by Cliff McNish
The deaths were something the infants understood, feared. For a while they left Rachel in peace. She felt like crying, realizing how frail she was. She had always made noble resolutions about never using the deaths – yet as soon as a single infant threatened her, all those noble resolutions had evaporated.
She thought about Eric – but there was barely time even for that. The infants returned, and there were more than ever. They no longer feared her silver eyes, or the incandescence of the eye-chamber. They knew her defences were beginning to fail. Rachel found herself shaking. Several of her finest spells rose to inspire her. The deaths did what they did best: they imagined deaths. They could devise so many for the inexperienced infants – a nearly infinite number – and Rachel felt dirty as she selected amongst them. But she selected nonetheless.
Finally there came a point when Rachel could think of no other way to hold the infants back except with the deaths. She stood in the eye-tower, surrounded by Griddas. Some had started to rake her thighs. Her deaths clamoured to be set free. Rachel withheld them with difficulty.
Give me another choice, she demanded.
Her magic had never failed her before, not when her life was threatened. It looked out into the night and snow and cold and knew what to do. Rachel forced her way to a corner of the chamber. She initiated the spell.
The infants had not witnessed anything like this before. Rachel raised her arms, warning them back. Then a new light shot from her eyes, raising its blaze from the walls, from the floor, from the shards of glass, from the air itself, sucking out everything a Gridda could breathe. The chamber flickered orange the remainder of the night.
For the first time in its long history, a fire burned in Heebra’s eye.
Eric sagged against a stone wall. The prapsies were either side of his face. He could feel their eyes on him, and the racy pitter-patter of their hearts.
His prison cell was a rough circular hole gouged from the rock beneath Thûn. No magic held him there. The rock was enough; none of the sophisticated spells needed to contain Yemi or Rachel were needed for Eric.
For a long time he had been sitting against the wall, trying to stay awake. He didn’t dare fall asleep. This was the first break in the night Gultrathaca had given him. Why? To tease him? To lull him before the next attack? He wanted to sleep. He wanted more than anything to blank out everything that had happened to him here, but how could he forget all those Witches he had hurt?
Gultrathaca’s experiments had started the moment Eric entered the cell.
The first test involved a native magical animal he had never seen before – some kind of dog. Gultrathaca herself let it in. By the time it saw Eric the animal had been deliberately whipped into a frenzy. As soon as Gultrathaca opened the door, the dog attacked.
Eric had no time to think. Without considering the consequences of his actions, he turned the entire scope of his anti-magic on the dog. He had not done this before. He had never even thought to do it. Normally he only cancelled single spells. This time, in his panic, he went much further. The dog was a simple predator – using spells only to increase its bite.
It was no match for Eric.
In his terror he reached for all the spells. He stripped away the sum of the dog’s magic. He took everything. What occurred next shocked him and intrigued Gultrathaca. The dog’s body, in mid-lunge, seemed to lose all potency. It flopped to the floor, no longer able to lift its head. Without magic, the dog lay panting in weak confusion.
Next came other magical animals, too many to count.
Then Gultrathaca sent against him something altogether grander: a Witch; a High Witch, one of those imprisoned. Eric had no idea what made that first one fly at him with such recklessness. The prapsies were ready, and tried their usual distractions.
‘Come after us!’ one squealed, flying around the cell.
‘Come for us, beast!’
‘Come for us!’
Against animals, this tactic sometimes worked. They became uncertain about the target, giving Eric enough time to disable their magic without harming them too much.
Against a High Witch it could never work.
She ignored the prapsies and went straight for Eric.
Like all High Witches, this one abounded with magic. Magic suffused her body. It riddled her mind and ensnared her heart. It was the dazzling foundation of her strength and the catalyst for her formidable intellect. The one who flew at Eric had been alive seven centuries. All that time she had lived intimately with her spells. She had used them for so long that she could do nothing without their affections.
Eric shuddered, recalling what happened next. Why had she flown at him with such insane energy? Why couldn’t she have paused, just for a moment? There had been no time to argue or think. In self-preservation Eric reached deep inside her and scooped out all of her magic. In dismay he watched as her powerful body slowly unravelled in front of him.
More High Witches had followed, often several at a time, as Gultrathaca attempted to discover Eric’s limitations. All the Witches came flying wildly into his cell, but after his initial panic Eric adjusted to what Gultrathaca threw his way. He stopped needing to kill the Highs. He found adroit ways of selecting certain spells to disarm them without serious injury.
For over an hour there had been a stalemate, while Gultrathaca wondered what to try next.
Eric lay down, his face against the stone floor. It was cold, but not so cold that he shivered – clearly Gultrathaca wanted him alive.
The prapsies pressed close to Eric’s heart, consoling themselves in its beat. The contact was wonderful for Eric, too, but he wouldn’t tell them so. He wanted them to leave. He wanted them to escape. It would have been easy enough. The roof of the cell was open, ten feet or so away. Eric could not climb the sheer walls, but the prapsies could be out and past any number of guards in a second. It was only their love for him that kept them in the cell.
Eric lay quietly, feeling their little hearts thud against his chest. Another hour passed and their rhythmic beat lulled him.
‘We’ll keep lookout,’ one prapsy whispered. ‘You sleep, boys.’
‘You need to sleep as well,’ Eric murmured.
‘We will. We are. Each at a time.’ One of the prapsies lay on Eric’s chest and closed its eyes; the other walked in circles around him.
‘All right,’ Eric said. ‘We’ll take turns. One hour, that’s enough. Then wake me and I’ll keep watch.’
‘Yes.’
Eric fell into an exhausted slumber almost at once. When he was breathing deeply, the prapsy pretending to sleep on him rose and stared at the doorway. For the remainder of the night both prapsies stayed silent and vigilant, leaving Eric to rest.
While Eric slept and the prapsies kept watch, the snow-like Essa brooded in the south of Ool. What had happened today, what wonderful thing? They had intercepted the most extraordinary beings. Not Griddas, not those bony spider-lovers. Not even the uncatchable High Witches, long gone from the skies. New things. Unfurred, small, lithe things. Without armour! Frail, keen to love, yet … travellers with Griddas. What were they? Friend or enemy? Friend! Friend! The Essa thought so, but they were always hopeful. How could they find out more?
Poor Detaclyver – so old and tired, so beaten back. So loving. If they asked him he would not let them go to the strangers. He would say they are too expectant. He would say they do not heed their own lives enough. ‘Send us out! Send us out!’ they would beg. ‘It is too far,’ he would say. ‘You cannot make the distance to Thûn.’ He would withhold his mighty breath and not let them go. ‘We can! We can!’ they would say. He would say – ‘No!’
But how long had it been since there was any hope at all for Detaclyver?
No one else could make such a long trip. The Essa shivered in the summits of the Detaclyver, convincing themselves. They did not know if they could travel so far and still have the strength to return. But still – the strangers!
One whole night away. A terri
ble journey. Could they do it?
Without the breath of the Detaclyver, the Essa left.
They floated northwards, in small bunches so that they did not attract attention. The winds were against them, but they were determined. Quietly, hiding in the night snow, they passed by the storm-whirls. They travelled high over the Prag Sea and the cold plains beyond. As they neared Thûn many of the Essa were too tired to carry on, and returned home to the Detaclyver, but others continued their journey.
They passed over millions of infant Griddas bedded down together in the tunnels under Thûn. They passed over the imprisoned High Witches, where Calen lay in the filth of her cell, wondering about the choices she had made. They passed over Fola and Yemi. Griddas were in constant attendance at the Assessment Chamber – even now, in the night, casting and recasting their spells to keep him from escaping.
Yemi was held too deep for the Essa to help, so they rode the winds instead over Heebra’s tower. They could not miss it, that orange lustre in the night. As the Essa approached they saw the taller stranger with long hair standing her ground, wide-eyed, guarding herself against the infants. Many of the Essa were almost frozen when they hurried towards the fire. The first to arrive nearly flew into the flames. Just in time they held back and stared into that wonder, warming their tiny wings. To be so close, yet unable to help! The Essa could not wait to tell the Detaclyver, but aspired to greater things first.
They searched for the second stranger.
Where was he? No way to tell, since he had no magical scent. So the Essa crept into all the Gridda caves, passing the sleepy tunnel sentries. A few Essa became lost and could not find their way out at all. Even fewer found the hole where the boy sat guarded by two strange flighted creatures. They drifted warily next to the prapsies.
The prapsies hopped from foot to foot, wondering what to do.
The Essa touched their baby faces and felt for their minds. ‘Can you carry him?’ they asked.
‘He is too heavy,’ whimpered one prapsy.
The Essa landed on Eric and tested his weight. ‘Yes, too much,’ they said.
It was nearly dawn. Snowflakes so deep down in the world would be seen in the light. They wanted to stay with the second stranger and comfort him, but there was no time. They must get back to tell Detaclyver. He would know what to do.
Were they too tired? Nearly day – and they were so tired. If the wind had changed direction they would never be able to battle back.
Kissing the prapsies, kissing Eric and each other, the Essa rose up the cell walls.
16
Storm-Whirls
With the arrival of daybreak the infants surrounding Heebra’s tower drifted back to their underground tunnels to rest. Rachel was almost too weary to notice. Left alone in the chamber at last she extinguished the fire, found a place to relieve herself and massaged her aching legs. A few spiders ran about the floor, left to perish by their negligent young owners. Rachel crawled away from them and lay down. Somehow, she slept.
Shortly afterwards, Gultrathaca entered the eye-tower. She watched Rachel for a while, watched her chest rise and fall. Finally she dropped some food on one of her hands. The food was alive: a rodent.
Waking, Rachel swiped it away.
Gultrathaca picked the rodent up by its tail. She offered it again. ‘Squeamish? Disgusted? It is the same food my Griddas are eating.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘But you need it. How can you fight effectively if you have no strength?’
Rachel looked at the rodent. She was intensely hungry, but she knew that even if the rat-like animal was dead she could only eat it if she was starving. A Gridda wouldn’t hesitate, she realized. She’d eat anything. To have any chance against them, I need to be like that, Rachel thought. I need to be capable of eating this rat-thing.
She reached out her hand – then dropped it. She could not eat the rodent. As soon as she knew for certain, Rachel felt all her precarious courage failing her.
I’m not going to be able to live through this day, she thought. An image of Eric came into her mind and she nearly screamed. What had Gultrathaca said yesterday? Kill yourself, before we discover anything … Rachel asked her spells. She asked for those who would help her end her life. They retreated. Even her deaths retreated. None of the spells were willing; they loved her too much.
Gultrathaca dropped the rodent and let it run off to a corner. ‘You survived a night with the infants,’ she said. ‘Many of the pack-leaders did not expect that. I did not expect it.’
A compliment? Rachel ignored her. Standing upright, she straightened her body-suit. She thought of Heiki, of the spectrums, of Mum and Dad and everyone else on Earth whose existence might somehow depend on how she behaved today. She made herself look at Gultrathaca. ‘When will the trial start?’
‘Immediately. Unless you require a rest first.’
Yes, thought Rachel, that is what I need. Instead of that, she said, ‘If I survive the trial, what then?’
‘I think you know the answer.’
‘There’ll just be another trial, won’t there? And another. Until I’m dead.’
‘I’m glad you understand. I will give you a few moments to prepare yourself.’ Gultrathaca’s spiders followed her out of the eye-chamber.
When the last one skittered out, Rachel collapsed on the floor.
Could she escape? No. Not without being able to shift or fly or shape-change. In that case what should she do? Beg for mercy? How could an appeal to compassion work with Gultrathaca?
The best of Rachel’s spells tried to encourage her. They told her how proud they were of her, that they were ready, that they would not fail her. As Rachel listened to their words she wondered how she had ever survived without them, in the time before she knew of her magic.
Her deaths, however, spoke in a different fashion. After all, they said, she was being watched. Her trial was an opportunity for the Griddas to judge the capability of all children, not just her. Fight! they argued. There’ll probably be only one chance to impress. Call on all our resourcefulness!
Should she? The moment Rachel gave the deaths a fraction of her attention they rose into her mind like the killers they were. Perhaps, they said, if you fight ferociously, with enough flair and imagination and brutal directness, the Griddas might think again about challenging the children of Earth. Or at least they might delay, giving Heiki, the spectrums and sentinels longer to prepare. Isn’t that why you’re here? they said. Isn’t that why Albertus Robertson let you go, when it was the last thing he wanted?
Rachel listened. She wondered how many Griddas she would need to kill to impress Gultrathaca. Could she do it? Should she make friends with her deaths for a day? Rachel pushed hunger and weariness and excuses aside. She probed her heart. She tried to summon mercilessness there.
A group of watchers preceded the reappearance of Gultrathaca. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then follow me.’
As they descended the staircase Gultrathaca said, ‘I intend to make your first trial against a youngster.’
‘Not an infant,’ Rachel replied at once. ‘I want to face an adult.’
Gultrathaca nodded appreciatively.
As Rachel emerged from Heebra’s tower she saw that Griddas of all ages had assembled to observe the trial. Could Griddas recognize a human expression of fear? Rachel could not entirely hide it, but she did her best. Lifting her chin, holding herself erect, she strode across the snow.
Gultrathaca swept her arms wide. ‘Select an opponent.’
Rachel gazed around. To her all the Gridda faces were the same: massive, hard-edged, frightening. ‘Any opponent?’
‘Any.’
‘Then I select you, Gultrathaca.’
As soon as Rachel said the name her deaths rose like crude shadows in her eyes. She did not shut them out. She wanted Gultrathaca to see the deaths. She needed everything against this Gridda, the best and worst of her magic.
‘Well,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘An unexpected honour. I see your deaths are ready, even if you are not.’
Making sure as many Griddas heard as possible, Rachel said, ‘You have all the advantages, Gultrathaca. I’ve heard your talk about honour. If it means anything, let me choose the trial. I’ll fight you where the Detaclyver lives. I’ll fight you there.’
Gultrathaca hesitated, then saw the expectant eyes of the other Gridda pack-leaders on her. They understood the challenge Rachel had set.
‘I agree,’ Gultrathaca said. ‘A private contest, then. But I warn you, Rachel: you may think you have found a friend in the Essa, but they are no match for an experienced Gridda.’ Gultrathaca stepped back. A tight, exalted smile spread across her face. Across her jaws, her spiders ran in frenzy.
‘Give me my other spells back!’ Rachel demanded.
Gultrathaca touched her just under the eye. ‘Not everything,’ she said. ‘You can now fly again, but no shifting is possible, nor any shape-changing. I won’t have you escape that way. And if you try to fly anywhere except towards the Detaclyver you will be killed. We will both be escorted, watched.’ Gultrathaca chose a dozen adult Griddas to fly with them. Half surrounded Rachel. ‘Only one of us will be allowed to leave the Detaclyver alive. If you use any spells before we are within the Detaclyver the escorts will kill you. Are you ready?’
No, Rachel thought.
‘Yes!’ she shouted.
Gultrathaca sucked in all her spiders and lurched into the brightening sky.
Thrusting their powerful haunches southwards, the Gridda escort led the way. They crossed the city border. Flying in rhythm, they entered the hinterlands of the snow plains of Ool. For a while some infants thrashed behind, trying to keep up, but their immature magic was no match for the older Griddas, and they soon fell behind, their anguished cries piercing the clouds for miles.