Firewing (21 page)

“Come on, Griffin,” said Java, “I’ll keep pace with you.” Griffin pumped as fast as he could, streaking through the steep canyon. It couldn’t have been more than seven feet across … and closing. He concentrated on Luna and Yorick and Nemo up ahead, and beyond them the stars glinting in the open sky.
Get there
. He blinked as the spray thickened suddenly, and glanced over at the liquid walls. They were converging faster, and he wasn’t even halfway yet. Six feet across now.

“Quick as you can, Griffin,” Java told him.

“Go on ahead!” he told her. “Your wings!” Their span was five feet, and before long the walls would be clutching at the tips.

“I’ll keep pace with him,” Murk told Java. “You go on.” Griffin wasn’t crazy about being left alone with Murk, but there was no time for argument now. Java nodded and streaked over Griffin, pulling for the end of the canyon, mist spinning off her massive wings.

The walls were so narrow now that Griffin and Murk could no longer fly side by side. The Vampyrum pulled into the lead, looking back frequently over his wing to check on Griffin. The walls weren’t so much closing in now as collapsing, sending ever larger spills of water down their sides, swelling outwards.

Up ahead, Griffin saw Nemo streak clear, then Yorick and Luna, and then Java, tilting wildly so the walls wouldn’t crush her wings. The noise of the falls was deafening.

“I’m okay!” Griffin yelled when Murk looked back. “Go! You go ahead!” The walls were closing in on the Vampyrum’s three-foot wingspan, and he had no choice but to pull ahead, leaving Griffin alone.

“I’m okay,” Griffin said to himself now, eyes narrowed against the maelstrom of spray. He had to pull his wings in tight and it made him a bit tippy, but he was almost there. He saw everyone circling in the clear, waiting for him—the stars so bright. “Hey!” he called out. “Made it!”

The walls toppled, catching his left wing and dragging him back inside the waterfall. He plunged like a hailstone, drenched, the water battering every inch of his body, pounding at his skull until he was afraid he’d pass out but—

Miraculously, he was clear.

He was trapped inside the falls, circling frantically within a narrow shaft of air, water seething all around him. He looked up, hoping to see Java or Murk. How far had he been driven down? He called out, but his voice echoed dully and was instantly spirited away. He couldn’t stay still. The entire waterfall was moving slowly but steadily on its course across the Underworld, and he had to move with it. His stomach clenched, and he thought he was going to be sick.

“Hey!” he called again, veering away from a twisting spigot of water. “Java! Luna!”

He fluttered along through the watery maze, spraying sound straight up, making sure nothing was about to crash down on him. His ears pricked. Muffled voices wafted from all sides.

“
Griffin … Griffin … Griffin …”

Thank you, he thought, limp with relief. They were looking for him. “I’m here!” he called out. “Over here!”

Jaws plunged through a wall of mist, carrying with them a body and a ferocious set of wings. The Vampyrum’s rear claws sank into his back with a scalding coldness. Griffin flailed at the cannibal, but this time, his blows had no power. His wings crumpled as if they’d struck granite. Not strong anymore.

The Vampyrum bit.

Griffin felt the teeth plunge through the flesh and muscle of his shoulder, and he screamed. Not simply from the pain, but from the knowledge that this creature’s fangs were gouging deep into him, taking away part of his life.

“Zotz!” the Vampyrum roared. There was blood on his teeth.
My blood
, Griffin thought, staring in stunned horror. From his wounded shoulder suddenly sprang a coil of sound and light: his life, unwinding from his body.

“Hear me, my Lord!” bellowed the Vampyrum. “I have your sacrifice!”

At once Griffin felt a presence swirling around him, slow and powerful, pawing at him, lapping hungrily. Griffin could not fill his lungs to scream.

“This life,” shouted the Vampyrum to the unseen monster, “I release for you!”

He reared back, jaws open for the fatal bite, when Griffin saw a wisp of his glowing life touch the Vampyrum’s face. His nostrils flared greedily, and a tendril of the light was sucked in. Griffin heard the Vampyrum growl with pleasure, and at that moment, for a split second, the creature’s grasp loosened.

Griffin thrashed, ripping free and skidding against a wall
of water. His collision unleashed a small tidal wave against the Vampyrum, knocking him backwards. Whimpering, Griffin darted headlong down one crushingly narrow corridor after another, hoping the cannibal bat would be too big to get through. Strangely, there was no pain in his shoulder, and he glanced over hopefully. His vision swam with nausea. A blazing aura surrounded the ugly wound, blood trailing off the tips of his fur, spinning brightly into the water and blinking out like drowned fireflies.

Dead end. He whirled around and saw the cannibal flying straight for him. A sheet of water plunged down between them, sealing Griffin within a hollow shaft. But through the undulating fissures in the wall, he could still make out the dark shadows of the cannibal bat, circling, waiting.

“I can see you!” he heard it yell. “I can see your glow! And I’m going to wrench it from you and offer it up to my god!”

Nearly choking with fear, Griffin looked for escape. He could barely circle without his wings grazing the surging water that encased him. Slowly he started to spiral upwards, not making much progress, telling himself he was putting distance between himself and the cannibal.

“I’m still with you,” came its voice beyond the water, right near his ear.

He sprawled back in alarm. If only the wall behind him would dissolve so he could get away! He climbed higher, and to his horror, the slab of water between himself and the cannibal was beginning to thin, slivers opening all along its face. Behind him, too, the water was weakening, though not nearly enough for him to risk darting through.

Rain startled him, and he looked up and saw, directly overhead, a deluge plummeting towards him, carrying the weight of all the earth’s oceans. Wildly he looked at the water around
him, still thinning, but not fast enough. Through the cracks he saw the dark flash of the Vampyrum’s fur. The torrent overhead howled down, seconds away.

All at once the walls of water encircling him dried up. The Vampyrum angled himself, lifted his wings, and with a single powerful stroke, launched himself straight at Griffin’s throat. Griffin recoiled, flapping himself backwards, feet pummelling air and—

The waterfall from the stone sky hit the Vampyrum with a sickening
crack
, and he disappeared, driven down by its catastrophic force. “Griffin!”

He said nothing, afraid to speak now, in case some new terror was stalking him. “Griffin!”

He flinched as a small bat swooped towards him. Luna. She sucked air sharply through her teeth. “Your shoulder,” she said.

Numbly he stared at the wound, still glowing, leaking blood. He wasn’t thinking very well. Luna said something about everyone looking for him, and how they had to get out of here, and he followed her like an obedient newborn through the waterfall.

After a minute he realized the general roar was definitely behind them now, and the water fell less thickly; soon it was heavy rain, then a drizzle, then just mist—or maybe that was his own bleary eyesight. The pain had started in earnest now, inhabiting his whole left shoulder and wing, pounding in time with his heart.

“You okay? Griff?” Luna was saying to him, maybe for the second time. She seemed to be talking very loudly.

“Where are the others?” he asked, looking around. In the distance he saw the massive wall of water spilling from the heavens, moving away from them now.

“We’ll find them,” Luna said.

As Luna called out for Java and Nemo and Yorick, Griffin stared at the strange new landscape spread before him. Gouged from the plains was a network of shallow valleys whose walls glowed with bands of phosphorescent stone. From the valley floor rose countless stone towers, some tapering to a single sharp spire, others craggy and misshapen, some flat-topped. All of them were notched with many small entrances.

“Griff,” Luna was saying, “we’ve got to go look for them, okay?”

“I’ve got to land.” His stomach clenched, and he vomited. “Oh, no,” he said, starting to cry. All his water.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Luna. “You’re just tired. Let’s have a rest. Looks like there’re plenty of places down there.”

Griffin angled down into one of the valleys, aiming for a conical stone tower with a broad ledge cut into the side. He came in too heavily and fell on his wounded shoulder with a cry of pain. It was still bleeding freely, and he watched as a fat drop of blood hit the stone and sizzled before being sucked up. Griffin clenched his teeth to stop them chattering.
Stop bleeding
, he told himself.

“The elders will know what to do,” he mumbled.

“What?” said Luna.

“They know how to do things with leaves and berries and stuff,” Griffin said, wondering why Luna kept wobbling in and out of focus. The glowing walls of the valley were moving, accelerating past him with terrific speed.

“They should’ve saved you, too,” Griffin told Luna thickly. “I thought they were going to. Guess they didn’t have enough berries and stuff.”

“Griffin?” Luna was saying to him insistently. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just stay still.”

Then the world undulated and crumpled up.

The soaring walls were carved with so many niches and ledges that at first Griffin thought he was inside a tree. Holes overhead let in shafts of brilliant starlight. Bats roosted everywhere, talking and grooming themselves, just like in Tree Haven at sunrise. He was on all fours, lying on a bed of smooth stones. Just lifting his head was exhausting. Cold lapped through him. Pressed close to his side, Luna watched him.

“Hey,” she said. “You picked a good place to pass out. Turns out there’s a big colony down here. They seem pretty friendly. They helped me carry you inside one of the towers. Even got these stones for you so you’d be more comfortable. I think they’re a little freaked out by your glowing.”

Griffin saw that most of the bats—every species under the moon, it seemed—were staring at him, whispering amongst themselves.

“I think they’ve sent for their elder,” Luna said.

“What about Java?”

Luna just shook her head. “They’ll be looking for us. Java wouldn’t go on without us. How do you feel?”

“Weak.” He lifted his wing and was punished with a slash of pain through his shoulder and chest. The wound was still bleeding, though not quite as freely, and the surrounding area was raised and scorched-looking. “I don’t think I can fly like this.”

“You just need some more rest.”

“Ah, so this is the glowing newborn.” The voice came from overhead as three bats fluttered into the tower and roosted on the wall overlooking Griffin and Luna.

“My name’s Dante,” said a male with a broad collar of bright fur around his shoulders and chest. “I’m one of the elders here.” When he flared his large pale ears, the starlight backlit the tracery of fine veins in their skin, making them flash silver. His nose was a shape Griffin hadn’t seen before, a bit bulbous, but he was surprised at Dante’s fur. It was sort of like his, alternating streaks of bright and dark all across the back and chest. Dante’s quick eyes darted over every inch of Griffin, and he gave a little shake of his head.

“I wish I had something to heal your wound, but this world, as you know, is not concerned with the living.”

“You know, then,” said Griffin, surprised. He’d worried they would be like the Oasis bats, still convinced they were alive and that he was some kind of demonic ghoul.

Dante smiled, amused. “Oh, yes. We all know where we are and
what
we are. But it’s not often we see one of the living. Occasionally there is an earthquake in the Upper World, and some unlucky bat gets dragged down a fissure and dumped here.”

“That’s what happened to me, exactly!” said Griffin.

“And me, too,” Dante told him. “Over a thousand years ago.”

Griffin stared in confusion. “And—”

“Yes, I died down here.”

“But why haven’t you gone to the Tree?”

“I decided to stay.”

“Here?” Griffin said, unable to keep the squeak of amazement from his voice. He looked at all the bats roosting on the stone walls of the tower: hundreds, presumably more in the other roosts. They were
choosing
to stay in the Underworld?

Dante laughed. “I take it you find this an unappealing idea.”

“But the Tree …” He looked in confusion at Luna. Was it possible that Dante didn’t understand the Tree was a portal to a new world?

“We know that many of the dead choose to enter the Tree,” said Dante, “and we wish them well. But we prefer to make our home here.”

“But I thought we were all meant to go,” Luna said. “That’s what Frieda said.”

“Yes, we know Frieda well, and before her, the hundreds of other elder Pilgrims who have spread their message across the Underworld.”

“You don’t believe her?” Griffin asked, icy doubt beginning to creep through him.

Dante looked away thoughtfully. “This will sound terrible to you. From our highest tower in the valley I can see the Tree’s glow—and believe me, I have stared at it and thought about it a great deal in the centuries I have been here. We have seen countless bats stream across the sky towards it, and talked to many, said goodbye to most, and welcomed a few to remain with us. Facts are all I trust. And it’s a fact that once a bat enters the Tree, he does not come out again.”

“Because they go to the new world,” said Luna impatiently.

“Perhaps. But how do you know? You might believe. But you do not
know
.”

Griffin shifted uncomfortably, his shoulder and wing pounding. Dante was right. Not even Frieda had been able to tell him what awaited them on the other side of the Tree.

“We all grew up thinking Nocturna was looking over us,” said Dante. “We never saw her, she never spoke to us. We assumed she was good and kind and cared for our well-being, but who is to know? And if she even exists, who knows what she meant for us in our deaths? Perhaps what awaits us beyond the Tree is worse than this place.”

“Couldn’t be!” said Griffin.

Dante tilted his head thoughtfully. “You may be right. Perhaps the Tree contains a world fabulous beyond our comprehension. But it may also be a place of total death that puts an end to all movement, all thought, all consciousness.”

Griffin shuddered, thinking of the terrible river of silence.

“What the Tree holds is a question we can never answer,” Dante said. “Whereas we know
exactly
what we have here. And we are happy with it.”

“You are?” Luna said.

“When I first died, I felt much the same as you. But I spent years travelling this world, and there is beauty in it. Perhaps not the same kind as we once knew. But it is still a place of wonders. The seas of sand, the waterfall you must have passed through to reach our valley, the dazzling play of starlight, the glow of these rock formations we chose to roost within. But these are not the main reasons we stay. All of us here have one thing in common: we are content in our deaths.”

Griffin looked at Luna, uncomprehending. How could anyone be happy being dead? It was the worst thing imaginable.

“Strange as it may seem,” Dante said, “with death also comes the death of fear. Fear is the greatest tyrant of all in our lives. It makes us greedy, selfish, violent. Here, we don’t have to worry about food, or the elements, or predators.”

“What about the Vampyrum?” Luna asked.

“They never bother us here. The waterfall’s passage encircles us and seems to protect us. Or perhaps we’ve just been happily forgotten. We’re left to ourselves entirely, and we want for nothing. Best of all, we have each other for companionship, and we have an eternity to talk and think about the universe.”

“But not be a part of it,” said Luna coldly.

“How is what we have here any less part of the universe than the Upper World, or any possible world to come? Life and freedom are in the mind. Where else do things exist?”

“I want to smell things and eat things and see real things,” muttered Luna angrily.

“Here we get to be our truest selves,” Dante told her.

“I’m nothing like my real self here,” Luna said.

“That’s because you haven’t accepted what you are. In time you will, and then know perfect peace.”

Griffin said nothing, but he was listening intently. He felt so tired of this journey, of always being afraid. Afraid of dying. Afraid of everything. What a relief it would be just to stop being afraid. To free his mind of all those might’s and could’s and would’s that beat down at him like a perpetual hail. He looked around the inside of the stone tower, and saw bats roosting happily together in little groups: males and females and newborns, just like families.

“Dying here is nothing to be afraid of,” Dante was saying to him. “A blink of the eyes. No pain. And then an eternity of peace.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Luna said tersely. “He just needs some more sleep.”

“His wounds won’t heal,” Dante replied. “Mine didn’t.” “He’ll be
fine
,” she insisted.

Dante gave a gracious nod. “You are welcome to stay as long as you need to.” “Won’t be long,” Luna muttered.

Griffin felt numbingly tired, and the cold of his wound seemed to have gone deeper into his body. Pain with every heartbeat. Another drop of blood slid from his fur and hit the stone ledge, sparking light before it disappeared with a
hiss
. With a quiet dreadful certainty, he knew he would die if he didn’t escape soon. But was the Tree really an escape, after all? All he wanted right now was the oblivion of sleep.

He opened his eyes with a start and saw Luna beside him.

“Am I—”

“Don’t worry,” she said, and looked genuinely relieved. “You’re still alive. But we should get going now.”

“Can’t I just sleep a bit more?”

“You’ve already been asleep a while.” Luna looked away, sighed, then said, “Griff, you don’t look so good.”

“This is supposed to surprise me?”

“Your glow.”

“What about it?”

“It’s fading. When you were sleeping, it was almost … maybe it was just me, but it would lift off your body a little bit, like it did when the bats attacked you.”

“Oh,” he said numbly.

“Come on, Griff, up you get!”

The Tree. Just another journey. And what if it led nowhere at all, or somewhere worse. He remembered the monstrous burning
image from Frieda’s map. Go inside and maybe they’d just be turned to ashes. He looked at all the other bats, contentedly roosting within their stone tree, grooming one another, talking. They could talk forever here. He liked talking. He was good at it. Luna said so. He’d fit right in.

“Do you think my father’s even alive?” he asked her.

“If he is, he’ll make it out. If he’s dead, there’s nothing we can do about it. Either way, he’d want you to get out.”

But Griffin knew there was something more holding him back.

“Maybe I should stay with you,” he said desperately.

“What d’you mean? I’m not staying here!”

“It just doesn’t seem fair if I get to go home, and you don’t.”

“Come on, Griff, that’s silly!”

“How about this,” he said, the words spilling out almost faster than his thoughts. “I die here, then we’ll go together, okay? Into the Tree. We’ll end up in exactly the same place. You won’t be alone. It’s only fair!”

“What’s all this stuff about
fair
?”

“‘Cause it’s my fault you’re dead!” he blurted. He couldn’t hold it back from her any longer. It was choking him, like something caught in his throat. In his heart.

“What’re you talking about?” she said quietly.

“I dropped fire on you.”

“But you said—”

“No. We were stealing fire. My idea, so I could impress everyone, and I was carrying a burning stick from the Humans’ fire in my claws. But it burned down faster than I thought, and I was worried I was going to get scorched, and I dropped it. I dropped it right on top of you, and you caught fire.” Luna said nothing, staring past him.

“Luna?” Griffin said miserably. It wasn’t just the guilt, the
deception, that had made him tell. It was something selfish, too. He wanted to confess, to be free of it; he wanted her to tell him it was okay.

“So you didn’t know I was underneath you,” she said dully.

“I can’t remember,” he said, feeling desperately unhappy, “I don’t know.”

“You just felt it burning your claws, so you dropped it.” She was so calm and understanding. He’d hoped it would be this way. She would understand and tell him not to worry about it.

“It just happened. I didn’t even think about it. I just opened my claws and it fell.”

“You didn’t have time to check underneath.”

“No.”

“You couldn’t have taken a split second just to look?” Griffin stared at her, not breathing.

“You couldn’t have just
flicked
it off to the side so it wouldn’t hit me?”

“I … I guess I could’ve …” he stammered. “I didn’t think—” She laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh, not the kind she always made back home. “This is so
unfair!
I got killed because you were too gutless to look or hold on a second longer!”

“I’m sorry. I know. It was terrible.” He’d wanted to make it disappear somehow. But there was no getting away from himself, from what he was and always would be: a coward. How could he have expected her to forgive him?

“Lightning would have been okay,” she said, “and getting hit by a burning branch, that was a good story, Griffin. But some stupid accident like
this?
And
I’m
the one who dies! And you’re alive! And you don’t even
want
to be alive! You just want to stay here with these other dead bats!” She was shouting even louder
now, flanks heaving, and for the first time in his life, Griffin felt afraid of her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. She whirled on him. “You don’t want it? Give it to me!”

“What?”

“Your life! It’s mine, anyway. I want it back!”

“Luna—”

She pounced, batting him with her wings. “‘Cause of you, I’ll never see my mother again, I’ll never get to be alive again!”

He couldn’t bring himself to fight back; it felt wrong. She was so angry, and he deserved it—he just tensed up into a ball, flattened his ears, wings wrapped around himself, taking her blows.

“You and your stupid glow!” she was shouting. “I want that glow!”

He felt her teeth yanking at the fur between his shoulders, then bite deeper. He thought of his aura, lifting from his body, and fear pumped through him.

“Luna! Stop it, Luna, you’re hurting me!”

“It’s not fair!” she wailed, thrashing at him again and again. “You think dying solves your problems? That’s just
giving up!
”

“Like you in the cave!” Griffin shouted back. “Remember? You wanted to give up, too!”

One of her claws gouged his wounded shoulder, sending a terrifying jolt of pain through his whole being. Without thinking he thrust open his wings and bared his teeth, hissing. She scrambled back a few wingspans, staring, panting. She looked as though she’d just woken from a nightmare.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, Griffin … I’m sorry.” Her face crumpled.

“It’s okay.”

“No.” She was wagging her head in horror. “That was disgusting. I can’t believe I … just like those bats back in Oasis.”