Untitled Novel 3

by Justin Fisher

  HUUUR!

  The forest behind them, every metal flapping wing and every snarling mouth, became quiet and still.

  Brother

  he weir had run far and hard to reach the fortress. In the treaty his chief had made with Barbarossa, they had been promised freedom – a world without borders, a world where they answered only to themselves. Barbarossa, however, did not like bad news, and made ready to give him freedom of a different kind.

  Breathless, the wolf-man had told him of two men and a boy in his forest – two men and a boy that had got away.

  Breathless, Barbarossa had answered.

  The familiars had poured from the butcher’s arms like vengeful spirits, all gnashing and slithering, angry and wild. They were not like normal familiars. Barbarossa had changed them with some dark magic of his own making. Sar-adin, his Demon butler, watched without the slightest hint of compassion or remorse. In that both master and servant were the same.

  “Are you sure that was wise, master? The weirs are our allies, are they not?”

  “They think the taiga was theirs to give. They only made the taking easier. I will deal with the weirs; you will deal with my brother, the boy and the fool who joined them. They are not to leave the mountain.”

  “Capture or kill, master?”

  “Bring my brother to me. Feed the boy and his accomplice to whoever wants them.”

  The King in the Cave

  ing Antlor was nothing like the brutish creatures of the wolf-pack or bear-clan. Twenty feet tall and towering above everyone, he moved with poised majesty. Lit up by the flicker of torches, he seemed like a thing of dreams, a spirit of the forest come alive. He had two powerful legs in gold-brown fur, hoofed at the bottom, and above them a human torso, lithe but muscular, with strong arms and a pair of impossibly broad shoulders. His face though was every inch a stag, the fur like spun gold at his neck and forehead. Above his ears were not one but three full sets of perfect white antlers, at least eight feet across. Somehow the torchlight seemed to brighten and dull again with every breath of the creature’s chest. Ned found him more terrifying than any of the Darklings he’d come across. They had been simmering rage, angry dogs of war, but the Stag King was a different kind of beast, alert animal intelligence, completely aware of everything around him and all the more frightening because of it.

  As he led them to his throne, Benissimo turned to both Ned and Mr Fox. “King Antlor is a proud creature and noble, but do not forget his animal side. No sudden movements.”

  “He’s terrifying! I’m not surprised the weirs all ran!” whispered Ned.

  “They weren’t running from him.”

  “Then who?” asked Ned, confused.

  Benissimo looked away, his moustache and goatee clearly twitching with nerves. “If I tell you, do you promise to remain calm?”

  Something went off in Ned’s head. It sounded like the ding of an alarm bell, only louder and broken.

  “Bene, what have you done? What were they all so frightened of?”

  But before Benissimo could answer, King Antlor spoke, the torches in the chamber flickering with his every word. “What lies beneath.”

  Ned looked up to see that the Stag King had taken his seat on a throne of woven branches, and was looking right at him.

  “Please, come closer,” King Antlor said, still looking at Ned.

  As Ned and his small party approached the throne, more stag-men came out of the shadows till soon they were completely surrounded on every side.

  Benissimo got down on one knee and bowed his head, and Mr Fox and Ned clumsily followed suit.

  What exactly lay “beneath” and why had Ned been stupid enough to follow Benissimo without knowing more?

  “We had almost given up on you,” continued the Stag King, and even though he barely raised his voice, it carried across the entirety of his stone courtroom.

  “The boy has been hard to find,” answered the Ringmaster.

  King Antlor breathed heavily through his nostrils, eyeing Ned intently. “Nothing good comes easily. Welcome, Engineer.”

  Ned could barely speak. It wasn’t fear exactly – more like awe. As powerful and frightening as the Stag King and his herd were, he could almost smell the magic in their fur and he couldn’t help but marvel at it.

  “Thank you, your, erm, Your Highness.”

  Antlor nodded regally. “Word of your exploits has found its way to my cave more than once. We are all grateful to you, son of Armstrong.”

  He then turned his attention to Mr Fox, his great dark eyes poring over him as though reading the page of a book. “You are human?”

  “Mr Fox, of the BBB, Your Highness. And yes, I am a human.”

  Antlor sniffed at the air sharply. “You smell of … nothing, no past, no magic – how sad for you. I was human once; I do not recall liking it very much.”

  Before Mr Fox could work out how to respond, Benissimo addressed the courtroom solemnly. “I see it is true, Your Majesty – the forest is no longer your home.”

  There was braying and the scraping of hooves from the rest of the herd and their king looked positively pained.

  “We fought them for months, Ringmaster, but the world has gone mad and the grass we once walked on grown sickly and black. Now only what lies beneath keeps the dark ones at bay.”

  Ned could feel his bones shake. What kind of creature was so bad, so positively frightening, that not even Demons and Darklings dare come near it?

  “This is our sanctuary and our prison. The forest holds more metal than bark or bone, and the bears and wolves – our one-time allies – now hound us at every turn.”

  “If my informant is right, Your Highness, the old one will have the answer to our woes.”

  The old one! thought Ned, remembering what the Demon at Mavis’s had said. His skin prickled with something between excitement and fear.

  “Pray your Demon speaks the truth! We will need more than arms and hooves to win this war.”

  King Antlor rose from his throne. Towering over them now, he took the horn he’d blown earlier from his waist, before stooping down and passing it to Mr Fox. “Use this when you need us, josser – we will hear it and we will come.”

  Ned wasn’t sure why he’d singled out Mr Fox, but when he looked at the BBB’s most prestigious operative he saw that the unflappable Mr Fox was in fact beginning to flap. The poor man’s face had turned a very slight shade of green.

  “Err, thank you. That is, erm, very kind.”

  The great stag sniffed at the air again and closed his eyes. “Fear not, human. Where the Ringmaster takes you now, fear will do you no good. If the old one wishes to end you, he need only breathe it and you will end.”

  Older than Old

  enissimo and his party were led away from the courtroom down a meandering, torchlit passageway. The two muscled stag-men at their front and rear moved in complete silence and Ned decided to remain similarly quiet. Whatever he was about to yell at the Ringmaster could wait till they were alone. Gorrn slithered nervously in the shadows along the stone walls. Ned’s mouse sat perched in terrified silence on his shoulder, peering out at the darkness without so much as a tick from his clockwork heart. The ground sloped downwards continuously and the further they walked, the warmer the air became, till the ground felt hot under their feet.

  Almost half an hour had passed when they came to a thick stone barrier that blocked the way forward. The stag-men eyed each other nervously, then one of them fumbled a hand along the wall till it came upon a lever; a lever that had obviously not been used in some time. He pulled it and the metal groaned, finally shifting with a grinding of rock and metal. Gears turned, and a section of the wall gave way with a blast of stifling hot air. Ned covered his mouth and nose – it stank of sulphur and burning oil.

  Their two guides handed Benissimo and Mr Fox their torches and motioned for them to go on. Clearly whatever Benissimo was searching for was not something that either of the two creatures was willing to meet. E
ven more troubling was the grinding of rock as the entrance was resealed behind them.

  By the orange lick of firelight, Ned could see that they were in a large cavern; stalagmites and stalactites, jagged and sharp, were pointing up and down from the ground and ceiling, like hungering angry teeth. With every step down the hot stone ground, Ned seethed. He had no idea what they had come to see or why it was so dangerous, but if there was even the slimmest chance of not making it back to his parents, Ned wanted to know why.

  “Right, goat-face, you had better start talking!”

  Somewhere at his feet there was an irate “Arr” of agreement from his familiar, and Whiskers backed Ned up with an irritable “Scree” followed by some lightning-fast eye blinks. The Morse code message in the robot’s lit-up eyes was unintelligible because he was flashing them so quickly, but the sentiment was clear. Ned and his sidekicks were not happy.

  “Now now, pup – you promised to remain calm.”

  “No, no, I didn’t. You asked me to, but I never promised!”

  “All the same, this isn’t the time or place.”

  Ned was quite beyond caring about timing, or anything else for that matter.

  “Time or place?! Benissimo, outside this stinking hot cave are the world’s most terrifying creatures, like, the most dangerous things on earth, only they’re all scared to death of what’s down here. WHAT ARE WE ABOUT TO MEET and WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN ME?!”

  “Well, you see, the security of the mission, and … you know, et cetera et cetera …”

  “And what?”

  “I didn’t think you’d come if you knew.”

  At this point Ned could feel his peculiar rodent’s fur bristle as Whiskers arched his back and then hissed – actually hissed, like an angry cat. The Debussy Mark Twelve was going into attack mode, and behind them both, Gorrn had risen up over Ned as an angry block of be-toothed ooze.

  When Mr Fox spoke, it was with his polite yet certain demeanour, though every so often there was a notable crack in his voice. “Ned, I think it might be prudent to calm down. I know you’re angry, and I am too, though to be honest I’m a little more peeved with myself for insisting on joining you. The thing is, your friend George has been very helpful in getting me up to date with all things to do with the Hidden, and I’ve studied his collection of books extensively, so I like to think I know my ‘creatures’ at least in theory if not in practice. Have you noticed the air in here?”

  “Err, yes, it’s hot and it stinks.”

  “Yes, and it’s getting hotter and, well, stinkier. From this fact I would deduce that old ‘goat-face’ here, as you call him, has brought us to see a dragon.”

  Dragons in any form were famously dangerous. That much Ned knew. They weren’t, however, unbeatable, so that didn’t explain the reaction of the Darklings outside.

  Even under torchlight, Benissimo managed to look quite sheepish.

  “Well?” asked Ned.

  “Roo?” oozed Gorrn.

  “Scree?” screed Whiskers.

  “Our polite ally is correct,” Benissimo admitted, “though Tiamat is not just any dragon. Tiamat is the father of all dragons.”

  Ned suddenly wished he hadn’t asked. “The father of all dragons?”

  “Look, we really don’t have time to get into dragon genealogy, but to explain briefly, while most people can track their ancestors back a few generations, some even a few hundred years, dragons, and I do mean all dragons, can track their entire ancestry back to Tiamat. He is as old as this mountain and unimaginably powerful.”

  “And that stone barrier is to keep him out?”

  “Actually, just his breath, pup. I doubt at his age whether he could squeeze a big toe through that opening.”

  Despite the heat, and the breathlessness in his chest, Ned felt a shiver of fear as cold as ice course up his back and neck. “So when the stag thing up there said, ‘he need only breathe it and you will end’…?”

  “He wasn’t referring to the creature’s voice. Dragons breathe fire, and this one breathes the most.”

  “If we get out of here, my mum and dad are going to kill you, Benissimo, and if they can’t figure out how, then I will.”

  “If you need any help at all, please consider me at your full disposal,” said Mr Fox, who was thumbing the handle of his sidearm.

  “Thank you, Mr Fox.”

  “Fox will do, and the pleasure really will be all mine.”

  There was an appreciative “Arr” from below and a bob of Whiskers’ head.

  Benissimo pursed his lips as though chewing on a rock. “When you two have quite finished becoming buddies, I suggest we crack on with our mission.”

  Step after step they went, the torchlight casting sinewy shadows in all directions. Ned had the horrible sensation of being watched. It was different from the forest. That place had been alive with eyes and ears, beaks, feathers and claws. As the sweat soaked his back and he pulled off his steaming winter coat, Ned was quite sure that only one set of eyes and ears was waiting. The big question was: waiting where?

  They had come to the bottom of a steep incline when the rocks beneath them shifted. Their path was going gradually uphill now. Ned pulled the perometer from his pocket and checked the needle. It pointed forward. Nothing to fear yet then.

  “So, Mr Fox,” said Benissimo quietly, “glad you came?”

  “I must admit the sensation of unrelenting fear and curiosity is a mixed bag, Mr B.”

  Benissimo chuckled. “They didn’t train you for stag-men and dragons at your academy?”

  “I wouldn’t really know.”

  Benissimo turned to look at Mr Fox. “You don’t know?”

  “None of the BBB’s operatives know anything – that is to say, anything about their past. I am something of a blank canvas. Which is why I can perform my job so well, without fear of distraction from anything or anyone.”

  Ned looked at Mr Fox too. He was every inch an operative, the consummate spy and soldier because, as Ned was just beginning to understand, he didn’t know anything else.

  “That … that must be awful?” stammered Ned.

  “Protocol. The BBB is our entire life and I mean that literally. Friends and family are considered to be high risk, completely forbidden. We undergo years of extreme training, or brainwashing depending on your point of view. Our thumbprints are removed, our teeth replaced and finally, just to put the icing on the cake, we go through a twelve-month course of extreme hypnosis until we don’t remember anything.”

  “But why?”

  “I should think you’d know the answer to that, Ned? Didn’t you have to do something similar to your friends?”

  Mr Fox was right, and the memory of it hurt. Dear old Gummy and Arch back in safe cosy Grittlesby no longer remembered him. He had set the de-rememberer device to “ten” and any notion of Ned or their friendship had been permanently erased.

  “To protect them and the mission. And you really don’t remember anything at all?”

  Mr Fox stopped walking. “I remember one thing, vividly, from before I became an operative.” His expression suddenly grew dark. “And that’s where I’d like to stop the conversation – thank you.”

  But before Ned and Benissimo were able to wonder why, from all around them, echoing back and forth along the cavern’s walls, ceiling and ground, came a rumbling, deep and low.

  “AND IT WAS JUST GETTING INTERESTING.”

  Benissimo’s whip began to coil wildly and the ooze that was Gorrn sucked itself into Ned’s shadow in a gurgling shlup. Whiskers made no sound at all, because the small rodent was simply too frightened to move. Ned checked the dial – its needle was spinning round and round! Either the thing had broken or the dragon was moving and fast.

  “Tiamat?” started Benissimo.

  “YES.”

  “Where exactly are you?”

  “BENEATH YOU.”

  “Beneath us where?”

  “YOU ARE STANDING ON MY NECK.”

  The Sto
ne Dragon

  enissimo had seen every wonder and horror that the Hidden had to offer, and of the latter he had fought most of them. Even so, as they climbed down past the dragon’s ear and below its cheek, the Ringmaster was uncharacteristically quiet. Mr Fox was also mute, though in his case Ned got the sense that faced with such an unprecedented terror, he simply gave way to training and moved like a well-oiled machine, no foot or hand out of place, his mind remaining firmly on the mission.

  Focus, thought Ned. Stay calm. But it did no good. As his trembling hands gripped on to the stone, he couldn’t get away from the fact that the stone was in fact alive. So ancient was Tiamat that the dragon’s scales and hide had fossilised to rock. Finally down on the ground, it was hard to see clearly which part of the rock before them was the dragon and which was the cavern in which he lay.

  Then right in front of them a great vast eye blinked open, as high and wide as a house. Ned stopped breathing. The eye was green and blue, with a single black vertical slit down the middle that eyed them as though they were ants.

  “LIGHT?” asked the dragon.

  “Please,” said the Ringmaster.

  From far ahead of them, the dragon’s nostrils blew and two perfectly aimed plumes of fire shot out. They landed at a far wall hundreds of feet away and some oily liquid there erupted with flames. All of a sudden the cavern filled with hot, orange-yellow light and the temperature in the already stifling air soared.

  Ned squinted from the sudden brightness, his eyes adjusting slowly, and as they did so he could see that the stone that was Tiamat’s skin was reflective, like polished black marble. It was like looking at the face of a shattered mirror, come alive with glistening reflections, and it was only when the dragon raised its head to look down on them properly that Ned could make out its shape and size. Tiamat was a great spiked behemoth with curving stalagmites rising from its head, neck and torso as tall as redwood trees and just as thick. Most of its body filled the cavern, though at the opening’s highest point there was room for it to move its head and neck. The dragon’s features were not so different to a dinosaur’s, much like the pictures of T-rex that Ned had pored over as a child, though far larger. Every angle from which it studied them caused Ned unrelenting fear. The Stag King’s words to Mr Fox rang out in Ned’s head again.