as Hati turned another complete circle, she flung it towards her like a lasso. It dropped towards Hati’s body, falling to her paws, and Flo held her breath. But at the last moment, Hati twisted in a lightning movement like a snake, caught it between her jaws and pulled. Before she understood what was happening, Flo shot forward in midair and the rope wound itself around her own paws. Taken by surprise, she hung, trussed like a chicken and upside down, between the paws of the great wolf. She could feel Hati’s icy breath on her face.

  ‘You didn’t think. I’d fall for that one, did you?’ murmured Hati.

  Flo wasn’t going to give in that easily. She thrashed wildly, but all her feet were tightly bound. As she reared and bucked like a kite on a windy day, while Hati remained quite still, she felt a dreadfully familiar sinking feeling.

  I told you, she said in her mind to Jenny. I told you I wasn’t the right dog for this job. It’s all over now.

  Hati lowered her muzzle towards Flo’s throat and Flo twisted again, trying to avoid the savage teeth. But however hard she twisted and strained, she seemed only to draw closer to Hati. This is it, she thought, and her mind went blank with fear. She stopped struggling and lay quite limp and submissive, with the great wolf towering over her.

  ‘That’s better,’ Hati said. ‘Now –’

  Flo shut her eyes tightly, waiting for the terrible grip of Hati’s teeth.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Hati, obviously enjoying the moment. ‘Well, little dog,’ she said, her words dripping venom. ‘What shall I do with you now?’ And she prodded Flo one way, then another.

  Stop playing with me, Flo begged her silently. Get it over with.

  ‘The thing is,’ Hati went on, ‘we need to get this thread off you and give it to someone who knows what they’re doing with it.’ She tugged at the cord around Flo’s paws, but it only pulled tighter. ‘Someone who could devour the sun after all,’ she mused. ‘Now, who would that be? Oh, I know, yes.’

  Even with her eyes shut, Flo could feel the great wolf smiling.

  ‘I know what to do,’ she said, and she lifted her muzzle and howled, a heart-stopping, chilling sound that froze Flo’s blood. It was both a war cry and a lament, and something else, like a summons.

  With a sickening pang, Flo realized what Hati was doing. She was summoning Fenrir.

  26

  Shot from the Sky

  ‘If I asked you where we were,’ said Gentleman Jim morosely ‘would I regret it?’

  No one responded. Orion was striding with determination through the Milky Way, and Pico was travelling beside him in silent awe, his mouth open, as though trying to catch the Stardust. Around them blazed the millions of stars in the galaxy. Pico had never seen anything so beautiful, so enchanting. For the first time in his life, he had the sense of vast, incomprehensible distances and scale. Out here, suns burst into life and galaxies bloomed. There was no longer any sense of up or down, since in all directions the view was the same – millions and millions of stars suspended miraculously in the depths of infinity. Pico the miniature Chihuahua should perhaps have been daunted by the sheer immensity of space, but he wasn’t. He knew that he was little more than a transient particle, winking in and out of existence, but it didn’t matter. Just to have shared, for a moment, in the glory of the universe was enough. He felt part of the mystery and immensity of being. When a shooting star went past, his eyes filled with tears.

  Gentleman Jim, on the other hand, merely felt sick. He felt as though his stomach was being used as a football by a particularly aggressive striker. He only opened his eyes intermittently to make sure that the earth, a blue and shining ball, was still there. He knew that the lack of gravity and air pressure must be getting to him, since his thoughts were no longer making any sense. So he just kept his eyes and his mouth shut, and concentrated on keeping the contents of his stomach firmly in place.

  Then, at last, Orion, who for some hours had said nothing apart from ‘Look – the Pleiades’ or ‘There goes Cassiopeia,’ suddenly said, ‘This is the place,’ and lurched forward horribly in midair.

  Gentleman Jim said, ‘Unnngghh,’ while Pico said, ‘Where?’

  ‘There,’ said Orion. ‘You see below you the plains of darkness.’

  Gentleman Jim peeped quickly, with one eye. He could see the earth and its oceans, rolling and lurching horribly, far below, and there, in the centre of a landmass, there was a great dark spot. Blinking, he had a sudden, fleeting sense of inky blackness.

  ‘This is where you must land,’ said Orion.

  ‘Right,’ said Gentleman Jim. ‘Er – how exactly?’

  ‘I have a plan.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘I shall fire you from my bow.’

  Gentleman Jim managed a short, yelping laugh. ‘That was a joke, of course.’

  ‘No,’ said Orion. ‘You will be perfectly safe.’

  Gentleman Jim boggled. This was obviously some definition of safe he didn’t understand. ‘When you used the word “plan”,’ he said, ‘I didn’t imagine you meant us plummeting to the earth like stones. This isn’t a suicide mission, you know.’

  ‘You will travel to the earth on a beam of light,’ said Orion. ‘It will disappear as you enter the realm of Hades, where most light cannot penetrate. But you shouldn’t fall too far. And anyway, you should land in the soft earth of the asphodel fields.’

  Gentleman Jim was unconvinced. ‘When you say should,’ he began, but Pico cut in with, ‘How will you know the exact spot?’

  ‘I cannot know the exact spot,’ replied Orion. ‘But I do know where the asphodel fields are. We are above them now.’

  Gentleman Jim looked down, but all he could see was the dark spot on the face of the earth, which was rather like the red spot on Jupiter. It seemed as though the earth, at that point, was covered by an impenetrable gloom.

  ‘Ordinary mortals cannot see the abode of darkness,’ Orion said. ‘This is where all light ends.’

  Gentleman Jim rather wished that he couldn’t see it either, but Orion was speaking again.

  ‘I will draw as close as I can to the earth’s atmosphere,’ he said. ‘Then I must fire my arrows of light and disappear. Dawn is approaching. The rest will be up to you.’
>
  ‘How will we know your soul?’ asked Pico, as Gentleman Jim struggled to assemble an argument. ‘Will it look like you?’

  ‘All souls on the asphodel fields look alike,’ said Orion. ‘There are countless thousands of them, like points of light above the asphodels. They have forgotten who they are, you see.’

  ‘Well, that’s helpful,’ muttered Gentleman Jim, who was really beginning to wish he’d stayed at home. In spite of Maureen. And the vet.

  ‘You must call me by my name,’ Orion went on. ‘Each soul responds only to its own true name. As it responds, it will take on the semblance of its former self. Mine will be rather good-looking,’ he added modestly. ‘I had a noble face.’

  ‘Not the face of a murdering butcher, then?’ asked Gentleman Jim, but Pico said quickly, ‘What must we do with your soul when we have found it?’

  ‘The river that runs through the asphodel fields is Lethe, river of forgetting,’ said Orion, ignoring Gentleman Jim. ‘The souls there are thirsty and drink continuously. But at its source, near where it joins the River Styx, there is a pool of remembering. You must lead my soul to this water and make it drink. It will not want to, because to drink from this pool is to remember past pain and regret, and to be subject to the torments of the Furies. That is why the souls drink continuously from Lethe, so that they will not have to remember. But if you can get my soul to the pool and make it drink, then finally it may repent.’

  Gentleman Jim wasn’t happy. He had almost lost count of the number of things he wasn’t happy about. ‘Furies?’ he said. ‘Who are the Furies? You never mentioned them before.’

  ‘The Furies are terrible,’ Orion said with a kind of shudder. ‘Bat-winged, with snakes for hair and blood dripping from their eyes. They are the avengers of crime and their home is at the entrance to Tartarus, the deepest pit of Hades. They attack all those who repent with brass-studded scourges.’

  ‘Now, just hang on a minute,’ said Gentleman Jim, but Orion went on as if he hadn’t heard.