The Devil's Apprentice Page 13

  Don’t come out! she cried to Gavin, inside her mind. Whatever you do, don’t come out!

  If she had read more myths and fairytales, she would have known she was looking at a roc. But she hadn’t, and didn’t, and all she knew was that while she stayed in the doorway it didn’t pay any attention to her. With Gavin now trapped underground, that wasn’t much to be thankful for.

  Presently, there was the noise of movement from inside the cave. Small stones rattled and went rolling down the slope.

  Something came out, but it wasn’t Gavin.

  Infernale

  THEY SAID IT was the oldest building in the world. Of course they – whoever they were – were wrong, because werespirits have no capacity for original thought, and even the most powerful can only copy the ideas of Men. But when the first village was patched together out of mud and reeds, when brick was baked and stone was shaped and little walls grew upward into the first city, then he looked out in envy and dreamed himself a tower that would top the palaces of kings. The dwarves cut the stones, and the giants set them in place, and the foundations were bound with magic from the earliest days, when there was yet magic and to spare even in this unmagical universe. For this was his magic, from the chaos before the dawn of Time, and though millions of years had passed it still vibrated with the heartbeat of creation.

  Everything was first then, when the sun was young and the waters were clear and clean and the air was pure from pole to pole. Men searched for their gods in the breath of the wind and the dark of the storm, and he named himself lord of the Earth, and supplicants came to the Dark Tower to trade for favours, leaving their souls behind. He was Azmordis, Ormuzd, Babbaloukis, Ingré Manu, Votun, Tchernobog, Agamo the Toad-God and Bale the village idol. He gave gold to the prince and blood to the warrior and land to the peasant, and the prince ate only gold and the warrior drank only blood and the peasant’s land was six feet of cold earth to sleep in, and Azmordis laughed until the walls of Hell rang. He did not throw the first spear nor cast the first stone, but in his arrogance and his might he claimed Evil was of his making, and men were his creatures, and the Dark Tower stood at the centre of the world.

  But time passed, and men made their own evil, and the souls he sought to feed on withered, eluding his grasp, and the Gate took them away from him. His kingdom still grew, his servants and adherents were among the mightiest on Earth, but some there were who turned from him, and kindled their own flame against the darkness of the ancient Night. There was peace and war, famine and plenty, sickness and healing, and if he was defeated or diminished one day yet he would always return more powerful than before.

  In short, the usual career history for diabolical superbeings.

  The Dark Tower crumbled, devoured by the passing ages, and the giants were gone who might have rebuilt it. But men worked in their stead, using not stones and spells but concrete and steel, and the tower grew taller than before, a vast black skyscraper a-glitter with sightless windows, reaching up to the clouds. In dungeons far beneath the earth prisoners were chained to their desks, pecking endlessly at their keyboards, while screens bleeped and flickered before their eyes. And on the topmost storey, so far above the world that few elevators could mount so high, Azmordis ruled from his circular office, with its blood-red carpet and gleaming desktop, the old-fashioned quill pen, the inkwell that never held ink, the paper-knife that never cut paper. If you enter that office there is only ever one file on the desk, and your name is stamped on the cover. And if you sign, whether in hope or fear, in greed or need, the price you pay will be dearer than blood. These days he wears a suit, or the shadow of a suit, and he looks out through the tinted glass over all the kingdoms of the world, all the cities where workers strive and struggle and fail, and their myriad lights are as numerous as the stars.

  It is a terrible thing to contemplate eternity as a stockbroker.

  The witch gazed into the spellfire until her eyes ached, watching the Dark Tower – though she made no attempt to peer into the circular office – listening to the smalltalk of imps and goblins. The Nightwings left by the roof, speeding out over the world on black-feathered pinions, swifter than thought.

  Swifter than some people’s thoughts, anyway.

  ‘I have to find Bartlemy,’ the witch said, for the hundredth time. ‘He will know what to do.’

  But he was gone where even the smoke-magic could not find him, somewhere outside the everyday world, through a hole in space and time to a place where imagination and reality interlock...

  Beyond the Door

  Sometime in the mythical past

  GAVIN FELT HIS way in the dark, even slower now he was out of Pen’s sight, his enthusiasm for adventure flagging. The burnt smell was so pervasive he barely noticed it. He reminded himself with satisfaction that he wasn’t losing touch with the present: Pen, the house, and the events of the morning were still at the forefront of his mind. Which means, he deduced, I can’t be anywhere in human history. That was a vaguely disturbing thought. At least, with history, once you’d sorted out the location and the century you might have some idea what was going on. Here, he hadn’t a clue. It could be a different part of the Jurassic, or the Triassic, or some other -assic he had never heard of, or it could be a mythical place outside the range of reality, Middle-Earth or Narnia or somewhere like that. However, his mental picture of such places was a lot more scenic: caves, if any, should be hung with stalactites, glittering with quartz, lit with an eldritch glow, not like this gloomy, stinking hole.

  There was a light ahead, but it wasn’t eldritch. The passage had levelled out and he saw an opening some way in front filled with the dull-orange glimmer of sodium street-lamps. Gavin had read more childhood fiction than Pen, before his reading became entirely culinary, and he stopped dead. It dawned on him he was being incredibly stupid. He knew quite well what sort of creatures lived in caves, giving off a dull-orange glow. Of course, dragons didn’t exist and never had, but he suspected that in Bygone House that wouldn’t be a bar to stumbling over one. So much for adventure. He was going back – he was going back right now – except... He visualised himself telling Pen: ‘I realised there might be a dragon in there, so I came away without taking a look.’ It wasn’t a scenario in which he shone. Burger it, he said to himself. He would go very quietly, and just take a peek. There would be no verbal exchanges, no riddles, none of that garbage. Just a quick peek.

  He crept towards the opening, testing the ground before every step. Now, he could hear a noise like the wind whistling down a very long chimney, the sound of some large animal breathing heavily in its sleep. (Sleep was good.) He noted: ‘I thought dragons snored,’ and wondered why he wasn’t petrified with terror. Perhaps because, after the initial shock, he knew what to expect. It was almost a cliché. Cave – reddish glow – sleeping dragon. Maybe there would be treasure, an antique hoard of gold and gems stretching away in shimmering mounds. His eyes gleamed at the prospect. Surely he could appropriate a couple of items...

  He peered round the edge of the aperture into a much larger cavern.

  There was no hoard. Just the dragon. It was lying on rubble and what appeared to be fragments of bone, whether human or animal he couldn’t tell. Gavin guessed it was at least fifty feet long, but the tail was so looped and coiled around the floor it was impossible to be precise. Its body was just lithe enough to squeeze through the cave entrance, an ash-grey body encrusted with scales and spines, humps and bumps, only the belly glowing dimly red from the furnace inside. It lay with head slumped sideways, its eyes closed and its mouth open, displaying a jagged collection of smoke-stained teeth. A little puff of fume came from its nostrils with every exhalation. Its folded wings were bundled along its back like collapsible umbrellas, loose tucks of skin protruding between the ribbing. One foreleg was in the air, the long toes terminating in two-foot claws.

  It didn’t look like a cliché. It looked real – hugely, terrifyingly real – a crocodile five times bigger than it should be, winged an
d supple and much too hot. Dragons have several stomachs, only one of which produces flame. Special enzymes break down the fuel substances it eats to form a kind of gas called igneum, which is expelled via the oesophagus and burns when mixed with air. Dragons are of course reptiles and technically cold-blooded, but this process makes their body temperature hot enough for eggs to fry on their skin, even in sleep, and provides the glow useful for dragon-hunters operating underground. They are essentially creatures with an unnaturally high level of inbuilt heartburn. In evolutionary terms, it is hardly surprising that dragons are both magical and largely extinct.

  Forgetful of his mother’s training, Gavin whispered: ‘Shit.’ He stared – and stared – horrified, fascinated, bewitched. He could see the rhythmic swelling and shrinking of its underbelly, and the whistle of breath in its nasal passages filled the cave with hissy echoes. Somehow, he didn’t think this was a dragon that did riddles. This creature wouldn’t waste time on conversation. It would just eat you.

  The noise from outside wrenched him abruptly from his contemplation. He drew back, stepping on something which squelched. Dragon dung. Fortunately, it was old and cold. (Fresh dragon dung will burn through clothing.) In the cavern, the dragon rolled onto its stomach and opened an eye. It was smoky red, with a slitted pupil, and it looked like the eye of no other creature in all the worlds. You felt its glance could go through both flesh and stone like a laser. It occurred to Gavin that he had no ring to make himself invisible and he was standing in the exit.

  He stumbled back along the tunnel, no longer trying to be quiet. There wasn’t time. Behind him, he heard the dragon’s approach, far too rapid for an animal of its size and weight – the crunch! crunch! of claws on rubble, the scrape of tail over stone. He dived into the first recess he could find. It didn’t go back far enough, and he shrank against the wall, trying to squeeze himself into a crack in the rock, knowing the dragon must see him. It shot past at speed, summoned by the screeching call outside, but there was an instant when the red gaze probed the gap – he felt it scanning him, analysing him, filing him away for future disposal, putting him on the menu for afters. His bowels loosened. He clenched every muscle against the humiliation of terror.

  He knew when it issued from the cave – he heard the coughing roar as it answered its challenger. There were sounds of violent combat, crashes and thuds that made the ground shudder, shrieks of unhuman pain or rage. He had to move – he had to move now – it was his only chance. If he could escape under cover of the fight, get back to the door, to Pen, to the safety of Bygone House... But the fear made him weak and stupid, penning him in that useless hole. He tried to stand, but his knees gave. The dragon’s stare was supposed to be hypnotic, he remembered. It wanted him to wait there, till the fight was over, then it would return, scoop him out with a hooked foreclaw, carry him into the cavern and devour him at leisure...

  He tottered forward into the passage, skidded and stumbled down the scree towards the entrance. The noise of combat grew – in the gap he could see dust-whorls, a threshing tail, the flare of fire. He was running now, limbs unfrozen, desperate to get out. In the cave-mouth he halted, seeing the roc for the first time, stunned by the scale of a battle between two such giants. The dragon was half turned away from him, rearing up on its hind legs, pinions spread, flame jetting from its jaws. The roc attacked from above – its brazen feathers seemed to be fireproof, and its wingbeat drove the jet back into the dragon’s throat, choking it on its own breath. As it reeled Gavin sprinted from the cave. But the tail lashed sideways, hurling him against the rock with such force that for a few seconds he blacked out. He fought to stay conscious, to get back on his feet, braced himself to try again. And again the tail was there, slamming him into the tunnel. Then he understood. The dragon heard him – sensed his every move – and had no intention of letting him get away. This was a hunter who never missed a kill: the prey, once sighted, was already dead.

  Push your luck too far and it may break under the strain. Gavin knew he was dinner.

  The stun-gun was no good to him: it would be a mere fuel injection for a creature which ran on fire. He realised in that narrow gorge his chances of dodging the tail were nonexistent. His head was still spinning; another blow might knock him out completely. If this was Playstation he would give up, but it wasn’t a game – it wasn’t virtual reality – and in the gorge below, through the dust and smoke, he saw the door open in the cliff, and Pen, paler than pale, peering out, hands waving in frantic gestures. Something about the look on her face was more than he could bear.

  The fight was growing increasingly vicious. Blows glanced off the rock, widening old cracks; boulders thundered down from above. Claws and jaws, talons and pinions whirled together in a vortex of destructive power. But a small corner of the dragon’s mind was still on its prospective meal. Perhaps the two monsters had slain nearly all the prey in the area, the region could not sustain such predation and the conflict was vital to decide who ate what was left. Gavin was young and well-nourished, packed to the skin with soft tasty bits – liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, tripe – even those chewy knots of muscle would present no problem to a dragon. The beast would never let such a delicacy evade his hunger.

  For the last time, Gavin slipped out of the cave. The tail sliced towards him – he grabbed the spiny ridge, feeling dagger-edges split his palms – vaulted clumsily over it – rolled across the ground, trying to get out of range. The dragon, infuriated, lunged with one back leg, pitching his victim almost effortlessly through the air, smashing him against the cliff. Gavin saw white pinpoints of light flickering in his vision as the impact drove breath and strength from his body. He felt a rib go but it didn’t matter – he knew he couldn’t run any more...

  But that last tiny distraction had broken the dragon’s concentration. Sensing weakness, the roc plunged – its opponent was low on fire and only a thin drift of flame crackled along the bird’s crest. The huge beak thrust into the reptile’s throat like a spear. Too late, the dragon tried to pull back – its body arched and spasmed – the roc shook its head, driving the mortal wound deeper and deeper. Blood fountained out, hissing and steaming as it hit the ground. The lethal tail twitched and shuddered. Pen’s cry carried up the valley: ‘Gavin – now! GAVIN–’

  But Gavin was still trying to breathe.

  The roc settled on its fallen enemy, turning it onto its back, exposing the thinner scaling on the belly. Gavin heard the sound – a sound to melt your guts – as talons even bigger than the dragon’s ripped through hide and flesh. The fire-stomach was torn open; a little igneum must have remained, as a whoosh of flame shot upwards, then fizzled into nothing. The raptor dipped its head, lifting it again with dripping scarlet ribbons trailing from its beak. Gavin moved, groaning, struggling to inhale into squashed lungs. The bird’s head tilted, watching him with a single eye. Not the red laser-stare of the dragon but the flat black glitter of generic malice. Using a boulder, Gavin pulled himself to his feet. The pain of his cracked rib twanged through his body.

  ‘Hold on!’ Pen called. ‘I’m coming!’

  She was running up the slope towards him – the roc’s gaze swivelled to fix on her. Gavin tried to shout: No! Stay where you are! but his voice emerged as a croak. Then her arm went round him and somehow they were facing the bird, its neck extended, its lowered beak blood-dipped and still dangling shreds of intestine. It surveyed them first with one eye, then the other. Pen grabbed the stun-gun from Gavin’s pocket.

  ‘Didn’t... feel fire,’ Gavin managed.

  ‘Those feathers seem to be metallic,’ Pen said optimistically. ‘Metal’s a conductor. It’ll feel this.’

  But the roc evidently decided there was more meat on the dragon. It returned to its grisly meal, and the two of them staggered down the hill and through the door into the sanctuary of the house.

  London, twenty-first century

  BACK IN 7A, Quorum supplied hot sweet chocolate for the shock and cooked a meal which might have met Gav
in’s standards if he had been in a mood to register what he ate.

  ‘You ought to see a doctor about your rib,’ Pen said.

  ‘Not much point,’ Gavin said between mouthfuls. He had got his voice back when his lungs returned to normal. ‘I broke one playing football once; it took ages to mend. There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘You should have a tetanus jab for those cuts on your hand–’

  ‘I told you it was dangerous,’ Quorum reiterated every few minutes, agitated out of his butleresque calm. ‘You young people, you don’t listen–’

  ‘We know now,’ Pen said. ‘Please don’t go on about it. We’ll be more careful next time.’

  ‘Next time!’ Quorum’s tone shrilled to a squeak.

  ‘Pen nearly got lost in the past,’ Gavin said, ‘and I nearly got eaten. I’m not in a hurry to open any more doors.’ Over an hour later, they were both still shaking. They’d done a lot of hugging and even a little weeping when the broom cupboard was finally closed, though Gavin had attempted to rub away his tears unnoticed and Pen duly hadn’t noticed them. Her colour came back with the brandy – more colour than usual – and the edge had gone from both her curiosity and her resolution.

  ‘We did learn things,’ she said. ‘We learned lots. I’m going to put it all on the computer and see what we get.’

  ‘Put not your trust in technology,’ said Quorum. ‘The house is a spatial/temporal prism – a time-twister. The hallway may be quiet but that’s like the epicentre of a tornado. Beyond the doors space and time are shifting, spinning, changing. You can’t pin them down.’