Crik (16 page)

Understanding Inara’s reticence, Jack hated having to press her, but Krimble could know where Knell lived. Without such knowledge, they could spend weeks looking for her, or never find her at all. ‘I’m sorry Inara, we’ve got to try.’ He took her hand. ‘If he knows the whereabouts of the Scorn Scar it will save us stumbling along blindly.’

‘And if he doesn’t know, I’ll be letting him speak for nothing.’

Her cold hand trembled with fear. Krimble had tortured her in his house for a long time. If not for Bill, Krimble would have made that rat eat her eyes. Jack’s throat, taught with sympathy, made him wish he could leave her alone. She had the right to punish Krimble her way. Wanting to back off, he could not, he had to find out what the man knew. ‘Let me talk with him. Once I find out what I can, you can silence him.’

Crushing Jack’s hand Inara bent forward and whispered into his ear, ‘I’ll do it Jack, you saved my life and I owe you.’ Her voice, carrying no higher than her breath, continued, ‘By allowing him to speak you’re asking me to break his punishment, and that tears at my heart. Ask him Jack, but I no longer owe you anything, we’re even.’

Stepping back from the wolf Jack gave Inara a nod, and then turned to Krimble.

‘Speak,’ said Inara, from a face drained of all blood.

Krimble’s jaw, filled with brown twisted teeth and its blue tongue, fell open on its bone hinge and screamed. The sorrowful sound rose higher, making the wolves shift in alarm. Jack wanted to press his hands against the side of his head to block out the pain of that voice. Bill, dropping his stick, stumbled backward and fell over a root, his face as gaunt as Inara’s in the gloom. Sounding like an animal caught in a cruel snare, Krimble cried without taking a breath. Tilting his head back revealed his torn jugular, its severed pipes somehow emitting the sound that hushed the wood.

With shattered nerves at the outpouring of Krimble’s grief, Jack waited as the screams subsided into a low continuous moan. ‘You speak only to answer my question.’

Krimble ignored him. Fresh blood pumped from his ruined neck, soaking into the maroon splashes already coating his shirt. An earwig passed over a black molar to disappear into his mouth.

‘Tell him again Yin,’ urged Bill, gaining his feet and coming around to stand behind Jack.

Turning his head on his brittle spine, Krimble looked at Inara. His voice wheezed from his gaping maw, ‘I should’ve torn off your head, not your legs.’

Listening to Krimble’s voice reminded Jack of the last gasps of a drowning man. ‘Speak to me, leave Inara alone.’

‘Why should I answer you,’ said Krimble, his colourless orbs swivelling to take in Jack. ‘I had everything under control until you turned up.’ A sneer folded the decayed flesh under his hooked nose. ‘I could feel her Narmacil loosening, only a few more days and I would’ve had its Talent. Now you want me to tell you how to get rid of your own - your treacherous shadow.’ The bruise Yang had given him on the side of his head was still visible amongst his dead skin. ‘Ironic how you killed me to keep the demon you now want to get rid of.’ His lips twitched. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Do you know Knell?’ asked Jack, ignoring Krimble’s attempts to draw him into an argument. ‘Where is the Scorn Scar?’

‘I have heard others speak of her,’ responded Krimble, taking a shuffling step closer. ‘Are you sure you want to meet her? You didn’t take too kindly to my hospitality, what makes you think you’ll enjoy hers any better?’

‘What does he mean by that,’ said Bill.

Pointing a red finger, Krimble said, ‘Let me die, and I’ll point you in the right direction.’

‘No,’ shouted Inara in a strained voice. ‘I won’t let you go; you’re going to suffer for a long time. Answer his question.’

Krimble’s teeth clashed together in a broad grin as he bent forward in a mock bow. ‘The bitch speaks,’ he said. ‘Tell me your name.’ His grin on his cadaver face came from a nightmare.

‘Shut up,’ Bill shouted, balling his fists.

‘What will you do, kill me?’ The sardonic laugh that followed sounded hollow.

‘I’ll find a rat and shove it down the hole in your neck,’ threatened Bill. ‘You’re rather fond of rats aren’t you?’

Jack saw Krimble tremble, and got satisfaction from the zombie’s reaction. ‘Knell,’ he repeated, ‘where is she?’

‘A hunter came to my house a few years back,’ said Krimble, through clenched teeth. ‘With his Talent he could alter the land, making him a very good hunter.’

Jack sensed Inara stiffen behind him, it was through this Talent that Krimble had ensnared her.

‘He told me of a cloaked woman living beside a hole in the ground.’

‘Did he say what was in the hole?’ asked Jack, eager.

Ignoring a piece of green flesh, waggling from the tip of his chin, Krimble shook his head. He gave a fiendish grin. ‘Too frightened to look into the ground, he had said. Sensed something moving within the hole; a something he did not wish to see.’

The figure that rose from the pit and the attacking birds sprang to Jack’s mind. Who or what had come for him from the ruptured earth had left an indelible fear. He felt faint. They failed to notice, and he redoubled his effort to remain focused on what Krimble told them.

‘He called it the Scorn Scar,’ said Krimble. ‘It lies to the north, through the Wold.’

Inara gasped. ‘The Wold.’ She brought her hand to her mouth.

‘What’s the Wold?’ asked Bill.

‘That’s where the Myrms live,’ she muttered, biting her chapped lips.

Tilting back his head Krimble revealed a series of jutting neck bones through his torn throat. The dead man laughed. ‘You want to run through the Wold, you don’t want the Myrms getting hold of you.’

‘Silence,’ said Inara.

A sneer spread across Krimble’s mouth. ‘I don’t think so, you’ve given back my voice and I’m keeping it.’

The air felt dam
p
. Above the interlaced branches grey clouds brewed, bottling up the impending rain. The small group followed a rock bed through old trees, scaring up thin birds from the bordering brush. Silver, with a growl, leapt after each one, but the sparrows and the wrens flittered away before her agitated jaws.

Jack knew Inara was angry with him. Did he have the right to ask her to make Krimble break his silence? Even if it meant finding Knell? No, he had to find out what the demon inside him wanted. If the woman in the odd house could tell him how to get rid of it, then giving Krimble the ability to talk was worth it. She rode with hunched shoulders, allowing the shambling corpse to walk, with his stiff limbed gait, beside her down the rutted path.

The thick rubbery skin of the mushrooms Jack ate stuck to his teeth, and the stalks and umbrellas were sour, but they sated some of his hunger. He discarded the idea of offering some to Inara; he could not take her accusatory glare any more.

Guilt gnawed at his guts. Guilt for making his friends continue into the dangerous wood, haunted by Myrms and strange creatures called Doctors. Guilt for leaving his mother. What must she think? When he first left the village, he knew she would fret; that was days ago. She would wrap a pale scarf over her face, so as not to frighten the small kids with her burns, when she went to see the Mr Gasthem. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of beetles, flies, and woodlouse would then spread out from Crik Village. They would search Long Sleep Cemetery, the nearby clearings, even Grenville, in the hope that he and Bill had gone there to sneak a peek at the dancing women, with their high skirts, and low blouses. He wished he could tell his mother that he was fine, that he would return once he found Knell. Instead, a steep decline, strewn with sharp stones, striped with faint daylight and green shade from the trees, brought him to a sudden halt. Beyond the slope lay a wide valley, filled with tall evergreens.

‘They’ll pull out your tongues,’ said Krimble, ‘with bone tools. Others just stick their grubby pinkies into your gob and give a yank!’

‘You already said that one,’ said Bill, sitting in front of Inara. ‘I preferred when you said the Myrm would stick our heads on the branch of the highest tree so that we could see for miles.’

‘So that others would see you for miles,’ corrected Krimble, with a narrow glance up at Bill.

‘Didn’t you say they would imprison us in wooden cages,’ asked Bill. ‘Or were the cages to keep the boars? You know,’ he said, with a wry smile, ‘the ones which were going to eat our feet.’

‘I’ll remind you once we get to the Wold.’

‘Make sure that you do,’ said Bill, crossing his hands over his belly. ‘I want you to eat your words when we travel through without seeing anything larger than a badger.’

‘They’ll see you, before you see them.’

‘I liked you more when you were begging Inara to kill you,’ said Bill. ‘After hearing so many others beg, it must have seemed to your ears like a well versed prayer. We’re as deaf as you, so you’re out of luck.’

‘Ignore him Bill,’ said Jack. His belly gave a flip-flop as his eyes drifted to a silver stream at the bottom of the descent. The others were a few steps behind and had not yet seen the imminent drop. ‘You’re only encouraging him,’ he continued in an attempt to focus on something other than the dizzying height.

Bill kicked out, hitting Krimble a glancing blow on his upper arm, staggering the zombie into the bole of a leaning tree. ‘He doesn’t need any encouragement. Taunting us is his only source of fun, and I mean to stop him from enjoying himself.’

Yang spread himself across the downward drift like a lizard sunning itself on the sharp rocks. Jack suspected the demon played on his fear at this new unexpected obstacle. If it could speak, no doubt, it would be laughing at him.

‘Carry on Bill.’ Inara regarded Krimble with a face that looked like it was carved from soapstone. ‘Your taunts are humiliating him. Before I allow him to leave this world I want him to learn humility.’

‘I’ll gut you yet,’ said Krimble, pushing off from the tree, leaving a sliver of skin on the rough bark.

Krimble reminded Jack of the horror comics lying in a disordered heap under his bed. Within the painted pages a rotten bride, or a coach load of vampire children, returned to exact grisly retribution against their killer. He could almost see the words “I’ll gut you yet,” written in italics inside a floating speech bubble.

‘I gave you permission to speak,’ said Inara, her eyes aflame with black fire, ‘so I can’t stop you from wagging your tongue, but that doesn’t mean I can’t control you. I could make it years before I let you rest in the ground. During that time I will make you do things that will drive you insane.’

Beneath his scarred, rotten face, Krimble managed to look sullen, and for the first time his derisive words quietened into grumbles.

Listening to Inara, Jack didn’t believe Krimble would remain quiet for long, but at least she had stood up to him. Perhaps now she would speak with him again. He wanted to breach the silent wall that had erected itself between them, but Inara, seeing his lingering gaze, clamped her lips together, turning her mouth into a thin, cold, scar.

With a heavy sigh, Jack turned once more to look down the hill. Although the group pressed up to him, he only became aware of them standing at the lip when Bill spoke.

‘I’m not going to ride Black down there; I’m likely to go headfirst into a rock.’ Bill armed sweat from his brow. ‘There must be an easier way down.’

Krimble licked his peeling lips. ‘If you want to reach the Wold you will have to go down. It lies beyond the mouth of this very broad and long valley. There is no way around.’

‘He’s right,’ said Jack, begrudgingly. ‘We must enter the valley. At least here we can see the ground.’ He looked into the trees either side of him. ‘In the bush, there’re hundreds of pitfalls waiting to break a leg.’

‘What do you think those stones will do to us,’ said Bill, jumping down from Black. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it could be fun, but it’s a long way to fall if you make a mistake.’

Silver pawed at the loose earth. She looked downhill for a long time before turning her nose up to Jack. He watched the wolf retreat behind Bill with a lowered tail. If he had a tail, Jack knew his would also be touching the ground. Seeing no other avenue into the valley, he hung his head.

‘If we take it slow, we can make it.’ Hoping to inject some enthusiasm into his voice only made Jack sound panic-stricken. Embarrassed by his high-pitched tone he grew more determined to start the descent.

‘What’re you doing,’ said Bill as Jack sat down on the ground with his legs dangling over the drop.

‘It’ll be easier if we do it this way,’ replied Jack with a tongue that felt as rough as caked salt.

‘You two may be able to scoot yourselves down there,’ said Inara, ‘but my legs are not healed.’ Frowning, she pointed at her bandaged legs.

Her expression did a good job of impersonating his mother, Jack thought, the one she used whenever he tried to duck a chore to play with Bill, an expression that brooked no argument.

‘Black can…’

‘I’m not going to ride a wolf down there,’ shouted Inara in outrage. ‘Bill got off so fast I thought someone had lit a campfire under his ass, and you want me to hold on and hope.’

Jack looked around. There were enough raw materials at hand to make a sled; balancing it once they were underway was the problem. Besides, if Inara couldn’t stay on Black, she would never agree to sit on a sled. Other ideas came, and each he shot down before uttering them to the others.

‘Are you sure you can’t give it a try,’ said Bill, wanting to fill the awkward silence that had grown into long minutes.

Grateful for his friend’s help, but also realising Inara’s reticence was turning quickly to anger, caused Jack to bite his tongue and wait for Inara to batter Bill with well-aimed words. Instead, Inara tossed her head back, barking a mirthless laugh to the grey sky.

‘If you sit on the ground and keep your legs up,’ continued Bill, in hurtful reproach, ‘and brace yourself with your arms, your legs won’t get hurt. You can go after me; I could stop you if you fell.’

‘I’d be safer crawling through the wood on my hands than I am with you two,’ she said, waving her arms as though conducting a hundred-piece orchestra.

Only Krimble noticed Yang slip back over the lip of the hill to where the big wolf stood. The zombie scowled down at the shadow. Something crawled inside his ear; he slapped a hand against his withered flesh. When he looked again, Yang had peeled himself from the ground.

‘Unless you want me find my own way home, I suggest…’ A startled scream broke off Inara’s words as Yang wrapped elongated arms around her midriff in three overlapping coils.

‘Yin what are you doing?’ said Bill as Yang lifted Inara with ease.

Jack ground his teeth. ‘For the last time, I don’t control Yang. The demon inside me does!’

Held aloft on a dusky pole, the wood clearly visible through its width, struggled Inara. ‘You really won’t give up will you,’ she shouted down at Jack.

‘It’s not me,’ he began, and then threw his hands up. Let them think what they want; nothing he could say would make a blind bit of difference. Even after everything he had told them, they still thought he controlled his shadow. He should be used to it; everyone blamed him for Yang’s pranks. That it still managed to irritate him, made him angry.

‘You’ll be safe up there, Yang won’t drop you,’ shouted Bill, through cupped hands. He looked at Jack, and for a moment, Jack saw Bill readying himself to ask, “You won’t drop her, will you Yin?” If he had, Jack would have hit him flush in the nose.

‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’ said Inara. ‘So get going, I don’t like heights.’

Taking the lead, Jack pushed himself forward, feeling the loose stones scrape the back of his legs. A cluster of stones shot out before him to tumble into other, larger, boulders, where they broke into halves and splintered quarters. A wave of vertigo swept through him, making him sink his fingers into the rocky soil. With as much grace as a pregnant cow climbing down a ladder, came Bill. Bill’s glasses were already askew. He grazed Jack’s knuckles with his shoe.

‘Hey, be careful,’ hissed Jack through gritted teeth.

‘You’re in my way,’ said Bill, kicking up a cloud of dust.

For one dreadful moment, Jack felt his upper body tilt forward, and was sure he was about to cartwheel all the way down the slope, leaving a bloody trail for Bill to follow. Collapsing back, he felt his heart threaten to jump from his chest.

‘Careful Yin!’ cried Bill. ‘You’re kicking the stones loose.’

‘Don’t follow me, go to the left; you’ll fall on top of me.’

Looking up Jack saw Inara smiling in Yang’s grasp. She used her hands to keep her windblown hair from her eyes. He shook his head; a few moments ago she didn’t want his shadow to carry her, now she loved it.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself forward, keeping his back against the hillside. He barely noticed the two wolves tearing down the slope. Black led, his pink tongue lolling out from his open jaws with stupid glee.

The trees that had looked tiny from the top of the decline took more shape, with individual branches coming into focus. The rushing water below rang the air with its turbulent beat. Thousands of small cuts scored his fingers by the time he heard the birds nesting in the valley.

Closer to the bottom, the slope became more gradual, allowing him to get to his feet. Bill followed him in a mad dash for the bottom of the hill. Brushing away the dust coating his torn trousers, Jack looked around and spotted Krimble pushing a disjointed shoulder back into place. Looking up the hill, he saw the path Krimble had taken. Strips of skin and chunks of decaying flesh littered the slope. Krimble, having righted his arm, placed his hand against a crack in his skull, fingering globs of yellow fluid pumping from the open seam.

Yang gently placed Inara back on Black. Before he had time to retreat, Inara patted Yang’s arm. Jack, irked by this show of affection toward his shadow, jumped to the bottom.

‘Told you there was nothing to worry about,’ he said, hoping the sheen of sweat bathing his face did not make him look foolish. ‘Now that’s behind us, things will be a lot easier.’

‘Will they,’ remarked Inara crossing her arms. ‘We don’t know what’s ahead. Even the birds are strange down here.’