by Tom Holt
There’s a lot of animals who live in the dark all the time — bats, mice, foxes. It’s where they belong. My guess is that They belong there too. They don’t need light like we do. What I had to get into my head was that the light wasn’t the right place for me any more. I didn’t belong there. They say that predators grow like the prey they hunt. I’d spent most of my life preying on predators, and look where it’d got me. Staying in the light, where normal people belong, would be the death of me. My only chance of staying alive lay in going back into the dark.
It was hard to do, though, but I managed it. I turned my back on the light, took one step and then another, and kept going, until the glow wasn’t there any more, and it no longer mattered whether my eyes were open or shut.
The next smell was really familiar, but I couldn’t think what it was. It seemed wrong somehow, out of place, like it shouldn’t have been there. It belonged in another part of my life, and I couldn’t understand what it was doing down there in the dark tunnels, with Them, and me.
Water. Suddenly I knew what it was. I could smell water.
Up here, where it’s safe and I’ve got time to think clearly, I can figure it out easily enough. When the old giants built the tunnels, they must’ve come across an underground spring. Being giants, or whatever kind of incredibly wonderful super-beings they were, they knew how to build a tunnel so it was watertight. But that was a long time ago, and since the giants went away there hadn’t been anybody to look after what they built, to patch it up and mend it. Gradually, the buried spring found a way through, as bricks and tiles crumbled and mortar came loose. Slowly, the lowest level of the tunnel started filling up with water, turning it into a kind of underground river.
I found it the way I’d found everything else, by blundering into it before I knew it was there. I heard the splash and felt the cold, clammy touch on my skin through my clothes. I smelt it, too — dirty, stagnant. It had gone bad, just like the dead girl I’d found earlier. Can water die? Well, if there’s such a thing as dead water, that was what I walked into. To give you some idea, I’d never felt thirstier in my whole life, I’d have done anything for just enough water to wet my lips, but the thought of drinking that stuff never even crossed my mind.
I waded in, and the water level kept rising. I carried on going, and the water came in over my boots, then my knees, then my waist. Pretty soon I was having to push like mad just to force a way through. When it reached my neck, I stopped. I can’t swim, see. If I went on any further, I’d drown.
I’d come to the end of the line.
I told myself, Well, this is it, then. Can’t go any further or I drown. Stay here, and They’ll get me. Mostly, I was bloody angry because I felt it just wasn’t fair to be beaten by something crazy, like an underground river. Whoever it was who was playing these games with me, as far as I was concerned he was cheating.
So there I was. Wet through, stinking of filthy water, with one useless arm, no knife, dead tired. I couldn’t go any further down the tunnel, so the only way out was back the way I’d come, all that distance I’d dragged myself along. No more choices.
One good thing. It forced me to decide. Running away wasn’t going to solve anything. Sooner or later, I was going to have to turn and face the bastard thing, and I was going to have to kill it, with my bare hands.
I sat down with my back to the wall, and I tried to think. What did I have? I still had my human brain. I said to myself, Why’s it right that, in the end, we’re going to win against those bastards and wipe Them off the face of the earth? What gives us that right? What makes us better? They’re as strong as us, They’re better than us at night, in the dark. They can jump further. They don’t need weapons, They’ve got teeth and claws. What makes us better, and so gives us the right to win, is that we’re smarter than they are. Life’s a contest. You only come out on top if you deserve to win. If I wanted to beat the bastard thing and go on living, I had to do something to deserve the victory.
It was hard work, thinking, in the state I was in. My mind didn’t want to seem to grip, like cartwheels on an icy road. It’s like I was clawing at a tiny gap, trying to prise it open with my fingernails, but it was too tight, too stiff. I thought— I thought, How can I beat this thing? I thought, Down here, it’s got all the advantages. Even my knife. Down here, everything plays to its strengths — darkness, the fact that it’s on its home ground.
I thought, If it hasn’t got any weaknesses I can use, I guess I’d better make use of its strengths.
I thought, I bet there’s one thing we’ve got in common, that bastard thing and me.
I thought of an idea.
It wasn’t much of an idea, God knows. In fact, it was pretty pathetic, any way you chose to look at it. Really, you’d have to be pretty stupid to fall for it. In which case, I’d have to bet my life on my enemy being pretty stupid, at least compared to me. And that struck me as a pretty good way of deciding things, because if it was dumb enough to fall for the trick, then it didn’t deserve to win. If it cottoned on and my stupid plan didn’t work, then I didn’t deserve to beat it and stay alive.
Oh well, I thought. Then I reached forward and started untying my bootlaces.
Stage one of my stupid plan was easy. I got up and walked back down the tunnel, away from the underground river. I wasn’t deliberately trying to make a noise, just walking. Having my bootlaces undone didn’t help. My boots were too big for me — I got them from my uncle when he died, and he had big feet — and without the laces to keep them tight, my feet slopped about in them, which made it hard to walk normally.
I counted thirty paces under my breath, then stopped. That was what I’d been doing all along, so the bastard thing following me wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary. I did the usual routine — stop, listen, sniff. Then I counted up to fifty and turned back, heading toward the underground river.
The idea was, make it think I was in two minds about what to do next. I wanted it to think I’d found the river, turned back, gone a little way, changed my mind, gone back again. The tricky part now was judging the distance exactly. Thirty paces, but what’s a pace? It’s the distance you travel in one stride, assuming your stride’s always the same length. But I was cutting it fine. A few inches out, and I’d be screwed. The real bugger was the sloppy boots. I couldn’t just switch my mind off and trust myself to measure out thirty identical paces, because without the laces done up my boots felt strange, so I couldn’t rely on instinct. I just had to do the best I could, and hope.
Thirty paces back again. Stop, for the listening-and-sniffling ritual. This time, though, while I was doing all that, I was bending down and taking my boots off. I couldn’t afford to make even the slightest sound, and of course I was doing it all one-handed, which didn’t help. It didn’t matter whether the bastard thing figured out what I was doing or not. All it’d take would be for it to realise I was doing something different, and that’d put it on its guard. I managed it, though. I stood there with my boots in my one good hand, swung my arm back, and threw them as far as I could make them go.
They landed in the water with a splash. I yelled out, like I’d just fallen in the water myself.
The next bit had to be real quick and smooth. I pulled off my coat — one-handed again, it’s really not easy taking a coat off with just one hand — and flattened myself against the wall, with my left leg stuck out in front of me. Really, I needed to make more splashing noises, but I couldn’t think of any way of doing that, so I did more yelling and swearing. Had to make it sound like I was in trouble in the water. It was pretty bloody unconvincing, and I remember thinking, this is never going to work, I’m screwed. Then I heard what I’d been hoping I’d hear. Footsteps, running.
I held my breath.
Up they came, the footsteps. To get the timing right, I tried thinking it through as though I was the bastard thing, put myself into its tiny mind. I’ve heard the splash, which tells me my enemy’s fallen in the water. I’ve heard it how
ling and yelling. It wouldn’t do that unless it was in trouble. Maybe it can’t swim and it’s drowning. Now’s my chance. I start running. I’ve got to get there while it’s weak so I can finish it off safely. Hurry. I run. I can hear my own footsteps slapping on the tiles. I live down here in these tunnels, so I know exactly how far it is to the water. This is my one chance to finish it and survive. Hurry— I heard it coming, the bastard thing, and I braced myself, hoping I’d stuck my leg out in the right place. It all depended, see, on whether I’d counted out the thirty paces right. If I had, I was standing right at the water’s edge, so when the bastard thing came running up and tripped over my leg, it’d go face-down in the water, where I wanted it to be. If not — well, that water was my only weapon. If I’d got it wrong and it fell on the dry tiles, I didn’t reckon my chances much.
I could feel it coming. As it ran, it pushed its way through the air, and I could feel the slight breeze. I yelled one more time, to reassure it and give it a definite fix on my position. I felt it, a ghastly jarring thump against my shin. I heard a splash, and drops of water hit me in the face. If I got the next bit wrong, I might as well forget it.
Holding my coat out in front of me, I made myself fall forward, right on top of it. As I landed — its head was round and hard, and it knocked all the breath out of me — I reached out with my good arm and hugged at it, wrapping the coat round it. Simple enough idea. Use the coat like a net, get a grip on it and hold it tight. Hold its face down in the water and drown it.
Like I said at the start, a pretty stupid plan, but the best I could do in the circumstances.
I wasn’t expecting it to wriggle so much or be so damned strong. It was all elbows and knees and claws — but I had the coat, to keep from getting scratched and ripped up. My guess is, it was stronger than me, but I was heavier, and that was all that counted. I didn’t have to outfight it or beat it at wrestling. I just had to make it breathe in water. It always helps if you keep it simple, I generally find.
It screamed. I wasn’t expecting that, either. The noise scared me, almost enough to make me let go. Instead, it made me grip tighter. Even then, with my life in the balance, I couldn’t help thinking, This is a bloody odd way to kill something, hugging it to death in six inches of water. It screamed again, and this time it was a horrible, comical sort of noise, half screaming and half gurgling. Wonderful, I thought, I’ve got its head in the water, won’t be long now, just so long as I don’t let go— It screamed and gurgled again, and I put all my last few scraps of strength into my arm and my shoulder, pushing past the pain. It screamed and gurgled, this time more gurgle than scream. I was so happy, I wanted to laugh. So nearly there— ‘Please,’ it said. ‘Please.’
CHAPTER SIX
THERE ARE MOMENTS WHEN everything changes. It’s like you’ve been asleep and you wake up, and you can’t remember where you are or how you got there. It’s like you’ve just been let in on a secret that everybody else knows but you. It’s like finding out that the man you’ve called Dad all your life isn’t your real father.
I never knew they could talk.
I stopped trying to hold its head in the water. Suddenly, killing it stopped being the most important thing in the world. In fact, I really didn’t want to touch it at all. The moment I let it go, of course, I knew I’d done something really stupid. It could twist round and stab me or bite me and there’d be nothing I could do about it. But it hardly moved. I could hear it breathing, great big desperate gulps of air.
‘Give me back my knife,’ I said.
It was just the first thing that came into my head, now that I could talk to it. I heard something clatter on the tiles. As easy at that, apparently. I reached down, scrabbled about in the water, and my fingertips brushed against the staghorn handle. I grabbed it and snatched it away, like a kid with a toy he doesn’t want the other kids to take off him.
Getting the knife back was like sunlight and heat and food when you’re hungry and water when you’re dry. It was almost as if I could hear the knife screaming inside my head, Go on, do it, finish it, now. But I couldn’t.
‘You can talk, then,’ I said.
‘Yes. So can you.’
It was the strangest-sounding voice you ever heard. I mean, when you meet someone for the first time, isn’t one of the most important things the sound of their voice? It tells you so much. Where’s he from, is he rich or poor, is he one of us or one of them? As soon as someone opens their mouth, you know pretty much everything worth knowing about him. But that thing’s voice — oh, that was something else entirely. I could understand it, no problem. I mean, I’ve had more trouble understanding upcountry people. But it was — I don’t know, I can’t describe it. It was a perfectly ordinary voice, but no way you’d mistake it for human. It was a voice shaped by a totally different design of tongue and mouth. It was what animals would sound like, if they could talk.
‘Well,’ it said, ‘are you going to kill me?’
‘Stay there,’ I said. ‘Don’t bloody move.’
‘Are you going to kill me?’
Thirty seconds earlier, that’d have been a bloody stupid question. ‘You’ve been trying to kill me,’ I said. ‘Why the hell shouldn’t I?’
It didn’t reply to that. I was still feeling stunned. How come, I thought, how come after all these years we never knew they could talk? ‘Get up,’ I said.
‘I don’t think I can,’ it replied.
‘Get up, or I’ll fucking kill you.’
‘Oh, in that case.’ It made a sort of grunting noise, just like one of us would if we were badly hurt. I put the knife into the fingers of my buggered hand and closed them around the grip, then reached out and groped about until I felt its fur. ‘Back up the tunnel,’ I said. ‘I want to look at you in the light.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t argue.’
I closed my fingers in its fur. Somehow I knew it wasn’t going to attack me now. It was too weak, something like that. I let it come round me. I was banking on it not knowing I only had one good arm. It was all wet, of course, where it’d been in the water. I held on to its fur like a horseman holding reins, and I let it lead me up the tunnel. It seemed a very long way to the light, but we got there.
This time, the light still hurt, but it didn’t freak me out entirely, like it had before. I remember I was staring in front of me as we got closer to it, and gradually I began to make out the shape of its head, turning from a vague grey shape into something I could recognise. It was a bit like watching a sunrise, the way that you begin to be able to see more and more detail, until each blade of grass stands out sharp and clear. I saw the shape of its ears, the collar of the heavy padded jacket it had on, finally the grain of the hairs of its fur.
‘Stop there,’ I said.
It stopped and kept still.
The first thing I needed to see was the wounds I’d made where I’d stabbed it. Not hard to find. There were big dark patches all round them, where the blood had soaked out into the jacket and caked on the fur of its leg. There were little dark red crystals of dried blood caught in the hairs, like dewdrops in the long grass.
‘Turn round,’ I said.
It was one hell of a shock, seeing its face. I’m not sure you could even call it a face. I mean, they don’t have noses and mouths like we do, they look more like cats or pigs than people, and their eyes are a different shape, with a black slash in the middle instead of a round pupil. I looked at it, and all I could see was a savage animal that killed people. But savage animals can’t talk.
‘So?’ it said. ‘Have you decided yet?’
I let go of its fur and took a step back. ‘How the hell did you learn to talk?’ I said. ‘Can you all do it, or are you different from the others?’
‘We learn the same way you do,’ it replied, ‘from our parents. We talk to each other all the time. We just don’t talk to you.’
I couldn’t think of the right words for any of the questions I wanted to ask. So I just said, ‘Why
not?’
It blinked. ‘What would be the point?’
That just made me mad, ‘If we talked to each other, maybe we wouldn’t have to kill each other all the time.’
‘We hunt you,’ it said. ‘You hunt us. What difference would talking make?’
‘But you don’t have to hunt us,’ I said, ‘and then we wouldn’t hunt you.’
It blinked again. ‘That’s stupid,’ it said. ‘We need to eat, same as you.’ It shivered, right down from its head to its feet. I couldn’t tell if that was because it was hurting, or just a gesture, like shrugging your shoulders. ‘We don’t talk, because we have nothing to say to each other. Isn’t that obvious?’
I wanted to ask. Where did you come from, why did you come here, what are you, who are you? I wanted to ask how badly it was hurt —was it dying, or would it recover — because clearly its body was different from mine, I didn’t know how badly it was damaged. I wanted to ask why they never killed cows or sheep, only people. I wanted to ask if there could be peace, because surely, if you can talk to someone, you don’t have to fight any more. I wanted to be the man who ended the war and changed the world.
‘Kneel down,’ I said.
It looked at me, and its ears went back, the way a horse’s ears go back when it thinks there’s danger. I shifted the knife back into my right hand.
‘You’re badly hurt,’ it said. ‘Your shoulder. I didn’t know I’d done so much damage.’
‘Kneel down,’ repeated.
Its eyes widened a bit, and it knelt down, ‘What are you going to do?’ it asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ I lied.
You see, there’s a time and a place for everything. I remember when I was a kid, and for some reason times were really hard. My dad hadn’t got any work coming in, and there was never enough to eat. But a mile or so down the road there was an old woman who kept geese. Miserable old bitch she was, always threw stones at us kids if she saw us round her place.