“Well, you’re not! You’re from the Icemark, and the other human’s from the Desert Kingdom, where Suleiman the Great once ruled and gave all his people the protection of just laws!”
The three friends looked at each other, their suspicions now thoroughly aroused. “You know a great deal about us for one who just happens to be casually curious. Why is that, exactly? You wouldn’t have been briefed by someone with an interest in us, perhaps?” asked Sharley suspiciously.
The creature managed to sneer even though half of its face was squashed into the mud underfoot. “Everyone knows about the Icemark and its allies; ask the next creature of any species you meet. You’re all famous for beating Scipio Bellorum and his empire despite all the help he got from . . . other quarters.” Then, suddenly becoming even more agitated, it exploded: “Look, we’re not talking about the Mysteries of Creation here! No mortal’s that enigmatic; everything you do is watched every day! Even the most stupid amongst you is sometimes aware of it; haven’t you ever felt that you’re being watched, or that someone’s standing behind you when there seems to be no one there? Well, that’s when we’re watching you; believe me, you mortals have no secrets from us!”
Sharley looked at the others and shrugged. “What do you think?”
“I don’t trust him,” said Mekhmet decisively. “I think he’s lying.”
“Well, if he is, that means someone’s spying on us, in which case we may not have stumbled into the Plain of Desolation by accident.” He paused to allow the importance of his words to sink in. “We may have been lured here!”
“I don’t believe that,” said Kirimin confidently. “We got lost during Samhein; everyone knows that the mortal and spirit realms are close to each other at that time, and that people sometimes slip between worlds. We were just unlucky enough to find a cave that led us here, that’s all.”
“You mean you were unlucky enough to find a cave,” Mekhmet pointed out. “Sharley and me had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, you didn’t have to follow me,” Kirimin replied hotly. “I don’t think I can be held responsible for the fact that you’re a pair of sheep without the brains to think for yourselves!”
“Bickering amongst ourselves doesn’t really help matters,” said Sharley. “We still have to decide what we’re going to do with this . . . thing.”
“Good point,” Kirimin agreed. “Anyway, what is it exactly? We haven’t even decided that yet.”
“You could always try asking me,” the creature said snottily from under Kirimin’s paw.
“Yes, I suppose we could,” she said with a light laugh. “All right, then, what are you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Quite frankly, no, it’s not,” said Kirimin crisply. “I mean, just look at you! You’ve got wings like a giant bird of some sort, but arms, legs and a head like a little human being, apart from the horns that is. And as for your body . . . well, have you ever seen anything like it?” she asked, turning to the boys.
“No,” Sharley answered decisively. “He looks like he’s been stitched together from spare parts. In fact, I don’t know of any creature that has birds’ wings and a scaly body. And as for the tail with that strange arrowhead point . . .”
“I think I’ve seen him before,” Mekhmet interrupted quietly. “In fact, he seemed familiar from the moment we first met him, but it’s taken me until now to remember exactly where.”
“Well, spit it out, where?” Kirimin asked.
“In a book I read once about creatures of the night. He’s a demon, a little devil, sometimes called an imp.”
“That’s correct,” the creature agreed. “I am an imp. My name is Imp-Pious Blasphemosa.”
“Pleased to meet you . . .” Kirimin began to reply politely, but she was interrupted by the sound of a scimitar being drawn.
“Stand away, Kiri! Imps are evil, children of the Devil who bring pain, havoc and death to the world.”
“Children of the Devil?” said Kirimin confusedly. “Now, just give me a moment . . . he’s part of some obscure human mythology, isn’t he? Something to do with evil . . .”
“Perhaps I can help you,” said the imp, and smiled coldly. “According to some beliefs, the Devil is the Supreme Negativity; the antithesis of divinity and lord of all darkness and chaos. He rules a domain that according to many religions occupies an area vaguely postulated as being somewhere beneath our feet. A place of torment and evil; a place often of fire, and, I believe the term is brimstone. But of course these myths have a habit of appearing and reappearing in many different beliefs. And I believe I’m right in saying that the Devil is known by many names: Beelzebub, Lucifer, Cronus . . .”
Sharley drew his scimitar and joined Mekhmet, who was watching the creature warily. “You seem to have signed your own Death Warrant, Mr Imp. I must admit that normally I prefer the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But here in the Plain of Desolation I don’t think we can afford such a luxury.”
“Now just a moment!” said Kirimin. “Let’s not be too hasty. Impervious here could be a useful guide and adviser.”
“That’s Imp-Pious!”
“Yes, all right,” the Snow Leopard said dismissively. “But the fact remains that he knows the Plain of Desolation, and as we don’t, he could be valuable.”
“But we can’t trust him,” said Mekhmet.
“I think I’ve adequately explained my position,” said Imp-Pious, suddenly becoming aware of his mistake in admitting to a knowledge of the Devil. “I was simply curious and wanted to see mortals at first hand, as it were. And as for the claim that Imps are ‘Children of the Devil’, well, that’s a wild exaggeration.” He paused as he realised he was beginning to gabble, and then went on. “The Snow Leopard’s right, I do know the area very well, and could be very useful to you as an adviser and guide.”
“Why, so that you can lead us into trouble?” asked Mekhmet darkly.
“And why should I do that? What would I gain from it?”
“We’ve no idea,” Sharley said. “That’s the problem. We know nothing about you; why you’re here or who you’re working for . . . if anyone. But maybe Kirimin’s right; you could be our best hope of getting back home.”
“Indeed I am. If you’d just let me go, I could show you the way out,” said the Imp eagerly. “Now, do you have any ideas about how to return to the Physical Realms?”
“Some, I suppose. We know we need to look for a doorway between the worlds, and that these usually take the form of a tunnel of some sort. But where they’re likely to be, we’ve no idea. You wouldn’t know, would you?”
“Yes, absolutely. Though they may take a while to find.”
Sharley paused as he thought things through; then, taking a deep breath, he looked up. “I know I could be making a terrible mistake here, but I don’t think we really have any choice . . . Kirimin, let him go, and Mekhmet, tie his wings together so that he can’t fly off. Important, you are now our official guide.”
“Imp-Pious!” the creature corrected him, but he was too relieved to sound really indignant.
Howler was annoyed. He was sitting in the armoury of the Regiment of the Red Eye, with Eodred, his friend and fellow commander of the fighting unit that was made up of equal parts human and werewolf soldiers. As Princes of the human and werewolf worlds, Howler felt it was deeply insulting that they hadn’t been invited to the meeting that was discussing the collapse of the Polypontian Empire. For his part, Eodred had long ago accepted that he wasn’t bright enough to make much difference to any discussion or debate. He was quite content to wait until the decisions had been made and then be told where to go, and whom to fight.
But Howler was different; he understood the subtleties of diplomacy and the complicated tangle of government and its workings. But being nearly seven foot tall and as solid as a fortress wall, nobody expected him to understand even the simplest of intellectual tasks. King Grishmak, his father, attended all such debates, but Howler
suspected that much of what was said went over his head. His philosophy of governance could generally be summed up in the phrase ‘agree with me or I’ll rip your sodding head off’.
“Sharley and Mekhmet were expected to go,” said Howler grumpily. “I bet even Kirimin was. Why’re they different to us?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t go, did they?” Eodred replied, placidly polishing the blade of his battle-axe. “Nobody knows where they are. Everybody thinks they’re in the Great Forest, but I bet they’re not there now. It was Samhein when they disappeared, so I think they’re probably lost in the Magical Realms. But nobody listens to me; they’ll come to their own conclusions soon, and then there’ll be panic.”
“But they were invited, weren’t they?” said Howler, ignoring most of what Eodred said. “Why them and not us?”
“Because Mekhmet represents the Desert Kingdom, as does Sharley, and Kirimin needs the experience of how these things work.”
“And we don’t?”
“Well, I don’t. Nobody listens to me anyway, so it’d be a waste of time inviting me along to any discussion. Though I suppose I could keep Maggie awake.”
“And that’s another thing! Maggie was invited! Why him?”
Eodred looked at his friend witheringly. “Look, I’m the stupid one and even I know Maggie’s the cleverest politician this side of Doge Machiavelli. You’re just letting the fact you’re in a bad mood get in the way of your brains. Pass me that sword, it’s getting a bit dull.”
The werewolf Prince handed the weapon to his friend automatically while he continued to mull over his resentments. “I mean, I only found out that it’d been agreed we’d invade the Polypontus from one of the housecarles!”
“No, you didn’t!” said Eodred, beginning to get annoyed with his friend’s unconscious distortion of events. “You might have found out that it’d been agreed we’d look into the possibility of an invasion, but that’s all. Nothing’s been finalised.”
“Just a matter of time, I’m sure,” Howler muttered sullenly.
“Yeah, well, when that happens you can relax, because they won’t be going anywhere without us. Our regiment’s too good to leave at home, and if everything I hear about the southern Hypolitan and their Basilea is true, anyone who tries to stop her is going to need everyone they can get.”
“She certainly sounds formidable, it has to be said,” Howler agreed quietly. “It’s ironic really: you get rid of one homicidal maniac and his sons, only to find that once Bellorum’s dead his place is happily taken by another nutter who might actually be worse than him. I mean, did you hear the relay report on the fall of that city in the southernmost province of the Polypontus heartland?”
“I do understand werewolf speech, you know,” said Eodred, defending his scant intellectual abilities with a nicely judged sense of outrage.
“Yes, I know. But you sleep a lot, and when you’re not doing that you’re fighting, or eating, or drinking . . . I thought you might have missed it, what with being busy in so many other areas.”
Eodred finished polishing the sword and put it back in the rack. “Well, there’s just a chance I might have been doing something else, I suppose . . . just remind me again, what was the town called?”
“Right, so you didn’t hear the report then, I thought not,” said Howler. “The place was called Tri-polis, which literally means three cities, and it had three complete sets of defensive walls, each one protecting a huge sweep of the city that was built as a set of rings, one inside the other; like a big onion. Anyway, Basilea Erinor took the place in three days, one for each set of walls. Not only that, but she killed all the inhabitants, not just the soldiers, but everyone. And then she burned the place to the ground and demolished whatever was left standing.”
“Thorough,” said Eodred, climbing to his feet and stretching hugely.
“Mad, you mean.”
“That too. But what’s happened to the Imperial army? One of its generals is killed and it falls to pieces. Why?”
Howler sat in thought for a few moments, his sensitive nostrils unconsciously twitching as the distinctive scent of cleaning oil rose up from the old rag Eodred had been using. Eventually he said: “I suppose . . . I suppose there must have been a combination of factors at work. Not only the death of Bellorum and his tactically brilliant sons, but also the war with the Desert Kingdom in the south, and the Venettians and Hellenes on the high seas. It probably would have survived one or even two of these pressures, but all three was just too much for it.”
“Perhaps,” Eodred conceded. “But just because your army’s stretched to the limit doesn’t make it less brilliant than it was before. The Imperial Legions were feared and respected throughout the known world, and now they lose every battle.”
“Pressure may not make your army less ‘brilliant’ as you put it, but it will make it less efficient,” said Howler. “And couple that with the fact that the loss of the coastal ports have interrupted vital lines of supply, and with the breakdown of the empire’s manufacturing industry because of that disruption of supply, and you have a perfect recipe for military failure.”
Eodred gazed at his friend admiringly. “They just didn’t know what they were missing when they forgot to invite you to the emergency meeting, did they? Come on, I’m hungry; let’s see what the mess has cooking.”
“How can you even consider eating at a time like this?” asked Howler incredulously.
“Why not? We’ve got to keep up our strength for the trials ahead. It’s no use meeting Erinor and her Hordes all thin and wasted, is it? I see it as one of my duties to eat like a Tharaman.”
“Not possible,” said Howler. “But perhaps you’re right, I could do with a sandwich myself.”
“A sandwich! That won’t even touch the sides! You’ll have a side of beef or I’ll want to know why not!”
CHAPTER 10
They’d been travelling through an area of boiling mud-pots and erupting geysers for over two hours, and it was getting hotter by the minute. The daytime probably wouldn’t last for more than another hour or so, but in that time the clammy, swirling mists would absorb more and more of the geysers’ heat, making it feel like they were travelling through a sauna. Everywhere insects flew and darted through the dappled shadows. Most of them were recognisable, but truly enormous, from dragonflies that had wingspans wider than Sharley could stretch his arms, to maggots that were as big as slimy loaves of bread. Once a bluebottle rumbled across their path with wings as big as the sheets of glass Maggie claimed could be found in the cathedrals of the Southern Continent.
At one point they’d had to ride by a hornet’s nest and the creatures had attacked, forcing Sharley and Mekhmet to draw their scimitars and, along with Kiri, fight their way clear of an angry swarm. The insects were the size of large dogs, and their stings dripped venom as they swooped into the attack. Fortunately no one was stung, and they managed to kill over a dozen before the monster hornets gave up and flew back to their nest.
Food was becoming an acute problem. Kirimin in particular was beginning to feel the effects of the lack of sustenance; her huge muscular body demanded a massive daily input of energy in the form of fresh meat. But the boys were small and wiry, with the sort of hard stamina that could keep them going all day, and that, added to the fact that they were battle-trained and war-hardened, meant that they were coping with the privations of life on the Plain of Desolation far more easily than the giant Snow Leopard.
“The large cat needs sustenance,” said Imp-Pious to Mekhmet, as though Kirimin was some sort of pet.
“Yes, I know,” he agreed. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything big enough for us to hunt that would satisfy her appetite.”
“An interesting problem,” the Imp replied. “In fact, I might hazard a prediction and say that all three of you are soon likely to meet a creature that would feed an entire regiment of Snow Leopards.”
“What do you mean?” Mekhmet asked suspiciously.
“
I feel something getting close. In fact, it’s almost upon us! UNTIE ME, UNTIE ME! I’LL BE LOOK OUT!” Imp-Pious suddenly screeched. “THERE’S AN ELEPHANTA COMING THIS WAY!”
“A what?” asked Mekhmet in mild surprise, loosening the rope.
“AN ELEPHANTA! RUN! FOR GOD’S SAKE RUN!”
The Imp then flew off, rising high into the air, where he hovered, calmly watching events as they unfolded.
“All right, anyone want to make a guess about exactly what an elephanta looks like?” asked Sharley, unsheathing his scimitar and settling his shield on his arm.
Kirimin raised her head, taking an interest in her surroundings for the first time in several hours, and narrowed her eyes as she gazed across a wide clearing in the mists. “Well, that’s easy . . . we’ve all heard of the mythical elephant, haven’t we? You know, big as a house and a tail at both ends. In fact, I should imagine it looks something amazingly like that,” she said quietly. “Except this one’s as big as two houses.”
The boys followed her gaze, and watched as the biggest creature any of them had ever seen crashed into the clear space before them. Sharley knew full well that elephants did exist; he and Mekhmet had seen them in Arifica, but they hadn’t been bright green like this one, and neither had they stood as high as four warhorses at the shoulder, nor been as long as half a squadron of cavalry.
“Lances, I think,” said Mekhmet calmly, and sheathing his sword, he drew one of the three long spears he carried in a scabbard on his saddle. Sharley did the same, and they quietly urged their horses forward into the clearing that was still continuing to widen. Kirimin stood her ground, raising her head and scenting the strange beast. The smell was so odd that she sneezed, the enormous eruption of sound echoing through what was beginning to look suspiciously like an arena. The creature swung its hideous tailed head ponderously towards her, the pupils of its red eyes suddenly dilating as it focused on her. It raised its thick face-tail, opened its mouth and let out a huge trumpeting sound. Kirimin gave a huge roar in return, but she kept her eyes on the long sharp teeth that grew out of the creature’s head on either side of its tail.