The Beasts of Upton Puddle (39 page)

Tabariel, who was sitting next to Danariel on the top of his dragon's head, swiveled round to look down at Joe.

“The Mourning Gorge, though some call it the Gate of Sorrows.”

“Great,” said Joe, “so I should expect to have plenty of fun when we get there.”

“At least you'll be with friends again,” said Danariel.

Warmth filled Joe when he thought of Mrs. Merrynether and the others waiting for them—but only for a moment. Anger gushed back with the memory of how the old lady had got him into this situation. Danariel too. He looked at the seraph, and when she turned to look at him, he knew she could feel his pain. He wanted to say something, wanted to tell her just how betrayed he felt, but there was such a depth of compassion in her eyes that his anger slid away like salt through a sieve.

“Lie flat. Cover your head,” said Tabariel, and at once they were crashing through the leafy layers, branches cracking away from them as exotic birds scattered in panic. A jolt, followed by four nearby thuds told Joe all five dragons had landed.

They stood at the edge of a chasm, peering into unfathomable depths.

As it had so many times before, Joe's curiosity got the better of him. “I know I said I didn't want to know earlier, but . . . is it really haunted?”

Two answers came from both seraphim at the same time.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Joe pressed his lips together and squinted at each of them in turn. “Why do people
believe
it's haunted?”

Tabariel fluttered upward, then stared into the blackness. “Nobody has been there in many years and with good reason. The last time a seraph came here looking for alternative nesting grounds for her dragon, she went mad. She spoke of . . . of humanlike creatures that stood before her one moment and were gone the next. And their disembodied wailing was so disturbing that she fled in terror. After she told the Conclave, she never spoke again and slowly degenerated into a reclusive soul that eventually starved her dragon of life.”

“A ghost story. That's all that was.” Danariel sniffed.

“What do you think is in there, then?” Joe asked.

“I have my suspicions.”

Joe waited, hoping for more.

Danariel glanced at Tabariel, then looked away. “It doesn't matter, but we'll find out soon enough, won't we?”

One of the other dragons swooped from the edge of the chasm, its leathery wings stretched out, riding the thermals, circling downward into the darkness as it looked for signs of the entrance. It breathed a jet of fire on the other side of the gorge not far below, momentarily lighting up a teardrop-shaped gouge that split the slate-colored rock face into an opening large enough to hold Merrynether Mansion. Several tracks had been etched by years of water erosion from the forest above, making
natural but dangerous paths to the foreboding cavern. It looked as though the trees had wept for this great wound cut into the island.

“That's where we have to go,” said Danariel, drifting from the dragon's head and pointing toward the cave.

“No wonder they wanted to go there. It must be really hard to get to by foot. Do you think the others are really in there?”

“Let's find out.”

Tabariel nodded, remaining quiet, straight-faced, and seeming more than a little nervous.

They dropped to the teardrop cave, which was barely visible in the dim light of the gorge, and landed just within the gloomy mouth. Tabariel and Danariel, along with the other four seraphim, hovered inside, gingerly edging into the dark and lighting the mossy-green walls with their presence.

The five dragons fidgeted at the edge of the cavern, shifting their claws on the stony surface. Joe patted the side of Tabariel's dragon, trying to comfort the beast, but Tabariel shot an irritated look in his direction as if this was an unwelcome distraction.

As the six seraphim moved deeper inside, Joe stared at the smoothed walls at the edges of the cave, straining to see the details in the dim light. Something didn't look right, and it took him a few confused moments to work out what it was. Tiny trickles of water ran up the grooves in the wall, converging into bubbling streams, all
the way up to the surface. Up!

There was very little time to puzzle over this. Something green, wet, and extremely excited shot out from the darkness and smothered Joe with the zeal of a dog whose master had just brought back a bone the size of a whale.

Joe dismounted the dragon, laughing as he tried to fend off the exuberant globble and wiping slime from his left ear.

“Get off!”

“Flarp, you incommodious mollusk!” came a squeaky voice. “Much as I am cognizant of the attraction of familiarity regained, I must insist that you forsake this course of action and withdraw unless you wish to become the first unwilling victim of a most unsightly hecatomb.”

“Kiyoshi,” cried Joe as Flarp rushed backward into the cave, still watching him.

The monkey-headed tortoise waddled into view, surrounded by a group of dragons and seraphim all eager to greet Joe and his companions with relief and delight. Cornelius was among them, swishing his barbed tail with pleasure. All the animals previously held in Mrs. Merrynether's vault, with the exception of Snappel, who was out looking for the trolls with Mrs. Merrynether, were inside this new refuge.

“And the rest of you, please follow me,” said Kiyoshi.

Kiyoshi turned and led the way into the darkness. The
large shell bobbed along as the kappa continued inside, leading everyone down through a tall passage that eventually opened out into an even wider area. The walls were smooth and wet, and the ground no longer crunched under Joe's feet but squelched as though he were walking through a bog. The air, crisp and cool, was heavy with the strangest smell—an odor he recognized but couldn't quite place, like unwashed socks.

Shadows stretched and contracted, faded and sharpened, like phantoms fleeing from light as the seraphim flitted between the dragons. It was enough to unnerve the strongest of minds, and Joe could easily understand why this place had a spooky reputation, but it was not the smell or the shadows that bothered him so much as the feeling that he was being watched.

“Your return is as unexpected as it is gratifying, Joe,” said Kiyoshi, revealing his teeth.

“Thank you, Kiyoshi. I could've used your talent with words today. Things didn't go well with the Conclave. They didn't really give me a chance to defend myself, and then they chased us all the way back to the Nesting Caverns before our dragons managed to fight them off.”

“I see.”

“Any news from Mrs. Merrynether? Danariel said she went looking for trolls with Snappel.”

“Indeed she did, but contrary to your aspirations, no communication has been received
aurally, visually, or telepathically.”

“You could've just said no.” Joe grinned.

“Omniloquence should never be discouraged.”

“Whatever you say, Kiyoshi. Do you—?”

“Hush,” said Tabariel, rushing one finger to his lips.

The other animals were quiet and tilted their heads from side to side, as if they were trying to hear something. A melancholy wail echoed somewhere distant, somewhere deeper under the earth.

“What was that?” whispered Joe.

“I warned you,” said Tabariel. “This is called the Mourning Gorge, remember? It is haunted here.”

The wail repeated twice more, then changed to great heaving sobs as other faraway mourners joined in. An eerie stillness descended in the cave, as if Joe and his friends were uninvited guests at a wake. The vault creatures huddled against the walls, the dragons lowered their heads as if scolded, and the seraphim stopped moving, their lights diminished.

Icy fear crawled through Joe's stomach, but as he shifted a foot, ready to creep to the nearest wall for cover, he noticed something even more disturbing. The boggy water had gone. Joe peered at his feet but could not see properly in the low light. His shoes no longer sloshed in the fetid water that was there when he first entered the cave. Instead, he heard only the soft crunch of tiny pebbles.

Something moved. Joe caught a glimpse of a black
shape deeper in the cave, vaguely human. With a terrible cry, it melted away. Others saw it too, and like an invisible wave, panic spread from creature to creature, starting closest to where Joe saw the apparition and ending at the dragons nearest the passage exit. All of them fled in fear, drowning the weeping with screams and stamping feet. All of them, that is, except Joe. With dawning realization, he knew what they had encountered.

“Come back,” Joe shouted after them.

The light faded as the seraphim darted from the cave, and Joe wrestled with his fear as the darkness closed in.

“Come back,” Joe repeated, a little weaker this time. The cold fear had not left him, and though he was not usually afraid of the dark, he had to battle with his own temptation to run in blind panic. The fact that he could not see anything at all helped him stand his ground but added to the creeping sensation that something monstrous was looming like a specter of death. He crouched to the floor, folding his arms around his knees.

“I know what you are. I know what you are. I mustn't be afraid,” he whispered to himself.

A ball of silvery light returned to the cave, much slower than it had left. Danariel had come back, her expression a repeating slideshow of dread, shame, and resolve. Kiyoshi and Cornelius trotted apprehensively underneath, bathed in the seraph's ghost light. There was no sign of Flarp.

“Joe, where are you?” hissed Danariel.

“Over here.”

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to leave you,” she said. “I thought you'd be behind us. Just follow me, and we'll get out of here.”

“I . . . I don't want to come just yet.”

“Young man,” Kiyoshi chided, “perhaps there is a fracture in my malleus, incus, or stapes, because I do not believe my auditory nerve interpreted your words correctly. Or perhaps you have a dopamine deficiency in your hypothalamus. Are you mad? Is that it?”

“I think I know what this place is,” said Joe.

“It's a haunted cave,” said Danariel. “Let's go.” She turned to leave.

“I'm not going. And you're not either.”

“Dementia! Neurosis! Lunacy!” Kiyoshi cried.

Cornelius roared and promptly flipped the kappa onto his back.

The frustrated creature wheeled his limbs, rocking in a circular motion like an overturned beetle, and the flap on top of his head quivered as Kiyoshi struggled to hold it shut. “Cornelius! Cornelius! You hairy ignoramus! Return me to my correct posture immediately. Cornelius!”

Joe laughed as he heaved the heavy kappa onto his feet. “I think Cornelius agrees with me.”

The kappa blew a raspberry at the manticore and turned his back on Joe. “Very well. Do as you must.”

Joe drew a deep breath, feeling a spike of courage after their moment of comic relief. “Right. Follow me, but be as quiet as you can. I don't want to frighten them off.”

“Frighten off whom?” Danariel asked.

“They're squonks. I'm sure of it.”

Joe edged toward the place where he'd seen the human shape melt away.

“Squonks?” She sighed. “I admit, I have suspected this is a home for squonks for some time, but I've never really done anything about it. None of us have. I think we've always kept thinking of this place as haunted because it's easier than finding a way to help them.”

“Well, I can't ignore them. If it wasn't for one of them, I wouldn't have escaped from Redwar's vault.”

They stopped and looked at the ground. Danariel's glow highlighted small holes in the rock.

“I think we frightened them,” said Joe. “I saw water running up the side of the gorge, and I bet that was some of the squonks running away. They probably live in here and melt through these holes when they're threatened. I bet there's another big cave underneath us.”

“You're probably right, Joe, but we have no way of reaching them.”

Joe sighed as he stared at the holes. “Hello?” he called. “Don't be frightened. I just want to talk to you.”

All he heard in reply was the same continual crying.

“I want to help you, like you helped me once.”

Still they wept.

“Why are you all so unhappy?”

“Sisyphean nonsense,” muttered Kiyoshi.

“They are reputed to be incredibly shy creatures.” Danariel shrugged. “Nobody has ever managed to talk to one. That's another reason they've been ignored.”

“Well, Redwar has several of them locked away that he got from the surrounding islands,” Joe said. “He must have had contact with them somehow.”

Then an idea struck him. “Hello down there. I think I know how I can help you. I don't know why you're always unhappy, but perhaps I can help cheer you up. I've seen some of your own in a building near where I live. They're being held prisoner by a man called Argoyle Redwar, but if you come and talk to me, I promise I'll try to set them free.”

At first, there was still no response other than the wailing. Joe was about ready to admit defeat, but just as he had made up his mind to leave, he noticed a swelling of murky water around the holes by his feet.

Like a muddy snowman melting in reverse, the dirty water began to pile up in grimy globules, clumping together in squirming lumps. The three of them backed off as the squonk coagulated into a grotesquely animated mannequin. It had no face, no fingers, no feet, no eyes, but somehow it faced them as if it could see them. A series of tiny bubbles formed and popped in the center of the largest blob that Joe thought could have been its head, and a long, slow sound like sewage
being sucked into a sinkhole gurgled from it. “Ugly me,” it seemed to say as it melted from a standing position into a seated lump.

“No,” said Joe, “I'm sure you're very . . . handsome . . . for a . . . a squonk.”