The Color of Darkness (12 page)

“Meet Iaco,” said Sammael, putting his hand up to his neck and pulling the little creature out of his collar. He sat it on his forearm where it glared at Tom with hot anger in its eyes.

“A tame stoat? Where on earth did you find it?”

“She was wounded. I took her home and healed her. Her family were killed by men with terriers out ratting.”

Tom reached out a finger to the stoat, which arched its sleek back and bared its tiny teeth at him.

“Not keen on people, then?” He tried to smile but a thudding in his chest was choking him. If only the stoat would jump onto his outstretched arm, tuck herself into his collar, and feel safe with him. For a second his blood ran green with envy. But if he stayed friends with Sammael, he could have this too. He was sure of it.

“Not keen on people. But I think she might help you.”

“How?” Tom pulled back his hand and the stoat chattered, then relaxed along Sammael's shirtsleeve.

“I think if you could learn to understand the way stoats talk, she might go with you and round up other stoats. If you had an army of them you might be able to divert the dogs, once they'd set on the badger. If you still want to stop the baiters, that is.”

“Of course I do! But … I mean, I know I'll easily learn to understand stoats—I just haven't quite got to them in the book yet. But could I really learn to
talk
to them? I've never tried that with anything else. I didn't think it would work. My voice must sound so different from theirs, whatever noise I try to make.”

Sammael smiled and put up a finger to stroke Iaco's back. The stoat bent herself to his touch.

“I'm sure I could help with that. It might take a little time, though. Could you take a day or so off from your farm?”

Tom never took time off from the farm. The milking was his job, and he did it come rain or shine. He'd done it since he was twelve. Five whole years without a single day's vacation.

“Sure,” he said, not liking the way the word stuck in his tight shoulders. “Of course I could. Mum'll understand. She hates the baiters too. I'm sure she'll understand. I do need to finish up a few things here first, though.”

“As you like,” said Sammael. “I've got plenty of time. Maybe I can start trying to explain things to Iaco, and you can come and find me in the woods later, when you're ready.”

He turned to leave the barn and Tom followed him, wanting desperately to say, I've changed my mind, let's go now. But as they walked out into the damp yard and Tom saw every familiar thing, old troughs and fences and the puddle by the drain that never quite dried up, he couldn't help feeling that the plan was a bit crazy.

“Do you really reckon it'll work?” he said. “I mean, stoats are so territorial. They'll just end up fighting one another, won't they? Wouldn't we be better off trying to chuck water on the dogs or something?”

“Depends on how well you think you could learn to command wild animals, doesn't it?” said Sammael. The stoat ran back up his neck. “Depends on how creative you want to be in your approach.”

“But …
stoats
?”

Sammael turned and smiled his thin, easy smile, and Tom's doubts vanished.

“Imagine,” said Sammael. “If you could.”

And with a brief salute, he walked out of the yard leaving Tom staring after him, hope soaring in his heart.

*   *   *

Up in the ether, Sammael stepped out of the air into the doorway and stamped into the cold room, hardly noticing as Iaco leapt from the neck of his shirt and raced behind a high stack of boxes. He was muttering to himself, a long stream of words the stoat couldn't follow.

The walls of the room had changed color again. Today they were a moldy green, the sort of color that gobbled up light.

Iaco's paws were still shaking from the horrors of the journey. They'd traveled through that awful, blinding world, wild with evil men and evil dogs. She'd had to hide inside Sammael's shirt and stay close to his chest again, just to stop herself chewing her own paws off in terror.

She found something that looked like an old lump of bread and gave it a tentative gnaw.

“Humans!” spat Sammael. “Humans!”

The stoat's fur prickled along the ridge of her spine. She burped, and a stream of tiny shovels flew from her mouth, in all the various colors of the rainbow.

“Iaco!” snapped Sammael. “I warned you—don't touch things you find here. You're still a creature of the earth—if you're going to be witless and dumb, not even I can help you.”

The tiny shovels dwindled away, although they were followed by a single curving scythe, and then Iaco could breathe properly again.

“I'm not dumb!” she yelled, leaping up and down in fear and fury. “You haven't explained a thing about this place! I can't eat, I can hardly breathe, and every time I move a claw something even more disgusting happens to me! Last week—those giant pink slugs falling from the roof—ugh! This isn't what I asked for! The deal's off! I'm going home!”

“Go on, then,” said Sammael. “Off you trot.”

Iaco crouched against the ground, sniffing with hatred.

“I can't,” she growled. “You've trapped me here. You've tricked me.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” said Sammael. “You and I want the same things, and we'll get them very soon. Just don't be a dimwit in the meantime.”

Iaco arched her back and flexed her claws, growling at the insult. But Sammael reached out a hand and picked her up, and she felt again the powerful warmth of his skin. He set her to rest on his forearm, and gradually her back lost its tightness as she lay along the strong bones.

“Those humans will get what's coming to them, don't you worry,” he said, raising his arm to his face so she could look into his hard black eyes. “When I get his sand, I'll rip a hole in Chromos so big you'll be able to push the moon herself through it. And those pure colors will pour down on every inch of earth, bringing every nightmare and terror screaming out from the darkest corners of people's minds. All the stupid, ungrateful people, all the dull, unimaginative cowards, and the brainless, backward fools who won't look at the world in case they see something that they don't understand—
none
of them will survive.”

A vision of her babies came into Iaco's mind: the first one opening his eyes, beginning to struggle onto weak, shaking legs. His brothers and sisters following his lead, clawing out into the world beyond their fur-lined nest. How small they had been. How fragile.

Iaco's tiny heart sat as heavy as stone, and for a moment she couldn't breathe.

“I know something about death, too,” said Sammael in a tight voice. “The last human who stumbled on some minor unearthly powers was so afraid of the whole thing—so afraid to even
look
at me—that he murdered my innocent dog. I know what it's like when the world takes and takes and takes from you, and gives nothing back.”

Iaco closed her eyes. “Will it kill other creatures, too?”

And Sammael nodded. “I should think so. But they've all had enough chances. And the brave ones might make it through, the creatures who aren't afraid of the wilderness. Hardly any of them are humans, though. Humans are the most cowardly creatures of all.”

“But … but what if the men and dogs who killed my babies survive? What if
they
're brave, in some way, somehow…?” Iaco screwed her eyes tighter shut, trying to push away the thoughts of the heavy-booted feet, the pattering of the terriers' paws, the sounds of danger stamping through the undergrowth.

“Bah!” Sammael shook his arm, sending the stoat flying through the air and tumbling onto the ground. “People like
that
?
Brave?
Don't be absurd! And don't question me! There's too much that a sniveling shrew like you could never understand.”

“I'm not a shrew!” spat Iaco, recovering her feet and baring her teeth. “I'm a stoat!”

“Hunger making you snippy, is it?” said Sammael, picking up a box and opening it. He set it down in front of the stoat. “Here. Dinner.”

The box was full of a yellowish-gray fine sand. Iaco trembled at the smell. It had the cold scent of age and a mummified dryness that clung to her nostrils.

“What's the matter? Lost your appetite?” asked Sammael. “The souls of long-dead humans not tempting you today?”

The stoat shuddered and gulped, trying to gouge pinholes in the floor with her claws. Sammael was a creature to be scared of—she knew that. The old legends were full of stories about him turning day into night and squashing mountains into the sea. He'd performed countless acts of strength and wild impossibility, and he'd behaved exactly as he liked since the dawn of time. She didn't expect him to be nice to her. But his changes of mood were terrifying.

It didn't matter. As long as she stayed with him she'd be safe. He'd help her take her revenge. Nothing else was important anymore.

Iaco watched as Sammael turned away and began to run his fingers along the stacks of boxes, pausing for a second on each one as if listening to its contents.

“Nope … nope … nope…,” he muttered to himself. “None of you will do. But as soon as he's finished the book, I'll get his sand. And when I've got that—then you'll see.”

 

CHAPTER 12

ESCAPE

Cath sat in the corner next to the settee, hugging her knees to her chest. Her neck ached from where the sweater had dug into it, and her stomach was bruised. She concentrated on those two lines of pain, shutting out any memories of yesterday. Yesterday was worse than any pain: the single day in which she'd let herself think she might get away from Dad.

Sadie stuck her head around the door frame and put her tongue out.

“Yeah?” said Cath. “Come here and do that.”

Sadie smirked. “You're in
so
much trouble!” she said, retreating safely to the doorway of her bedroom. The words floated up the hallway and mooched around the living room, but Cath hardly heard them. She didn't need Sadie to tell her anything.

Macy came in wearing a leopard-print dressing gown. She sat down on the settee, rubbed makeup-crusted sleep from her eyes, lit a cigarette, and turned the TV up.

“Yer Dad's getting up,” she said over an audience-fake-booing noise. “And then he'll sort you out. And you let the dogs crap in here again. I ought to rub your dirty little face in it, teach you some manners.”

Cath swore at her.

Macy took another puff of her cigarette and said, “I'll tell that to yer dad, will I?”

“Yeah,” Cath said. “Go on.”

“You're a waste of space,” said Macy. “No wonder yer own mum didn't want you.”

Cath tried to get up but Macy was on her feet, quick as a terrier.

“Don't you get any ideas, missy. You just sit there and keep yer mouth shut.”

Cath sank back down to the floor. Where was Zadoc, who could lift her up and carry her high above the world? And where was Barshin, who'd put all those strange talking thoughts in her head, so that she'd seemed to be having a conversation with him? It couldn't really have been true. She'd just been going crazy. People did go crazy and started seeing things, and talking to things that weren't there. That must have been what had happened to her. But it was all over now.

The bedroom door clicked and squeaked, and Dad's footsteps thumped over the junk in the hallway. A tang of stale air floated into the living room.

“Sadie!” yelled Macy, getting up. Sadie came slyly in, smirking at Cath. “Watch her. Yell if she moves.”

There was something said in the kitchen. Macy's sharp voice and Dad's low, hard one, and then more footsteps.

Sadie stepped backward, and Dad filled the doorway. He looked at Cath. There was nothing on his face, just the same blank look he'd give to a dog in the road.

“I've got school,” said Cath, trying to make her shaking voice sound defiant. “I've gotta go.”

“Oh yeah? So you can run away and get the pigs on me, is that right?” Dad said quietly. “We'll see about that.”

Cath looked down at her feet pressed against the floor. There was a hole in one of the toes of her socks. If she looked very hard at it, so hard that she could convince herself the sock hole was another way to Chromos, with Barshin and Zadoc waiting just on the other side of it—if she could imagine that, maybe she could forget about Dad.

That spiky yellow plant with the coconut smell. She saw the bush as clearly as if it were growing from the living room carpet, yellow flowers holding tightly to the air. She breathed in and something pulled at the corner of her mouth.

Dad grabbed the top of her arm and yanked her to her feet. Cath's shoulder swung forward, arm twisted behind her. She bit her tongue.