The Faerie Lord (36 page)

‘Ah, magnificent!’ said Loki. He watched fondly as the dragon stomped across the cavern floor to take its place before the platform. It curled its great barbed tail and breathed another smoky plume. Loki turned. ‘Now you, my dear.’

Blue had a moment of panic. There was something in his eyes she did not like. ‘Just a min -‘

He reached out his right hand, which extended then extruded a single razor-sharp claw. Before she could move, the claw was at her throat. ‘You need to look the part as well,’ he said and slashed downwards.

Blue jerked back, but there was no blood, no injury. The claw had not touched her body at all, but her blouse was in shreds. She gripped the remnants quickly to cover herself. At once she was on the platform, manacled to the granite pillar. Below her squatted the dragon. It turned to gaze at her with lizard eyes. Beyond it stood Loki, hands on hips as he surveyed his handiwork with tilted head. ‘Perfect!’ he exclaimed. ‘The ideal damsel in distress.’ He smiled at her. ‘Now all we need to do is wait for Henry.’

It occurred to Henry this was all a bit of a mess. The trouble was he hadn’t planned anything – just took off looking for Blue without considering what sort of trouble she might be in (and he still didn’t know) or, more importantly, what he might need to get her out of it. The question of weapons was sort of obvious now it had been pointed out to him, but he hadn’t thought of it at all. Which meant he was stuck with a miserable flint blade and a hammer he’d left outside the cave because he couldn’t even lift it.

But it didn’t stop with weapons. He didn’t have ropes or picks for climbing, he didn’t have food beyond what Lorquin might be carrying in his pouch, and the last thing he’d thought of bringing with him was a light.

He’d really lucked out when he met the charno.

In the gloom of the cavern, Henry unwrapped the torch the charno had given him. It was a peculiar device of a type he’d never seen before, but there was a leaflet with written instructions wrapped around the shaft and its heading,
Perpetual Flame,
was reassuring. Unless that was just a trade name and the torch wouldn’t really last for ever. He hated the thought of getting stuck in the caves with no light at all.

Apart from the heading, the instructions were in tiny writing, so he had to carry the leaflet back to the cave mouth in order to read it. The charno, still outside, stared at him curiously. Thankfully, there was no sign of Lorquin. Henry nodded and smiled weakly at the charno, then turned back to his leaflet. It was decorated with a drawing of the torch in use by a tall robed woman who reminded him of the Statue of Liberty. Irritatingly, most of the copy droned on about how wonderful the torch was without actually mentioning how to use it. The
Perpetual
business
was
a trade name, as it turned out, but at least the manufacturers claimed it would last ‘several years’ in normal use, which sounded unlikely, but not so unlikely as ‘perpetual’.

He wondered what normal use was as he turned the leaflet over and finally found a buried paragraph headed
Instructions for Use.
The paragraph read:

LIGHTS
AUTOMATICALLY
IN
DARKNESS
.

Henry stared at the words, thinking that couldn’t be right. The damn thing had been in total darkness in the charno’s backpack, for example. Did that mean it was lit in there? Of course it didn’t! It would have set the backpack on fire. Unless the drawing of the flaming torch was just a symbol and the torch didn’t burn with a flame, but just generated light the way an electric torch would at home. But even that didn’t make much sense because it would mean the thing was quietly running down every time you stowed it away in a box, or every night wherever it was, come to that. Hardly last several years under those conditions, would it?

He skimmed quickly through the rest of the leaflet, but there were no further instructions. He smiled weakly at the charno again and carried the torch back into the cave, where he held it aloft like the Statue of Liberty, but it still didn’t light. Maybe he should ask the charno how it worked. But he didn’t really want to do that: it would make him look stupid.
Lights automatically in darkness.
The thing was, it wasn’t totally dark in the cave. Gloomy, yes, but not totally dark since he was still only a few yards away from the entrance.

There was a passageway leading downwards at the back of the cave.

Henry didn’t really fancy walking into it without a light – there could be spiders or scorpions or bears in there – but if the torch wouldn’t light except in total darkness …

He stepped into the passageway and stopped. Then he held the torch high and waited. Nothing happened. He waited some more. Still nothing happened. Trust him to end up with an automatic torch that didn’t work. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he realised the tunnel wasn’t totally dark at all: it had only seemed that way when he first stepped into it. There was still light filtering in from the cave mouth. Actually, there was even enough light for him to see by. He could tell, for example, that the passageway ran downwards, then disappeared around a corner. He could also see what seemed to be some bones strewn across the floor.

Henry licked his lips. Maybe if he went deeper in, it would be dark enough.

Taking care not to kick the bones, he moved on. After a few hesitant paces, he turned the corner and fumbled his way a little further along. It was definitely getting darker here. In fact, he would have judged it to be absolutely, utterly, completely dark. He raised the torch again and waved it wildly. Still nothing happened.

He waited for his eyes to adjust again, but they didn’t. The darkness pressed in on him like a velvet shroud. Should he go on? Henry had a vivid imagination and it presented him with a sudden, frightening picture. He was standing in the dark on the edge of a precipice. One more step and he would fall to his death. Fall to his death in the
total darkness,
bloody useless torch! Henry thought of Blue and took another step forward. He didn’t fall to his death, but he did realise he couldn’t go on like this much longer. There was no way he was going to find Blue underground in total darkness.

He reached out to feel the walls of his passage and discovered one of them had disappeared. The wall on the right was no longer there, or at least no longer within easy reach, which meant that the passage had widened, or opened into another cave (or fallen away into a precipice, his imagination told him) or otherwise changed the nature of his situation, almost certainly for the worse.

Henry froze and forced himself to think logically. Forget precipices and bears. While he knew he was in a passage, could feel he was in a passage, he could turn and feel his way back to the surface. But if the passage opened out into a cave and Henry stepped into that cave in pitch darkness and tried to explore that cave,
he might not be able to find his way back.
There might be other passages. He might get confused. Dammit, he
would
get confused – he knew what he was like. He would be lost in the darkness, unable to find his way out, for ever.

Not much good to Blue then.

The sensible thing, the
only
sensible thing, was to retrace his steps while he still could. This wasn’t abandoning Blue, not at all, wasn’t even
thinking
of abandoning Blue. This was common sense. He would turn, retrace his steps, find his way back out of the cave
and ask the charno for another torch!
The charno was bound to have one. It had all sorts of rubbish in that backpack. It had just given him a duff torch, that was all. It had to have a backup. And if it didn’t, maybe it would have a match, so he could light
this
torch and forget about the whole automatic bit. Retrace his steps, that was the thing.

In a moment of utter madness, Henry took one more step forward.

The torch in his hand flared fiercely, sending up a wave of heat that singed his hair. There were two faces only inches from his own, one looking down on him, the other looking up.

‘Yipes!’ Henry shrieked and jerked backwards. His heel caught on something and he fell, dropping the torch. It rolled across the rocky floor for a few feet, then stopped, but still burned brightly. In the flickering light he could see he had left his passageway and was lying on a broad ledge that overlooked another cavern. There were two
things
staring down at him. In utter panic, he tried to scramble away, scattering pebbles underneath his heels. Then he realised what the
things
were.

‘What are you doing here?’ shouted Henry furiously.

‘I am your Companion, En Ri,’ Lorquin said.

The charno, towering over him, nodded and said, ‘That’s right. He is your Companion.’

Henry scrambled to his feet. He’d skinned one elbow and his bottom hurt. ‘I told you to go home!’ he hissed at Lorquin. ‘I thought you
had
gone home. This is dangerous. This is very dangerous.’

‘That is why I must stay with you,’ Lorquin said.

He wanted to strangle the kid. He wanted to hug the kid. What did you do with somebody like Lorquin? He simply didn’t recognise the normal rules. In his frustration, Henry rounded on the charno. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you would wait outside.’

The charno shrugged. ‘Somebody has to carry your supplies.’

Henry knew when he was beaten. He picked up the torch. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘what now?’

They looked at him expectantly.

‘You’re the leader,’ Lorquin said.

Henry led from the middle, carrying his torch. The charno plodded after him, surprisingly quietly for a beast of its size, although the clicking of its claws on the rock floor was a bit of a distraction. Lorquin went ahead of them both, sniffing the air in an irritating manner.

‘What are you doing that for?’ Henry asked eventually.

‘Smelling the trail, En Ri,’ Lorquin explained.

Henry frowned. ‘You never did that before.’ Lorquin had taken him all over the desert, but it was all eyesight work: he had followed subtle signs.

‘It is not possible in the open,’ Lorquin said. ‘The wind carries off the scent, the sun burns it up. But inside is different. Scent lingers.’

Henry stopped. This was an interesting development and might be an important one. ‘What can you tell?’

Lorquin gave a small but eloquent shrug. ‘Several people have passed this way before. Two men together, but that was some time ago. And with them something strange I have not smelled before. Then -‘

‘What sort of something strange?’ Henry interrupted. ‘An animal?’

‘Perhaps,’ Lorquin said. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Go on,’ Henry urged. ‘What else?’

‘Yes, what else?’ said the charno, leaning over Henry’s shoulder.

‘More recently a woman; a young woman. She -‘

Blue! It had to be Blue! How many more young women would you get wandering down here? ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Henry exploded.

‘You asked me of other things, En Ri,’ Lorquin said mildly.

‘I want you to follow the woman’s scent,’ Henry said firmly in his leadership capacity. ‘That’s the one I want you to follow. You can forget about the others.’

‘That was the one I have been following,’ Lorquin said. ‘I thought it might be Blue, the woman you seek.’

‘Did she meet up with the others?’ the charno asked. Which was a very sensible question and Henry wished he’d thought of asking it.

Lorquin shook his head. ‘The trails are overlaid. If they met together, I have not found the place yet.’

‘Keep going,’ Henry told him.

Several minutes later, Henry said suddenly, ‘We’re going back the way we came.’

‘As did she,’ Lorquin said. ‘I can follow the scent only where it takes me.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Henry muttered.

‘He can follow the scent only where it takes him,’ echoed the charno.

‘Shut up,’ said Henry. The truth of it was he was feeling hugely uncomfortable. He wasn’t cut out for this. Lorquin, for all he was so young, was better equipped as a hero than Henry. He could follow trails, survive in the desert, find food when it was needed, kill draugrs … Even the charno would make a better hero than Henry. At least it could lift the hammer. But Henry was the one who was supposed to rescue Blue. And from what? He really had no idea what he was getting into. The Midgard Serpent business sounded like nonsense. Some sort of tribal superstition. How could Blue have gotten herself involved with a giant snake? Except that everybody else seemed to take the idea seriously. An idea occurred to him and he said quickly, ‘Lorquin, I don’t suppose you can smell this Midgard thing?’

‘The whole place reeks of it,’ said Lorquin. He gave Henry a curious little smile. ‘But we have not found the way to reach it yet.’

They set off again and, to Henry’s intense irritation, the charno began to hum a little tune.

The scent trail led them to several dead ends where they were forced to backtrack. ‘She could go no further,’ Lorquin explained. But one blank passage proved different from the others. ‘She went through here,’ Lorquin said, frowning.

‘She can’t have – it’s a dead end,’ Henry said unnecessarily.

‘Nonetheless, she went through here,’ Lorquin said again. He moved forward to examine the rock face.

Henry moved forward with him. ‘You mean there’s been a rock fall or something?’ It didn’t look like a rock fall.

‘There was no rock fall,’ Lorquin confirmed. ‘Yet she is in a cavern beyond this passage and she reached it through here.’

‘How do you know -?’ Henry began, then stopped himself. It didn’t matter. If Lorquin said that’s where Blue was, Henry believed it. He ran one hand over the

cold surface of the rock. ‘How do we reach her?’ he asked instead.

‘We have to find another way,’ said Lorquin calmly and made off back down the passage.

It took him the better part of an hour, during which they searched through tunnels, passages, galleries, caves and caverns. Eventually he took several steps into a high-roofed, open passageway, then stopped and announced, ‘This will take us to the cavern where they hold the girl.’ He looked at Henry expectantly.