***
Demi had no idea how long it was since she’d left Annwn, but she was now high in the mountains, surrounded by deep soft snow. It was awesome stuff, dry and fluffy, and would have made great snowballs, if she’d only had someone to throw them at. What a waste!
Even with her hood pulled up she was cold. Although the boots were keeping her feet dry, she couldn’t feel her toes, but she was aware of a blister that was rubbing up on her heel. Her nose tingled and her teeth ached with the cold. The sun was high in the bluest sky she’d ever seen, and she had to shield her eyes from the dazzling light. But, still. The air was full of magic, as if every snowflake was a crystal emitting the moon’s power. Every footstep released a burst of magic which tingled through her and lifted her spirits. Even when the wind blew, chilling her to the bone, it was full of strange and wonderful sensations. She couldn’t stay up here forever, though. Her legs were already aching, and there was no end to the journey in sight. Peering through the dazzle – who knew sunlight could hurt so much! – she could see the smooth snow road leading through dark, jagged rocks to the base of a high cliff, dark against the glare. Trying to see further just made her eyes swim.
So much emptiness! She felt as though all the gods that had ever been were watching her as she moved, tiny as an ant, over this vast surface. She trudged on, until eventually she reached the shadow of the cliff. The way led beneath a rock overhang festooned with wrist-thick icicles. It was damp and gloomy underneath and slippery underfoot. But at least it was out of that terrible glaring, staring sun, and Demi’s eyes stopped smarting as they adjusted to the dim light. As she progressed, the icicles hanging from the ledge grew thicker, until they formed a solid curtain of ice, and Demi found herself enclosed in a chilly tunnel, the uneven floor leading steeply uphill. With one hand on the rock wall to steady herself, she walked through silence broken only by the occasional splash of water. Eventually she heard the weird moaning of wind, and the light brightened.
Soon she emerged onto a high ledge surrounded by cliffs and painful whiteness. As her eyes adjusted, and shape and substance returned to the world, she clung to the rock behind her to overcome the horrible feeling she was about to get swept into the void by the bone-chilling wind that whipped about her. Snow spun down into infinity, and her head spun with it. Dozens of snowy peaks rose out of mist and marched on into the distance, but at her feet there was just a sheer cliff leading down into empty air. Whatever lay at the foot of the cliff was hidden in swirling, pearly fog.
Panic rose in her throat. This was insane. For a moment she was tempted to just jump off the ledge into nothing and put an end to all this craziness. If only she could fly! Was that why she was supposed to bring a fairy with her, to fly her across the parts she couldn’t walk? Maybe she could cast a spell to grow some wings. Ever since she’d learnt what had happened to Blackbird she’d held a secret wish to find a spell that would help his wings return. Well, if she was going to do that she’d have to complete this stupid walk, wouldn’t she? All on her own, with no adult to take over when things got too much.
She thought of her Mum then, and her Nan and Gramps and all her Uncles, Aunties and Cousins. Would she ever see them again? And how would they react if she came home as a fully functioning witch? She would be the only witch she knew anywhere. Except Owina. Owina was there, and Owina would help her. Owina could help her now. She clutched the Gadget around her neck, and was reminded of Owina’s calm confidence in her.
Spreading her arms wide she took a deep breath. It was so cold she could feel it going all the way down, chilling her lungs. Opening her arms she let out her breath, the cold air making it steam like a dragon. Swinging her arms to loosen up she began the chanting dance Owina had taught her. Out there, with no-one to watch, judge or criticise, the stamping, chanting and clapping soon clicked into place, and her buzzing thoughts and worries combined into something calm, strong and powerful. The sunlight flowed through her, charging the crystal at her neck and fuelling her magic. Even without wings she felt she could leap off the edge of the gorge and sail the wind to wherever she needed to go.
She let out a howl of joy and triumph, and for a fearful moment thought she was being answered by wolves on all sides, until she realised it was her own voice, echoing, echoing, back and forth and back again from the cliffs on all sides.
The sudden fear quenched her spirits, returning her to reality. Yes, this was awesome, but she had a long, long way to go, and so much to do. A swishing as snow slipped off the cliffside and narrowly missed her reminded her of the risk of causing an avalanche.
She shaded her eyes from the sun. There was an opening in the cliff face nearby, and she picked her way along the mountainside to investigate it. The opening led into a cave, low and wide, with a steady dripping echoing through it. As her eyes adjusted once more to the gloom, she spotted a faint glow at the back. She went to investigate, and discovered the glow was coming from a portal. Seconds later a nixie swam up and offered her hand. Relief flooded through her and Demi leaned over and reached out. She could be home within moments, warm, safe, relaxed, not having to climb up and down mountains. She could go back to Vicky’s and have a crisp sandwich in front of the TV. Back to fantastic normality! But at the last moment she remembered what would happen if she gave up now – she’d never see Blackbird again. She snatched back her hand just before the nixie’s fingers touched hers. The nixie remained a while, its hand reaching up, then it turned and swam back into the portal. Had it given an approving look just before leaving? Demi couldn’t be sure. But she was committed now to staying the course. She’d just have to get down this mountain somehow. She fished Blackbird’s apple out of her pocket, and ate it whilst sitting on a rock. She’d never eaten such a cold apple before, and it hurt her mouth. Leaving the core in the cave seemed like a bad idea, so she went back out onto the ledge and threw it off the edge, watching as it fell down and down and down until the mist swallowed it. Was that a gentle thump she heard several seconds later, suggesting the apple core had finally landed, or had she imagined it?
There was no obvious path anywhere, but she used her True Seeing techniques, and soon noticed something which stood out. It was a sturdy vine which grew out of the ground by her feet, anchored firmly by roots stuck into the rock. The vine crept along the clifftop for a few feet before it sent down another clump of roots, then another vine which looped over the cliff face. She inched closer to the edge of the cliff and peered over. The vine ran along the cliff face in a steady diagonal line, like a guide rope. And she could see now that there was a path – or at least, a series of bumps, steps and hollows that she could use as foot holds to make her way down the cliff. The mist cleared slightly and she could see the rope led to a wooden walkway about 60 feet below her, just two planks wide jutting out from the cliff face. It had once been painted bright red, but was now faded and peeling. She hoped it would hold her weight – if it did, it would be a lot easier than the path she’d have to take to reach it. If it wouldn’t, she’d have to use the Binding spell.
Demi bent down and gave the vine an experimental pull. It seemed sound. She couldn’t see any other way forwards, so she sat on the edge of the cliff, took the rope in her right hand, and stretched her right leg out until it met the first step. She crossed herself for luck with her left hand, then, putting all her weight on her right foot, swung out over the void. She had picked out her route before she set off, so it was only a moment before her left foot found purchase, but time slowed right down during that moment, and the blood pounding in her ears drowned out the howling of the winds.
So there she was, one hand on a vine growing out of a mountain, the other flapping about over the void as she got her balance. She realised she was holding herself stiff and rigid, and trembling slightly, and knew this wasn’t the way to go. It took a lot of mental effort to calm herself, but she centred herself and relaxed into her stanc
e, letting her skeleton take the weight and her sense of balance find its own posture.
The next step was a tricky one, as she had to slide her right leg between the cliff and her left leg, and slide her hand down the rope to reach the next foothold. Fortunately the steep angle of the vine down the mountainside allowed her to compensate for the fact she wasn’t as tall as the elves it had been planted for. But each step stretched her legs to their fullest. It took a long while, but eventually she was standing on the final step above the faded wooden walkway, the vine continuing along the cliff face and disappearing around a corner. Demi tested the planks with her heel before trusting them with her full weight. They felt sound, so she made her way along them, glad that she was no longer having to stretch her legs so much, but mindful every moment that the planks could give way and tumble her onto the ground far below. She was still clinging to the vine just in case, shifting her gaze from her hand to her feet, so that she was taken aback when the walkway suddenly ended at the corner, with the planks balanced on a tiny jutting ledge. She tightened her grip on the vine. Where was she supposed to go now? There was nothing in front of her but acres of swirling mist. But the mist parted for a moment, revealing another walkway, far, far below her, leading away from the cliff. As her gaze returned to the cliff she saw that the vine continued across it for a few feet, then climbed straight down. And that’s what she’d have to do. Practising her True Seeing again, she spotted the two parallel columns of hand and footholds leading down the damp cliff into the mist.
Centering herself again, Demi took the rope in both hands and stretched out her left foot until it found the first foothold. Shifting her balance, she moved her hands along the rope, then moved her right foot to the appropriate bump to take her weight. No going back now. The vine crept down the cliff beside her, but for now the hand- and foot-holds were enough to help her down the mountain. Sometimes there was only the subtlest of grips for her foot, so she had to grasp the rope to avoid falling. Demi tried to reassure herself that this path had been created specifically for the purpose of travelling down the cliff, whilst ignoring the fact that it had been designed for people several inches taller than she was. And besides, she was really good at climbing up walls onto roofs. She’d been doing it for years and never fallen, so why should she fall now?
Hand over hand, step by step, she made her way down the cliff, singing nonsense tunes in her head to centre herself. She was on the third verse of ‘He Was Only a Lance-Corporal’s Uncle’ when she found herself among the topmost branches of some trees, then her questing foot found a wooden platform. But it was half-rotten, she could tell immediately. She would have to use Owina’s technique for getting inside the structure and holding everything together. For a few moments she dangled, one toe on the most solid part of the platform, one hand grasping Owina’s gadget, trying to get into the right frame of mind, until it all clicked into place, and she sensed the whole structure becoming more solid and stable. She would have to be quick, though, she knew she couldn’t hold the Binding spell for long, and she could already feel power draining from the Gadget. Striding quickly along the walkway, she heard a noise from the Guide, and was overwhelmed with relief to see that a panel had flipped over, revealing the first task. It was making odd sounds too. Unfortunately the instructions meant little to her. A group of pictograms surrounded concentric red and gold circles in the centre of the panel. Peering at the circles – not easy, her eyes were still stinging from the earlier snow-dazzle – she noticed a tiny slot in the centre of them.
There was other life in this part of Annwn, she realised – not just the giant trees, but large beetles like mobile jewels, delicate flies, and small spiders weaving their webs. The fresh scent of tree sap was in the air, as were hundreds of tiny bits of fluff, which got in her eyes and up her nose.
She understood she needed to catch one of the tiny floating seeds and slot it into the box. But how? They were so flimsy – she could never grasp one delicately enough to not destroy it. There was no chance that one of them would just fall into the slot – even breathing out was enough to send them spinning dizzily through the air. She followed them with her eyes, and saw one get caught in a cobweb. The web’s maker scuttled out to inspect its catch, then, realising it was no use as a spider’s meal, began to cut it free. Demi smiled to herself. She wasn’t a huge fan of spiders, but this one wasn’t too creepy – it was a middling size, about as big as her thumbnail. It wasn’t a gangly, hairy thing, but quite neat, with an obvious front and rear, and short legs. It was the ones which seemed to be all legs and nothing else that freaked her out. But, she’d always been good with spiders, learning to charm them before she knew what she was doing. Dogs crave approval; cats desire comfort. It was hard to describe what motivated spiders, but she knew how to offer it, and once they were hooked, they were such simple beasts they would go wherever she directed them. She caught its attention, just as it had finished snipping the seed from its web. Instead of allowing the seed to fall, the spider gripped it in its mouthparts, and stepped delicately along the branches until it was directly above Demi and the guide. It abseiled onto the box, then, dipping down, it fed the seed into the slot. There was a soft click from the guide, and the lid flipped over, taking the spider with it. Poor spider! It hadn’t got mangled as it was spun into the box, but it was now trapped inside. Still, spiders didn’t need much air, did they, and there were a few gaps in the casing. She’d just have to take it with her – she could feel the magic in Owina’s crystal was starting to fade, so she couldn’t hang about.
She continued along the walkway, leaving the shelter of the trees. The fresh scent had gone, and a nasty rotting smell soon replaced it. The ground far below her was wet and boggy, with stagnant, slimy pools in amongst patches of grass and shrubbery. The rotten trunks of long-dead trees lay here and there, and occasional sharp rocks loomed out of the soft green. It reminded her of the first time she’d gone to Aelwen’s grove, but this was much worse than the muddy field beyond the motorway. The worst that would have happened to her there was losing a shoe; here she could easily lose her life. With fewer trees to support it the walkway was even more precarious, and she had to work even harder to hold it together. As she hurried on, a shadow passed overhead.
Looking up, she saw an enormous brown bird, almost as big as herself, wheeling through the sky. It was huge, with a sharp curved beak, beady orange eyes, and long cruel talons on its yellow feet. She wondered what on earth it could eat. There was no food out here, except flies and spiders – and her! It let out a horrible screech as it swooped down towards her. She ran without thinking, feeling the draught from its wings as it passed overhead, just missing her. She ran faster than she’d ever run before, driven by fear. The walkway rocked and swayed as she ran, grasping the Gadget to keep everything from crumbling beneath her. Another screech, and the sound of wings beating the air, and despite the fire in her lungs she ran faster yet. But the walkway was coming to an end – it just stopped, where some of the planks had fallen away, with a great gap between the last plank and solid ground. There was no time to think – she just leapt, hoping she’d make it. But it was too far, and she was plummeting towards the vile bog far below her. Then, for a few agonising seconds, she stopped falling, as the huge bird caught her. She could feel its wings beating furiously as its talons gripped her, piercing her skin even through her clothes. For a moment they hung together in the air, neither rising nor falling, but still flying forwards, then Demi slipped from the bird’s talons and fell once more, screaming and flailing.
It was a soft landing, but it still knocked all the breath out of her – maybe that was a good thing, as the bog released huge fart of foul-smelling gas as she landed. It took only moments to realise she was being sucked into the stinking, squelchy ground. There was hardly anything to hold onto, but by grabbing the scanty bits of weeds surrounding her, she managed to pull herself forward onto more solid
ground – only to realise it was surrounded by more boggy ground, with just a few places which would support her weight. She’d lost the Guide, too – it had flown from her hand as she’d hit the ground, and although it couldn’t have gone far, it was impossible to see in the jumble of green water, mud, moss, plants and algae.
She tried using her magic to hold the ground together, but it was such a complicated mix of gas, water, mud and rotting vegetation that she didn’t know where to start. She managed to get all the gas together into one giant bubble so it could escape from the water, but the resulting stench made her stomach heave and her head spin. But as the gas erupted it showed her the most solid parts of the ground, and she stumbled across them until she reached rocky ground at the base of a cliff; the broken end of the walkway dangling some twenty feet above her head. Where was she supposed to go now? There was no way to climb the cliff, even if she still had the strength, and skirting its base would mean picking her way painstakingly through the bog. Leaning despondently against the rocks, she wished there was somewhere she could wash herself; wished she knew what to do next; wished she’d never started this. She uncorked Rusty’s gourd, took a long drink, and sighed.
She’d been looking at the thing for a while before she realised it was alive. It was covered with so much mud and debris that it had looked like another pile of swamp junk, moving slightly in the fetid breeze, until it gave a huge shudder, and emitted a pitiful wail from one end and a pungent dropping from the other.
Demi took a step back in disgust, then lifted her foot as if to stamp on the revolting creature. But it cried out in a strange language and she knew she couldn’t kill something which could speak. She activated the translator spell and squatted down so that her eyes were closer to the creature. Unfortunately this meant her nose was nearer too.
It was the size of a pigeon, although a lot of its bulk seemed to consist of mud and half-rotten stalks. It was difficult to tell what shape it was, but its round golden eyes were about the size of peas. The pupils were round and huge, on the side of its pointy face.
‘What are you?’ she asked it. ‘You stink!’
The creature didn’t answer; it just closed its eyes and sighed, and Demi thought maybe it had died. But then it opened its eyes again and struggled to move. She’d have to rescue it – but how? She couldn’t even work out what was creature and what was muck. She decided to offer it some of Rusty’s brew, and after licking a few drops from the end of her finger, it revived a little.
‘What do I do with you now?’ Demi wondered out loud.
‘Help me,’ the creature begged. ‘Lift me up.’
‘I’m not touching you – you’re mingin,’ Demi said.
‘Please. There is a place nearby with pure clean water. We can wash there.’
Well, thought Demi, getting cleaned up would be nice. She asked the creature its name, and it made a long strange sound, like rustling leaves. Part of it sounded like ‘Faloush’, so she asked if she could call it that. It didn’t bother asking her name.
Demi lifted the creature, trying to keep it at arm’s length, and it directed her to a place where warm water flowed from a gap in the cliff face, trickling down the rocks before filling a shallow pool. Demi washed her hands then her face, and tried to wash some bits of gunk from her hair, before helping Faloush to get clean.
She assumed Faloush was some sort of lizard, with its sharp little teeth, scaly head, and four clawed feet, but as the mud and muck drifted away, Demi was amazed at what was underneath. There were short soft feathers all down its back, and long flight feathers on its arms – or rather, wings. Its tail was long and flexible, but also feathered. A talking bird – well, that wasn’t unusual, but this was no parrot or mynah bird.
It looked like nothing on Earth – but then, Earth was obviously not its homeworld. The closest thing Demi had seen was the archaeopteryx on her friend’s brother’s T shirt. Faloush was more refined than that, as if its ancestors, instead of evolving into the birds of Demi’s homeworld, had become creatures with speech and reasoning.
Faloush shook itself dry and preened, using its claws rather than its mouth to rearrange its feathers. As the feathers dried, they began to iridesce, flashing green and kingfisher blue among the background of bronze.
Faloush arched its wings as though testing them, and made a few tentative flapping hops. It hopped and fluttered up the rocks to the place where the water flowed out of the cliff. Demi could see a pool within a small cave, roughly at eye level.
With a fluid motion, Faloush leant down to drink from the pool, baring its sharp little teeth. As it did so, a nixie swam up, and offered its hand. Faloush shrank back, muttering to itself. And although she was more tired, aching, and filthy than she’d ever imagined she could be, Demi also refused the nixie’s offer.
One the nixie had retreated, Faloush addressed Demi. ‘I owe you my life,’ it said. ‘But it seems I must rely on you a while longer. Is there any aid I can provide in return?’
‘Not unless you can fly back into that swamp and retrieve my Guide. Can you fly?’
‘Of course. Nothing flies as well as my people.’ Faloush spread its primitive wings proudly, and Demi wondered hope it would cope if faced with a real bird.
‘But...you need your arms to fly,’ Demi said. ‘You can’t carry something and fly at the same time, can you?’
‘I can run and carry,’ Faloush replied. ‘That is rather degrading, but there is no-one else to watch, and I do owe you a favour.’
‘Trouble is,’ Demi said, ‘I don’t even know where the Guide went. I can’t see anything but green out there.’
‘Describe this lost treasure to me!’ Faloush said.
So Demi did, and Faloush claimed it could see the Guide in a patch of reeds, well within flying distance. It pointed out the place to Demi, who couldn’t make it out, although Faloush claimed to see it clearly. ‘But the ground between is too soft,’ it moaned.
‘It’s not too far. I can make the ground firm enough to take your weight,’ Demi grinned.
And, within a few minutes, Faloush had left Demi’s uplifted hand and glided to the patch of reeds, then scurried back to the cliff base while Demi kept the ground firm enough to bear its tiny weight.
Faloush was chirruping excitedly as it returned. ‘This is the most beautiful made thing I’ve ever seen. You must be very important. I didn’t realise – I thought you were dumb food like the giants in my world.’ It handed her the guide and stood proud with one hand on its heart. ‘I promise I won’t devour you in your sleep.’
‘Um, thanks,’ Demi said, ‘I think this may be broken though.’ She wiped as much mud as she could off the Guide, whilst trying not to get herself filthy again. After tilting it gently to one side - she couldn’t shake it because of the spider that was inside – she was surprised to hear a man’s voice telling her she needed to ‘regain the path’. But, of course, she had a translation spell now, and the Guide’s strange noises made perfect sense. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
With Faloush riding on her shoulder and the Guide giving directions, Demi made her way from tussock to rock to log until they found a place where they could scramble up the cliff face, finally free of the vile stinking bog.
They rested for a moment on the sunny clifftop. The temperature was still barely above freezing, but Faloush welcomed the opportunity to bask. Demi wondered how long Faloush would survive in a cold damp place. She took another drink from Rusty’s gourd – it was starting to feel light – and gave Faloush a few drops too.
As they rested, she asked Faloush if it was male or female. The creature looked confused. ‘What are they?’
‘I mean,’ Demi struggled to explain, ‘like, when you decide to have babies, are you one of the people who carries the baby – or lays the egg might be more accurate – or do you just fertilise the egg before it’s laid?’
‘Oooooayyy’, it said, which
seemed to be its word for ‘oh’. ‘That depends who I’d be making a new life with. If they wanted to make the egg, I would let them, but I can also do that myself. Maybe I will do it both ways. What about you?’
‘If I was going to have a baby, I’d have to be the one to carry it. I’ve got all the eggs inside me.’
‘You made that decision so young? Or did you hatch this way?’
‘We don’t hatch, we spend nine months growing inside our mothers.’
‘A live-birth?’ Faloush grimaced. ‘Are you sure you’re not food?’
They continued the Walk, travelling through a narrow pass between two high cliffs, where an ancient rockfall had dammed a river, creating the bog. Although they were travelling steadily downhill, it was still damp and chilly inside the gorge. Demi could tell the cold was affecting Faloush, so she asked them to tell her more about their homeworld.
‘Where I live used to be a forest surrounded by hills, safe and fertile. This was before my years, but my olders tell me that there was plenty of everything, and fine strong trees that we flew between. But the trees died, leaving only dead trunks, and most of the food disappeared too. For many generations we’ve eaten what we could find, and a drink was a rare luxury – we got our liquid from leaves and roots. But we stayed there because it was our place. There were better places, but they belonged to others who wouldn’t let us live there.
‘Sometimes giants like you came through the hills to our place gathering shiny pebbles. They would always become excited when they found some, although they must have travelled a great distance in their search, as many were thin and weak when they reached us, and some of them died. We ate those ones. Sometimes we were so hungry we didn’t wait until they were fully dead. If you start at the eyeballs and eat through to the brain they die quickly enough.
‘Not so long ago another giant came from the hills gathering shiny rocks. This one was exceptionally plump and juicy-looking. When it had gathered all the pebbles it could find and moved on, some of us decided to follow it. We knew it was risky to leave our home, but a meal like that doesn’t come along very often.’
‘So we followed it for several days, until it came to a place with fine, healthy trees and a pool of pure sweet water which bubbled out of some rocks.
‘There was plenty of food there – fruit in the trees and juicy beetles on the ground. But the giant didn’t seem to want to eat any of those things and instead it grabbed one of my companions and...’ Faloush’s voice faltered.
‘It ate your friend?’ Demi asked, horrified.
Faloush made a small sad sound.
‘That’s awful’, Demi said. ‘Didn’t the giant know you could talk?’ But then she realised that it was only the translation spell which was allowing her and Faloush to communicate.
‘The rest of us flew up into the trees. We waited ’til dark came and the giant fell asleep, then two of us flew down to eat its eyes through to the brain and kill it. Usually they die quickly when we do that. But this giant was still plump and strong, and it fought back. It grabbed hold of me and tried to kill me by dashing me against the ground.’ Faloush seemed deeply aggrieved that anyone would object to it eating their eyeballs. Demi was starting to regret saving its life.
‘What happened then?’ she asked.
‘I managed to escape its grasp, but I ended up in the pool, and couldn’t get out. My feathers got waterlogged. I thought I would perish there, but a shining life took hold of me and brought me to the place where you found me. Once I got out of those rocks I tried to fly, but I was too low down and got stuck in all that foul stuff.’
By this time they were emerging from the damp canyon into sunlight. The Guide directed them to turn right as they exited the canyon and follow a rocky path which hairpinned down the mountainside. There were still patches of ice and snow in the shade of boulders, but the air had lost the deadly chill of the mountaintops.
Demi hoped she wouldn’t have to walk all the way down, but after a few turns the path ended at a huge tumble of boulders. Nowhere to go but up and over, so with numb hands and aching legs Demi hauled herself up to the top of the pile. Ahead of them the way was lost under a huge rockslide, but to the right a cleft opened in the mountainside, and the Guide told Demi that was the way they should go.
Steam was pouring off the top of the rocks where the sun was warming them, and rolling down into the gulley beyond which was already full of dense fog. She couldn’t even see the base of the rockpile, but decided it was best to descend with her face to the rocks. She was good at clambering but the rocks were slippery, and her hands so cold she could barely move her fingers. Several times she lost her footing, bruising and scraping her knees and shins on the way down. Eventually her boot touched something flat and level, which creaked. Thin ice! She had to turn around awkwardly on the slippery rocks to check out the problem, but lost her hold altogether, and plunged though the ice into freezing water. Thankfully it was only ankle deep, but now she had a bruise on her hip, and a tear in her leggings. Faloush had moved just in time to avoid being squashed. Demi could feel them trembling where they perched on top of her head.
At least this was just a big puddle, and Demi was out of it in a moment. She was now in fog so dense she could barely see the ground. She was standing in a narrow dry streambed, a couple of feet wide, and the grassy banks soon mixed with the white mist. Slender trees were just visible at arm’s length, but Demi and Faloush were cocooned in white silence.
The Guide instructed them to follow the dry stream bed, so Demi set off, limping slightly. Soon there was a soft whispering, then a drop of rain landed on Demi’s skin, then another, and another. Within moments it was like standing under an icy shower, as all the fog turned into rain. There was nowhere to shelter, and all she could do was pull up the hood of the jacket and lean forward to protect herself and Faloush as huge, freezing raindrops fell all around them. Water poured off the front of Demi’s hood and the tail of the jacket, soaking in and chilling her where the bird’s talons had ripped the fabric. It was horrible, but after a few minutes the rain stopped, and colour and shadows returned to the world as sunlight broke through the gloom. Demi straightened up and looked around. The sun was shining directly along the valley, catching the raindrops which hung from every twig. The floor of the valley sloped uphill towards a curtain of glittering icicles. Beyond the ice curtain, a gully filled with snow shone in the sunlight. The air was full of glittering rainbow colours.
She followed the stream bed uphill – it was the only clear path through all the shrubs and wildflowers, but water was starting to flow along it, swirling around her feet. Despite the sunshine, Demi was damp and cold, and wondered if she’d ever feel warm again. But if Demi felt wretched, she could only imagine how difficult it would be for a tiny creature like Faloush. They were tough and brave and smart, and had feathers for warmth, but Demi could tell they were intimidated by the surroundings. She needed to get Faloush back to Vicky and Heledd asap. As she walked through the stream, which was getting deeper by the minute, Demi sought out the traces of magic which would signify a nixie pool. Just as she approached the end of the valley she sensed the magic, and there, at the foot of a cliff, was a pool with a nixie waiting. It took some persuasion to get Faloush to leave with the nixie. Not only were they worried about what waited at the other end, but they still felt indebted to Demi, and were reluctant to leave her alone in this terrifying environment.
Demi persuaded Faloush that they could repay the debt by taking a reassuring message to Vicky. ‘My friends will care for you’, Demi said. ‘And when I return, we can go together to the most beautiful desert, with giant trees, and be hot and dry forever.’ And won’t Owina be impressed with you, Demi thought.
That was enough to persuade Faloush. But as Demi spoke her message for Vicky, she realised there would be no translator in Tanybryn. ‘Ok’, she said ‘I’ll have to switch this thing off, and you’ll ha
ve to copy the sounds I make. Don’t worry that they won’t speak your language. Heledd is really good at communicating.’
She switched off the translator, and after a few attempts Faloush managed to say her message clearly enough. Then they approached the nixie pool, and after a brief moment the nixie appeared and took Faloush’s clawed little hand. After they’d gone, a horrible wave of loneliness swept over Demi. And she’d still barely started on this quest. As she turned away from the pool, another panel on the Guide slid up, revealing some more pictograms, and an oddly shaped recess, like a small gingerbread man. Demi restarted the translator spell, and understood she needed to make for the frozen waterfall and release a key trapped in the ice. Now how was she going to do that?
She scrambled over the rocks until she was as close as she could get to the fall. It wasn’t huge – nothing on the scale of Niagara Falls, let alone Angel Falls – but it towered above the slender trees which surrounded them. A huge boulder filled up half the plunge pool, inch thick ice binding it to the cliff it had escaped from years before. There were enough hand-holds on the boulder for Demi to scramble up on top of it, after a few goes which left her even more cold and bruised. She stood on top of the boulder, just keeping her balance, and wondered what to do next. She tried to peer through the ice to see what lay beyond, but it was so full of bubbles and fault lines where one icicle had fused with the next, that she could only look into it, not through it. And there, stuck in the ice, was an oddly shaped metal key, the same size and shape as the hole in the Guide. It was a rusty old thing - but then, had it been new and shiny, she’d probably never have noticed it.
Although the sun was shining full on the ice, causing a few drops of meltwater to plink metallically into the pool, it was obvious it would be months before the ice melted completely. Magic had been used to seal the key into the ice, but she didn’t have the spell to release it. Maybe if she used the Gadget to focus the sun’s warmth she could melt a hole.
She tried, but she was still terrible for wasting magic, and she was soon exhausted and headachy, and she could sense the Gadget’s power was running low. Despite all her effort, any warmth that had got into the key had soon been sucked out by the ice. The only other magic she knew was getting between the atoms and forcing them apart – but how would she know when to stop? She remembered Owina’s warning that she could destroy the whole mountain if she wasn’t careful. Maybe she could use her power whistle? She remembered a video she’d seen in Physics about the science behind shattering a wineglass – if you got the note just right, you could make any object vibrate violently. Could she use that to release the key? There was no harm in trying.
She filled her lungs and began to whistle, using Owina’s technique to focus it into a powerful sound beam. It took a while to find the right frequency, but soon she could sense the key buzzing in the ice. She put all the power she could into the whistle, willing the key to break free. It was working! The curtain of ice was ringing along with her whistle, the wild sound filling the narrow valley. But how could she get the key out of all that ice?
All of a sudden, with a deafening roar, the ice curtain broke apart into thousands of fragments. With chunks of ice falling all around her, Demi covered her head with her arms, and leapt into the darkness behind the waterfall to escape. Blocks of ice – some as big as her head – rained all around and over her as they bounced off the boulder and into the cave.
As the chaos subsided, she raised herself up on whatever parts of her body would still bear weight. Cut, bruised and hurting all over, the effort made stars dance before her eyes. Was that blood dripping down the side of her face? Rolling onto her side, she groaned as she put weight on another injury. She had received several blows to her head from the ice, and, touching the various spots, wasn’t surprised when her hand came away red and sticky. Slowly fury built up in her, and if Hafren had been anywhere nearby she’d have torn him to pieces. But he was safe in Annwn, surrounded by people to protect him and wait on him, while she was out here, all alone. The adrenaline coursing through her veins helped her get to her feet – and made the Gadget begin to glow, just when it seemed on the point of shutting down. She was stunned and bleeding, but not dead yet. She couldn’t possibly be in this much pain if she was dead. She could still do this thing – if she could only find the key. The Guide wasn’t being much help –it just kept repeating the same instructions over and over, telling her to insert the key into the slot. She wished Faloush was still with her – but he was so tiny he’d probably have been killed in that catastrophe. Thinking of Faloush made her think of small animals in general. There was something about them that would be useful, if she could only remember it. What was it about little creatures? Oh, yes, she could charm them easily. She still had the spider in the guide, but would that be any use for finding a key in the dark? Probably not. But there were bats in the cave, she realised, fluttering about in panic. What did a bat want? she wondered. It took her a few minutes to lock her mind with the tiny creatures, but soon she found one which was younger and more malleable than the others. She managed to soothe it, making vague promises that everything would be alright. As their minds meshed, she realised she could ‘see’ with the bat’s senses, and instead of dim light she was sensing the world by sharp echolocation. It was brilliant – she just had to stand still and pick up what the bat sensed as it flew about the cave. It didn’t take long to find the key, although it was wedged in an incredibly awkward spot. Demi encouraged the bat to fly back and forth over the spot as she dragged her weary, bruised body across the rocky, uneven cave floor to the key. Fortunately the magnetic buttons on the jacket were strong enough to fish the iron key out of its nook, allowing her to finally place the key into the slot in the Guide, and shut the dratted machine up.
She kept her mind meshed with the young bat’s as it continued to fly around the cave. It was incredible that there were so many bats, yet they didn’t collide with each other. More and more of the bats were settling back into their roost, and as the space inside the cave cleared, Demi sensed a passage at the back of the cave, leading deep into the mountain. A quick check with the Guide confirmed this was the way she should go. But it was dark as the devil’s armpit in the passage, and the glow from Owina’s Gadget wasn’t enough to light the way. She’d have to hold on to this bat for a while, and use it to guide her.
Echolocation is a strange sense. Initially Demi used the inputs from the bat’s prime sense to feed her own prime sense – vision – but there were some nasty creeping, scuttling things in the cave she’d rather not have known about, so she just used it to guide her footsteps. That worked fine, until she stumbled over something which hadn’t concerned the bat, and fell, jarring all her injuries at once.
‘Stupid bat!’ she thought, and sensing her fury it fled, taking its echolocation with it. Demi was left alone with just stars of pain in her eyes.