The Color of Darkness

by Ruth Hatfield

“Got … to … get … back … up…”

  “Quick!” said Cath. “He can’t stay here! You’re trapping him on earth! He’ll die too—is that what you want? Idiot!”

  She hooked her arm around Danny’s neck and squeezed the breath out of him, using her other hand to grab the book.

  As soon as it was out of Danny’s hands and in Cath’s, Zadoc scrambled to his feet. But Cath, not trusting the little book, ripped out the last page and let the rest of it fall onto the stones at Zadoc’s feet. A page was the same to them as the whole book, wasn’t it?

  Zadoc launched himself frantically into the air and the world fell away.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE FIRE

  Danny’s demons swarmed around him. Gone were the forests of Mitz and Kalia. Rivers of anger swirled, bloody and dark. Chromos was a hazy mist of farmhouses and cows and fences and ham pies and warm sofas, all burning with flames of green and black. Danny himself was everywhere—wading through lakes of black runoff from the muck heap, falling forward into manure-soaked straw, lying motionless and screaming as great herds of dangle-tongued cows loped steadily toward him. Their cloven hooves clacked over the rutted concrete yard as they would soon clack over his head, crushing the grass as they would soon crush his skull.

  How had he done it before? How had he gotten through this? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t even begin to think. And then the whole landscape in front of them opened up and they were streaming back down into the valley with the lake where they had seen Tom and the golden eagle, and everything for a second seemed familiar, until he realized that they were heading down toward the lakeshore.

  Only it wasn’t a lake now.

  It was cows.

  The light shining on the surface was nothing but a trick. What looked like ripples were the fast-moving backs of black-and-white cows packed together in a tight bunch, stampeding toward him.

  He tugged at Zadoc’s mane. “Stop! Don’t go in there!”

  But Zadoc plunged onward, desperate to leave the anchoring earth far behind him, and water began to pour out of Danny’s mouth in a great jet, aiming itself at the cows, trying to scatter them with the force of its pressure.

  The water made the cows charge faster, their eyes swelling up in anger. And Danny couldn’t breathe through it—he started to choke until a familiar touch on his shoulder pierced him with the heat of lightning.

  “You’re rubbish at this, ain’t you?” said Cath’s voice, scornful and calm. “Just shut your mouth. I’ll get us there.”

  Her hand came up to his chin and pushed it sharply upward, cutting off the jet of water. The cows in front of him slowed, although Zadoc still ran on toward them.

  “What’s the worst they can do?” said Cath.

  And then the cows were fading into silver, and Zadoc’s hooves were clambering up the wide currents of the air.

  “I can’t go in there!” panted Zadoc. “I can take you to the ether, but you’ll have to go in alone. I belong in here, in Chromos, not up there.”

  The whiteness spread in a great cloud above them, and breathing became harder, and Zadoc’s legs swung heavily, as if he were swimming through custard.

  Zadoc stumbled, pitching them forward over his shoulder, and before Danny could reach out to grab a tuft of mane, the horse had dodged away from him.

  “Zadoc!” called Cath, her voice thin with something close to a sob, but Zadoc was quickly out of sight.

  * * *

  It was the same place as before—the piles of white rocks, the path, the cave, and the door. Cath was sitting next to him, rubbing her elbow and looking after the last sight of Zadoc’s heels.

  “How did you know the way?” Danny asked.

  Cath looked at him for a second and he couldn’t read what was in her face. Was she still angry with him about how he’d threatened Barshin?

  “I’ll call the moon, if I can,” he said quickly.

  The stick didn’t like being in the ether. It felt cold and clammy. He knew instinctively that his voice would be quieter through it. Didn’t it want to be used in here? Was he doing something that would change the nature of the stick, or even of himself?

  There wasn’t time to think about that now.

  “Moon!” he called silently, thinking out toward the silver ball of the moon, wherever she might be. “Moon, are you there?”

  The moon was there. He couldn’t see her, but he felt her silvery voice gently stroking his hair.

  “I’m here, soldier,” she said. “What are you doing here, I wonder. You don’t belong here.”

  “I’m going to…” He wondered if it was worth lying. He had no idea if the moon and Sammael really disliked each other as much as their fiery arguments said they did. She sent her dogs out for him, didn’t she? So they must be friends sometimes. In which case it definitely wasn’t worth telling the whole truth.

  “Going to what?” the moon asked.

  “I’m going … to get into his cave. He’s stolen something from me.”

  “Really?” The moon lingered over the word. “What is it? What could you possibly hope to get back from him?”

  “It’s a secret thing. I can’t tell you,” said Danny. “But it’s important.”

  “So why should you need my help?”

  For a second he wondered how much she knew.

  “Just … to distract him. So he doesn’t come in and find me there.”

  The moon whistled with soft laughter.

  “Lying’s not one of your strong points, Danny O’Neill,” she said. “But I love annoying Sammael. Love it. Love him. Hate him. Nothing better than annoying him as much as possible. Watching his cross little face as he gets full of anger and tries to stamp his pointy little feet at me. Love the creature. What would life be without a bite to it? What do you want me to do?”

  “Just … um … that thing you did before. With the fire and stuff.”

  “And you? What will you do?”

  “We’ll just … go in, get it back, and run.”

  “But you’ll be burned. Nobody can survive my fire.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Danny. “We’ve got something, something from Tom. I don’t know if you remember him, but you got the Dogs of War together—”

  “My actions are not for you to question,” said the moon, in the same tone that his mum sometimes used when she was trying to warn him off a subject.

  “It’s okay,” said Danny. “I wasn’t going to say anything about that, but we’ve got something of his. You know him now, don’t you? The sea said you wouldn’t harm him…”

  He tried not to let himself think that there wasn’t anything left of Tom to harm now.

  “I know the traces of my own touch,” said the moon. “If it’s true that you’ve got something I once touched, then my fire will skirt round you. But don’t go thinking you can run straight through it. The heart of a fire is a very different place from the tips of the flames.”

  “I won’t go into it,” said Danny. “I really don’t want to. I’ll just go around the edge, that’s all.”

  “Very well,” said the moon. “But mind you do. If anything happens, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Nothing will happen,” said Danny, wishing he believed it. “It’ll be fine. I know what I’ve got to do.”

  * * *

  In seconds, Sammael was there with a lump slung around his bony shoulders. His face showed nothing of the grim satisfaction that it wore in Danny’s dreams. For a moment something tweaked inside Danny’s stomach, and he thought, Did I do that? Is he sad? But then he looked at the darkness of the lump, and he knew it was Tom.

  His stomach nearly threw itself out of his mouth, but there was a huge choking mass in his throat that kept it down and he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, steadying himself against the white rocks.

  Blindness made the world spin. Danny forced himself to open his eyes again.

  Sammael stopped and threw the dark lump onto the ground, reaching out to pu
sh open the white door.

  And the moon fire began. It wasn’t at all like the fire that had swallowed up Tom; that crackling, hissing yellow blaze had burned the air and flooded across the whole world below. The fire of the moon was hard and full of nervous energy. It flared up like the sudden headlights of a truck on a darkened road, swooping over the whiteness of the ether with a brilliance so sheer that both Danny and Cath had to put their hands to their eyes.

  Sammael spun around, yanking off his boots and throwing them back toward the door. He cast a swift look around the ether.

  “Oh, you’ve come, have you?” he snarled. “What timing! If you’d given me ten more minutes, I’d have been ready for something far grander. But if you want me now, let’s dance! I’m in the mood for a quickstep!”

  He raised his arms and stepped forward into the moon’s brilliant fire.

  * * *

  Danny sprinted out, but the heat swept him viciously back. What was wrong? Of course! He didn’t have the page—Cath had it, still crouching behind the silent rocks.

  He ran back to her.

  “The page!” he hissed. “Give it to me!”

  She offered it up without a word, grubby and crumpled, and he didn’t dare look at her as he snatched it away and ran once more toward the rock face, skirting the tongues of the silver fire.

  The boots were lying on the white ground. He hesitated for only a second before reaching out to grab them. The scuffed dark leather was soft and warm under his hands—too soft, too warm, as though the boots were made of fragile baby animals and the desperation of Danny’s grasp was squeezing the life out of them. He was sure he felt them wriggle in protest. But they were a pair of boots, nothing more. It wasn’t possible. And he sprinted back to Cath, hurdling the rebounding flames, breathing hard against the heavy atmosphere.

  “Take us back!” he said.

  “How?” said Cath, her eyes reflecting the fire behind him.

  “I dunno. You know. You always know!”

  She shook her head. “No Barshin. No Zadoc.”

  “But they’re just helping you, aren’t they? It’s you who knows!”

  Cath shrugged and shook her head again. And then she opened her mouth as if to speak and a plume of thick black smoke came streaming out.

  They both stared at it in terror. Cath’s face turned red and she clawed at her throat, trying to open her mouth wider and wider, trying to rasp air into her chest. And Danny saw that something vital had broken inside her.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  He stared wildly about the white world, looking for any kind of exit, any other creature that might help them.

  But they were alone there, and the moon’s fire was already dimming. Soon Sammael would step from it and reach for his boots, and find them gone.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE GREAT PLAIN

  Danny tried to think—how could anyone get out of a place like this? There was the door but he didn’t know what was through it, and he couldn’t risk finding out. He’d heard no legends about this place, only that it was Sammael’s home, away in the uppermost air.

  The boots trembled in his hands. Were they trying to kill Cath? They were Sammael’s boots, after all. Who knew what kind of power they might have picked up from him?

  Danny found his finger was running itself over the dull leather. It was as soft as a kitten’s fur. What if he put them on? Would he become like Sammael, nasty and hateful and full of spite? Or would they eat him alive, feet first?

  He closed his eyes. Cath’s choking rasp was slowing as the last air shivered out of her lungs and her blood began to fizz from lack of oxygen. She was going to die. Cath, too, on top of everything else.

  The boots were the only thing he had left. They let Sammael walk through Chromos. Was there any chance they might do the same for him?

  Danny kicked off his shoes and dragged the boots onto his feet. They were too big for him and they came up to his knees, but they clung to his feet in a gentle way, as though promising they’d try not to let go.

  He grabbed Cath under her shoulders and tried to lift her up, but the effort was too much for his spinning head, and he couldn’t do more than twist the thin material of her sweater into his fist and grip it tightly, hoping that it wouldn’t rip.

  How did the boots work? He had no idea what to wish for, or hope for, or whether there was a thing he should do with his feet to break through the edge of the ether and spin out into Chromos. Cath was the one who knew how to break through these walls between worlds. He was only Danny, a boy of the earth, and nothing more. Maybe if he thought hard enough about earth, he’d get them there, somehow …

  Nothing happened. He had to ask Cath—she had to tell him—but she couldn’t speak.

  He took one hand off her shuddering body and reached into his pocket for the stick.

  “Save us,” he begged. “Whatever you know, tell me now.”

  Her voice was fainter than the hissing of the flames and he had to strain his thoughts toward her to pick it up.

  “Don’t wish back. Idiot. Just—only—forward. Outward. Onward.”

  He had no time to argue that she was wrong. He made himself look up at the sky of the ether and the white stars that sweated in the white heavens, and he fixed on one of them and made himself wish …

  If only I could get there, somehow, all the way up there—I’d fly up in a plane or a rocket, and I’d fly it myself, and I’d burst through the atmosphere and find that it was nothing like this place, nothing like any of these places, and it would be full of—

  And quickly, because his imagination was failing him in the face of his terrible fear, he stepped forward as if to step up toward the white stars. The ground at his feet dissolved and he was climbing a steep, steep hill, dragging the heavy burden of Cath along the roughening air, pulling at her sweater, pulling at her arms, and the air was taking on a sweeter note, full of the perfume of some old flower his grandmother had put on her porch in springtime.

  For a moment he was sure he felt a sword clanking against his leg and heard the thundering of hoofbeats and the snort of a charger. But then Cath was struggling to stand up, holding on to him, and he saw that she was breathing again and her skin was just dirty instead of blotchy and red.

  Where were they climbing now? Into another world entirely? A fourth place, beyond the uppermost air?

  “Where are we?” he whispered, looking around at a great expanse of pale green and sparkling blue.

  “Don’t you know?” She frowned in surprise, keeping hold of his wrist.

  “It’s not Chromos,” he said. “It can’t be.”

  Chromos had never been like this. Chromos had never been so calm.

  “Wanna bet?” said Cath, and she pointed back over his shoulder to something in the far distance.

  It was Zadoc galloping toward them—Danny could see by the way the horse moved that it was Zadoc, but this was a different Zadoc entirely, a young, proud giant of a horse, his gray-brown mane flying in the wind. His head was stretched out, nostrils flared, and the hair of his legs was gleaming in the sunlight as he raced over the plain, drawing nearer with every flash of his hard brown hooves.

  Zadoc, raised to glory, by what? By Danny’s thoughts? Or by Cath’s?

  Or by his rider, tall and straight, sitting upright on the horse’s flying back and driving him on toward both of them?

  Danny didn’t know whose eyes he was looking through. But he knew what he was looking at.

  “Run!” he screamed at Cath. “Keep hold of me and run!”

  And Sammael kicked Zadoc viciously on.

  * * *

  “Through here!” said Cath, yanking at Danny’s wrist, tugging him sideways.

  “Through where?” Danny couldn’t see where she was going.

  “The door! Quick!”

  “What door?”

  “This door!”

  Cath pulled with all her strength.

  “There isn’t a door!”

  “
Well, imagine one!”

  He did his best. There it was—a door, dark blue with a gold number, like his own front door at home. Cath pulled it open, and they stepped through into the hall of his house.

  Except Cath wasn’t there.

  “Cath!” Danny yelled, trying to run to the stairs and shout up them. His wrist was anchored to the door frame. He tried to wrench it free.

  Something screamed in the air, as piercing as the buzz of a mosquito in a silent room. He wrenched at his arm again, and the scream tore into his ear.

  “Cath! Where are you?” He struggled to reach the living room—she must have run in there, or straight into the kitchen. But he couldn’t free his arm from the door frame. If only he could reach the banister, pull against it, and get some leverage—

  “Danny!”

  Something trickled out of his ears, hot enough to be blood.

  The door frame was pulling back. He fought it, braced his legs against it, but it tugged and pulled until he fell forward and banged his face against the front step.

  And then, raising his face in the dust, he was back in the green plain again with the blue sky wide above him, and his arm was being tightly held, not by the door frame of his house, but by Cath.

  “Well, you did tell me to keep hold of you,” she said, her face dark and scornful. “We imagined different doors. ’Course we did. You went back again.”

  “I don’t know what’s in your stupid head, do I?” Danny spat out dirt. “I can’t read your mind.”

  The hoofbeats were loud enough to feel now. The ground trembled.

  “We need something we both know!” said Cath, readjusting her grip on his arm. “Come on, think!”

  “School?” Danny tried, but she pulled him to his feet, stamping her foot.

  “No! Stop going back! Forward—what’s up there? Tell me a story!”

  Danny closed his eyes. His head hurt. Sammael was nearly on them. Sammael who knew everything. Was there nothing bigger than Sammael?

  Of course there was. What about those stories he’d heard? The beginnings of the world and how it had come to be as it was.

  “Remember … Isbjin al-Orr?” he managed to say. “Remember his story? Apollo, and Phaeton who stole the chariot, and the stags that pulled it—”