“I know, I know,” said Constable Peel. “And it gets worse: I pretended she’d lost it. I even helped to organize the search party.”
“Oh, the hypocrisy!” said Angry, who actually thought that this did demonstrate a certain criminal cunning on the part of the juvenile Peel. It was almost admirable. He began to wonder if he might not have misjudged the policeman.
Constable Peel uncovered his face, revealing a fanatical gleam in his eye. “But when I went home that day, I vowed that never again would I engage in illegal activities, cookie-based or otherwise. From that day on I was a policeman in spirit, and the law was my mistress. I was Bob Peel, child lawman, and school-yard wrongdoers trembled at my approach.”
There was silence as the dwarfs considered this before Jolly said somberly:
“You must have been an absolute pain in the bum.”
Constable Peel stared at him. His chin trembled. His fists clenched. For a second there was murder in the air.
“You know, I absolutely was,” said Constable Peel, and their laughter was so loud that dust from the cave roof fell in their beer, improving it slightly.
Back at the cave mouth, Wormwood nibbled on a jelly bean as he, Nurd, and Samuel, joined by Sergeant Rowan, assessed their situation.
“The car has taken a beating,” said Wormwood. “And the ice-cream van isn’t going to last much longer. We’re also nearly out of fuel, and it will take time to synthesize some more.”
“Is there any good news?” asked Nurd.
“We still have jelly beans.”
“Will they power our car?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not really very good news, then, is it?”
“No,” said Wormwood. “Not really. Oh look, the rain’s easing off.” He frowned. “That’s not good news either, is it?”
Nurd rubbed his eyes wearily. “No, it’s not.”
Soon the skies would once again be filled with eager, hostile eyes. Their enemies knew that they were in the area, and when the rain stopped they would begin to close in on them. They had no weapons, and little hope. There were days that just seemed to get harder and harder as they went on. Finding Samuel should have been a bright spot; after all, Nurd had spent so long wishing that he and his friend could be together again. Now that Samuel was here, Nurd just hoped to see him gone. Be careful what you wish for, he supposed: he hadn’t wanted Samuel to be dragged to Hell just so that they could have another conversation. The dwarfs and Constable Peel appeared by his side, and together the little group gazed out as the rainfall grew gentler, and then ceased entirely.
“This is our chance,” Nurd told them all. “It will stay dark and quiet for a while now that the rain has stopped. It’s the way of things here. There’ll be no lightning, and we can make some progress without being seen.”
“And the plan is that we find this woman, or demon, or whatever she is, and make her send us home?” said Angry.
“Or you find her, she tears you apart, and you don’t have to worry about getting home anymore,” said Nurd. “It depends, really.”
“On what?”
“On how fast you can run once she spots you.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan,” said Jolly. “And we’ve only got little legs. We’re not really built for speed.”
“That’s unfortunate,” said Nurd. “Speed always helps on these occasions.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re much of a runner either,” said Angry. “Big boots, bit of a belly. You’re going to have trouble outrunning this Mrs. Abernathy too, if she’s chasing us.”
“But I don’t have to outrun her,” said Nurd reasonably. “I just have to outrun you…”
XXVIII
In Which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong
PREPARATIONS BEGAN FOR THEIR departure while Samuel watched the clouds swirl. They moved less violently than before, as though worn out by their earlier efforts, the faces less visible now. There was a faint yellow glow to the sky, and although the landscape before him was not beautiful, it was at a kind of peace. The rocky hillside descended to more muddy bogs, across which stretched a stone causeway. As before, a stinking, heavy mist hung over the bogs, and Samuel felt sure that it would hide them from any watchful eyes above as they drove.
He thought about his mother. She would be worried about him. He had lost all track of time since he had arrived in this place, but at least a day and a night had gone by, and perhaps more. Then again, time was different here. He wasn’t even sure that there was time, not really. He supposed that, if eternity stretched before you, then minutes and hours and days would cease to have any meaning. But they had meaning for him: they represented moments spent separated from those whom he loved: from his mother, his friends, even his dad. Nurd was here, though, which was something.
Beside him, Boswell gave a little yip and got to his feet. He sniffed the air. His ears twitched, and he looked troubled.
“What is it, Boswell?” asked Samuel as a shadow fell upon him, and the Watcher clasped a hand over Samuel’s mouth so that he could not cry out, and pulled him into the air with a great flapping of his wings. By the time Nurd and the others grasped what was happening, Samuel was already disappearing into low clouds, clasped tightly in the Watcher’s arms. Boswell ran down the hillside after them, barking and leaping up on his stubby back legs as though he might yet haul the massive red creature down.
But Samuel was gone, and it was left to Nurd to run to the little dog and hold him lest he get lost, or eaten, Boswell struggling all the time, desperate to follow Samuel, desperate to save him.
A craggy peak rose in the distance. Nurd thought that he saw a figure there, perched on the back of a basilisk. It was looking back at him, and he heard Mrs. Abernathy’s voice as clearly as if she were standing next to him:
“I will come for you, Nurd. I have not forgotten your meddling. For now, it is enough punishment for you to know that I have your friend, and I will sacrifice him to my master. And then it will be your turn.”
But Nurd did not care about her threats, or about himself. He cared only for Samuel, and how he might be rescued.
• • •
The Watcher flew high. It held Samuel, and Samuel held it, for Samuel feared falling more than he feared the creature holding him. Its skin smelled of sulfur and ash, and was pitted with the scars of deep, long-healed wounds. Samuel felt the creature’s consciousness probing at his own, trying to learn about him, exploring his strengths and his weaknesses. But as it tested him, so too it exposed something of itself, and Samuel was shocked by the strangeness of it, and he understood that even by the standards of Hell itself, this was a peculiar, solitary being, one entirely unlike him but also unlike any other entity in that place.
No, not quite. It was allied to another, to—
For an instant Samuel glimpsed the Great Malevolence, and had his first real inkling of the depths of the First Demon’s evil, and wretchedness, and madness. It was so awful that Samuel’s mind immediately put up a series of blockades to protect his sanity, which had the effect of closing out the Watcher. The rhythm of the creature’s flight was momentarily interrupted, as though it were shocked at the strength of the boy’s will. It gripped him tighter as a consequence, clasping him against its shoulder so that Samuel was looking back in the direction that they had come, back toward the hills still visible through wisps of cloud, and toward Boswell and Nurd, who were lost from sight.
A pale, emaciated figure broke through the clouds from above, its ribs clearly visible beneath its skin, its belly sunken. Its head was bald, its ears were long and pointed, and it had too many teeth for its mouth, so that they jutted forth from between its lips, snaggled and broken. It paused in midair, seemingly surprised to have come across them, then altered its position and began its pursuit. It was a wraith, a batlike demon little taller than Samuel himself. Its wings were attached to its arms, ending in sharp, hooked claws, and it had talons for feet. These talons it now stuck out, poi
sed to strike like a falcon descending on its prey.
Samuel beat on the Watcher’s back, and managed to cry out a warning. Instinctively the Watcher turned to its right, and the smaller creature’s talons missed them by inches, one of its wings slapping against Samuel’s face as it flew by. The Watcher shifted Samuel so that he was held only beneath its left arm, and Samuel felt sure that he would fall. He dug his nails into the Watcher’s hard skin, and wrapped his legs tightly around its waist.
The wraith came at them again, this time from below, screaming over and over, summoning others like it to the chase. The Watcher struck out at it with a flick of its right arm, and its nails tore a hole in the attacker’s belly. No blood came, but the wraith’s wings stopped flapping and it spiraled through the clouds to the ground far below like a fighter plane crippled by gunfire, crying in agony as it fell.
Two more appeared, drawn by the shrieks of their brother. They dived together. One aimed blows at the Watcher’s head, distracting it, while the second tried to pull Samuel from his grasp, but the Watcher held on tightly. His free hand grabbed the wraith that was scratching at his eyes and broke its neck before discarding it. The second it almost decapitated with a swipe of its hand, leaving the head hanging from a fold of skin, and with that the attack was over, and they were alone in the skies once more. Samuel closed his eyes as they flew on, so that neither he nor the Watcher saw a final wraith that shadowed them for a time from above before it slipped away to report to Duke Abigor all that it had seen.
XXIX
In Which Various August Personages Put Their Plans in Motion
MRS. ABERNATHY’S BASILISK POUNDED across the warm stones, lost in the clouds of steam that had arisen in the aftermath of the recent showers. There was an acrid smell in the air, the stink of flesh, and wood, and vegetation corroded and burned by the falling acid, yet already what passed for life in that place was recovering. Clumps of brown seared weeds became slightly less brown; stunted bushes, blackened and smoking, reassumed their usual dull hue; and assorted small demons who had not been quick enough to escape the downpour began growing back arms, legs, toes, and heads. Some of them even grew an extra limb or two while they were about it, just in case an additional appendage proved useful in the future. From holes in the ground and through gaps in the bushes, they watched Mrs. Abernathy pass, and they saw that her face was alive with triumph, and her eyes shone a deep, cold blue. Not all of them knew who she was, for there were parts of Hell where the Great Malevolence was little more than a rumored presence hidden deep in his mountain fastness, and his dukes and generals and legions could have been figures from old fables for all the impact they had on the existence of these primitive entities. Yet they sensed that this curious figure was immensely powerful, and should probably be avoided if at all possible.
And then she was gone and they instantly forgot about her, for they had more immediate concerns, such as when it might rain acid again, and what to do with that extra head they’d just grown.
Mrs. Abernathy didn’t even notice the movement around her. She sensed the conflict in which the Watcher was engaged far above her head, but she had never been less than certain of its capacity to annihilate any enemy that came within its reach. There had been a moment when she feared the Watcher might drop Samuel Johnson, an eventuality that might have put paid to her hopes of returning to the Great Malevolence’s favor. After all, there wouldn’t have been much to show of the boy if he’d been dropped from thousands of feet onto hard rock. True, his consciousness would have survived, but she wasn’t certain that she could reconstitute a human as easily as a demon, and a mulch of messy blood, bits of bone, and fragments of tissue lacked a certain immediate identifiability. She could, she supposed, have scraped him into a jar, stuck a label on it reading “Samuel Johnson (Most of Him),” and presented it to the Great Malevolence, but it wouldn’t have had quite the same impact as delivering the boy, weeping yet intact, to her master, and sharing in his revenge on the troublesome little human.
But even as Mrs. Abernathy pictured in her mind the details of Samuel Johnson’s impending humiliation, she remained troubled by the intervention of Duke Abigor. Abigor had always resented her position, but she was surprised by how quickly he had moved against her following the failure of the invasion. Some of those who had allied themselves with him, Dukes Guares and Borym among them, had once been her allies, and their betrayal stung her. She entertained herself by running through lists of the various agonies she would order to be visited upon them once she stood again at her master’s left hand, then pushed such pleasant images away, clearing her mind entirely so that she could concentrate on more important matters.
Abigor was risking a great deal by working against her: although she had been banished from the Great Malevolence’s presence, no sentence had been passed upon her and she was still, theoretically at least, commander of his armies. Thus Abigor was technically guilty of treason, although she might have difficulty proving it should the necessity arise, for as yet Abigor had done nothing directly to undermine her position.
Yet if he had laid hands on Samuel Johnson, what would he have done with him? He could have presented him as a gift to the Great Malevolence, just as Mrs. Abernathy planned to do, but he would have experienced some difficulty in explaining how he had managed to drag his captive to Hell. No, Abigor was playing a different game here, the dimensions of which Mrs. Abernathy was only beginning to grasp. The Chancellor, Ozymuth, was on Abigor’s side, and Ozymuth, if the oozing Crudford was to be believed, was intent upon undermining the Great Malevolence by prolonging, and deepening, his grief. It hardly seemed possible, but Abigor was not interested merely in supplanting Mrs. Abernathy. No, he wanted to take the place of the Great Malevolence himself, to become the ruler of Hell in place of its maddened king. And having already enlisted many of the dukes in his scheme, even if they were not yet aware of the full extent of it, he had no choice but to see it through to its end. If he were to abandon it now, and the Great Malevolence were to recover his wits and discover even some small element of the plot—as he most assuredly would, for if Mrs. Abernathy did not tell him, others involved would, if only in the hope of saving themselves from punishment—then Abigor and his co-conspirators could expect to end up frozen for eternity in the Lake of Cocytus, if they were lucky and the Great Malevolence proved to be unexpectedly merciful. Abigor had gone too far to turn back now, and so he would have to gamble everything on the Great Malevolence’s ongoing madness and the defeat of Mrs. Abernathy. Both were linked to Samuel Johnson, for the sight of his enemy presented to him in chains might well bring the Great Malevolence back to his senses, and Abigor’s plot would fall to pieces. But if Samuel Johnson were to be kept from him, then his mourning and lunacy would continue, and Mrs. Abernathy would be doomed.
This was a delicate time. The boy was her captive, and she had to keep him safe from Abigor until she could bring him to the Mountain of Despair. The attack on the Watcher by Abigor’s wraiths was just the beginning. Worse would follow.
As if to confirm her suspicions, the ground before her cracked and a wretched beast, yellow, eyeless, and quivering, emerged from a hole. It was a Burrower, its lower half segmented like a worm’s, its upper half that of a man, with a face resembling that of a rat or a vole. It had the legs of a millipede, except at its fore and rear parts, where powerful webbed claws emerged from its body. It dwelled in the earth, only venturing entirely aboveground when absolutely necessary, and formed a collective consciousness with its fellows, so that knowledge gleaned by one was shared by all. Although blind, Burrowers could identify the presence of other beings aboveground by the vibrations of their footfalls, aided by their excellent sense of taste and smell. Such gifts made them useful spies, and they were loyal to Mrs. Abernathy, for she would sometimes hand over her enemies to them, and they would drag the unfortunate creatures underground and feast on them.
“Mistress, we bring news,” the Burrower said. “There are legions gathering
. We hear whispers. They speak of a boy. They intend to besiege your lair, and take him from you. You are to be punished for plotting against the Great Malevolence.”
“Punished?” said Mrs. Abernathy. She could barely believe the impudence of her enemies.
“Yes, mistress. You were tried in your absence by a panel of judges appointed by Duke Abigor, and by unanimous decision found guilty of treason. It is said that you opened a portal between this world and the world of men in the hope of securing the Earth for yourself and creating a kingdom there in opposition to this Kingdom of Fire. You are to be apprehended, and taken to the farthest, deepest reaches of Cocytus, where a place has been prepared for you in the ice.”
Mrs. Abernathy was shaken. They had moved so fast against her.
“How much time do I have?” she asked.
“Little, mistress. Although the forces that oppose you have not yet gathered in full at their place of rendezvous upon the Plains of Desolation, four legions have been sent ahead to secure your palace.”
“Whose legions?”
“Two legions each of Dukes Borym and Peros.”
“And what of my allies? What of my armies of Infernals?”
“They await your command.”
“Instruct them to gather in the shadow of the Forlorn Hills. Send word to those of the dukes who remain uncommitted. Tell them that the boy is in my power, and the time has come for them to choose sides. Loyalty will be rewarded many times over. Betrayal will never be forgiven.”
“Yes, mistress. And what of the legions that approach your lair?”
Mrs. Abernathy thought for a moment.
“Drag them down, and consume them,” she said.
She spurred on her basilisk and it sprang away, leaving the Burrower licking its lips in anticipation of fresh meat.