The Color of Darkness (27 page)

*   *   *

The wind shook Danny until his neck made a thousand tiny tearing sounds, and he tried to keep his head still for fear it would fall off. Then something came cannoning into his ribs, reached out, and hooked itself onto him, and he struggled in panic for a moment until he realized that it was Cath's twiggy arms gripping tightly to his sweater. She was trying to speak, but the screaming wind dragged the sounds from her mouth as fast as she could shout them. Her hand crept down his sweater, reaching for his pocket, and he kicked her viciously away.

“No! No! Don't!”

She shouted something more and tried to reach again, but Danny brought his foot up higher and shoved her in the stomach and she was snatched free of him by the wind. Thank God she hadn't got to the stick. But if Cath could wheel all that way through the air toward him, surely he could get his own hand into his pocket?

With an effort so great it nearly split his shoulders in half, he pulled one of his arms down to his side. More by accident than anything else, his fingers got caught in the material of his trousers, and then they were brushing the top of the stick and the howling of the wind turned to a stream of swearing.

“Please,” Danny begged, “please put us down. We'll die … we can't—”

“Hmph!” snorted the wind. “More than you could chew, eh? Told you, didn't I? Told you.”

“Please!”

The wind grumbled and coughed like a bronchial horse and then chucked Danny high into the air, cackling as he turned a pale shade of olive.

“Heh-heh! I heard about you and the storms. Thought you could tame me, did you? Thought that taro—that little stick—would have me at your beck and call?”

“No,” said Danny, tears still streaming from his eyes. “No, I never thought that. Please put us down! Please!”

“Hmph!” said the wind again.

It dashed him against a pile of rocks and vanished.

*   *   *

Danny held on to the earth, his cheek pressed into the gravel around the rocks. There was nothing around but emptiness, and he was the smallest creature that had ever existed.

He closed his eyes. This wasn't his earth. It was a new earth, a world without Tom. Danny didn't know what he was supposed to do in it. He didn't trust the way it felt so solid and reassuring.

A
thump
and a few painful curses made him aware that Cath had landed too. At least they were still together. Except—if it hadn't been for her, he'd never have started on all this; he'd never have tried to trick Sammael, and Tom would still be alive. If it hadn't been for Cath, he'd be safely at home and so would Tom.

He kept his face turned away from her and watched the far horizon. Sea, again, though whether it was the North Sea or an east sea or a west sea, he had no idea.

“Where's Tom?” said Cath, making scrabbling sounds as if she was sitting up.

Danny couldn't answer her. How could she be so stupid? Her and that wretched hare. He hated them both.

“Danny? You okay?” Cath reached over to shake him.

He jerked himself away from her. His ribs and stomach hurt. He wished he had broken into a million pieces.

“Oi, weirdo, where's Tom?” she repeated.

Danny didn't want to answer. He didn't want to give her anything, not even a word. Why hadn't she been the one to fall into the fire instead of Tom? Nobody would care about her being dead.

“Oi, you freak. Answer me!” Cath chucked a pebble at him. It bounced off his shoulder blade.

He grabbed the biggest stone that came to his hand and swung, launching it toward her face. She got a hand up to it, but not before it had hit her on the cheek, splitting open the skin under her eye.

She swore, wiping the blood with a filthy cuff. “Jeez! What's up with you?”

Danny was surprised she didn't make more of a fuss. The cut was bleeding freely. He shouldn't have done it. Seeing Cath bleeding didn't make him feel any better.

Still, he couldn't say sorry or tell her what had happened to Tom. There was only one thing he could do now.

“I'm going to kill him,” he said, pushing himself to his feet.

“Tom?” said Cath, looking around in confusion.

“Sammael,” said Danny, spitting out every syllable. “Where's Barshin?”

The hare appeared from behind Cath, treading a little gently as though his paws hurt.

“Can I get to the ether through Chromos?” Danny demanded. “Is it linked to it? It is, isn't it? It must be if Sammael goes that way.”

Barshin was silent, his eyes wide with alarm.

“Tell me!” Danny snapped, grabbing at the stick in his pocket.

But the hare only gulped and shivered.

“Oh, what the hell,” said Danny. “Get Zadoc.” And to Cath, “Give me that book.”

She gave Tom's little book to him without argument. Danny didn't look at it. He turned on Barshin, his eyes hard.

“This is something of Tom's, right?”

Barshin crouched low on the stony outcrop, dipped his nose to the rocks, and stared up at the book, his ears twitching.

“I know Sammael made it,” snapped Danny. “But it belongs to Tom, doesn't it? It will protect us against the fire.”

“I don't know,” said Barshin. “I don't know.”

“Where's the moon?” said Danny, peering up into the sky. But it was still daylight, despite everything that had happened. The moon wouldn't be around for a while yet.

Blood sang in his ears. No matter, he thought. This was no time for holding back.

“We could wait?” tried Barshin, but Danny wasn't listening anymore.

“I'm going up there,” he said to Cath. “I'm going to get into the ether and I'm going to steal his boots. And if that doesn't kill him, I'll find out what will. Maybe if he's dead, they'll all be brought back to us—all the creatures he's taken. All those people—”

But he couldn't say any more. Instead, he made a grab for Barshin, but the hare jumped backward.

“Get Zadoc!” Danny shouted. “Get Zadoc now!”

Barshin cowered against the stones, and Danny yanked the stick out of his pocket.

“Wind!” he said, deliberately out loud so that Barshin could hear him. “It's this hare that thinks he can control you. He's got a taro of his own. Don't believe me? Pick him up and chuck him in the air and throw him against a rock, and it'll burst out of his stomach when he dies. Go on, try it! He's been telling me all about it for days!”

“No!” yelled Cath, leaning over to take hold of Barshin.

The wind stirred again. It wouldn't take much to shift the tiny hare.

“Get Zadoc!” Danny bellowed, his white face turning purplish-red. “Get Zadoc or I'll kill you!”

This was nothing like the terror he'd felt for his parents. This was a blinding, white rage. He would do anything. He would get Zadoc by himself if he had to. Chromos was there for all of them, wasn't it?

The wind snatched angrily at Barshin, trying to tear the small creature from Cath's grip. She slipped against the stones and nearly fell backward.

Barshin struggled. “Stop it!” he squeaked. “Let me go!”

“I can't,” said Cath. “The wind'll get you.”

“No, no, I'll do it! I'll call him.”

The hare leapt down from her arms and glared at Danny. Danny kept his mouth shut, crossed his fingers behind his back, and told the wind that he'd made a mistake, he was sorry.

Zadoc came. He was so transparent that the whole landscape was visible through his body, and he had taken on only the colors of the earth this time, the purple of the heather, the iron-gray of the rocks, and the bitter dark green of the undergrowth. Danny scrambled up onto his back first, and then Cath, neither of them talking, neither of them looking around.

Cath held out a leg to Barshin, but the hare shook his head. “I can't go there again,” he said. “I'll see you back here on earth.”

“No—” Cath tried to say, but Zadoc was trying to take off, his legs slipping on the stones beneath him. He came crashing down onto his nose.

“I'm sorry…” He gasped, and he tried to right himself. His creaky limbs flailed on the loose gravel, and he fell again.

“You're … much … heavier…” He panted. “Much heavier than last time.”

His fading coat was damp with sweat as his legs tried to straighten and again buckled. Danny wanted to kick him.

Cath grabbed at his arm. “It's the book!” she said, pulling his sleeve urgently. “It must be. He can't carry the book! You've gotta leave it behind!”

“Don't be stupid!” hissed Danny. “We need it to get past the fire. It's the only thing we've got left of Tom's.”

“Well, tear it up! Take a little bit of it! He can't carry it—look at him.”

Zadoc was down on his knees, nose squashed against the ground. He was gasping.

“Got … to … get … back … up…”

“Quick!” said Cath. “He can't stay here! You're trapping him on earth! He'll die too—is that what you want? Idiot!”

She hooked her arm around Danny's neck and squeezed the breath out of him, using her other hand to grab the book.

As soon as it was out of Danny's hands and in Cath's, Zadoc scrambled to his feet. But Cath, not trusting the little book, ripped out the last page and let the rest of it fall onto the stones at Zadoc's feet. A page was the same to them as the whole book, wasn't it?

Zadoc launched himself frantically into the air and the world fell away.

 

CHAPTER 26

THE FIRE

Danny's demons swarmed around him. Gone were the forests of Mitz and Kalia. Rivers of anger swirled, bloody and dark. Chromos was a hazy mist of farmhouses and cows and fences and ham pies and warm sofas, all burning with flames of green and black. Danny himself was everywhere—wading through lakes of black runoff from the muck heap, falling forward into manure-soaked straw, lying motionless and screaming as great herds of dangle-tongued cows loped steadily toward him. Their cloven hooves clacked over the rutted concrete yard as they would soon clack over his head, crushing the grass as they would soon crush his skull.

How had he done it before? How had he gotten through this? He couldn't remember, couldn't even begin to think. And then the whole landscape in front of them opened up and they were streaming back down into the valley with the lake where they had seen Tom and the golden eagle, and everything for a second seemed familiar, until he realized that they were heading down toward the lakeshore.

Only it wasn't a lake now.

It was cows.

The light shining on the surface was nothing but a trick. What looked like ripples were the fast-moving backs of black-and-white cows packed together in a tight bunch, stampeding toward him.

He tugged at Zadoc's mane. “Stop! Don't go in there!”

But Zadoc plunged onward, desperate to leave the anchoring earth far behind him, and water began to pour out of Danny's mouth in a great jet, aiming itself at the cows, trying to scatter them with the force of its pressure.

The water made the cows charge faster, their eyes swelling up in anger. And Danny couldn't breathe through it—he started to choke until a familiar touch on his shoulder pierced him with the heat of lightning.

“You're rubbish at this, ain't you?” said Cath's voice, scornful and calm. “Just shut your mouth. I'll get us there.”

Her hand came up to his chin and pushed it sharply upward, cutting off the jet of water. The cows in front of him slowed, although Zadoc still ran on toward them.

“What's the worst they can do?” said Cath.

And then the cows were fading into silver, and Zadoc's hooves were clambering up the wide currents of the air.

“I can't go in there!” panted Zadoc. “I can take you to the ether, but you'll have to go in alone. I belong in here, in Chromos, not up there.”

The whiteness spread in a great cloud above them, and breathing became harder, and Zadoc's legs swung heavily, as if he were swimming through custard.

Zadoc stumbled, pitching them forward over his shoulder, and before Danny could reach out to grab a tuft of mane, the horse had dodged away from him.

“Zadoc!” called Cath, her voice thin with something close to a sob, but Zadoc was quickly out of sight.

*   *   *

It was the same place as before—the piles of white rocks, the path, the cave, and the door. Cath was sitting next to him, rubbing her elbow and looking after the last sight of Zadoc's heels.

“How did you know the way?” Danny asked.

Cath looked at him for a second and he couldn't read what was in her face. Was she still angry with him about how he'd threatened Barshin?

“I'll call the moon, if I can,” he said quickly.

The stick didn't like being in the ether. It felt cold and clammy. He knew instinctively that his voice would be quieter through it. Didn't it want to be used in here? Was he doing something that would change the nature of the stick, or even of himself?