“Out of here! Quick!” yelled the colonel. “Get the gal out first.”
They all tumbled into the corridor, coughing, gasping, and blinded.
“Fetch Snark masks,” ordered the colonel.
But by the time the masks were fetched from the quartermaster’s store there was no need to put them on. The sour, choking fumes had cleared as rapidly as they came.
From inside the cabin there was no sound at all.
“Mollisk,” said the colonel, after a few moments, “put your mask back on, go in there with your ray-pistol cocked, and see what’s up.”
“Yessir.”
Mollisk went in and came back round-eyed, pulling off his mask.
“Sir, Colonel, you’ll never believe this—”
“Well, what?” snapped the colonel.
“He ain’t there! Only a big lump of summat—”
Impatiently, the colonel pushed Mollisk aside and went in to the cabin himself, closely followed by Dr. Wren, Dakin, and Sauna.
Mollisk was perfectly correct. On the bed lay a large, brownish, greyish, whitish lump of substance, roughly the size and shape of a man.
Dr. Wren tapped this cautiously with the earpiece of his spectacles.
“Stone,” he said quietly. “The man has turned to stone. In fact, to be quite precise, he has turned into a piece of Flint. I think this must be regarded as a diabolical joke. We are left with the substitute. The real essence of the man has gone—who knows where? But, I think we are safe in concluding, nowhere at all comfortable.”
“Your doll has gone too,” Dakin said to Sauna.
“I wouldn’t have wanted it, not ever again.” Then, turning to Dr. Wren, Sauna said, “Do you know, sir, I once stole that doll?”
“You did my child?” He did not seem in the least surprised.
“Yes! From Woolworth’s! When I was six. And my mam was so angry with me, when I came home with it, that she made me go back and tell the lady at the counter what I had done. And, do you know, the lady, she wasn’t angry—not exactly—but she paid for the doll herself, and the other one as well, and gave them to me. She said having them would remind me never in my whole life to take a thing that wasn’t mine.”
“You were luckier than Tom Flint,” said the archbishop sadly.
* * *
“But, sir,” Sauna said to the archbishop later, when they happened to be alone together.
“Yes, my child?”
“What has all this been about? Who was Auntie Floss, really? And Tom Flint? Why did he snatch me? And who was with him? And what did they have to do with the monsters? And what was the book that Auntie Floss kept nagging at me to go and fetch? Why couldn’t she get it—if she could get all the way from Manchester to Scotland? And what was that awful voice—the one that said ‘unloose the tempest,’ the one Tom Flint called Master? Who was He?”
Sauna’s voice wobbled a little; some memories were still hard to face.
Dr. Wren considered. He said, “You know that always, from the very beginnings of life as we know it, there has been a continual, non-stop conflict between good and evil—the forces that we call good and evil?”
“Has there?” asked Sauna doubtfully.
“Of course there has! The whole universe is balanced between pairs of opposites—good and evil, night and day, up and down, winter and summer. And, on the whole, the state of equilibrium is maintained. But every now and then one side weighs heavier than the other. Things begin to tilt. More often in the direction of down, of darkness. Chaos encroaches. It is what we call the Sleep of Reason; society begins to crumble—”
“Wait, sir, wait! Stop! What’s the Sleep of Reason?”
“It is what happens when the level of wickedness in several people’s minds begins to combine together and forms a force that can, temporarily at least, overcome the forces of honour and good sense and law. What—for instance—caused the hole in the ozone layer? It was greed and stupidity, a rush to make profits before the dangers of new industrial processes had been thoroughly explored. So, what resulted? Monsters found their way in.”
“But—but,—but someone sent the monsters—who did that? Why?”
“It was the total sum of all that greed and wickedness in people’s minds. We give it a name. We call it Satan, the Prince of Dark. Human beings who surrender totally to this force may become temporarily endowed with superhuman attributes—but only temporarily. Like Mrs. Monsoon, like Tom Flint. It is borrowed power, soon spent.”
“Why did they want that book? Why did they want me to fetch it?”
“Every few generations,” said Dr. Wren, “there will be born a human intelligence far in advance of his time. Plato, Galileo, Leonardo. Of this kind was Michael Scott. It is thought he anticipated Einstein, that he had discovered nuclear physics, a parallel universe—and, also, terrible ways in which one human group might wreak havoc on another. Such a book, in the wrong hands, might lead to unutterable devastation. His secrets are safer forgotten, until human society has progressed far enough to be able to use them unselfishly, for the good of the whole universe.”
“But,” said Sauna, still thinking of Aunt Floss, “why couldn’t they get the book themselves? If they had all that power?”
“There had to be a human instrument who could understand and serve this purpose. You were the choice of the higher powers—the dark angels—perhaps because you were Michael Scott’s descendant. And may have mental abilities of which you are still unaware. Aunt Floss was too old and crazy, Flint too untrustworthy. They were soon discarded. But you were young, with unknown potential.”
Sauna found that she did not wish to think about this suggestion. She said, “Will there always be good and evil, sir?”
“So far as we can hypothesize. But they may be on different levels—ones that we can only guess at.”
Sauna shivered. The prospect of this eternal struggle was daunting and tiring. Uli laid his head on her knee and sighed deeply, and she rubbed his bristly brows.
Dr. Wren looked at her with sympathy. She had, he thought, probably a long, unguessed-at course ahead of her, a hard way, very likely a dangerous one.
“But your Cousin Dakin will help you,” he murmured, half to himself.
“When is King Edward’s Day?” Sauna enquired, after a moment or two.
“It is today. On it there is a powerful conjunction of occult planetary forces, when our opponents should have reached their highest peak of strength. From now on their power will dwindle; I think we can hope for a period of peace and quiet.” He smiled. “Until they are ready to make another attack. But by that time we, you and I, may well be in our graves, somebody else will have the job of fighting them off.”
“Well, thank goodness for that,” said Sauna, yawning. “Who was King Edward?”
“An obscure Scandinavian monarch with a talent for astronomy…”
But Sauna had fallen asleep with her head resting on Uli’s shaggy brow.
* * *
Colonel Clipspeak said to Dakin, “My boy, you did well. Very well. And I am bound to say that Sergeant Bellswinger always spoke highly of your work. I am going to promote you to ensign, with automatic advance to sub-lieutenant at the end of eighteen months.”
“Can I go on playing my drum, sir?”
“Harr—um. Sub-Lieutenants do not usually play drums—”
“I wouldn’t want to leave off doing that, sir.”
“Well—well—if we are stationed in London you may go to regimental music school. Now, can you send Miss Sauna to me?”
“She’s asleep, sir.”
“Well—when she wakes.”
* * *
When the monstrous lump that had been Tom Flint was hoisted up—it had to be done with heavy lifting tackle—the shape flew apart into an uncountable number of lumps no bigger than pieces of fudge. These were all shovelled off the train and dumped along the rail-track.
“Just what was needed for the repair of the permanent way,” said Ensign Pomf
ret cheerfully.
When the next day dawned it could be seen that the landscape around Dollar was littered with wreckage and thousands of dead monsters.
“Oh, why do there have to be battles?” sighed Sauna, making her way to the colonel’s cabin. She had slept for fourteen hours, after having been carried to her bunk by Dakin and Mrs. Churt.
The colonel said to her, “My dear Miss Sauna, now that you have had a good night’s sleep, and are feeling, I hope, rather more the thing, I would be much obliged if you could raise a radio connection with London; without you we found it almost impossible to do so.”
“Of course, sir. Right away.”
It was plain that the air waves were still much disturbed after the battle. But at her fifth try Sauna managed to make contact with Leicester Square. Dakin, beside her, carefully held the colonel’s dress sabre propped up at an angle of thirty-eight degrees.
“Gladiolus, Gladiolus: are you there, Leicester Square? We appear to have won a decisive victory at Dollar and—so far as can be ascertained—subdued the northern monsters.”
“Delighted to hear it,” said Leicester Square. “But, Lord Ealing wants to know, what about the book? Michael Scott’s treatise? Has it been located yet? Over.”
“No, it has not been found. Our experts, Dr. Wren and Major Scanty, are here to tell you that it has almost certainly been destroyed in an avalanche. The cave where it was lodged has been swept down the side of Ben Cleuch into the Burn of Sorrow. I will give you map references.” The colonel did so. “No agency, either human or diabolical, can possibly recover the book now. It has been destroyed. Or such is the opinion of Dr. Wren and Major Scanty. And, it seems also, of the Principalities and Powers of Dark who have been ranged against us, for they all seem to have packed up and left. Most of the monsters have been destroyed, and no new ones are arriving. Over.”
“Then why are you loitering about in Dollar?” asked Leicester Square peevishly. “Pray make all possible speed back to London. There is still plenty of clearing-up work to be done in the south. Over.”
“We have to stop in Manchester, sir, on the way. Over.”
“Whatever for?”
“To—er—to replace a square of turf in the centre of the football pitch. Over and out,” said Colonel Clipspeak, looking fondly at Mrs. Churt’s completed cross-stitch, which hung in majestic folds over his grand piano.
Don’t get left behind!
STARSCAPE
Let the journey begin …
From the Two Rivers
The Eye of the World: Part One
by Robert Jordan
Ender’s Game
by Orson Scott Card
To the Blight
The Eye of the World: Part Two
by Robert Jordan
Jumper
by Steven Gould
Briar Rose
by Jane Yolen
And look for …
Mairelon the Magician (4/02)
by Patricia C. Wrede
Dogland (4/02)
by Will Shetterly
Ender’s Shadow (5/02)
by Orson Scott Card
The Whispering Mountain (5/02)
by Joan Aiken
Orvis (6/02)
by H. M. Hoover
The Garden Behind the Moon (6/02)
by Howard Pyle
The Dark Side of Nowhere (7/02)
by Neal Shusterman
Sister Light, Sister Dark (7/02)
by Jane Yolen
Prince Ombra (8/02)
by Roderick MacLeish
White Jenna (8/02)
by Jane Yolen
Wildside (9/02)
by Steven Gould
The One-Armed Queen (9/02)
by Jane Yolen
Jumping Off the Planet (10/02)
by David Gerrold
The College of Magics (10/02)
by Caroline Stevermer
Deep Secret (11/02)
by Diana Wynne Jones
City of Darkness (11/02)
by Ben Bova
The Magician’s Ward (12/02)
by Patricia C. Wrede
Another Heaven, Another Earth (12/02)
by H. M. Hoover
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE COCKATRICE BOYS
Copyright © 1993, 1996 by Joan Aiken Enterprises, Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Interior illustrations by Gris Grimly
A Starscape Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.starscapebooks.com
ISBN: 0-765-34231-6
Originally published in hardcover by Tor Books, 1996
First Starscape edition: March 2002
eISBN 9781466865099
First eBook edition: January 2014
Joan Aiken, The Cockatrice Boys
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