“I know.”
“I don’t want this.”
“You always got through things all right,” said Griffin. “You always did. Owls and high winds and lightning. Whenever I was scared, you weren’t. There’s nothing you’re afraid of.”
“This,” she said.
He didn’t like the fact she was afraid. He counted on her to be fearless, to help dilute his own perpetual fear. He could almost feel her anxiety leaking into his already wasted muscles, and he experienced a sting of resentment. How was he supposed to keep it all together by himself?
“What in Nocturna’s name is that?” Yorick asked, squinting into the distance.
Griffin pushed up on Java’s back. Dead ahead he made out a shadowy grey cliff towering up so high it dissolved into the blackness of the sky, blotting out the stars. But its base looked far from solid, and couldn’t be rock because it kept shifting in and out of focus, fading and then coalescing darker. He sniffed: the same scent he’d caught earlier, only amplified. And now he noticed the change in the air, too. His eyes, when he blinked, no longer felt as if sand were lodged behind his lids. Even his parched mouth and raw throat were eased.
“It’s rain,” said Nemo in amazement. “Listen.” Flaring his ears, Griffin heard a faraway clatter of droplets, and beyond that, a low growing rumble that suggested something bigger and more powerful.
“Bit of a downpour, by the sound of it,” Nemo remarked cheerfully.
“This wasn’t on the map,” said Yorick, peeved. “We weren’t told about this.”
“Passed overhead not long ago,” said Nemo. “Down there, look, the ground’s still wet.”
Water! Without thinking, Griffin leapt off Java’s back, nearly getting swatted by her left wing, and dropped earthward in a jerky spiral. Nemo was right. The ground, normally cracked and dry, was softened to mud, glistening in some places where the rainwater had pooled.
“Griffin!” Luna called after him. “Wait up!” He couldn’t wait. He wanted water in his mouth, down his throat. He skimmed the ground, watching the water being loudly sucked into the parched soil. Before his eyes, puddles turned into mud, mud turned back into arid dirt. Griffin flew on, only half aware that Luna was now alongside him and that the other Pilgrims were overhead protectively. Spotting another pool, Griffin sailed on, tumbling head over tail in a clumsy landing. This time he was fast enough to plunge his face into the water and drink. It was real! He felt his tongue softening even as he spluttered and choked more icy water down his throat, not even tasting it. When the pool was sucked empty by the earth and himself, Griffin lifted his head, panting. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, finally tasting the water. Not like the stream back home. This had a strong salty flavour and it left him a little queasy, yet still thirsting for more, just for the searing liquid cold of it. As he launched himself back into the air, the water sloshed heavily in his stomach. “Was that good?” Luna asked him.
He nodded. Probably he shouldn’t have had so much. But salty water was better than nothing, wasn’t it? “Sorry,” he said to the others. “I really needed that.”
Together they flew on towards the shadowy cliff of rain. Its low rumble grew, the air shuddering around them. A fine mist pearled Griffin’s fur, and a wind kicked at the underside of his wings. Suddenly they were in the rain proper. Griffin felt exultant as it struck his fur, this cold but welcome reminder of the world of the living. He weaved through the raindrops with Luna, opening his mouth and catching them on his tongue, drinking in mid-air. Luna laughed—a sound he hadn’t heard down here nearly enough—and for just a moment, Griffin almost forgot where they were.
Before them the rain intensified into a looming grey wall. It wasn’t falling in single drops anymore, but in thick, drenching splashes that made Griffin dip down whenever he was struck. All around him the other Pilgrims were making slow progress, trying to steer their way through the deluge.
“I don’t like this,” said Yorick above the roar of the rain. “We should go around or wait this out!”
“This is nothing,” said Nemo. “Look up ahead!” Griffin blinked, finally understanding. No more than fifty wingbeats away was a colossal waterfall spilling down from the sky, thousands of wingbeats across. The water sparkled and danced in the starlight. Griffin and the other Pilgrims pulled back, circling.
“Where’s it all coming from?” Java wondered.
“A hole!” Griffin shouted. “A hole in the sky! It must come from the Upper World!”
From deep beneath the great lakes, from deep beneath the oceans, the water must be trickling and leaking through the soil and stone, down and down, and finally plunging through some gash in the Underworld’s stone sky. Just the idea of it awoke in Griffin a fierce yearning. To fly high, to find that crack, to somehow force his way into it, and swim up. He’d never make it, of course. Not without air, not against the colossal weight of all that water.
He could smell the falls. He’d never thought of water having a smell, but here in this odourless world it was almost over-whelming—the torrent brought with it the fragrance of the soil through which it must have sifted, the rock it flowed over, the smell of fish, salt, seaweed. Who knew where all the water had come from, but every drop was packed with tantalizing fragrance. Maybe some of this water had once flown through the stream near Tree Haven.
“We’ll have to go around,” Yorick said.
“What if we lose our course?” Java pointed out.
“I say straight through!” Nemo said. “Bit of water never did anyone any harm.”
“Except for drowning,” muttered Yorick.
“No chance of that,” said Nemo. “Look, there’re great gaps. I’ll see us through, dry as a whale’s elbow!”
As Griffin stared at the waterfall, listening, he saw that Nemo was right: it wasn’t really a solid wall at all. It was made up of countless individual streams of plunging water, forming undulating sheets and spiralled columns. If you watched hard enough you could see the chinks in between them all. The face of the waterfall changed constantly. Whole segments would suddenly dry up, leaving a vertical channel of open air, with only a fine drizzle to remind you of the thunderous torrent that had just fallen there. Elsewhere, without warning, other gaps would snap shut with a thunderclap. Griffin forced a swallow down his throat.
“You’re sure about this?” Java asked Nemo.
“Just stay close, and we’ll nip right through. Won’t take a second.”
Yorick insisted on being right behind Nemo—as leader, naturally. Java made sure Luna and Griffin went next, and she and Murk brought up the rear.
“Don’t forget, your path has to be wide enough for me!” the Foxwing called out to Nemo, and he gave her a reassuring backwards flick of his wing.
“Follow me!” he cried.
Griffin soared towards the waterfall. The bellow of it was overwhelming. The salty water felt heavy in his stomach. He absolutely did not want to do this. Closer now, and every sinew told him to pull up and away. He clamped down hard on his fear and concentrated on Luna’s wings, letting them be his guide. They were heading right for solid water, and then Nemo swerved and sliced through an opening, and was gone, and before Griffin could even pull in a big breath he too was inside the waterfall.
If he thought it was loud outside, here it was like something that lived within your skull. All around him soared great roaring pillars of water. It was almost completely dark, the starlight blotted out, except for the occasional shaft that broke through and refracted brilliantly through the layers of water and heavy mist.
They flew at a dizzying speed, veering and diving and climbing through the ever-changing innards of the waterfall. Nemo seemed to have an almost supernatural understanding of all this water, knew how to see around it and even through it, to guess when it was about to dry up and when it was going to plunge down.
“Almost there!” he heard Nemo call out from up ahead, and then—
Luna braked so sharply that Griffin
nearly slammed into her. “What’s wrong?” he gulped. Then he saw. They’d hit a dead end. Nemo and Yorick circled tightly, the fisher bat peering intently at an unbroken wall of water. “Not too much of a problem,” Nemo muttered. “Up we go.”
With that, he launched himself into a near-vertical climb. Gasping, Griffin followed, Java and Murk close behind. Higher and higher they went. Surely they couldn’t keep going up forever! They’d hit the stone sky!
Suddenly Luna levelled off in front of him. “Be quick here!” he heard Nemo calling out. “We’ve got clear passage, but it’s not going to last.”
Before them, Griffin saw two dizzyingly high walls of water forming a narrow canyon—only, these walls were moving, slowly but steadily coming together with an animal roar. At the canyon’s end—and it looked a long distance away—Griffin saw stars. Sky. The end of the waterfall.
“Fly hard!” Nemo called, already streaking on ahead. Luna went too, but Griffin faltered for a moment. He forced himself to talk.
“The walls are closing, sort of a crushing-water kind of situation, but the rate seems constant, and I can probably make it if I flap hard, and it shouldn’t be a problem if I leave—”
“Right now!” Murk urged, nudging him as he pulled alongside.
“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 s
peak 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.