Shadow Spell (32 page)

His calculations had been meticulous and so the step was only a small one to make sure he didn't overshoot. There was a moment of freezing fogginess and then a jolt as they stopped.

‘Just as I thought,' said Strood.

They were standing on a single ridge of rock, like a raised pathway stretching across the nothingness. A way behind them, the Raw hung like a luminous curtain, its surface shifting restlessly, as if it didn't like being on the edge of death. Their one ridge ran out of it, its rocky surface topped with a faint layer of mist that Jibbit could barely see.

‘There you are,' said Strood cheerfully. ‘It would take that days to dissolve these boots away. Or the compass for that matter.'

‘Where does it go?'

‘Ah. Good question. Right across the Heart, I believe. You see, the mud creature, the so-called new Fabulous,'
he chuckled to himself, ‘had to have cut across the Heart somehow to reach the Redstone girl in time to be part of our little story, and being made of mud he couldn't use the river. So, even though you told me that there was nothing here in the heart of the Heart, I knew there had to be a way across.'

They were both quiet for a moment, stone and madman, standing together on the single thread of rock that ran across the heart of the Heart. Around them the emptiness was so complete that Jibbit thought it would crush him with the weight of its dark, silent nothing. Though it had to be somewhere nearby, he couldn't even hear the river, its great rushing was swallowed up in the emptiness. To distract himself he looked down at their path of rock and wondered where it went before it reached the other side of the Heart.

‘Well,' said Strood briskly. ‘It's been interesting. I'm glad I stopped off, and not just because I have a task to perform here.'

‘A task?'

‘Vengeance to wreak, that kind of thing. You see, there is always a gap between legend and the truth. According to the story, Vispilio will die if no Quick puts the ring on within … say … a few days. Frankly I think that any evil genius worth his salt would not take a risk quite that stupid. I suspect that in reality he could last for years sealed in that ring. Centuries even. Until someone found him. So, I will make sure that no one ever does.'

Jibbit gulped.

Strood held him out over the edge of the path, dangling him over the void. The ring, tied to the gargoyle's wings, clinked against his stony back.

‘I would say it's been nice knowing you, but frankly I couldn't give a damn. You are, to me, just a handy weight.'

And then Strood let go.

He watched for a moment as the gargoyle fell, plummeting down into the darkness. It made no noise and Strood's last glimpse was of its stony eyes and beak opened wide with shock and of its paws, spread out and waving wildly. The tied-on ring glinted once, shining out with a red light that soon dwindled to a tiny spark in the darkness before it vanished altogether.

Arafin Strood smiled. ‘For the wolves, Ava,' he said, ‘for the wolves. May you fall forever.'

And then he took a step, the travelling boots whirled him away and he was gone.

Jibbit had no time to cry out. His last glimpse was of Strood's face watching him as he fell, a red light flaring in his quartz eye and a smile playing across his thin lips.

The feeling of shock wore off quickly enough and after a few minutes Jibbit got used to falling. He wasn't afraid of hitting the bottom because there wasn't one. Even so, he didn't fancy the idea that the falling could last forever. He felt it might get boring after a few years.
It was already quite dull.

He took stock of his surroundings. Up – nothing. Down – nothing. To the left – nothing. To the right – the side of the ridge rushing past him revealed only by the faint haze of Raw clinging to its irregular surface. He had a nasty feeling that it would only rush past him for a few miles before it ran out altogether and then there would be nothing on that side too.

The thought terrified him into action. He flailed with his paws, trying to catch on to the bumps and folds of the rock. Instead he managed to turn his body over so that he was facing down instead of up. Now he could sense the nothing rushing up to meet him, could FEEL the point at which the rock ran out. Then there would be only him and the ring in the middle of all that eternity.

Now he hooted at the top of his voice.

He flailed again and managed to spin over, end to end. Something caught him hard in the back and redhot pain flared through him. He spun giddily, and then whacked into the wall, front side against the rock and face down towards the void. Even through the agony, the knowledge of what was ahead if he failed made him stick out his paws and shove his beak in, using them as a kind of break to slow him down. He slithered and clung on, his front paws ploughing into the cliff face and sending chips of rock flying into the void. He slowed. A bump came up, like a mini-ledge, and at last he ground to a halt, his front paws and beak
jammed against the jutting edge, his eyes staring wildly over it into the emptiness spinning away below him.

And something else too. Still falling, turning over and over in the air as it plunged on into the darkness, was a lump of rock. His wings! Broken off, he realised, when he had smashed into the cliff the first time. Tied to them, glinting with a red light that held something of rage and something of sheer terror, was the ring. It glimmered, a spark that dwindled fast and then was gone, swallowed up in forever.

Tears leaked from Jibbit's eyes as he hugged the wall of rock, working his fingers and toes deeper in even as he wept. He stayed like that for a while, face down towards the darkness, until the shock and panic wore off. Then he took stock. The damage to his back was not too bad. Although he couldn't see the ragged, lumpy mess left by his broken wings, he knew that he hadn't been cracked through because he was clearly holding together. His top half was still joined to his bottom half and that, when you got right down to it, was the thing that mattered. He had lost a finger, and possibly a couple of toes and his beak felt chipped, but he was basically whole.

Next he looked at the Raw nibbling at the face of the rock wall he was clinging to. The Raw was taking a long time about eating the rock away, probably because of all the nothing that was in turn eating away the Raw. The Raw didn't seem to be doing any damage to Jibbit at all,
and he wondered if the dose of Quick soaked into his stony being was offering some protection. It was cold, he knew that. Any creature of flesh would be facing frostbite, but Jibbit wasn't a creature of flesh.

Satisfied that he was in no immediate danger, Jibbit inched the fingers of his right front paw over a little. He followed with the toes of his left back paw. Then he shifted his left fingers over, followed by his right toes and so on until he had turned right round and was facing up. Then, quickly regaining his confidence, Jibbit began to climb.

He climbed for a long time up the pitted, ice-cold face of the rock until finally he made it to the ridge that led through the heart of the Heart. From there he went on, hurrying across the terrible nothing, trying not to notice the way the silence was so utterly silent.

At last he reached the other side, where the Raw thickened again and other ridges reared up on either side, spiralling away across the scarred and pitted Land. On this side of the nothing, he could hear the eerie voice of the river and suddenly he remembered. When they had been travelling through the Raw on their rafts, they had passed something that loomed over the banks of the river.

Something amazing.

Something that reached the sky.

Looking up, Jibbit saw it, rearing through the mist in a tower of towers, light grey against the white and most definitely there. Although he had conquered his fear of
the ground, it didn't mean he wasn't longing to be high again. And what was ahead was most certainly high.

Jibbit's heart leapt with joy and he hurried on towards it.

Nin had woken up feeling well, but as fragile as glass. Her memory of the last day was back too, and although it was painful and frightening to think about Seth, Vispilio and the skinkin, sleep had put some distance between her and the events and that helped to keep the horrors at bay.

As soon as she had told about seeing Morgan Crow and about his prediction, Taggit had bundled them all into a cart belonging to one of the townsfolk. The cart was harnessed to an ancient horse that seemed to Nin to be all bone structure and nostrils topped off with a worn-down ridge of mane. It set off at a brisk pace, taking them to find Simeon Dark.

The Dancing Circle was high on a range of hills that lay between Hilfian and the remains of the Savage Forest. They had long ago rattled through a narrow pass in the lower hills to the north of the town, curved around the wall of Raw and headed east. For some time the land had been rising steadily, although the slope was gentle enough not to slow the cart down by more than
a little. It was getting steeper though.

‘Accordin' to Crow, the last sorcerer will arrive at the Circle before the sky turns black,' said Taggit. ‘But that don't mean Dark will be himself. He'll still be in disguise.'

‘But we'll know him
because he's there
, right? And once we know him, the spell will break and it will all work out.' Nin frowned. ‘I suppose the sky turning black means night falling?' she went on doubtfully, adding a sharp ‘ow' as the cart rattled over an extra bumpy bit.

She sent a glance up at the sky, currently a soft-looking blue spotted here and there with patches of cloud like becalmed ships, then touched the shadow spell around her arm, feeling its cool and silky spiral shift restlessly. Ever since she had woken up it had been edgy, as if it knew the search might be coming to an end.

Taggit gave her a questioning look. ‘What else could it be?'

‘I don't know, but it's a prediction isn't it? And predictions shouldn't be that tidy.'

‘She's got a point,' said Jonas. He looked pale and Nin guessed that the wound in his side – mostly healed by Galig's magic, but still tender – was not responding well to being thrown about in a wooden-wheeled cart.

‘After all,' he went on, ‘look at “a tide of golden darkness”. Hardly clear, and yet it was perfect for Strood's tiger-man army.'

‘Dik fikik tik skikik.'

‘Eh? Oh yeah. The skinkin. I guess “carrying death to
one” about covers that, right?' Nin looked thoughtful. ‘And wasn't there something about “when there is life again in the Heart, so shall the lost be found and the ruined made whole”. No wait! That was Azork just trying it out.'

‘Erm, guys,' said Jonas suddenly. His voice had an edge to it. ‘Call me daft, but I think the sky is due to turn black sooner than tonight. Look, on the horizon and headed this way!'

Jonas was right. Along the eastern skyline, in the direction they were travelling stretched a thin band of inky darkness.

‘It doesn't look like normal rain clouds,' said Nin, ‘but I can't put my finger on why.'

‘It's not the Storm.' Jonas spoke firmly.

‘Whatever it is, it's comin' this way fast,' said Taggit softly, ‘and when it gets here the sky is gonna turn black all right.' He pulled the horse to a standstill. ‘Thank Galig, we're nearly at the Dancing Circle, but we can't take the cart up this last slope, it's too rough. We'll have to hurry if we want to make it before
that
does!'

‘What I wanna know,' muttered Stanley, ‘is what Strood's gonna do next? Somefin' nasty, o' course, but what?'

He was studying the wheel ruts cut into the grass in front of them. He and Dunvice had survived the long night after the battle by hiding out in a hut on the edge
of town. Now they were following the tracks of the cart carrying the Redstone girl and her friends.

Dunvice snorted irritably, as if she didn't care.

‘Yore just as scared of ‘im as the rest of us,' grumbled Stanley – recklessly in view of her current mood.