Quest for the Sun (22 page)

‘This time, no one asks anything unless we all agree,' Jamie said.

‘OK, OK,' grumbled Rich.

There was a long silence before Kenta finally spoke. ‘The problem is that there's no point asking anything unless we can believe the answer, or know not to believe it.'

‘And we can't use up our last question finding that out,' said Jamie glumly, carefully not looking at Rich.

Maybe there was no way it could be done — not with one question. ‘Unless …' Suddenly everyone was looking at me. I felt myself flush. ‘Unless it doesn't matter which bird we ask.'

Blue-bum had been sitting hunched and still, scraping at the leaves with a pointed stick. I'd thought he was digging for grubs, but now I saw he'd been making little marks, staring at them and scratching his head. Now he was looking up at me with a strange expression on his face, eyes bright.

‘Maybe the white bird's the good one, and the black one's
bad,' Jamie was saying. ‘White and black, good and bad, truth and lies.'

‘It's a good thought, but we can't bank on it,' Gen said regretfully.

‘What if we ask,
If you were us, which path would you choose …
' Rich scowled and shook his head. ‘Nah, that wouldn't work either.'

Suddenly Blue-bum jerked bolt upright with a chitter of excitement.

‘What, Blue-bum?' yipped Kenta.

Blue-bum was pointing at me and then Rich, then at each of the two birds in turn. ‘Was it something I said?' Rich asked doubtfully. ‘Or Adam?'

Blue-bum nodded so violently his whole body jigged up and down.

‘Well, who?' I said. ‘Rich? Me?'

Blue-bum was skipping about in an agony of frustration.

‘Or … both of them?' said Jamie.

‘What
did
you say?' asked Gen.

‘I said,
maybe it doesn't matter which bird you ask
, but —'

‘And I said,
if you were us —
'

Blue-bum interrupted again, jibbering frantically and practically turning somersaults in his desperate efforts to make us understand.

Finally Kenta grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and sat him firmly on her lap. ‘Settle down, Blue-bum — let's take this step by step.' Blue-bum sat very still, watching her face with hopeful button eyes. ‘You're saying we can ask either of the birds, it doesn't matter which …' Blue-bum nodded once, very definitely. He'd always been super-smart — could he possibly be right? ‘Ask either one:
if you were us —
'

Blue-bum shook his head:
no
.

‘What then? If you were …' Blue-bum pointed to the black bird; then the white one. Looking at them, I felt a surge of hope. Something about the disgruntled way they were squatting made
me certain Blue-bum had the answer — and they knew it.

‘If you were the
other bird
…' I said slowly.

Jamie had been listening with the stuffed-fish expression that meant he was thinking hard-out with every last one of his gazillion brain cells. Now he let out a pent-up breath in an admiring whoosh. ‘He's got it,' he said respectfully. ‘Way to go, Blue-bum.'

Jamie clambered to his feet, brushing away leaf-mould. ‘Here's the answer, courtesy of the one and only blue-bummed brain-box: We ask a bird, either one,
If you were the
other
bird, which path would you say led to the Realms of the Undead?'

‘Huh?' said Rich, looking confused. Then he grinned. ‘I'll take your word for it, Jamie. So we go along whichever path they say — done and dusted!'

‘Well, actually we don't,' Jamie said. ‘We go along the
other
one.'

 

It took a good five minutes of full-on discussion before everyone was one hundred and ten percent certain Jamie had it right. Then I gave him the feather to hold, and he turned to the black bird. ‘At least we know for sure we can understand him,' he whispered, with a quick glance round for agreement.

‘If you were the other bird, which path would you tell us led to the Realms of the Undead?' he asked, very slowly and carefully.

‘The path on your right — the gateway of roots,'
squawked the bird sulkily.

‘Thank you.' Jamie handed back the feather, his hand trembling slightly, and I tucked it safely away.

‘I'm still not sure I get it,' Rich confessed. ‘Does that mean he's the bird that tells the truth, or …'

‘We'll never know, Richard,' said Gen patiently. ‘It doesn't matter. The point is, we go down the other path. Come on, everyone. Let's —'

And the black bird spoke again, its voice grating through the
still air like a rusty saw. ‘Only one mortal may pass.'

‘What?' Rich spun to face him, fists clenched. ‘What d'you mean? What's a
mortal
— and who are you to say, anyway? I'd like to see you try to stop us —'

‘Richard, wait.' A cold hand had gripped my heart; it was squeezing it slowly smaller, till it was wedged like a piece of sharp-edged gravel deep in my chest. ‘Gen's wrong. We do know which bird is which — now. The bird of truth is the black one.'

Some paths are made to walk alone …

For me, the end of the journey was almost in sight — but for my friends, it was over. The five had done their part — this was one place I couldn't ask them to follow me. I must go alone to the Realms of the Undead in search of my twin, and together we must confront whatever awaited us there.

‘But what do we do?' asked Rich, more at a loss than I'd ever seen him. ‘Wait here?'

‘No. You should go home, back to Quested Court. Use the microcomputers Q gave you — he'll have the system fixed by now. Tell him what's happened, and wait for me there. It won't be long. And no goodbyes, OK?'

Kenta clung to me fiercely. ‘Be careful.'

Gen gave me a kiss so hard it hurt. ‘Be strong.'

Jamie held out a hand. It was as dirty as ever, but dusty and dry, and his grip was firm. ‘Be safe.'

That left Rich. ‘So long … Zephyr.' A handshake turned into a hug that said everything.

I hefted my pack and looked round for the last parting. Once I would have welcomed it, but now it seemed almost hardest of all.

‘Look at Blue-bum!' Kenta was trying to laugh. ‘He's sulking because he can't come.'

He'd hopped up beside the white bird, which had shuffled
grudgingly over to make room for him, and now he was crouching with his back to us, tail trailing mournfully on the ground.

I gave his furry head a ruffle. ‘I'll miss you, little guy.'

I walked down the crumbling steps, through the tunnel of leaves and onto the pathway. I didn't look back.

There was a skitter and a scrabble and a sudden rush of air, and something small and lithe skipped up onto my shoulder, gripping a fistful of hair so tight it brought tears to my eyes. Whatever mortal meant, it obviously didn't apply to chatterbots.

 

The path wound on into the dark forest. The way forward was treacherous and indistinct, every step a struggle: roots caught at my ankles; creepers snagged my legs and arms; twigs snatched at me like grasping fingers, their thorns criss-crossing my face and hands with stinging blood-stitched tracks.

Blue-bum crept into the hood of my cloak and huddled there, and soon I could tell he'd drifted off to sleep. His weight pulled the cloak so tight around my neck it almost throttled me, but it felt good to have him close.

I battled grimly on, doubt and a growing sense of urgency gnawing at my mind. I hadn't allowed myself to question whether I'd find Zenith. But what if even now as I blundered through the forest time was running out? What if I arrived and it was too late? I tried to push the thoughts aside and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. I walked on, every footfall, every heartbeat echoing his name.

It was purple twilight when I came to the wall: a jigsaw of dry stone, pitted and crumbling, stained black with mildew. The path ran beside it, choked with brambles and weeds; over it I could see a graveyard, headstones leaning at drunken angles in overgrown grass.

There was a gate, askew on rusted hinges; it creaked open under my hand. I walked soft-footed among the gravestones,
trying not to step where I imagined the mounds of the graves might once have been. Now no sign of them was left; even the inscriptions on the stones had disappeared, obscured by lichen and worn away by time — or never there at all.

I'd been in cemeteries before. They had a kind of peace about them, a drifting sorrow like winter rain or slow, soft music. This one was different. There was no church: just row after uneven row of headstones in a desolate field. I walked on through the gathering darkness, not knowing what I was searching for. With nightfall came a fretful wind that wailed and groaned between the gravestones. Blue-bum woke and clung to my neck like a furry scarf, skinny fingers pinching my ear, hot breath in my hair. At last a long, low shape loomed out of the shadows: a tomb, huge and flat-topped. Its lid was a stone slab, resting askew to reveal a gash of gaping emptiness.

I'd found what I was looking for.

I hoisted myself onto the corner, the cold of the stone seeping into my skin. Swung my legs to dangle into the dark cavity. Took a last deep breath, lowered myself down, feet kicking for purchase … and dropped.

 

I landed awkwardly, my ankle turning on something solid and compact that rolled under my foot. Looking up I could see a slice of gun-metal sky, but here it was pitch dark. The floor of the tomb must be lower than the ground outside; the ledge I'd dropped from was way out of reach. So — no going back. But there never had been.

Fumbling in my bag, I found my torch and flicked it on. Nothing.

Blue-bum's arms were locked in a shivering stranglehold round my neck. ‘Hop in the bag,' I whispered. ‘It'll be warmer, and you'll feel safe.'
And I'll be able to breathe
. Once he was settled I shuffled forward into the inky blackness. The floor of the crypt disappeared under my foot. Down one step, then another … a stairway leading into the depths of the graveyard. I stumbled
on. A sweetish smell clogged the air; cobwebs drifted against my skin and stroked my hair with sticky fingers.

At last the ground levelled. I groped my way along the wall: bare earth, hard-packed and damp. In places clumps had fallen leaving hollows where spiders had made nests; my fingers brushed against their bloated bodies and snagged in the weave of their webs. There were other things in the wall too, things I could feel but not see: squashy things that writhed against my skin; many-legged scuttling things; scraps of softness that vanished to nothing in my fingers … fragments of something cool and smooth as ivory in the crumbling earth.

It was growing gradually lighter, a sullen orange glow diluting the blackness. The sickly smell thickened and curdled. With it came half-heard sounds: the scuff of a stealthy footfall; the whisper of cloth; a sifting patter of falling earth. The corner of my eye caught movement, a shifting of shadows; but when I spun and focused there was only emptiness and the fading ripples of whispered laughter.

I came to the source of the light: the first in a straggling line of torches giving off a twist of black smoke that caught in my throat. I walked on, the earthen walls giving way to stone, the narrow passage opening to a maze of echoing halls and passageways. It was more than a palace — a vast subterranean city fallen to magnificent ruin, cracked stonework shrouded in cobwebs and dark with crouching shadows, crumbling masonry grinning at me with crooked teeth.

And suddenly there was a figure in front of me where before there had been nothing. Grey against the greyness of the stone, it seemed to suck blackness from the shadows into the empty cowl of its hood. It spoke in the rasping whisper of the Faceless, like the open mouth of a tomb being slid slowly shut.

‘The King of Darkness bids you welcome, Living One. He and his kingdom await. Follow me.'

His breath twisted round me, cold and stifling, carrying the stench that haunted my nightmares — the reek of the living
grave. A tide of exhaustion and despair washed through me, turning the marrow of my bones to liquid metal.

The King of Darkness
— Zeel. It must be. But how and in what form? I knew I didn't have the strength to face him. Not yet — not now. Not alone.

I had no choice. Lead-footed, I stumbled after the drifting figure, through a labyrinth of passageways and gaping doorways and down a narrow corridor, dark and uneven-floored. Here I could detect the hint of another smell, oddly familiar and somehow reassuring: oily and metallic, overlaid with a tang of leather. Low doors studded with iron and cracked with age were set deep into the wall; I glimpsed a barred grill at the far end, a strange red glow beyond.

A door was unlocked door and swung open; I bent and shuffled in, dreading what I would see, hearing it slam shut behind me. I was in a cell lit only by a single lantern and the faint glow of a tiny barred window high in the wall. A still shape lay in a corner on a straw pallet … and slouched beside it, staring at me as if he'd seen a ghost, was Zenith.

 

I gawked back at him. He was here, two paces away, grubby and tousle-haired and every inch alive. It was the moment I'd hardly dared dream of. Hot tears pressed behind my eyes; my throat burned with all the words that waited to be spoken. I stood there dumbly, as shy and tongue-tied as a little child. At last I opened my mouth, with absolutely no idea what was going to come out.

‘I brought it — the fire-tongue …' I croaked.

‘You brought the fire-tongue,' Zenith repeated slowly. ‘As easy as that: a stroll across the village green to fetch it from the corner stall.
You brought the fire-tongue.
You did far more than that: you brought yourself, Whistler.'

Suddenly he was on his feet, hands gripping my shoulders, amber eyes blazing. ‘What do you owe me or Blade, that you would willingly follow us into the darkness of the underworld
and certain death? Yet my heart never doubted you would come.'

‘Because your heart knows what your mind does not.'

He stared at me.

I took a breath. ‘Lyulf … Wolf Flame …'

An urgent chitter from Blue-bum interrupted me. He was shoving something in my face — the fire-tongue vine, dry and shrivelled. He was right: that came first. I turned to the motionless shape on the floor. ‘Is she …'

‘I've bound the wound with strips of cloth, but nothing I do will stop the bleeding.' For the first time I noticed he was shirtless, jerkin open over his bare chest. ‘Her body is weak as water but her spirit burns strong.'

Gently he drew aside Blade's cloak. Her eyes flickered open and focused on me with wavering wonder. ‘Whistler … you came.' Her voice was the faintest breath. ‘Lyulf promised you would …'

I couldn't bear to look at the wreckage of her back. Blue-bum and I busied ourselves preparing the paste while Zenith cleaned the wound and applied the salve, his soothing words masking her whimpers of pain. At last it was done, tidily bandaged with a cleanish dressing — my shirt this time. Blade, exhausted, sank instantly into a deep sleep.

‘Now,' said Zenith, ‘what lies so heavy on your spirit must be told. Speak.'

I took out his talisman and passed it to him. He shot me a hard glance, and I nodded. ‘We opened it. I'm sorry. You were gone, and we thought that whatever it held might be important. And it was.'

I took my own amulet from round my neck, loosened the thong … tipped my silver ring out onto my hand. Zenith stared at it for what seemed forever. Then his eyes met mine, a thousand questions burning in them.

‘I have a tale to tell you …'My words were slow and hesitant, as foreign-feeling on my tongue as if they were in some strange
language. But as I spoke I heard my voice gather strength and purpose, the rich tapestry of the past weaving its magic through my mind. ‘… a tale with its beginning more than fifty years ago, and its ending yet to come.' Hardly knowing I was doing it I reached out and took his hand. ‘I will tell of your part in it, Zenith, Prince of Karazan — and mine.'

 

‘I don't understand how it can possibly be you, or what can have happened to save you — I only know it is,' I finished at last.

For a long time he was silent. I longed for him to look at me, to read whatever was in his eyes, but his gaze was fixed on the floor. When finally he spoke it was in a whisper almost too soft to hear. ‘I thought … all these years I believed I was cursed, that some evil spell held me back …' He shook his head, struggling for words. ‘Even in my deepest soul I never dared hope there might be something … some good …
someone
…' Slowly, haltingly, words tore themselves free, tormented fragments of a past never before spoken of: the skeleton of a story I hoped might be fleshed out over the years to come until at last everything was known … a tale that is his to tell, not mine.

Even at the end he didn't look at me.

‘What about the others?' I asked at last. ‘Where are they?'

‘The Masked Man was brought here with us, but I have not seen him since. As for Borg and the rest, they released them on the grasslands, along with the glonks. It seems they were not intended to share our fate, whatever that may be. And I think I know —'

‘That doesn't matter now. The important thing — the only thing — is Karazan. The prophecy has been fulfilled.
When twain is one and one is twain …
At last we are together. And together, somehow, we will overthrow the forces of evil —
I know it.
'

I realised that our hands were still clasped, the fingers tightly locked. I could feel a current of strength flowing from Zenith's palm to my own; it ran between us like fire, singing in my
blood with a wild, strange music. Slowly I lifted our hands, the lamplight transforming them from flesh and blood into a double fist cast from burnished gold.

At last my brother lifted his head and met my eyes.

‘Together.'