Then came the explosion of the gateway opening.
“The best way to grab victory is to first look like you’ve lost everything.”
Lucien screamed, glasses dropping from his face, all composure lost. “I am going to desiccate you and bury you where no one will find you.”
Finn heard the protests, heard the Desiccator shot too, as he threw himself into the gateway, hoping he’d made the right decision, persuading himself he’d nothing left to lose. But he had a lot to lose. Fingers. Toes. Family. Home.
Infinity. Scrambling. Sickness. Stomach somewhere between worlds.
The blue Desiccator fire hitting the air as a damp squib.
The gateway biting shut.
The Infested Side.
The nausea felt normal now, not so crippling. The first thing he did as he lay on the blackened ground was to check the Gatemaker, pushing at its tube in the hope of a final crystal.
It was empty. No way home.
Rolling on to his back, a terrifying sight greeted him.
A mass of Legends, a legion of different shapes and sizes and limbs and teeth and limbs that looked like teeth. They surrounded him.
But the most surprising thing happened.
One by one, they dropped to their knees, heads bowed.
Finn stood up, suddenly taller than them all, and saw a second strange sight, the same one that had stopped him in his tracks only minutes before.
The lumpen object jutted from the ground. A little shorter than Finn, it had been fashioned from the clay of the dark ashes but had a distinct shape to it. Two arms perhaps. Something that might be roughly hewn legs. A ball on top that was a rough approximation of a head. And covering the top bit of the upper part of the sculpture was a pieced-together fighting suit. Finn’s fighting suit. The one he had worn and left behind after exploding on his previous visit to the Infested Side.
This was a statue.
A statue of him.
Finn circled the strange sculpture. It stood in the mud, glistening. He ran his fingers along its armour, the ragged and burnt edges. The rust of the hinges, the dust on the leather. He couldn’t believe it. It looked like it had been dragged from the depths of hell. Which, in a way, it had. Last time he’d seen this armour, it had been in a crater of his making.
The rest of the object was largely bare, its surface shining a little. Finn touched it, guessed it was made of clay fashioned from the dry ground.
A Legend stepped forward, some kind of upright goat with feathers. Finn felt no menace from it. Instead, the Legend was approaching him with something like trepidation.
“We are sorry. We had no water,” explained the Legend, gesturing to the statue. “So we had to create clay using the dirt and whatever we could get from the sulphuric rivers without dying. And because that wasn’t enough, we added our own spit.”
Finn withdrew his hand quickly, wiped it on his leg, but knew he would not feel clean again until he’d showered for about a week.
He stood back and assessed the strange sight of this tall lump of clay half dressed in his ruined fighting suit, and from a short distance began to see its form a little more clearly.
“It’s meant to be me, isn’t it?”
The goat creature’s face fell. “We didn’t have anything but memories to work from. Only the half-remembered descriptions of sometimes reluctant or half-alive eyewitnesses. But I hope you like it.” He looked at Finn, needy.
“Oh yes,” Finn said eventually, his feelings now about one-third embarrassment at having been so rude, and two-thirds horror that this was supposed to look like him.
“I admit, now that we see you in the flesh, that the nostrils could be narrower,” said the goat creature, “and the ears could stick out a bit more.”
“The ears?”
“They’re obsessed with your ears, kid,” said Sulawan the sort-of-Cyclops, arriving through the throng, Legends moving aside for him. Beag the Sprite zipped along the ground beside him, excitement on his wide grey face. “And I’ve since told them that your legs are much more puny than this,” Sulawan added, “which is why in real life your head looks so outsized.”
The eye of every Legend fell on Finn’s legs. He felt horribly self-conscious.
“But we did our best to present you in the most dignified manner possible,” said the goat creature.
Finn looked around at the assembled Legends, still stooped in some kind of display of reverence, but looking up at him. He saw many things on those faces: various types and sizes and numbers of eyes, long fangs and stubby teeth, various degrees of hairiness, but each had one thing in common. A clear desire for him to like this statue.
Finn wanted to please them. “No, no, that’s really good how you used a torn bag around my waist as underpants. Really.”
“They didn’t always succeed in the dignity part, kid,” said Sulawan, enjoying every single moment of this.
“I hope you’re not disappointed,” said Beag.
“No,” said Finn, unconvincing. “I just … Why did they do this?”
“Why do you think, kid?” asked Sulawan. “They worship you.”
Finn struggled with that sentence, not because it was complicated or any such thing but simply because it made no sense to him. “Me?”
“I guess they just haven’t gotten to know you yet,” said Sulawan.
Finn cast an eye on the Legends. Some had what he assumed were children, either clinging to their legs or held up at their shoulders. One Legend had a row of them in a pouch in its belly. Another had a single, furry youngling sticking from its mouth like a rogue fang. Finn looked at it and it ducked quickly back inside its mother’s mouth. Or maybe it was its father. Finn didn’t know. He just knew there were so many of them, and that they appeared utterly transfixed by his presence.
“They even have a name for you,” said Beag, picking up the remnants of a copybook from the base of the statue. “Finnagetwelveandthreequarters.”
Finn’s silence told them he was really stumped at that.
Beag held up the cover of the copybook, where Finn’s writing spelled out his name and his age when he had done it.
“No, you don’t understand,” Finn said, taking it and flicking through history homework he’d forgotten he’d ever done. “That was just my age when I used it.”
“It is only a shame we could not bring Red Warrior here too,” said Beag, wrinkling his flat, flesh-pink nose.
“Red who?” asked Finn.
“He means the female,” said Sulawan. “The one who talks and fights and talks. But never backs down. That’s how the story goes anyway.”
Finn cottoned on. “You mean Emmie? She’s Red Warrior? How come she gets a great name like the Red Warrior and I get Finn the Blah-Blah-Blah Whatever?”
“Finnagetwelveandthreequarters,” said the goat creature, trying to be helpful.
“That,” he said, genuinely irked. “By the way, I’m way over thirteen now. And I don’t do the quarters thing anyway – that’s for kids.”
“Finnagetwelveandthreequarters,” said the goat creature, regardless. “You did incredible things all those years ago. You destroyed half an army with your extraordinary power.”
“I didn’t even know I was doing it at the time,” mumbled Finn, unable to hold these stares. The intensity was uncomfortable.
“You need to understand that no one but the human called Niall has come here and done what you did,” continued Beag. “And he turned to the dark side, became a servant of Gantrua.”
“He was my grandfather and thought I would destroy the world, our world,” Finn tried to explain. “He was just trying to stop me from doing it.”
“His prophecy also said that you would save our world,” said the goat creature, “because if you were the humans’ destroyer then you would be our saviour. We tried to spread this message.”
“They really did,” said Sulawan. “They yap on about it all the time. Always trying to convert me.”
“And in that
time, so many of your relics have been passed between them, through their claws and paws and wings,” said Beag, jolly despite Sulawan’s ribbing. “Now they’re using them as offerings to appease the Gashadokuro, burying them with the bones in the ground all over this world.”
“They’re burying my old stuff because they think it might stop the Bone Creature?”
“Yes,” said Beag, as if this was a perfectly logical solution to the crisis.
“The problem is that the Bone Creature seems about as interested in your belongings as I am,” said Sulawan.
A large cat-like but scaly Legend stepped forward, cautious, but with an edge of excitement Finn did not normally see in Legends. It hesitated, then moved forward again. With surprising strength for one so small, Beag gave Finn a gentle push of the leg as encouragement.
The Legend touched Finn’s hand, its eyes not leaving his, and turned his palm upwards. Finn glanced at Sulawan, who was chewing his rock nonchalantly, yet with a glint of curiosity he couldn’t quite conceal beneath his cool veneer. Finn looked back at the Legend, gaze still locked on him, and tried not to jump out of his skin when it flicked its tongue at his palm.
Finn had closed his hand, an instinctive reaction to the tongue flicking at it. But he felt something in his grip, left behind after this strange gesture. He opened his palm to reveal a stubby pencil. Tooth marks where it had been chewed at the top. The tip blunt. The words Darkmouth Bookshop were embossed in faded golden lettering on the side.
“This is mine,” he told them. “Thank you.”
The Legend nodded, delight spreading across its face, eyes not leaving him, before backing away until it was in among the crowd again.
“Where did they get this?” he asked Beag. “Where did they get any of it?”
“You left it here,” said the Sprite. “The day you went all …” Unable to quite find the words, he instead mimed an explosion, fingers spread wide. “Booccckkccchh! You left these objects behind. Inside a container. And you also left many pages of your human manuscripts. Like this one …”
Another Legend came from the crowd, holding a square of shiny paper, faded and yellowing but still with neat creases. It was a page from his schoolbook Let’s Do Maths 4, his answers still legible beside the questions.
“They believe these are your ancient scrolls,” said Sulawan with a heavy edge of sarcasm. “Great wisdom from Finnagetwelveandthreequarters.”
“It’s not wise – it’s my homework,” said Finn. “I got a C minus for that. Look, my teacher Mrs McDaid said it there in red pen. ‘You can do better.’”
“You can do better,” the Legends repeated in a chant.
Finn’s lip curled in surprise.
“We can all do better,” said the goat creature. “That is what we learned from this.”
Finn had been confused enough already by his presence here. This was making his brain do somersaults in his skull.
“We do not have all of your relics and teachings here any more. They have spread across the land, been buried with the dead to calm the Gashadokuro, but we memorised many of them before they went,” said the goat creature. “My favourite is the Great Scroll of the Jam Tart.”
“The Jam Tart?” asked Finn.
“One cup of sugar,” intoned the Legend.
“Six circles of mighty pastry,” responded the entire throng.
“But that’s just a recipe,” Finn told them. “Something we made at school.”
“Six blobs of the jam of raspberry,” concluded the goat creature solemnly.
“It wasn’t even that great when I cooked it,” insisted Finn. “The pastry was really soggy.”
A Hogboon stepped forward. “If you might so indulge us, we beg answers to an important question. Does Emmie smell?”
“What?” asked Finn, flummoxed.
“We once had an object – now lost to us – that claimed ‘Emmie Smells’,” said the Hogboon. “But it was followed by a message that contradicted it, saying, ‘No I Don’t’. It has caused a few arguments among your worshippers.” The Legend looked at a neighbour, a glance that betrayed some kind of rocky history between them. “In fact, we are now split largely into two factions. The SmellyEmmies and the NoIDon’t-ists.” He leaned forward. “The NoIDon’t-ists are a strange bunch. They think that washing is the way to purity. We, of course, know that stench is the path to glory.” He sniffed at Finn. “I can immediately tell that you agree.”
They continued to stare at him with an admiration that made him utterly uncomfortable. “I’m not some kind of god,” he said.
“Oh lord, no,” said Sulawan, pulling the stone from his mouth to see how much chewing was left in it. “Don’t get ahead of yourself there, kid. No, they don’t think you’re a god. Gods abandoned this world aeons ago. They just think you’re the saviour of their entire world. Big difference.”
“How you will do this remains a mystery to us,” said Beag, perky as ever. “But you will have plenty of time to explain it to us once you have helped us defeat the cruel and terrifying Gashadokuro.”
“The Bone Creature is getting worse,” said Hiss, emerging from among the Legends, the Orthrus unseen by Finn until now. How long had they been there? “It gets bigger with each attack. And something more dangerous is occurring because of what you humans are doing in your world. We cannot stop it without your help. Come in – we will more fully show you the reason why you are here.”
“Show me?” asked Finn.
He looked around. There was a hut, hardly able to support the weight of its own roof. With a moan and a nod of the head, Cornelius motioned Finn towards its entrance. He heard the breathing before he got there, the rattling breathing of someone, or something, near death. Finn had seen his grandfather die. He could not forget that sound.
In the gloom of the hut, he made out a serpent, crumpled on the ground, one wing bent back at a horrible angle, the other folding messily along its back, a long fang snapped in half.
Finn entered, reluctant – not because he feared this Legend but because of the pall that hung over it, the impending death.
The Orthrus followed, Sulawan and Beag too. Hiss almost immediately went into a trance-like state, his eyes widening as if gazing upon a whole other reality. Finn recognised it as a psychic state he’d witnessed before, when he was on the Infested Side long ago. The serpents were in charge and communicated telepathically through Hiss. This time, though, Hiss did not speak the Legend’s words. Instead, he relaxed again, dropped as if temporarily weary then rose towards Finn.
“We must be honest,” said Hiss. “This will not be pleasant for you.”
“What won’t be pleasant?” asked Finn.
Sulawan grabbed Finn around the chest, pinning his arms tight, and lifted him over to the prone serpent. Finn fought, kicked, wriggled. It was useless. A tongue – wet and rough – emerged from the Quetzalcóatl’s mouth and, despite Finn’s strong attempts to turn away, its tip found his ear.
Finn’s entire world was filled with death.
Finn was flying in a sky thick with Quetzalcóatls.
The air pulsed with the beating of wings, churning the clouds. He felt he was one of them, but only as a passenger in its mind. He had no control over the movement, was a prisoner to the jarring of a swift manoeuvre, a surge of acceleration, the sickening, stomach-emptying plunge as his serpent rocketed towards the ground far below.
He knew that his body was back in the hut, this experience just a vision being planted in his mind, yet it all felt so gut-lurchingly real.
The serpent swept across a landscape of Legends, so many he couldn’t focus, only a speedy blur of swinging weapons, swiping of claws, giants wading among dwarves, four-legged monsters pouring past those with two.
All of them moving in one direction: towards a field divided into mounds of clay in neat rows, each and every one with a shard of petrified tree sticking straight up from it.
The serpent kept going. Gaining speed as the ground came nearer and near
er, and Finn tried to scream but was voiceless, helpless, as they reached the hard earth …
… and passed straight into it without resistance, without impact, and now Finn was in the ground, still, as if lying among the bones heaped within, no longer in the Quetzalcóatl’s mind but viewing the earth from inside.
Bones.
He wanted to kick against the claustrophobia, claw his way out, but had no power, no movement.
Beside him in the burnt earth a long bone moved. Just a quiver at first. Shaking itself, waking. He watched it wriggle, trying to find space amid heavy, dead clay. It jolted, earned a gap, pushed into it, moved higher towards the surface.
As it shifted, it snagged a piece of fabric. Finn recognised it. It was his old football-shaped pencil case from school.
Another bone squirmed through the clay to meet with it, the two forming a joint. Finn followed them as together they moved upwards, forcing their way through topsoil, into the light, where these white, pocked bones lay on the ground as if exhausted from the effort.
Finn rose with them, arriving on the surface as if he too was some long-buried bone, to lie there, suddenly released into the world again. Around him other bones began to appear, worming their way through the earth, shaking off the dirt, the sound like hailstones striking the ground. Until bones were scattered all over, a strange crop carpeting the earth.
Lying still, as if wasted by the effort.
But they weren’t on the Infested Side.
There was grass. There were trees. There were blue sky and butterflies, the hum of insects and the chirping of birds. There were people. Talking. Laughing. Unseen but near. This was home. Not Darkmouth, as far as Finn could tell, but somewhere in his world.
Then he was sucked back down, dragged again through the dirt, darkening, blackening, until seeping back on to the surface of the Infested Side of deathly grey and poisoned soil. There were bones here too, but these were not still. They possessed energy; almost as one they were shuddering into life, joining up, latching on to other bones, dragging along the ground until they attached to an ivory lattice that began to lift, to rise, as if finding its feet.
Hero Rising Page 11