Sky Wolves (20 page)

‘A lift?’
thundered Charon.
‘This isn’t a taxi, you know.’

‘I can see that,’ said Checkers. ‘You haven’t got one of those little signs on the top.’

Boris found his voice and hushed Checkers as Charon glared down at them both.

‘If you please, sir,’ he said, ‘we have to get to the other side.’

‘Are either of you dead?’

‘I
don’t think so,’ said Boris.

‘Then why do you want to cross the river of death? Don’t you think I’ve got enough to do, ferrying all the lost souls, without wasting my time on the living?’
and he gnashed the few teeth he had.
‘No living soul may enter the abode of death,’
he said.

‘But we’ve got to fight the Guardian,’ said Checkers, adding
‘OW!’
as Boris nudged him, hard.

Charon stared at them, as if they had lost their minds. Then he tipped back his head and laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh. It sounded unpleasantly like the cries of the damned. Besides, they could see the rotting stumps of his teeth.

‘Fight – the Guardian?’
he gurgled, slapping his bony thighs.
‘Fight Cerberus, the monstrous Keeper of the Gates, who puts terror even into the bloodless shades? The brazen-voiced Hound of Hades, whose three jaws are rabid with hunger and whose massive back writhes with fifty venomous snakes? Whose howl sends even the gods to destruction?’

‘That’s the one,’ squeaked Checkers from behind Boris.

‘We don’t have to
fight
him,’ insisted Boris. ‘We just have to persuade him to come with us.’

Charon laughed again. It didn’t suit him and he obviously didn’t do it often. It made him cough, a long, horrible cough. When he had finished, he looked at them with his red eyes watering and said,
‘Only once has any mortal successfully tackled the Guardian of the Dead. Hercules, king of heroes and a god among men, had, as his final and greatest labour, to bring the infernal hound to Eurystheus, King of Mycenae. But the monstrous beast so frightened Eurystheus that Hercules had to take him back.’
Charon shook his tattered beard, remembering.
‘That was many millennia ago,’
he said, and sighed.
‘Those were the days.’

Boris was feeling distinctly depressed. He began to wish that he hadn’t run away from Mr Finnegan. Even the dogs’ home was better than this. Checkers, however, was still making a show of bravado.

‘So,’ he said, ‘where does he hang out then – this monstrous hound?’

Charon laughed his wheezing, rattling laugh that ended once again in a terrible cough.

‘You want to take something for that,’ said Checkers.

‘Forgive me,’
said Charon.
‘It’s the damp. It gets to your chest after the first few thousand years. The watchdog of the underworld lives in his den on the infernal side of the river.’
He looked out across the sludgy water and both dogs followed his gaze, but the river was too wide for them to see the other side.
‘He greets
the souls I ferry across the water. Unfortunately for them, they are already dead, so they cannot die of fright. However, most of them do wish, at that point, that they had never been born. And he makes sure that none of them return from Hades.’

Charon looked at the two dogs quite kindly for a moment.

‘I cannot ferry the living,’
he said.
‘Return to your homes, small, hairy creatures. Forget this foolishness and consider yourselves blessed.’

Dumbly, Boris turned to go, but Checkers blocked his way.

‘We can’t go back now,’ he said. ‘We’ve come this far. And what’ll happen to the others if we give up? Besides – we don’t know the way.’

Boris knew this was true. But his heart was filled with dread and his stomach felt as though he’d swallowed an enormous stone. He wanted nothing so much as to lie in his basket at home, in front of a nice, cheerful fire. He wouldn’t even mind the baby chewing his ears, he thought.

‘Come on,’ Checkers said sternly. ‘Chin up.’

Boris made a feeble, protesting noise. ‘But we can’t get across the river,’ he said, ‘if he won’t take us.’

‘He will take us,’ Checkers said.

‘No, he won’t,’ said Boris.

‘No, I won’t,’
said Charon.

Checkers reached forward and nudged the limp branch in Boris’s mouth. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Give it to him.’

Boris stared at him dully, until Checkers took the branch from him and proffered it to Charon.

‘There you go,’ said Checkers. ‘We’ve got something for you.’

Charon looked taken aback.

‘For me?’
he said.

Then a look of something almost like awe crossed his ancient features. It seemed even less at home there than his laugh. He reached out trembling fingers towards the straggling branch.

‘The Golden Bough,’
he said in a hushed voice.
‘Its golden foliage illuminates the darkest shades of Tartarus. This is the vine from whose pliant green stems blossoms the breath of gold flowers, like stars to comfort lost souls through their endless night.’

Checkers and Boris looked in surprise at the limp twig. After all their adventures, it had only a few leaves clinging to it, and a single flower.

‘If you say so,’ said Checkers doubtfully, but Charon went on looking at the branch as if enchanted, delicately touching the flower.

‘You bring me priceless treasure,’
he breathed.

‘Really?’ said Boris.

‘I accept your payment. You may enter the boat.’

‘D’you hear that, Boris?’ said Checkers. ‘We’re in!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Boris.

But Checkers had already leapt excitedly at the boat, which rocked wildly as he landed. Boris sighed and followed him, rather less enthusiastically, shuddering as he was forced to wade into the slimy water.

Charon, meanwhile, miraculously kept his balance, still
gazing entranced at the weedy twig, then, without a word, he tucked it into the folds of his cloak and grasped the pole. As he pushed it, the boat moved slowly through the grimy foam, which seemed to gasp as they passed, so that a terrible stench went up. Greyish weeds clung to the water’s edge, as if hoping to drown themselves. Only Gheckers’s spirits seemed undampened.

‘We’re going to fight the Guardian!’ he said. ‘Hooray!’

Boris couldn’t help feeling that Checkers might have missed the point, but he couldn’t think of anything useful and positive to say, so he said nothing.

‘Do you think we’ll recognize him when we get there?’ Checkers asked.

Boris opened his mouth to say that since they were talking about an enormous hound with three heads and serpents hissing along his spine, spotting him probably wouldn’t be a problem, when suddenly there was a mind-mangling explosion of noise.

‘Ah, the brazen-voiced Hound of Hades,’
said Charon, when the noise subsided and both dogs lay stunned in the bottom of the boat.
‘He is ravenously hungry,’
he added, failing to cheer them up.
‘It is a while since he has eaten. You wouldn’t have any honey cakes steeped in soporific herbs, would you?’

‘Er – no,’ said Checkers, picking himself up. ‘We must’ve forgotten them.’

‘Pity,’
said Charon.
‘He likes them.’

For a while no one said anything else. Then, when the horrific noise blasted through the underworld again, Charon continued conversationally,
‘Now, where would you like me to drop you off?’

Back home, please,
Boris thought, but his brain felt as though it had been hammered by giant bricks and his jaw lolled around uselessly, incapable of speech.

‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’
Charon said, when neither dog answered.
‘I will not drop you at the mouth of his cavern, where one or more of his heads will instantaneously devour you. I will take you a little further down the shore, where you may at least have time to plan your attack. Before he eats you.’

He turned the boat around, midstream.

‘Here you are,’
he said, moments later.
‘You’ll excuse me if I don’t stay and watch. I never could stand the sight of blood. I told Zeus that when he gave me the job – but does he ever listen?’

Neither dog moved, but remained cringing in the boat. Charon poked at them with the pole until, very reluctantly, they clambered out.

‘Come on now – I’ve got souls to ferry. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and I’m sorry our acquaintance has been so short. I hope your deaths are quick and easy – the long, lingering kind never did anyone any good.’

Both dogs watched dismally as Charon plied his boat away from them, rapidly fading from view. Checkers was the first to speak.

‘Well,’ he said in what was for him a whisper, ‘looks like this is it.’

And gazing round the desolate shore, which was even more gloomy than the other side, Boris couldn’t help but agree.

‘We might as well get on with it,’ Checkers continued,
beginning to walk along the shore. ‘Now, if he’d only make that horrible noise again, we could work out where he was.’

‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ said Boris, who had just bumped into something unspeakably foul.

The two dogs gazed at it in silent awe, wishing they’d left their sense of smell behind them. It was a huge mountain of dog poo, about five times larger than Gentleman Jim.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Hati, as Flo appeared in her line of vision.

She slowed herself down to get a better look. She was so near to the moon now that a few bounds would take her to it, and she was confident enough to believe herself invincible. Besides, it wasn’t every day that you got a chance to see the hounds of Hel roped together in midair by what looked like a pink poodle who was having a
very
bad hair day. Hati, who was immaculately groomed, licked her shining fur as she waited.

‘Why Skoll,’ she said pleasantly, ‘how good of you to join me. And you’ve brought all your friends!’

‘Stow it, Hati,’ Skoll growled. ‘Make yourself useful. Get rid of Miss Freak Show here and set us free.’

Hati laughed a delicate, silvery laugh. ‘Of course,’ she said.

Flo eyed her warily. She could see, without being told, that Hati was in a different class from Skoll and his band, who were little better than a troop of hired thugs. For one thing, she was very beautiful – silver and gleaming in the moonlight. Her eyes too were a pale silver-grey, cold as moonshine, and her pelt looked polished. She emanated enough evil to make
Henry look like a cuddly kitten. Flo licked her lips, which were suddenly very dry. She had come this far, she told herself. She was a very different dog from the creature who had slunk away from the croft, anxious only to preserve her own skin. She was a poodle with a mission.

‘But you haven’t introduced us,’ Hati said.

There were mingled cries of ‘Get on with it!’ and ‘Don’t talk to her – eat her!’ but Hati ignored them.

‘What is your name?’ she asked Flo.

Flo tried to disentangle the Thread of Destiny from her teeth.

‘My name is Flo,’ she said. ‘And I’m here to stop you devouring the moon!’

‘Fascinating,’ said Hati. ‘I suppose you’ve stopped Skoll devouring the sun? Yes,’ she said, glancing over to where the sun throbbed with orange light. ‘I can see you have. Well done,’ she said admiringly, and Flo felt a ridiculous urge to preen. ‘When exactly did you learn to fly?’

‘I – what?’ said Flo, distracted.

‘She can’t fly,’ said Garm, behind Flo. ‘Get that thread off her and she’ll plummet to the earth!’

‘Splat!’ said another wolf.

‘Pink poodle jam!’ said a third.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Hati reprovingly, ‘let the lady speak.’

Flo felt hypnotized by the intensity of Hati’s gaze.

‘I didn’t
learn
to fly,’ she said slowly. ‘It just kind of happened.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Hati.

And the wolves said, ‘Told you!’

‘She can’t do nothing without that thread!’

‘Get it off her, Hati!’ and so on.

Flo had enough sense to know when she was being undermined. It occurred to her suddenly that she didn’t need the heckling wolves – they would only get in her way. Hati was enough to deal with on her own. The thread tugged gently against her teeth and she gave in to her impulse to bite.

‘’Ere – what’s going on!’ cried Skoll, as the thread broke and the whole bundle of wolves drifted off, still bound too tightly to escape.

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Untie us!’

Hati watched with interest as they drifted a little way off, then hung around, hovering uselessly, like a malignant parcel in the sky.

‘Ah, the female of the species,’ she said, smiling indulgently at Flo. ‘More deadly than the male, they say.’

Flo said nothing. She still had the ball of thread in her mouth, leading her forward, and she was trying to work out how she would get it round Hati. She could attempt to throw it, of course, but that would mean letting go of the ball. And then she might indeed plummet to the earth.

Hati was prowling up and down now in midair.

‘Is that really the Thread of Destiny?’ she enquired.

‘It is,’ said Flo. ‘Perhaps you’d like a closer look?’

Hati gave a low, throaty chuckle. ‘Those tactics might work on Skoll,’ she said with a twitch of her tail. ‘But really, you’ll have to come up with something much better for me.’

Flo could see that she was right. As well as menace, Hati radiated a dark intelligence. She was formidable, as well as beautiful. Flo realized with a pang that she did not have a
clue what to do. She hoped the thread had some ideas of its own.

‘Well,’ said Hati, when Flo failed to reply, ‘I’d love to stay here chatting, but there’s a moon to devour. And you don’t seem to have much idea really, do you? I must say, I’m astonished at Skoll,’ she went on, ‘allowing himself to be defeated by you. Whoever does your hair, dear? Didn’t you try biting them? I’d give them rabies, if I were you. Or maybe you already did. That would explain the overall effect.’

At last Flo had the glimmering of an idea. ‘It is true that I am not so beautifully groomed as you,’ she said humbly. ‘I don’t know how you find the time to take care of such a magnificent pelt. The way you’ve got it combed over those bald patches is truly remarkable.’