sluglike demon, drifting through the void of space in search of... what? Demons to kill and devour? Foes to fight? A world to settle on?
Dervish and I pause when the marbles zone in on the demon. We look at each other bleakly. “If that thing spots us . . .” Dervish whispers.
“We’re too small,” I whisper back, even though there’s no need — sound can’t carry in space, so we should be able to speak as loudly as we like. “It won’t bother with a couple of ants like us.”
“Unless it enjoys squashing ants.”
We want to pull back, detour around it, or wait for it to pass. But the marbles keep tugging after the demon, urging us to follow. Since we’ve got no other option, we glide after them as they lead us ever closer to the terrifying behemoth.
We come up underneath the monster’s bulging stomach, which looks more like rock than flesh. The marbles pause next to the stomach wall. I get the sense they want to penetrate the demon’s crusty shell. But then they take a turn and lead us forward, towards the creature’s head.
Half an hour later, we float up from beneath the demon’s gigantic lower jaw. I’m worried that, this close, the monster can’t help but see us. But there’s no evidence of any eyes. Either they’re set much higher up its face, or it’s blind.
But there’s definitely a mouth, running like a ridged valley from one side of the head to the other. Lips parted, teeth the size of large houses set in the rocky gums at irregular intervals. A tongue crawling with scores of smaller, parasitical demons, feeding on the remains of whatever this monster eats.
And amidst those demons, fighting for his life — Shark.
The warrior is in poor shape. These demons are weak compared with some of the others we’ve fought, small in size and power. But there are hundreds of them, and they keep coming at him, fresh scavengers replacing the dead almost as soon as they’ve fallen. They’re like tiny piranha bringing down a mighty ox.
“Shark!” Dervish bellows, but of course he can’t hear. Dervish looks sideways at me, tilting his head instead of asking the question outright.
“I’m ready if you are,” I tell him, though my stomach’s tight with nerves.
“If the giant closes its mouth, I don’t know if we could get out. Maybe only one of us should —”
“Don’t tempt me,” I stop him. “You and Shark risked everything to help me. It’s only fair I do the same in return. So don’t give me the option of cutting out on you now. I’m afraid I might take it.”
Dervish grins. “Then let’s go for a dip in the mouth of Moby Dick!”
Cavernous. No smells or sounds. Just the spectacle of legions of vicious demons wriggling over and around one another to take turns attacking the lonely but resilient Shark. They spot us when we enter. Dozens peel away from the main assault and hurl themselves at us. Small, furry, dark demons, like tumbleweed with claws and fangs. We swat them aside without slowing. We’ve come too far and seen too much to be scared by these hangers-on.
Shark glances up as we close in on him. His eyes are distant and I see that he thinks we’re another couple of demons. He aims a fist at me, but I step out of range. Dervish dips lower, trying to direct a tube of air at Shark so they can communicate. But Shark must think it’s a tendril or tongue. He ducks, throws demons at Dervish, edges away from him, further back into the mouth. I flash on an image of what would happen if the monster swallows now. Quickly try to purge my mind of it.
I slip behind Shark and send out a tube of my own, all the time battling the demons. Shark spots the tube, dodges it, then leaps, hands outstretched, intent on throttling me.
Dervish flies forward and collides with Shark. They crash into me and our limbs get entangled. Now that we’re touching, sharing our force fields, we can hear Shark. He’s screaming madly, vile curses, words that make no sense, desperation and isolation thick in his throat.
“Shark!” Dervish roars. “It’s us! Dervish and Kernel! We’ve come to rescue you. Stop fighting. We can get you out of here.”
Shark screams in response, raises a large tattooed fist to pound Dervish flat, then pauses, faint lines of realization rippling across his face.
“It’s really us, Shark,” I tell him. “This isn’t a trick. We came for you.”
“Impossible,” he croaks. “How could you get here? You’re illusions. Lord Loss sent you to torment me with hope.”
“Don’t be a dope,” Dervish snaps. “Could any illusion look this good?”
Shark blinks — then grins. “How?” he whispers. “How did you find me?”
“We used magic.”
“But it’s empty space out there.”
“So?”
“You mean... all this time...I could have left? I wasn’t trapped? I didn’t have to spend months...years... what-ever... fighting these horrible fur balls?”
“Nope,” Dervish says lightly.
Shark’s expression darkens. He grabs one of the demons and rips it to pieces, then uses its fur to wipe blood from his face. When he tosses the rag away, his features are composed. He sniffs as if what’s happened is no big deal. “So much for the tour,” he says casually. “Let’s go find a bar.”
Laughing, Dervish pats Shark on the back, points him towards the open mouth and guides him out of the maw of the monster, away from the gnashing teeth of the furious furry creatures, into the empty depths of darkest, coldest space.
Floating, the monster having drifted on, we tell Shark about our adventures and theory that we’re in a chessboard-shaped universe of thirty-two different zones. He listens quietly, distracted, looking around twitchily. Sighs when we finish, then says softly, “Thanks for coming.”
“We need you,” Dervish says.
“For what?” Shark snorts. “You were doing fine without me. You figured this place out and dealt with it. All I did was stay where I had something solid underfoot. I thought that was going to be the rest of my life, that mouth and those demons. Part of me wanted to surrender and let them...”
He shivers, looking very different from the Shark I first met. The fight has drained him of much of his confidence and strength. I want to say something to make him feel better, but Dervish speaks before I can put my words together.
“I think Lord Loss knows you’re the strongest of us. He wanted to break you, wear you down and kill you off, so you couldn’t help Kernel. That’s why he stuck you in the bleakest spot he could find, and did all he could to destroy you. But he failed. You’re alive. You survived where any other would have perished. So forget the self-pity. You had it tough, you dealt with it — now move on, soldier.”
Shark laughs. “Nice speech.”
“But true,” Dervish adds.
“Maybe.” Shark’s laugh turns to a chuckle. “I guess I’m not cut out to suffer nobly, am I?”
“No. You’ve had your few minutes of moping — now put them behind you and let’s work on getting out of this place and finding that bar you mentioned.”
Shark grunts and faces me, recovering in the blink of an eye. I wish I had skin as thick as his, that I could go from the depths of despair to normality in the space of a few heartbeats. “Are those marbles still working?” he asks.
“I guess.”
“Think you can use them to find this thief of yours?”
“Possibly.”
“Then set the hounds loose, boy — it’s time to kick demonic ass!”
THIEVES
NOTHING happens when I ask the marbles to lead me to the demon thief. So I ask them to find Cadaver instead, and they immediately set off, guiding us through the vastness of space. We’d be lost without the marbles. Impossible to tell up from down in this void. We couldn’t even find our way back to the panels we came through. I wonder if Lord Loss knew about the marbles when he sent us here. Perhaps we have an advantage he didn’t count on.
After what feels like less than a day we come to a pair ofwhite panels. The marbles hesitate, then split, one goingleft, one right. I stop them before they sl
ip through. Glanceat Dervish and Shark for their opinions.
“Looks like it doesn’t matter which way we go,” Dervish says.
“But Cadaver can’t be in two zones at once, can he?”Shark frowns.
“Maybe he’s straddling them,” Dervish suggests. “A foot in each world.”
“Or maybe the marbles are trying to split us up,” Shark says suspiciously. “We don’t know where their power comes from. This might be the work of Lord Loss — he separates us, throws us together, then splits us again.”
“I doubt it,” Dervish says. “Anyway, if that’s the case, it’s easy to outfox him — we just don’t part. We go through one panel together. Kernel, which do you prefer?”
I shrug. “I’ve no idea.”
“Then let’s go left,” Dervish decides. When neither of us objects, he moves to a spot just behind me, Shark slides up in front, and in a close line we follow the marbles through the panel, into a new zone of fresh horrors.
Guts everywhere. Every sort of inner organ imaginable. Stacked in piles, splattered around in pieces, some draping off trees of bone. A foul stench. The ground beneath our feet slippery with blood, mucus and all sorts of slime. I choke from the stench, vomit spewing out of my mouth. Dervish and Shark are the same. All three of us on our knees, vomiting, clutching our noses shut, gasping for air.
Demons are slithering through the mass of guts, ripping them apart, bathing in the blood and goo, feeding greedily. Most are wormlike, some as short as caterpillars, others several feet long. They’re blind. They carry on shredding and guzzling, ignorant of our presence. One slides over the back of my legs, sniffs at me, decides there are richer pickings elsewhere and moves on.
“Magic!” Dervish gasps, eyes red and watery. “Create a...field... like in... the last place!”
It’s hard to focus. The magic doesn’t come easily here. The stench is foul, but it isn’t fatal, so my body doesn’t automatically generate a magical force field. After a minute or two of fumbling, I construct a weak field of air around my face. It’s not as strong as the field I created in space, and some of the smell seeps through, but it blocks out the worst and allows me to breathe normally.
Shark finds it more difficult than Dervish or me. His magic isn’t designed for subtle spells. With Dervish’s help, he manages to create half a field around the front of his face, but it soon flickers out of existence. In the end he curses, rips the left sleeve off his shirt and wraps it around his mouth and nose. For Shark, that’s as good as it’s going to get.
“Let’s backtrack,” Dervish says, nodding at the black panels behind us. “Try the other panel. It can’t be any worse than —”
“Wait,” I stop him. The marbles have darted forward and are hovering above a pile of pink and brown intestines. The guts heave upwards regularly, then subside, as though the pile is breathing. There must be a demon underneath, feasting on the guts, burrowing through them like a rat.
I advance slowly, digging my toes into the soft ground so I don’t slip, only now realizing that it isn’t really ground, simply a floor of guts. Maybe we’re inside the stomach of a huge demon like the sky monster. If so, I hate to think of where we might have to pass through to get out!
I’m almost level with the base of the pile when the guts on top are thrust off. A demon sticks its head out of the mess and happily shakes it hard from side to side. A green head, a cross between a human’s and a dog’s, with long draping ears and wide white eyes.
“Cadaver!” I roar, startling the demon. When his eyes focus on me, he snarls, claws himself out of the pile of guts and scrabbles away across the floor of intestines.
“After him!” Shark yells, words muffled by his mask. He bounds over the pile of guts, slips and slides into a filthy pool of green and brown liquid. Comes up vomiting again, tearing his mask loose, wheezing for air.
Dervish darts to Shark’s aid while I jog after Cadaver, not too fast, knowing it’s better to go slow and keep my feet than speed up and slip as Shark did.
With his long legs and hairy feet — the hairs acting as grips — Cadaver soon pulls away from me, weaving around mounds of guts and leaping over murky, bubbling pools of blood and waste. I don’t worry about losing track of him — the marbles are hot on his trail, obeying my orders, dogging the demon.
Cadaver treads on one of the longer wormlike monsters. It squeals and writhes beneath him, knocking him over. He screeches with his newly created mouth, hairs on his arms lengthening. Lashes out at the worm, slicing open a long gash down its side. Coiled layers of guts ooze out, adding to the ghoulish stew around it. The worm thrashes wildly, knocks Cadaver down again, pins him beneath its fleshy carcass. Cadaver slashes at the worm with his hairy arms and chews his way through strands of guts that have ended up wrapped around his snout. He soon wriggles free — but by then I’ve caught up with him.
I grab Cadaver’s ears and slam him down on top of the dying worm demon. I’m roaring triumphantly. Cadaver yowls and tries slapping me away. The hairs of one hand graze the side of my face, slicing my right cheek open. But the blood only drives me on with more passion. I grab his throat and throttle him, forgetting what Lord Loss said about naming the thief, intent only on killing this vile beast.
The hairs of Cadaver’s hands snake around my neck and tighten, forming a lasso. We’re strangling each other, face to face, snarling. The first to weaken will be the first to die.
My fingers begin to relax. I glare at them, willing them to close again, to finish the job they started. But they don’t obey. I’m losing — perhaps I’ve already lost. Cadaver is grinning. The hairs tighten another notch, biting into the flesh of my throat, cutting off the last of my air supply. I feel my mouth gasping, eyes bulging, fingers scrabbling at the hairs instead of Cadaver’s throat, trying to undo them.
Then a dripping, stinking Shark is beside me. A tattooed fist smashes Cadaver between the eyes. The demon grunts and the hairs loosen. Shark hits him again. The hairs slip away. I topple. Dervish catches me and props me up while Shark pummels Cadaver, beating all the fight out of the demon.
I breathe again, painfully, oxygen trickling through to my lungs. It feels like my throat has been crushed to splinters. Dervish places my hands on my wounded flesh and says, “Magic.” I repair the damage. It doesn’t take long. I’m getting used to fixing up my body.
When my throat’s working normally, I check on Shark and Cadaver. The exsoldier is still hitting the demon, but with less force, just to keep him in place. Shark catches my eye and winks. “You can take him off my hands, or leave him to me for a few hours. I don’t mind either way.”
“It’s OK,” I tell him. “You’ve done enough. Thanks.”
Shark steps away and I take his place. Cadaver glowers at me, his face bruised and bloody. I hear Shark complaining about the stench and how he doubts he’ll ever be able to wash himself clean. I tune him out and focus. Recall Lord Loss’s words. Touch Cadaver’s forehead. Start to call him the demon thief.
Then stop.
Is this really the one who stole Art? Maybe it’s another demon in disguise, and Lord Loss is trying to trick me. I look for the marbles and find them floating a few feet above us. “Locate Cadaver,” I mutter, and they immediately strike at the demon beneath me, causing him to yelp and turn his head aside. I grab the marbles, stick them in my pocket, then — with one hand still on Cadaver’s forehead — shout, “This is the demon thief!”
Nothing happens. I was expecting a flash of lightning, a peal of thunder or an earthquake, something suitably dramatic. But there’s no difference. I start to shout it again, in case I wasn’t heard the first time. But somebody claps before I get the words out. I whirl and spot Lord Loss, floating in the air thirty feet above us, smiling sadly, applauding sarcastically.
“Such courage and imagination, Cornelius,” the demon master murmurs. “The marbles were an excellent idea. They’re only ordinary marbles, but you made them a catalyst for your magic, channeled your power through th
em. That spoiled my fun slightly — brought us to this juncture sooner than I anticipated — but I cannot bear a grudge. You are a true Disciple and master of magic.”
He stops clapping and sighs. “But you miscalled the name of the thief. Cadaver is not the guilty party. One chance gone — you have two more.”
“No!” I scream as Cadaver shuffles backwards, sneering at me. “He stole Art! It’s him, not a demon in disguise! It’s Cadaver!”
“Yes,” Lord Loss agrees pleasantly. “It is Cadaver. But he is not the true demon thief.”
“But...he must be...he...”
Inspiration strikes. Lord Loss said I had to find the true thief. Cadaver was a hired stooge. A puppet in the hands of his employer. He carried out the actual theft of Art, but he wasn’t the brains behind it. The real thief must be the one who planned it, gave the order and paid the bounty.
I crouch, directing magic into my legs. Fix on Lord Loss. Adjust my aim. Then launch myself at him, flying through the air, leaping like a frog or cricket, covering the thirty feet in the flash of an eyelid.
Lord Loss is taken by surprise. He brings his eight hands together to ward me off, but too late. I have hold of him before he can repel me. Digging my fingers into his lumpy flesh — doughlike in feel as well as appearance — I scream at him, sure I’m right this time. “You’re the true thief!”
Lord Loss throws me down. I hit a bulging sac of intestines. It explodes, showering me with blood, an acidy liquid and fragments of guts. I laugh carelessly, wallowing in the mess as though taking a bath, jeering at Lord Loss, smug at having beaten him at his own game. Dervish and Shark are staring at me uncertainly. They don’t have my insight. They’re not sure I’m right. But I am. As sure as I’ve ever been of anything. All that’s left now is for Lord Loss to...
“Very clever, Cornelius,” he says, cutting short my celebration. “But not clever enough, my poor young friend. I am not the true thief.
“Two chances gone — one remains.”
His smile is chilling.
THE TRUE THIEF