by Cliff McNish
Jarius resumed the journey. At the Assessment Chamber entrance she quieted all her spiders. The soldiers were especially tense. They perched in the corners of her mouths, readying themselves. Scratching at the seals of the doorway, her watchers tried to peep inside without opening it.
‘Welcome,’ came Gultrathaca’s voice from within.
Jarius warily opened the door a crack.
Instead of the usual dimness, the Chamber was flooded in brilliant sunshine – an intensity of light Jarius had not experienced before. ‘No!’ she wailed, withdrawing.
Gultrathaca caught her arm, pulling her inside the Chamber. ‘Bear it! Bear it!’ she raged.
Jarius tried to construct a darkening spell, but she had never needed one before, and she was too frightened to think. If her eye-shields had not automatically clamped shut she would have been blinded. But her loyal watcher spiders had no shields to cover their eyes. The light scorched them. Despite this, believing that Jarius was under attack, they kept scanning the Chamber, shouting out what they saw.
The bright light faded to gloom.
Jarius partially re-opened her eye-shields. ‘What … what happened?’
‘Yemi responded to your fear,’ Gultrathaca told her, ‘and to that of your spiders.’
Jarius looked anxiously up at the child. Her pack had told her of the smallness of human children, but she was still unprepared for the size of Yemi. He appeared so frail, so vulnerable, no larger than a newborn Gridda – like a thing she might accidentally fracture.
Yemi held out his arms to her, his face full of complex worry.
Jarius backed away. ‘What is he doing?’
‘Apologizing. For wounding you.’
‘Apologizing?’ Jarius blinked in astonishment. ‘Doesn’t the boy realize what this place is? What harm we can do to him here?’
‘No. Let him approach you.’
Yemi toddled over to Jarius. His shorts and shirt brushed against her skin. Not naked, Jarius realized. This was clothing – like the dresses of the Highs. He smiled at her, showing his teeth. Curious, Jarius ran a claw over the edges, searching for sharpness. Yemi laughed, seeing the puzzled expression on her face. Then he made his way up her torso, babbling amiably. Mountaineer-style he scrambled over one jaw, planted his toe on another and reached around to get a purchase on her bony cheeks. Swaying slightly, he pursed his lips and kissed each of her eyes.
A delicious balm settled over them.
‘Oh!’ Jarius glanced at him. She could not read Yemi’s expression – the architecture of his face was too different – but there was no mistaking his good intentions. His magical greeting showed that he hoped to become her friend. It was shocking: a genuine offer.
When Jarius did not respond Yemi patted her arm reassuringly, as if used to such confusion in the Griddas he met. Shimmying back down her body, he wandered to the rear of the Chamber. Jarius noticed another of his species there, reaching out a hand.
‘Fola,’ Yemi announced proudly.
Jarius saw an older, larger human: presumably the female. It had more hair, and a long red garment covering all the flesh down from the neck.
Fola gazed in dismay at Jarius. ‘Another one!’ she groaned. ‘Always another one is coming! You want to be hurt like the others? Is that what you want?’ She pointed at Gultrathaca. ‘While she watches!’
Jarius could not understand Fola’s words, but she sensed the anger. It helped her relax. This was behaviour Jarius could better understand. ‘The human girl is wary at least,’ she said with satisfaction to Gultrathaca. ‘She fears us, I see. What does the boy fear?’
Gultrathaca smiled. ‘The dark.’
This concept was too perverse for Jarius to understand.
‘Humans crave light,’ Gultrathaca explained. ‘They need it.’
‘Then – then why did he remove it when I entered?’
‘Yemi wants you to be happy, Jarius,’ Gultrathaca said, without amusement. ‘He wants you to be his friend. He wants to play with you.’
‘But – he’s our prisoner! Doesn’t he understand that?’
Gultrathaca laughed grimly. ‘No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t understand at all.’ She walked over to Jarius and examined her eyes. ‘What little damage was done, Yemi has repaired with his kiss. You are luckier than the first Griddas. When they entered the Chamber, Yemi thought there was something wrong with their eyes. He created a spell to redesign them. It took the shrieks of several Griddas to make him realize his error.’
‘But he looks so … so harmless.’
‘Yes, doesn’t he,’ Gultrathaca agreed. ‘Perhaps that is the reason Heebra underestimated him. I will not make the same mistake.’
Jarius studied Fola, fascinated by the way she held Yemi, the way she ran her clawless fingers through his hair. Yemi giggled, half-fighting Fola off. ‘I don’t understand their gestures,’ Jarius said, ‘but clearly the female possesses little magic. Does Yemi keep her as live food?’
‘No. They share a kind of pack-relationship. He protects her.’
‘But she is so weak!’
‘Nevertheless, he cares for her. And she cares for him. That is the meaning of the clutching motions.’
Staring at Fola, Jarius felt disgust. It dismayed her to see attention lavished on a puny creature of any species. Enfeebled Griddas were strangled at birth. It was simply the way, and she had never questioned it. How else could the pack be kept strong?
‘Don’t underestimate the girl,’ Gultrathaca told her. ‘I started off by thinking she would be easy to manipulate, but she has never co-operated, and made it far more difficult for me to obtain Yemi’s trust.’
‘If Fola hinders us, why not kill her and work directly on the boy?’
‘We tried that. Yemi’s reaction was intriguing. When we attacked Fola, for the first time he became angry.’
‘Did he retaliate?’
‘Yes. And that was even more intriguing. He punished not only the Gridda who attacked Fola. He punished her pack-members as well. Over the three cities they were scattered, thousands of miles apart, yet somehow his spell found them all. They felt only a fraction of the agony intended for Fola, but I believe it was a real warning that he will not tolerate any harm against his sister.’
‘Then – what progress has been made?’
‘None,’ Gultrathaca muttered, frustration edging her voice. ‘By now I had hoped to have Yemi’s trust, or at least get him to perform spells that might be useful to us. But he does not react in any of the usual ways. When I threaten him he treats it as an amusement. He does what he likes.’
‘What he likes? Something must affect him!’
‘If so, I’ve yet to find it.’
Yemi was staring at Jarius’s feet. He chuckled, crooked his fingers, beckoning.
The next moment Jarius’s spiders began to desert her.
She shrieked in terror because this only happened to dying Griddas. Until death arrived a Gridda’s spiders, who had cherished her through all dramas, would stay with her. Only when the healer spiders confirmed that her last breath had expired did they leave. If their owner had been killed by another Gridda, the spiders would offer themselves to the newcomer, hoping she might take a few. But if their owner died by accident, or was killed by a tunnel predator, the spiders were held equally responsible for that failure. Those spiders were never taken by other Griddas. Left alone in the tunnels to fend for themselves, they could not survive long. There were plenty of creatures adapted specifically to hunt them down.
As her spiders ran from her to Yemi, Jarius could not speak. She explored her limbs for unknown injuries, frantically questioned her healers. Was she dying?
‘No!’ she pleaded, staring wildly at Gultrathaca. ‘Look at me! I am healthy! Young!’
Her spiders continued to leave. Only the oldest soldiers, those whose loyalty was absolute and who would stay guarding her body even after her death, held back. The rest crept from her mouths and face-pits, hurrying across the floor to b
e with Yemi.
He giggled, welcoming them.
‘You are not dying,’ Gultrathaca told Jarius. ‘My spiders also sneak off to him.’
‘But – why?’
‘I’m not certain,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘They’re attracted by the boy’s magic, but it’s more than that.’ She glanced at Jarius. ‘I doubt you noticed, but several of your watchers were blinded when you entered the Chamber. Yemi is repairing them.’
‘Repairing? You mean he actually cares for them?’ The idea of looking after her spiders had never occurred to Jarius. Spiders were constantly being born inside her body to replace those old or ill.
Yemi attended diligently to all the injured watchers, cooling and reconstructing their eyes. The other spiders clustered on his knees. When the watchers were fixed, Yemi sent all the spiders back to Jarius. They did not want to leave him, but he insisted, sweeping them along the floor with the flat of his hand.
‘They like him,’ said Gultrathaca. ‘And they are not the only ones.’ She indicated dozens of other creatures that had started to emerge as soon as the spiders left. From the shadows they wriggled, swarmed and oozed around Yemi’s feet. Jarius recognized animals and insects from all parts of Ool. There were even a few brainless slime mosses that lived in the deep silence below the Gridda caves. How could they be here? She watched as the mosses found a snug place along the pocket-linings of Yemi’s shorts.
And then, in their silent way, came a pair of huraks.
Involuntarily Jarius shrank back, preparing to defend herself.
Of all the native animals that dwelled in the tunnels under the world of Ool, only this one was truly feared by the Griddas. The hurak was a huge animal, the same size as Jarius herself, feline-shaped, but with a heavy jaw capable of severing even Gridda skull-bone. What made a hurak really dangerous, however, was that its breath contained an anaesthetic to lull the watcher spiders. It could approach a Gridda completely undetected.
The two huraks settled in front of Yemi and Fola. They allowed Yemi to stroke their dark blue fur.
With a trace of awe in her tone, Gultrathaca said, ‘Yemi draws them somehow, keeps them docile. If any Gridda approaches him too quickly they also guard him. These two arrived this morning.’
‘From where?’
‘I don’t know.’
Jarius stared at Yemi. He smiled back. ‘Does he ever try to get out of the Chamber?’ she asked.
‘All the time. He obviously wants to leave, and it is becoming harder to stop him. He keeps breaking through the holding spells. Over a dozen Griddas encircle the Chamber at all times, devising new ones just to keep him imprisoned.’
‘There has to be a way to threaten him, Gultrathaca!’
‘No. He is happy.’
‘Happy? Happy here, in the Chamber? What tests have you tried?’
‘Every kind. He enjoys them, like a game. I have yet to find a test he cannot pass with ease. In fact, he’s becoming bored. I can’t devise them fast enough for him.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Do you?’ Gultrathaca stepped away from Jarius, and said lightly, ‘The Chamber is yours to use against the boy as you wish. Perhaps you will have more success than those who tried previously.’
Fola saw what was about to happen. She had seen it many times before with the other Griddas Gultrathaca invited. ‘Iro! No!’ she warned Jarius. ‘Don’t attack Yemi, you must not!’ But, of course, it was pointless. All the Griddas who came here were too afraid of Gultrathaca to disobey her. ‘Yemi will hurt you!’ she shouted at Jarius. ‘He no mean to, but he will! Don’t make him!’
Jarius listened to the sounds of the ranting girl – and glanced warily at Gultrathaca. She had moved away, entirely across the Chamber. Not for the first time Jarius wondered why she had been called here. There were higher-ranking members of her pack who had not yet seen Yemi. Why had Gultrathaca requested her?
Because she was expendable?
Yes, Jarius thought, unable to think of another reason. This was obviously a final chance to prove her pack-worthiness. There would be no opportunity to refuse this time. Gliding shakily across the Chamber, she located the area where the main attack spells were hidden. The spells could be triggered singly or in clusters. The main advantage of the Chamber was that far more could be launched simultaneously than a single Gridda could summon on her own. When Yemi saw which way Jarius was heading he started jumping up and down.
‘Sere! Sere! Sere!’ he called out excitedly.
‘I believe it is his word for play,’ said Gultrathaca.
Yemi clapped his hands over and over. He could not wait to start.
Jarius twisted away, trying to hide her nervousness. How could she possibly intimidate the boy if Gultrathaca had failed? There was one chance, perhaps – a speciality spell she had made her own: a panic spell. It was intended to disable an opponent, unseat its mind, before the real attack. In one so young as Yemi it might be effective … She composed herself and faced him. Yemi backed away dramatically. He put his hands over his eyes.
He is frightened, Jarius thought in triumph. Then she saw him peeping between his fingers. Pretending to be frightened, she realized – to make the game more entertaining.
She glanced once more at Gultrathaca – and knew that she would kill her if there was any hesitation.
Opening her jaws, Jarius unleashed the panic.
In the fraction of a second it took the spell to reach him, Yemi reacted. He plucked the spell out of the air. He examined it. Gultrathaca bent forward avidly to watch. Eventually Yemi blew on the spell, offering it back to Jarius.
‘Better!’ he told her.
Jarius reached out a claw.
‘No!’ yelled Fola. ‘Don’t take it!’
Too late. As soon as Jarius’s old spell made contact with her skin it gripped her heart. It was not the same panic spell she knew so well. Yemi had improved it. An immeasurable terror blazed across her mind. She collapsed on the floor. She curled up, stuffing her claws into her mouths to stifle the screams.
Seeing this, Yemi ran across to her, understanding his mistake. He removed the spell and hastily ordered all Jarius’s spiders to console her.
Gultrathaca sighed. She stepped over Jarius, ignoring her agony.
Another failure, she thought. Another lost Gridda – and a member of her own pack this time. Well, there were many brighter stars than Jarius … She stared at Fola, who stared back with unsuppressed fury. ‘Why did you do that? Why?’ Fola shouted.
Gultrathaca disregarded her. She walked to another part of the Chamber where Jarius’s unseemly writhing would not be a distraction. What else could she do to affect the boy? Hadn’t she tried everything to influence him? Every spell, threat, enticement or attempt at persuasion led to nothing! These human children as a whole, Gultrathaca thought. What are they really like? A few High Witches knew their language and customs well, those who had returned from Earth as part of Heebra’s failed army. When questioned, they had called Yemi an aberration: a remarkable child, tantalizing but untypical. Fola was more typical; less magical than many children, but capable of being frightened.
I’ve persisted too long with my challenges on the boy, Gultrathaca realized. I need a new approach. The longer Yemi withstands the Assessment Chamber the more wary the Griddas become. If a baby human can do this, what of the older children? Every day he makes me appear weaker …
While Gultrathaca made her way to the prison levels to question the remaining High Witches, Jarius lay shuddering on the Chamber floor. When she did not respond to his kind words, Yemi wanted to help her more, but he hesitated. He was frightened to put his lips near her jaws, though it was the only way he knew. He knelt beside her. He bent across her face. Placing his lips gently against her mouths, he sent soothing spells inside.
Jarius’s panic ceased instantly. It was replaced by a new feeling, one she had never experienced. An indescribable peacefulness worked its way through, gathering into her heart. Jarius
forgot where she was. There was no panic. There was only the breath of Yemi.
She allowed him to put his arms half-round her massive head, and rock it.
11
Invitation
Rachel sat in the garden, staring at the empty skies. It had been three weeks since they last saw Larpskendya.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said to Eric. ‘No kids about. This exclusion zone of Heiki’s feels wrong.’
‘I think it’s great,’ Eric said. ‘Peace and quiet for a flipping change. Plus Heiki’s right to protect you.’ He eyed her meaningfully. ‘Before Yemi, the last time a Witch came to Earth was to get you, Rach.’
Heiki’s surveillance teams were positioned around the house and nearby streets. They were efficient, the best available. Only the most determined fans still tried to sneak through the cordon; they never got close.
Rachel squinted up, where Albertus Robertson, as usual, hovered near the chimney. He had appeared the moment Larpskendya left. A fixture over the roof of the house ever since, he rarely moved. Rachel welcomed his presence. She trusted him without truly understanding why. It was a feeling about the spectrums all children now shared.
‘Brilliant, isn’t he,’ Eric said. ‘I could watch Albertus all day.’
‘You usually do,’ Rachel said, grinning. ‘I’ve been out here all morning, and I swear Albertus hasn’t moved. Not an eyelash.’
‘Why should he?’ Eric replied. ‘He will, if something interests him. Those ears of his are amazing, you know. They don’t just hear things; they can also pick up x-rays, gamma rays, radio emissions, all the wavelengths.’
‘Mmm, but why doesn’t he tell us what he’s thinking? It’s unnerving, the way the spectrums are so quiet all the time. We’ve heard nothing since their first message.’
‘When we need their advice, they’ll tell us soon enough,’ Eric said.
Clinging to Albertus were his two female thrill-seekers. They took turns to hold him aloft. On windy days they held his hair to keep it out of his eyes. Occasionally they bathed his ears, keeping the surfaces free from dust or other particles.