by V M Jones
It was almost dark when we heard a sudden excited chitter from Blue-bum, followed by a cheeping call he’d never made before. I ran towards the sound, hearing the others hurrying through the undergrowth, and there he was, skipping round, a whole plant uprooted in his hand. He clambered up my arm, scattering dirt from the loose roots, and shoved it triumphantly in my face.
Lyulf was right, it did look like a weed — except it was covered in crinkly tongue-shaped pods, ranging in colour from green to deep, glossy scarlet. ‘That’s it for sure!’ I crowed.
‘Yes — clever boy, Blue-bum!’ Jamie said.
‘But naughty boy for pulling it up by the roots,’ scolded Rich with a grin. ‘My Grannie’d have something to say to you if she was here.’
Blue-bum chittered crossly and made a digging motion with one hand, patting with the other. Kenta gave Rich an exasperated look. ‘Will you never learn to trust poor Blue-bum, Richard? We’re going to take it back and plant it in a pot, so it’ll always be there if it’s needed — aren’t we, Blue-bum?’
We turned back towards the camp, darkness thickening around us. Now that the first excitement of our success had faded we were all uncomfortably aware of where we were, and Lyulf’s warnings about the dangers of the wildlands seemed very real.
Kenta was especially quiet, her face closed as she hurried beside me at the front of the group. Of all of us she was the only one with any medical knowledge, and I didn’t dare ask how bad she thought Blade’s injuries might be.
We’d wandered further than I thought in our search, but at last I saw a copse of trees that looked familiar, and the heavy feeling in my chest lightened. We were nearly there.
Suddenly Blue-bum made a low vibrating sound almost like a growl. Something about it froze Kenta and me in our tracks. ‘What is it, Blue-bum? What have you seen?’ Kenta whispered.
Every sense on edge, I stared round in the darkness, my ears straining for whatever sound Blue-bum might have heard, whatever movement he might have seen in the shadows. And then I smelt it, the merest whiff on the still air: a cloying, maggoty smell of corruption and decay.
‘It’s them — the Faceless!’ Gen breathed. ‘Quick — run for the camp!’
We ran. It was just ahead in the next group of trees: the brightness of the fire, the safety of the others. Rich was in the lead; I forced myself to slow, staying behind the others as rearguard. I could almost feel the icy breath on the back of my neck … I ran on, my pack bumping on my back, cursing myself for setting out without a weapon, not daring to look round.
Rich, Gen, Jamie, then Kenta and Blue-bum disappeared into the trees. I crashed after them, not caring how much noise I made. They’d be there now, in the clearing with the others, safe from whatever was coming after us …
I reached the clearing. Stopped, staring. The others were there, faces blank with shock.
Where the camp had been, the caravans, the men, the glonks, the blazing fire … now there was nothing. We needn’t have run. Nothing was coming after us.
It had already been — and gone.
Lyulf’s luck
There was nothing left. Just trampled grass, a scatter of ashes, a scrap of fabric I recognised from Blade’s black cloak … and on the ground where her caravan had been, a dark splash of blood.
Those that roam the wildlands are taken … though the circus arts protect us, they put us most at risk. The five of us away, Blade injured and Lyulf at her bedside … Borg, the Masked Man and the wounded fighters had been no match for them. They were gone, all of them, right down to Gloom and the glonks — gone to the Realms of the Undead and whatever fate awaited them.
‘Well,’ said Gen, ‘thank goodness we have our rucksacks with us.’
‘Yeah — and the good thing is, there’s nothing to pack,’ said Richard.
‘But there’s no point setting off in the dark,’ Kenta said.
‘You’re right,’ Jamie agreed. ‘I vote we make a fire, get some rest and go after them at first light.’
‘And at least we’ve got matches and some food. Jamie’s right — we should get all the rest we can,’ said Gen.
I stared round at the faces of my four friends — at Blue-bum’s face, monkey-mouth set in a determined line. Some paths are made to walk alone, Lyulf had said. But — for me, for the time being at least — this wasn’t one of them.
We were looking for wood, taking care to stay close together, when I saw it: the colour of the earth, half-hidden by dirt and dry leaves. Kneeling, I brushed the soil away; lifted it and held it in the palm of my hand. Lyulf’s amulet.
He wore it always — had been wearing it last time we’d seen him, in Blade’s caravan. Scuffed suede, worn smooth with use and time. It was strangely heavy, and as I weighed it in my fingers I felt something slide and chink inside. The thong was broken. Lyulf’s luck. Whatever it was, it had run out.
I showed it to the others by the campfire.
‘We’ll give it back when we find them,’ said Rich.
Jamie gave it a sidelong look and said nothing.
There was a silence; then Blue-bum gave a little chitter that sounded almost embarrassed.
‘Ignore him,’ grunted Rich. ‘It’s none of our business.’
‘Although it couldn’t do any harm … and it might give us a clue about what’s happened — where they’ve been taken,’ said Kenta.
‘Hardly likely to be a clue in Lyulf’s talisman,’ Rich growled.
‘But maybe there is. Maybe he pulled it off deliberately,’ Gen said.
Suddenly everyone was looking at me. ‘It’s private,’ I said slowly. ‘If it was mine, I wouldn’t want whoever found it looking inside. But we’re not just anyone; we’re his friends. And perhaps …’ They watched me in silence. The certainty was growing stronger, stronger by the second. ‘Perhaps we’re meant to know.’
Slowly I loosened the neck of the little bag. The drawstring was tight, the thin leather biting deep into the holes. A long time had passed since Lyulf had opened it. At last it was open. I looked round the circle of faces, checking one last time. I hoped my instinct was right: that I was doing the right thing. I tipped the contents of the bag out onto the palm of my hand.
There, gleaming in the dark, lay the missing golden half of the Sign of Sovereignty, and a silvery arrowhead that glowed with a pale fluorescence like moonlight.
The edge of the world
‘It’s him.’
‘But I thought Richard said the Lost Tribe —’
‘It’s him.’
‘What about the time difference, though? Surely he’d be —’
‘It’s him.’
‘But Adam, how could —’
‘Give the guy a break,’ said Richard. ‘I’d say Adam’d know his own brother.’
My heart had sprouted wings … and suddenly the words that had been choked up inside were tumbling from my mouth. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but Rich is right — I do know him. I knew him right from the start, deep down in my heart, just like I think he knew me — we just didn’t realise it.
‘Yes, they put him out to die but he didn’t. As for the time difference …’ A huge, incredible joy was flooding my mind like sunlight, and with it came Meirion’s words, their meaning suddenly clear: ‘The twin moons of Karazan follow each their own orbit, one near, one far, tracing their own path through the skies; but at Sunbalance they rise together as one, silver and gold, a perfect pair balancing the heavens.’
‘It ties in with the prophecy too,’ Jamie said. ‘When man is child and child is man …’
‘I’ve always thought twins had a kind of magic,’ said Gen. ‘If Lyulf had been some random person, an ordinary brother, he’d have aged in Karazan-years, the same as everyone else; but being a twin was a link so powerful it held him back to Adam’s age.’
‘The age of the firstborn …’ murmured Kenta.
‘But that’d be awful!’ Rich protested. ‘Everyone’d think …’
I was remembering Temba
’s words: ‘The mind was whole! I knew it with a mother’s heart — saw the spirit shine from his eyes, bright as fire. But at a year, he was not able even to crawl upon his hands and knees, he just lay and smiled at me.’
I must have spoken aloud; Kenta was staring at me, solemn-faced. ‘That’s why he was put out to die. Temba thought he was handicapped because at the age of one he wasn’t even sitting up. But he wasn’t really one. He was a little baby of only three months old, our time.’
‘And there was that thing Blade said, remember?’ Rich chipped in. ‘When I opened my big mouth and made an idiot of myself … she said Lyulf had the skills of a swordsman five times his age …’
‘Along with the speed and stamina of youth,’ Gen finished. ‘It was right there in front of us all the time. We just didn’t see it.’
And something else made sense. Those anguished words I’d overheard in the firelight: Blade’s whispered question: What are you running from? And Lyulf’s reply: The evil I battle is mine alone to face or flee, my curse mine alone to carry.
How much had she known, or guessed?
And how must it have been for my brother to carry the burden of his secret for fifty long years — a curse whose reason he couldn’t begin to guess at?
For two days we journeyed across the featureless desert of Limbo. We kept the sun on our right through the morning, stopped in whatever shade we could find when it was overhead, then pushed on till it sank below the left horizon and purple twilight spilled across the land.
For two dark, moonless nights we huddled by the fire, keeping watch in twos, the whispering of the wind merging with the far-off howling of wolves as the night wore on, and weaving its way through our dreams.
More than once I knew there was something — someone — beyond the glow of the fire. If I turned I’d see nothing, but in my mind’s eye I could picture them: lithe, dark figures watching, just far enough away to remain hidden, just close enough to keep guard over us. Whatever the dangers of the wildlands, the silent sentinels of the Lost Tribe kept them at bay.
On the third day the wind changed direction, bringing with it something that brought Richard to a standstill, sniffing the air. ‘Do you smell what I smell?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Grass!’
‘You can’t smell grass!’ Jamie objected, then sniffed. ‘Though now you mention it …’
It was true. After so long surrounded by dust and the occasional stone we could all smell it: a glossy golden succulence with an edge of sweetness that transported me in an instant back to the playing-field on sports day, the newly cut lawn prickling my legs.
By afternoon it was all round us: a billowing sea of grey-green, flocks of tiny birds with strident voices surfing the warm currents of air above. We waded through it, grinning like idiots, pulling long strands and nibbling the pale, tender ends.
‘Where there’s grass there must be water,’ said Gen hopefully. Our bottles were almost empty, and even Rich’s magic crystal wouldn’t change dust into water.
We walked on further than usual in the hope she’d be right, but the ground was rising steadily instead of falling to a river valley, and soon our steps were dragging and it was almost too dark to see. ‘I vote we stop,’ said Jamie at last.
‘Let’s carry on to that next rise,’ Kenta suggested. ‘Who knows what’s on the other side?’
On we plodded, Jamie in the lead, spurred on as always by the thought of dinner and an end to the day’s journey. Suddenly he staggered as if he’d been shot and stumbled back with a hoarse cry of alarm, arms windmilling; dropped to hands and knees and crawled backwards, whimpering.
‘Stop right there, everyone!’ We didn’t need Rich to tell us. We were all rooted to the spot, hearts thumping — all except Gen. She hurried forward, bent double as if there might be an invisible sniper, and crouched beside Jamie. ‘What is it, Jamie?’ she asked, sharp-voiced with fright and worry.
‘It’s the edge!’ Jamie was warbling. ‘The edge of the world!’
‘Rubbish!’ scoffed Richard, striding up. ‘Any excuse to stop, is all —’
He broke off, took a hasty step back and stood, arms folded, staring outwards. ‘I’d stay away, guys,’ he said over his shoulder. Carefully — very carefully — I shuffled up beside him.
Jamie was right: it was the edge of the world. The grassy plain stretched away on either side as far as we could see into the darkness, but ahead … ahead there was nothing. It was more than a cliff: two strides ahead the ground fell away as cleanly as if it had been cut with a knife. The grassy plain rolled to its edge — and ended. Below was swimming darkness.
‘Maybe in the morning …’ Kenta began.
‘Well,’ said Jamie from a safe distance, ‘I vote we don’t set up camp too close to the edge. What if one of us sleepwalks?’
With that uncomfortable thought in our minds we backtracked a full five minutes, then trampled ourselves a nest in the grass. We shared out a ration of water smaller than we would have liked, and snacked on some dry noodles and cold beef jerky — Jamie voted we didn’t light a fire either, with all that grass around, and for once not even Richard argued.
Though no one mentioned it, I knew we were all thinking of that yawning drop and what lay beyond. If what Lyulf and Blade had told us was true, it was the end of the world. But we also knew that past it lay the Realms of the Undead, our friends and the end of our quest — so somehow, in the morning, we were going to have to figure out a way down.
Soon the others’ whispers settled into regular breathing and snuffling snores. I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground, a million miles from sleep. There was something missing, something I’d forgotten. What could it be? Was there something I should have thought of, or done? It hovered on the fringes of my mind, agonisingly close.
I lay back down, scowling up at the clouds. And suddenly it came to me: my thumb! How long had it been? I felt a pang of disloyalty. Hauled it out from under my sleeping bag, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted the same as ever — dirtier, with a kind of spiciness that was a hundred percent Karazan, but otherwise pretty much the way it always had. I settled back, waiting for it to mould to the exact shape of the roof of my mouth. But something wasn’t quite right. Different … as if my thumb didn’t slot into its old position quite the same. I gave it another couple of sucks, partly to be sure I wasn’t imagining things, partly for old times’ sake. Then I slipped it out and wiped it dry, locked my hands behind my head, and lay staring up at the pale blur of the moon.
I felt almost as if I should apologise to it — though what for, I wasn’t sure. But deep down I knew it would understand. And one thing was for sure: it’d still be there, if ever I needed it again.
Thunder in the dawn
I was woken by the sound of thunder. It was just before dawn, when the air has that pearly greyness. But it wasn’t thunder: it was an earthquake. The ground under my cheek was shaking itself apart in a drumming vibration that brought Blue-bum diving headfirst into my sleeping bag. The girls sat up tangle-haired and wild-eyed; Jamie popped out of his sleeping bag like a gopher, chubby cheeks still rosy with sleep.
It was Rich who yelled the warning. ‘Hit the deck — now!’
In the split second before I dropped to the ground my eyes took a flash-photo my befuddled brain, hazy with dreams and fizzing with adrenaline, refused to process.
Then it broke over us: a tidal wave of thundering giants that shook the earth, riding a hot whirlwind of air with a wild pungency that shot through me in a dizzying mixture of fear, disbelief and wonder.
Though my face was buried in my arms I was aware of their huge bodies stampeding past, massive hooves smashing down all round me like sledgehammers, missing my ears by a hair’s-breadth; of great dark shapes launching themselves up and over me, blotting out the dawn light. There was another sound too, a soaring, rushing whoosh. Then as quickly as it had come, it was over.
A muffled voice came from the direction of Jamie’s sleeping b
ag. ‘Is it safe to come out now?’
I sat up warily. Before, our little nest had been a hollow in the grass, the tall stalks surrounding us like walls. Now the whole world was trampled flat. I stumbled to my feet and hobbled a few steps, my sleeping bag crumpled round my ankles, gazing after them.
‘What was it?’ Jamie quavered, his eyes and the tip of his nose peeking out. ‘Is it coming back?’
‘Horses. It was horses.’ I could see them in the distance; they’d wheeled round, still galloping, far away and tiny, scattering, spiralling and regrouping like a flock of birds playing in the breeze.
‘Whew!’ Jamie was saying shakily. ‘How lucky was that! They could’ve killed us!’
I narrowed my eyes, staring, only vaguely aware of the voices of the others.
‘They wouldn’t. Horses don’t.’
‘Well, they nearly did — one jumped right over me!’
‘That’s exactly it. If a horse sees you’re there, it’ll do just about anything to avoid standing on you. It happens in horse-racing all the time, with those pile-ups in steeplechases and things …’
So Karazeel had been wrong. He hadn’t killed all the horses — there were still some left. This one herd at least, safe on the farthest fringes of the world.
I was about to turn away when a movement among the specks caught my eye. Something lifted, wheeled, then dropped again. Birds, massive ones, two of them, soaring above the herd. Chasing each other, coming together, then spinning apart; playing, or … fighting? They were too far away to tell.
‘Don’t worry, Adam, I don’t think they’ll come back,’ Jamie was saying comfortingly. ‘Look — the sun’s coming up. Let’s check out the cliff before breakfast, then work out how to tackle it while we eat. Come on!’