Uki and the Outcasts

by Kieran Larwood

  ‘What … What are you?’ Uki managed to stutter.

  The floating fire creature opened its mouth again and Uki heard sounds. Some kind of language, never heard before – not Waste tribe or Lanic. At Uki’s blank look, the thing tried again. More gobbledygook.

  Uki felt something in his head then, a funny tingle behind his left eye. When the fire creature spoke next, Uki understood it perfectly.

  ‘This?’ it said. ‘Can you understand this?’ When Uki nodded, the thing gave a flicker of relief and then moved closer. ‘I am Iffrit,’ it said. ‘A … A spirit … and I have something important to tell you.’

  ‘Iffrit …?’ Uki said. With another wiggle, he freed a paw and pinched himself. This had to be some kind of a dream.

  ‘Yes,’ the thing said. ‘And you are … wait … Are you a rabbit?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Uki. Why was that so surprising? ‘Everyone is.’

  ‘And are there any other … beings … around? Creatures that look like me? Tall, thin, little ears on the sides of their head?’

  Uki thought for a moment. The description sounded like stories his mother had told him. Tales about the ones who had left strange stone structures all over the Five Realms. ‘Do you mean the Ancients?’ he said. ‘They don’t exist any more. Most rabbits think they’re just made up.’

  ‘I see,’ said Iffrit. His fiery eyes blinked for a moment, as if he was thinking. He looked Uki up and down, seeming to peer deep beneath the skin and fur. ‘There seems to be a lot of the “Ancients” in you. Are you sure they are no longer here? Are there stories – legends – in your world about how you rabbits were made?’

  ‘Well,’ said Uki. ‘The Waste tribes say that Zeryth made us out of snow, so he could feast on our souls …’

  ‘No, that’s just nonsense,’ said Iffrit. His form flickered for an instant, popping out of sight then appearing again. It seemed as though he was having trouble staying in place.

  ‘But my mother – she’s from Gotland – she says that the goddesses made us. Right after they tricked Gormalech into going underneath the ground.’

  ‘Gormalech!’ The name seemed to mean something to Iffrit. ‘So they finally lost control of him. That would explain the damage to the crystal …’

  Uki watched Iffrit for a moment as he pulsed and flickered some more, digesting this new information. He was speaking to himself, babbling. Whatever he was, he was in some kind of distress. Uki got the impression his mention of the Ancients had upset him somehow. ‘Must have been gone for centuries now. More even,’ Iffrit was muttering. ‘This rabbit thing … not ideal … but enough of the same make-up, maybe …’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Uki said, when it seemed like Iffrit had forgotten him. ‘Excuse me? Iffrit? Am I … Am I dead?’

  Iffrit paused in his babbling to look at Uki again. ‘Dead? No. You would have been before morning, but I have … helped you. I have fixed your body and am keeping it alive. I need you, young rabbit. I have been trapped for so long … my own life force has faded and I have been badly hurt by those I was guarding. I’m afraid I don’t have much time left. I have joined myself to you so that I can pass on all my powers. So you can finish my task.’

  ‘You’ve joined with me? Is that what I can feel in my head?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Iffrit. ‘I’m in there. I could have taken you over, but this way is better, I think. I … I have a job— What are you doing?’

  Uki had reached out a paw towards the floating, fiery figure and was trying to poke him with a finger. There was no warmth there, no burning. His paw passed right through one of Iffrit’s legs.

  ‘You can’t feel me because I’m not really here,’ Iffrit explained. ‘I’m inside your head. Literally. This is just an image, so that you have something to talk to.’

  ‘Why?’ was all Uki could say. All this – the grave, the spirit, things inside his brain – it was making him giddy and squeamish.

  ‘Because – as I’m trying to tell you – I have a job to do. The Ancients, as you call them, made me for a reason. I was a guard. A prison guard. There were four others, like me, who had done terrible things, and I was supposed to keep them locked away for all time. But they joined together and defeated me this very night, and now they have escaped.’

  ‘Prison?’ Uki had never heard of the word.

  ‘A place where bad people – criminals – are kept. As a punishment.’

  ‘Ah,’ Uki said. The tribe didn’t have such things. If anyone broke their laws, they were taken out on to the glacier and tied down for Zeryth to claim. In fact, that seemed to be their answer to pretty much everything.

  ‘Listen,’ said Iffrit, flickering with urgency. ‘These other spirits. They must be captured again, and you must do it.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Because you were here. I had no other choice.’ Iffrit was floating close to Uki’s face now. His not-there flames licking across his nose. ‘I am going to fade soon. I can feel it. I had enough strength left to fix you, to give you my … abilities. They should keep you alive long enough to find the four spirits and capture them. I will show you how. If you can do it, and keep them close to you at all times, you will live and be strong. Very strong.

  ‘But if you don’t, you will fade and die, along with everything that is left of me. And those things will be free to cause terrible harm to every living thing on this planet. Do you see how important this is? Do you understand?’

  ‘I … I …’ Uki had no idea what to say. Then it occurred to him that, even if he wanted to help this bizarre talking fireball, he couldn’t. He had problems of his own to deal with, him and his mother. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘This all sounds very … um … serious. But I can’t really help you. I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to stay with my mother. We’re on a journey, you see. We’re leaving this place and going across the mountains to where rabbits are kind and friendly.’

  ‘Oh.’ Iffrit flickered, silent for a moment, then, ‘Oh,’ again. His mouth opened and closed, as if he was trying to find words for something. And he kept looking over Uki’s shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ Uki said. He had an urge to look behind him, but also a sickening feeling that, if he did, there would be something awful there.

  ‘Your mother …’ Iffrit said. ‘I am sorry to tell you this but … she is dead.’

  *

  No, Uki thought. If I don’t turn round, if I don’t see it, then it won’t be true.

  But there was something about Iffrit’s pointed stare, that and the irresistible need to see his mother again, that made it impossible not to turn.

  Slowly, with every heartbeat full of dread, he shifted round to look behind him.

  There, cradled in the roots of a dead oak tree, was the body of his mother, curled in a ball like a sleeping baby, the tips of her fur dusted with frost.

  A sound came from Uki’s throat that was part wail, part scream. A twisted, animal-like sound that he didn’t even know he was capable of making.

  He scrabbled free from the rocks around him and half ran, half crawled over to her body. It was as cold as the dead roots around it: hard, stiff, brittle with frost where it should have been soft and warm and … alive.

  ‘Wake up!’ Uki shouted at her. ‘Mother, wake up!’

  He shook and nudged her, pulled at her ears, and, when nothing worked, turned back to Iffrit.

  ‘Save her! Make her wake up! You said you brought me back to life – do the same for my mother! Please!’

  Iffrit only shook his little round head. ‘I cannot. She was dead when I got here. I could only help you because you were still living. There is no trace of life in your mother.’

  ‘Can’t you try? Can’t you go into her head, like you’re in mine? Maybe there’s something there you haven’t noticed … Maybe there’s a chance …’

  ‘I can’t leave you now,’ Iffrit said. ‘It would mean your death. All the knitting and fixing I have done for you would come apart.’

  ‘I don’t care
!’ Uki yelled. ‘I don’t care if I die! Just bring my mother back!’

  ‘It can’t be done.’ Iffrit bowed his head. ‘She has been dead too long. There is too much damage. If I tried, you would die as well. I am sorry. I cannot.’

  The fiery form of Iffrit flickered once more, then blinked out, leaving Uki to his grief. He screamed again, then cried. He curled up around his mother and sobbed. He told her how much he loved her and begged her to come back. All those things, over and over, until he lost himself in grief completely, not even knowing where or who he was any more.

  When he finally came back to himself, the sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn had come, hours had passed. At some point in the night he had buried his mother’s body, using the rocks she had once carefully placed around him. Now he sat, paws scratched and bleeding, body numb. Every last tear had been cried out, leaving nothing but a horrid, empty feeling. A great black hole inside him, and he was teetering on the edge of it.

  I’ve lost everything, was all he could think. Mother, home … I didn’t have much but it’s all gone forever.

  There was a flicker of light beside him as Iffrit reappeared.

  ‘Go away,’ said Uki. ‘You’re just a dream.’

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ the dream said. ‘And I have given you time to grieve, but you really must come with me. I have things to show you and not much time left. I grow weaker every second.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Uki. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Please.’ Iffrit juddered, his body becoming paler. Uki could see the rest of the graveyard through it, like looking through a window. But he couldn’t move, even if he wanted to. All he could do was sit and stare at the pile of stones that used to be his mother. He could sense Iffrit in the air next to him, gesturing, pleading, begging. He could even feel something strange buzzing and fizzing inside his head, but it was as if it was all happening to some other rabbit. As if he were outside himself, looking down on a sad, sad scene in a cold, lonely graveyard.

  In the end, it was the voices that made him move. Rabbits entering the wood from the north, crackling through the undergrowth and talking to each other as they marched.

  It was his old tribe come looking for him, or perhaps just bringing offerings for their dead. Either way, Uki’s numb, empty shell was suddenly pumped with fear. He felt himself struggling to his feet, much to the delight of Iffrit, whose voice swam back into focus.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, flying in circles around Uki’s head. ‘This way! I have to show you the crystal, and there are only minutes left. Quickly! Quickly!’

  Uki’s only thought was to escape the voices, but he had no idea where to go other than follow the spirit’s lead. Leaving his mother and his old life behind, he stumbled out of the graveyard.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Gaunch

  Iffrit led them out of the graveyard and through the woods, back to the heaped mounds of flint which were all that remained of the Cinder Wall.

  Once it had stood three metres high, with armoured Imperial troops marching back and forth behind its crenulations, but that was many years ago. The Wall had crumbled, just as the Ice Waste tribes had dwindled almost to nothing. And Iffrit had slept through all this, buried beneath the earth just a few paces away.

  Uki clambered over the Wall, his mind still frozen from shock. He was simply following the floating spirit made of fire now. Just putting one foot in front of the other, unable to think of anything else.

  If he had looked closely at the ground, he might have noticed the tracks his mother made the day before, carrying him towards the graveyard wrapped in his shroud. A few faded scuff marks were all that were left to show she had existed in the world. He stumbled past them, on into the forest.

  Iffrit took them only a little further, almost as far as the clearing Uki and his mother had been camping in. He swooped down to the tangle of roots and bare earth where an old pine tree had toppled over some winters ago and pointed with both hands.

  ‘Here it is! This is the prison!’

  When Iffrit had first described it and mentioned the terrible spirits locked inside, Uki had imagined some kind of castle or tower, like the ones in the tales his mother used to tell. All he could see now was a cluster of pinkish shards where something the size of a melon had burst open.

  ‘Is that it?’ he managed to say. ‘There were five of you in there?’

  ‘It looks small from the outside, but it was made to hold huge amounts of information.’ Uki just looked at him blankly. ‘I mean, there was a whole world in there. Seas, oceans, mountain ranges. Just like this world, but on a scale so small, your eyes wouldn’t be able to see it. The prisoners were each trapped on their own island and I had the job of guarding them. In there, I could change shape to be whatever I wanted. A towering, flaming giant or a colossal winged beast made of fire. I used to soar through the sky above them making sure they couldn’t escape.’

  Uki could only shake his head. This was too much to even begin understanding. Part of him was still sure this was just an awful dream and he was looking forward to waking up, even if it was into a body that was starving and filled with infection.

  ‘Quick,’ Iffrit urged him on. ‘You must gather up some pieces. At least four of the big bits, to trap the spirits in. And some of the little fragments too. They will probably be valuable to your people. Like diamonds or rubies.’

  So this is a dream, thought Uki. And I’m the prince finding the treasure. He stooped down and picked up five of the bigger shards, stuffing them into the pocket in his trousers. They were smooth, about the length of his paw and with lots of facets and edges. Once they were safely stowed away, he scooped up a pawful of little crystals and poured them into his other pocket.

  ‘Good,’ said Iffrit. ‘When you get to the nearest town – you do have towns, don’t you? – you should find a smith of some kind. Get them to fit the big crystals on to knife handles or spear hafts. They will be easier for you to use like that. And then you will need some kind of chain or belt to wear them on once they are filled—’

  ‘Spears?’ Uki blinked at the spirit. None of this was making sense. ‘What am I going to do with them?’

  ‘They are for catching the spirits! Haven’t you been listening?’ Iffrit flickered in irritation. The creature had been saying things all the way here, Uki realised, but he had been somewhere else, inside his own head. He’d heard nothing.

  ‘I have so little time left. You must pay attention.’ Iffrit was popping in and out of sight every few seconds now. Each time he reappeared he grew fainter. ‘When you find the spirits, you will know them. You will sense them, just like I can. They will probably have merged with bodies like we have. Except they will have taken control of them I expect. Once you are close enough, jab the host with a crystal. The spirits will be drawn inside and my power – I mean, your power – will hold them there.’

  ‘And then what do I do?’

  ‘You must guard the crystals. Keep them near you at all times. They will give you strength at first, but it won’t last. Not until you have all four. You must not stop until you get all four. Do you understand?’

  ‘All four. Yes.’

  ‘And you must go carefully. I can sense another one of our kind nearby. Another spirit. It may have noticed me, too. And there could be more around.’

  ‘More spirits?’

  ‘Yes. Creatures made by the Ancients. Some may be kind, but others … you will have to see. It would be best to be as inconspicuous as possible.’

  ‘Incon-what?’

  ‘Inconspicuous. Hard to notice. Secret.’

  ‘Ah, right. Secret. I see.’

  ‘Good. I— Wait … Do you feel that?’ Iffrit suddenly turned in the air, his head twitching like a wolf following a scent. To Uki’s surprise he did feel something too. A kind of sixth sense that something dangerous was nearby. A prickling on the back of his neck, like when the tribe children used to spy on him.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

/>   Iffrit sniffed some more. ‘One of the spirits! Gaunch, I think. He is close. And very weak. If we are lucky, he won’t have had time to steal a body. Come, quickly! I only have a few seconds left!’

  Rising back up to head height, Iffrit zoomed off through the trees. Uki had to run to keep up. They were following a path he noticed, as he ducked under low-hanging branches and jumped over trailing roots. One dotted with slabs of mossy stone here and there, all broken and jagged, poking up through the layers of mud and leaves. Some kind of old road, he thought. Maybe one the soldiers used when the Wall was new.

  Deeper into the forest they ran and all the time that twitchy, tingling feeling grew stronger and stronger. Like an itch in his head he couldn’t scratch.

  Iffrit was moving faster, being able to pass through anything in his way. Uki noticed how transparent he had become. Like a ghost, a half memory of the thing that had first appeared to him in the graveyard.

  Suddenly Iffrit stopped, darting behind an old silver birch tree, its bark hanging off in papery tatters. Something behind the trunk was glowing. A sickly yellow light that flickered just like Iffrit’s flames. Could that be the missing spirit? Uki dimly wondered if it was safe, running up to an escaped creature as evil as the ones Iffrit had described. But then his life had exploded so completely in the last few hours. What more can go wrong? he thought as he reached the birch and peered around the trunk. How can anything be worse than it already is?

  Uki was expecting to see some kind of demon. A winged snake, or something with fangs at least. Instead, there was just a tiny speck of light floating a few centimetres off the ground.

  ‘There!’ Iffrit shouted in triumph. ‘It is Gaunch, the first of the spirits! Quickly, ready a crystal!’

  Uki fumbled in his pocket for one of the shards. He didn’t see what all the rush was about. ‘Is that it?’ he asked. ‘That tiny yellow bit of light? It just looks like a baby firefly. Or a flying seed.’