Hero Rising

by Shane Hegarty

  Legs formed now. From skulls, wing bones, antlers, claws, bones usually hidden so deep within a Legend that they are only ever seen by the earth in which they eventually crumble. All moved into the crude form of a creature, growing, gaining height. Great clods of dirt fell from it, splatting to the ground, pushed aside by the last few bones rising to join the behemoth. Until a creature stood tall, a rain of earth shaking from its rough torso, its horribly concocted head.

  The dead had come together to create something living. Something terrible.

  The Legends arrived to fight it. From across the land. From the sky. Wielding flaming torches to burn it back to the ground. The Bone Creature went to meet them, clawing serpents from the air, scooping Legends from the earth. Where its bones were broken by the attack, they simply reformed elsewhere so that it was a constantly shifting shape. Already dead, it was impossible to kill.

  Finn watched all this, helpless, trapped in the vision. He saw the arrival of a Quetzalcóatl, diving towards the creature, fearless, determined, mouth wide in attack.

  The Bone Creature swung for it, struck it hard.

  With a shock, Finn found himself back in the hut, cowered, arms raised as he protected himself from an attack he had only imagined.

  The building was unused, dull, an old hall down a Slotterton side street that had none of the surprising fun and scale of Finn’s house. Yet this was the Legend Hunters’ hub. A building they would have used frequently many years ago but which had long since been handed over to the public. Now they’d taken it back.

  Emmie scanned its walls, seeing the evidence of the hall’s civilian use. There were torn posters for long-finished festivals, a noticeboard on which someone had stuck an old newspaper headline – SLOTTERTON: VILLAGE OF THE YEAR AGAIN – and a dusty, green rosette with Fourth Place – Battle of the Bands, 1986 fading at its centre.

  “Doesn’t look like a place where Legend Hunters once operated, does it?” asked Lucien, sitting on a wheeled office chair at a bare wooden desk. He stretched back, hands behind his head, looked at the wall too. “But that was a long time ago, and time has moved on in Slotterton. They’ve not had a Legend invade here for many, many decades. We never forgot, though, and we always had this place on standby in case it was needed. It was only supposed to be a stopover today, but your friend decided to make it a longer visit for everyone.”

  Emmie didn’t respond, just stood with her hands in her pockets.

  Lucien got up, pulled his chair over to her, and sat on the corner of the desk, his short legs just about reaching the floor.

  “Sit,” he said. “Please. You must be tired.”

  She placed the jacket on the chair and sat, hands pressed beneath her.

  “They gave you a phone to call your father?” Lucien asked.

  “Yes, thanks,” answered Emmie. “My mobile is in a field somewhere. Finn threw it there.”

  “His behaviour is very erratic. Did you see what he has done now?” asked Lucien, matter-of-fact. “After that stunt on the train, disappearing into the Infested Side sort of caps it off. Although, given he started the day off by raiding the Dead House, where he stole a Legend, dangerous chemicals and …” he lifted a page on his desk, noted what was underneath, “… a small aromatic candle, he has turned this into quite an adventure. And I just have a sense there is more to come from him yet.”

  He waited for her response. None was forthcoming, so he resumed.

  “You didn’t come to Slotterton by coincidence. Can you tell me why you’re here?”

  Emmie looked at her feet. “He thinks you’re experimenting, trying to open gateways here. Like you’ve done in Darkmouth.”

  Lucien shuffled on the corner of the desk, pushed his glasses up his nose. “Listen to me,” he said. “If there were experiments taking place I would know about it. I would be the one ordering them. There are no experiments. He is the only one opening gateways. OK?”

  Emmie nodded, still not looking up.

  Lucien continued. “Finn says and does a lot of very strange things. We think he disappeared for a few hours in Darkmouth yesterday too – did he tell you anything about that?” Lucien seemed content to not push her for an answer. “Of course he didn’t. No matter. I don’t blame you. It coincided with a gateway opening in Darkmouth but, as far as we can tell, something only stepped out of it for a moment. And his return happened to be around the same time as another gateway opened, but for hardly long enough to do much other than throw something through it.” He stood. “Or someone.”

  Lucien stood in the light that fell in through the grubby windows of the hall, ran a hand across the wisps of hair trying to drift from his scalp. “Emmie, I am so glad you have seen for yourself how Finn has behaved in ways that look, at the very least, suspicious. I know how much you like him, and I believe he is a good young man. He’s just misguided; lost. He needs help. I know he won’t listen to me. I’m not sure he listens to his own father any more. His mother is … well, I know you are fond of her, but this is not her business and that is something we must be very firm on unless we want to hand over the whole thing to civilians and just let the world go to hell.”

  Emmie shifted on the seat. Its rusty creak echoed across the hall. She felt tired, scared, terribly guilty – yet certain she had done the right thing.

  Lucien sipped from his tea. “And he doesn’t even listen to you now – his best friend. If he doesn’t start to pay attention, the consequences will go beyond anything we have seen in my lifetime. In any lifetime perhaps.”

  “He thinks you’ve set all of this up,” she said, looking upwards cautiously, gauging Lucien’s reaction. “He thinks you’ve tried to frame his family so you can take Darkmouth from them.”

  She thought she saw the hint of a smirk on his face. That was not the response she expected.

  “Does he think I set it up so that the entire Council of Twelve would be desiccated as one?” asked Lucien, regaining his serious expression. “Or that I arranged for a Fomorian invader to drag his army into this world? Was all that my doing?”

  Emmie realised she was gripping hard on to the chair, pushing herself back into it as if willing it to swallow her up.

  Lucien relaxed, smiling now in a way that unnerved her deeply.

  “That would have been some trick,” he said. “No. This is all Finn’s doing. He contacted Legends. He worked with them. I simply came to investigate. No more. No less. And it was a good thing I did, because who knows what might have happened if I wasn’t here to take control?”

  “He didn’t help the Legends,” Emmie blurted.

  “We know that’s not true,” said Lucien. “You know that more than anyone.”

  He let that sit in the silence for a moment, before once again taking his place at the edge of the table.

  “What we cannot doubt is that he is out there, on the run, causing mayhem by releasing Legends among people just trying to get to work in the morning. We don’t know if he has plans for more carnage, whether he’s escaped into the Infested Side for good, or if he’s involved in something truly huge that could make everything that has gone before seem like a face-painting party.”

  Emmie couldn’t say anything.

  “You do have face-painting parties here, right?” asked Lucien. “Elektra and Tiberius love face-painting, although they like to use permanent marker when possible. I’ve had to bring them to Slotterton. I promised their mother I’d look after them. They’re off with an assistant somewhere, causing trouble no doubt.”

  Emmie frowned, struggling to keep up.

  “But that’s not important.” Lucien shrugged. “You’ve always wanted to be a Legend Hunter. So has your father. Right now, Darkmouth needs a Legend Hunter. I don’t think we have to look too far to find one, Emmie. You have been courageous, strong, smart.”

  “I need you to tell me the truth,” she said, letting her gut instincts push her forward. “Are you experimenting with crystals so you can open your own gateways?”

 
“No,” Lucien said, as if mildly offended. “Of course not.”

  She did not reply. He must have sensed the conflict wracking her, because he lowered his voice to sound as comforting as possible.

  “We both have the same goal in mind. We both want Finn to be safe. We both want him to come back to Darkmouth. We both want this to be over. And we both want you to get your chance to be a true Legend Hunter.”

  He allowed that idea to settle in before speaking again.

  “To do this, I will need your help, Emmie.”

  Finn lay collapsed in the hut, on his side, the ashes on the floor pushed aside by his breath, gently clawing the dirt with his fingernails. The Quetzalcóatl was silent, the rise and fall of its breathing barely perceptible now.

  Beag helped Finn sit up, no matter that he was hardly tall enough to match even Finn’s seated height.

  “You saw it?” Beag asked.

  Finn nodded. “That thing—”

  “The Gashadokuro,” said Hiss.

  “The Bone Creature, yes. It’s leaking into my world.”

  “I am not surprised,” said Hiss. “You humans have been scratching at the barrier between our worlds and are weakening it.”

  “But it’s not yet fully formed like it is here,” said Finn, rubbing a palm along his sweaty brow.

  “Oh, just you wait, kid,” said Sulawan, rolling the long rock across his mouth. “It started like that here. Just a few bones here and there, peeking out of the ground for a look-see. In a dead world, you don’t always notice a little more death.”

  “But it got worse,” said Beag. “It grew. And formed what you’ve seen. And now it won’t stop. Can’t be stopped.”

  “Without Gantrua’s charm,” concluded Finn, voice still weak. He rubbed at his ear, where he still felt the roughness of the serpent’s tongue.

  Beside him, a low rattle emanated from the serpent’s throat. These were its last breaths.

  Cornelius whimpered sadly.

  “These organisms that mass to form the Bone Creature are something ancient and were contained for centuries, but live again by binding together the dead to add more to their number,” explained Hiss. “They become one. It gains strength, multiplying with each appearance, until—”

  “Wham,” said Sulawan, but quietly.

  “Because they are small, they can get through the gaps between our worlds so much easier,” said Beag as he stayed sitting, exhausted, against the hut wall.

  “In your world, it will eventually become what you saw,” continued Hiss, “and what this Quetzalcóatl tried in vain to stop. And once fully formed, it grows, destroys, disintegrates, returns somewhere else to repeat the cycle.”

  Finn took the empty Gatemaker from his pocket and frowned at it. “Is it going into my world because of me? Because I’m using this device?”

  “No,” said Hiss. “Something else is happening. Because the other humans are trying to open gateways so clumsily, with what seems to be impure dust, they are causing damage. They cannot open pure gateways like this Gatemaker will, but they are still causing leaks between the worlds – and, increasingly, the Bone Creature is leaking into your world too. They must stop.”

  “Well …” said Finn. “They’re planning another experiment tonight, trying to open gateways. I have a map of where they’re carrying it out.” He took out the map and glanced at it. Then he sat up straighter, realisation coursing through him. “It’s in an old graveyard. They’re going to experiment in a place filled with bones.”

  “Well, that is just dandy,” said Sulawan.

  “If we don’t stop Lucien and the others before they carry out that experiment …”

  “Then our very big problem will be your very big problem too,” said Beag.

  Finn found the strength to get up. For the first time, he noticed the mysterious Legend he’d seen on the beach, now sitting in the dark corner of the hut, eyes ablaze, watchful and silent.

  Finn approached the Orthrus. Drool pooling at the corner of his mouth, Cornelius grunted as Finn reached for the collar around the dog’s neck. The collar was tight against the fur of his still sleek coat; put there a long time ago, a layer or two of fat had since grown and now threatened to swallow the collar.

  On its tag, a simple message: My name is Yappy. If you find me, you can keep me.

  Finn knew what it said, but just wanted to see it. Yappy was a dog that had once lived in Darkmouth, had delivered a pair of false teeth to Finn’s feet that set him off on a journey to find his father. Yappy had ended up in the Infested Side, wandering into a gateway from Darkmouth. He’d been the one who never came back.

  “The canine survived after you left us,” said Hiss, hovering at Finn’s level. “He lived with us in a place of great stench which, to a dog who loved sniffing everything and everyone, seemed to be some kind of paradise. Cornelius honours Yappy’s memory by wearing his collar.”

  Finn gently relaxed his hold, so that the pendant sat proud on the greying fur around Cornelius’s neck. Through the door of the hut, Finn could see the silhouettes of Legends crowding outside, pensive, watchful, waiting for guidance on what might happen next. When he had first met these creatures, Finn didn’t believe he could ever trust them. Now he was beginning to trust these Legends from another world as much as anyone from his own.

  The serpent’s breath came in irregular spasms. Finn placed his hand on its head, and it reacted a little to his touch, settling a bit as if comforted.

  “The Bone Creature hasn’t formed fully in my world yet, so there might still be time,” Finn said. “I have to get that charm from Gantrua. They’re bringing him to Slotterton on their way out of the country. If I get him and that charm, I can use another Gatemaker to bring him to you. You can stop the Bone Creature before it comes into my world. If not, then we’re in big trouble.”

  Sulawan tutted, a little theatrically.

  Beag moved away from Finn too, heading for the door of the hut where Finn saw the crowd of Legends was waiting, anticipating.

  Cornelius simply snorted.

  “That is true, Cornelius,” Hiss said to his dog companion. “Finn does not believe that this world is worth saving as much as his own.”

  “That’s not—” Finn began, but Hiss continued to talk.

  “He does not know that this was not always a bleak, barren world. You may not believe this, Finn, but the Infested Side was once as green as your world. It was once as fertile. The trees you see only as lifeless fossils once spread their roots through damp, welcoming soil. The sky now choked by cloud was as blue as yours. Our sulphuric rivers were as pristine as yours. Why was it this way? Because our world was your world. We did not come from this place. We were cut off from yours and abandoned to it.”

  Finn blinked. Was this true? If it was, it was a very different history to the one taught in Legend Hunter books. He had always been told the Legends had grown envious of humans and used violence to try and take the human world for themselves.

  Cornelius stirred again, used a front paw to scratch behind his ragged ear.

  “We are old enough to have seen this world as it could have been,” said Hiss. “A flower in the Snarling Desert. A bud on a branch in the Dead Forest. A shaft of light piercing the clouds. It wasn’t always winter here. But it has not been spring for such a long time.”

  “Maybe it can change again,” Finn said weakly.

  “There are some who believe that,” said Hiss. “Not many, but a few. As for myself and Cornelius here, we believe that envy is destructive, pointless. We have thrown Legends to their doom for hundreds of years – for what? Occasional victories eventually drowned by inevitable defeat. We are no further on now than when we were born. We grew to believe that we must accept where we are, learn to live here in peace. But those souls out there, they believe differently. They believe a bright dawn is coming. They found something to believe in. Someone. A saviour of this world.”

  Finn took a moment to realise who he was referring to. “Me?” he
said, almost resigned to it.

  Cornelius stirred, stood with a creak in his joints, his paws clacking against the stone floor as he pushed himself up.

  “I do not know the answers any better than you do,” Hiss said, his head floating high over Cornelius’s shoulder. “But I have to admit that there are certain signs. You came here – you and the girl and that other human with the shiny shoes.”

  “Estravon,” said Finn.

  “You survived,” said Hiss. “You defeated those who tried to kill you. And when they came into your world to do it, you defeated them again. And out there, they believe in you in a way I have never seen. They believe the prophecy when it says you will ‘end the war and open up the Promised Land’. The time has come for you to ask what that means, Finn.”

  The snake paused, coiling slowly while allowing Finn to absorb that thought.

  “You will try and get that charm in order to save your world, Finn. We understand that,” said Hiss, straightening again. “But you should ask yourself if maybe this world is the one you are truly meant to save.”

  Finn had never felt such scrutiny in all his life. Every eye – from the one in Sulawan’s face to all those Legends outside the hut – was on him. In the corner of the hut, the serpent’s breaths had grown shallower and shallower. The spaces between them growing longer each time. It was dying, and sadness almost overwhelmed Finn.

  “Listen, small fry,” said Sulawan. “We are putting our lives at risk for this because someone will have to take that charm and carry it right inside the bony guts of that giant. And it will probably be me because I made the mistake of being tall enough to do it. I’ll have to slam it right against the part where the Gashadokuro’s neck meets its back because that’s where those little organism things are of greatest concentration.” He mimed the action, lifting his hands over his head and swinging down as if preparing himself for that task. “And then I will hope to get clear before it all gets messy. Which it most definitely will. So, you have the easy end of this, trust me. Get Gantrua. Give him to us. We’ll stop your world getting destroyed too. You get the glory. Job done.”