The Color of Darkness (30 page)

The plain of Chromos had gone dark gray, and he was being pulled through it, without his boots, onto the earth below.

A wide expanse of blue-gray flashed up, chopping at a narrow strip of pale brown—and beyond it, a field, some woods and mountains …

It was that girl. She'd seen something up here, she'd remembered it, and she'd well and truly done for him.

Not entirely perhaps. But well enough for now.

His jaw set in grim satisfaction as he was dragged from Chromos onto the hard, cold ground of the earth.

 

CHAPTER 29

THE BEACH

The last rays of sun were sinking into a great sheet of sea as Danny pushed his face up from the sand. Cath was a short distance off, already sitting up and looking around her. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“Made it!” she said, dusting off her hands.

Danny thought she was talking about the fact that they'd survived, and then he looked farther on behind her and saw a path over the back of the dunes leading to a tiny cottage with steep mountains rising up behind. Was this where she'd been trying to get to all along?

Well, she was welcome to it. He was going to find Tom and go home—

And then he remembered Tom, and his heart sank into the sand. Sammael had cheated.

“I told you,
I
never cheat,” said Sammael. But his eyes were on Cath.

She got to her feet and shrugged. “You made them paths.”

“Paths?” Danny looked from one to the other. “What paths?”

“Just paths,” said Sammael. “Gray ones. Rather like the one we just fell through.”

Danny frowned. “There are still holes in Chromos?”

“Oh, only those small ones from the bargains I used to make,” said Sammael.

“We fell through a hole
you
made?”

“Correction. Your friend dragged me through it,” said Sammael, but there was a note of admiration in his voice. “She took us all through it, in fact. Including Zadoc, which saved you mere mortals from having your brains leak out through your ears. Rather clever, don't you think? A somewhat unfortunate strength of mind.”

“But then, you—you defeated yourself?”

Sammael stopped looking at Cath and turned his shrewd gaze back to Danny. “One man's flaw,” he said, “is another man's beauty spot. Which of us is which in this case, I wonder.”

Danny looked up at him. The tall, thin figure didn't look quite so threatening down here, standing barefoot in the sand. He held out a bony hand, as if offering to help Danny to his feet. Danny got up by himself.

“We did it then,” he said. “We stopped you.”

“You,” said Sammael thinly, “are the worst example of your species I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Look at yourself.”

Danny looked at himself. In his mind's eye he flew around his body and took a good summary of what he saw. Okay, he hadn't exactly embraced his fears, but he'd gotten the better of Sammael, hadn't he? He looked Sammael squarely in the face.

“So what?” he said, feeling his cheeks burn red. “I still beat you.”

Sammael laughed. “Lost anything along the way?” he asked. “Like, I don't know, a cousin?”

Danny's jaw and fists clenched tight to themselves.

“You cheated,” he said.

“Not at all.”

Sammael reached over his shoulder, into the collar of his shirt, and yanked out a stringy ball of brown fur and dangling limbs.

Barshin.

He dropped the hare at Danny's feet. It crouched, looking out toward the sea, avoiding Danny's eyes.

Cath, treading silently, came to stand beside him. Danny didn't dare look at her.

“Hey, Barshin,” she said. But she didn't follow it up with, “How did you get here?”

Danny pulled the crumpled page of Tom's book from his pocket. The last page. He smoothed it out and read it. What had Tom said?
I've only got one more page to go.

On one side, the page was headed “Hares.” And on the other—

Blank.

“You killed him,” Danny said to Barshin. The words seemed impossible.

Barshin turned his black eyes up to Danny for one inscrutable second, and then looked back at the sea.

Danny tried again. “You talked to him when we got picked up by the wind. Hares were the last thing he had to learn.”

The hare didn't answer.

“So all along you weren't trying to save Tom?” asked Cath in a slow voice. “You just wanted—”

“To get Danny into Chromos for me,” said Sammael. “Correct. He was acting on my orders. I knew if I could only get that sniveling boy onto Zadoc's back and into Chromos alone, he'd be sure to oblige me by imagining up a whole army of terrifying things to kill himself. You know, I'm quite keen on Danny dying a miserable death. I'm sure you're aware by now that he has stolen three things from me, none of which I can get back.”

“Three?”

“A dog. A coat. And a taro, in the form of a small stick. Oh, and apparently a fourth thing now. My boots. A bit greedy, when you think about it. More than one small human really needs.”

“But if he was working for you … all that stuff about telas … Is it all crap, then?”

Barshin held his head high. “You can talk to me,” he said. “That's not a lie.”

“But I can't talk to other hares?”

“Not unless they've gained the ability to speak to you from me,” cut in Sammael. “It's always illuminating when the ones we trust most turn out to be traitors, isn't it?”

Cath didn't look at him. She was still staring at Barshin as though she were having difficulty distinguishing his brown coat from the coffee-colored sand.

“I don't get it,” she said. “Why'd you need to get me involved?”

“Danny wouldn't listen to me on my own,” said Barshin. “And we knew that he'd never be able to get into Chromos if he didn't really want to either. So we decided to use you to draw him in. We tried showing you how good Chromos could be so that you might persuade him. And you did help him find enough strength to get into Chromos in the end.”

“No I didn't,” said Cath. “He just figured out his way was through the sea, that's all.”

“Oh, don't be naive,” snapped Sammael. “Of course he didn't figure it out. I sent you those dreams, both of you. He only got to Chromos through the sea because he believed he
could
. Without you beside him giving him confidence, he'd have stayed being the same sniveling little ninny he's been all his life and he wouldn't have got there through any route.
Anyone
can get to Chromos! But they have to want to, and they have to be
brave
enough.”

Cath looked at Danny. He kicked the sand defiantly but didn't meet her eye.

Barshin carried on apologetically. “So, you see, it would have worked. But you did something more than we planned—you gave him true courage, the kind that only flashes into the heart on those rare occasions when it casts off all doubt and feels invincible. He
wanted
to go into the sea, even though he knew he should be scared. And I didn't get the chance to warn Sammael that you'd fallen into the ether by mistake and found out about the boots. Neither of us ever thought Danny would last two seconds if he got into the ether.”

“But Sammael was trying to pull Chromos onto the whole earth, wasn't he? Why didn't he just wait till then to get Danny? Danny would have gone mad along with everybody else, wouldn't he?”

Barshin looked at Sammael. Sammael tilted his head.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Revenge. Even the best of us lose our heads over it sometimes. Why didn't I lump Danny in with all the rest? Because I hate him more than all the rest. He is an unimaginative, stodgy, stiff-necked coward. Even when he tries to be brave, he's still as curled up and scared inside as a fledgling bird. He deserves to be eaten up slowly by his fears, bite by bite, and I wanted to see him suffer.”

Cath's fingers tightened as though she were still holding on to the chariot, trying not to fall. She was silent for a long moment, and then she said, abruptly, to Barshin, “So you used me, then? You're just like Sammael. You're the same kind of thing.”

Barshin gazed up at her, his black eyes still. “I am not like him at all,” he said. “I liked and respected you from the start. I tried not to involve you too deeply—I tried to keep you out of Danny's attempts to get to Chromos by telling you that you wouldn't fit on Zadoc's back if he was there. But you were determined to come.”

“So there wasn't ever a problem with the number of people on Zadoc's back. It was only that stupid book that slowed him down,” Cath said, although she knew that Barshin wouldn't deny it. He was just telling her another way in which he'd lied.

“Indeed.” Barshin nodded. “The whole world would fit onto Zadoc's back, if only they wanted to. But I had business to do. And doing that business does not make me the same as Sammael. Not in any way. I am a real, earthly creature who made a bargain with him. That is what I am.”

“What kind of bargain?”

But Barshin flicked his ears and tilted his head. “That is the deepest secret of my heart,” he said. “The knowledge of it belongs to me and to nobody else. And if I tell you, it will seem as if I'm trying to excuse myself. And I am not.”

“You evil little scumbag!” Danny kicked at Barshin, sending him skittering back onto the sand. “Without you we'd have had more time! Tom wouldn't have died!”

“Forget it,” said Sammael. “You'll forget it soon enough anyway.”

“No, I won't,” said Danny, and tears began to drip down his cheeks. “I'll never forget him, never.”

“Yes, you will,” said Sammael. “He's mine, remember? All his memories are mine. Didn't you learn that last time? I can take them away or leave them here. What do you think's best?”

Danny gaped up at Sammael. “What do you mean? Take them? Take what?”

“All the memories of Tom belong to me,” repeated Sammael. “I can take them out of the earth so no one will remember that he was ever here. His mother will think she only has a daughter. You'll never know you had more than one cousin. Look on the bright side: no one will grieve or be sad that he's gone. And no one will blame you for coming back without him. Because they're going to blame you, you know that.”

Danny did know. He was terribly afraid of it. Tom gone—that was a hole torn in his stomach, and each time he had to tell someone else, it was going to be like tearing another hole, and another, until there was nothing left of his stomach but holes. Nothing good would ever be held in there again, only a constant stream of lumpy sadness.

He swallowed and looked at the ground, and Sammael spoke again.

“Go on then, I'll give you the choice. What do you want? I think I know the answer to this one.”

Danny wrestled with himself. But already he could feel the vision of bright Tom growing duller and darker in his mind. Already he was thinking, Whatever Tom did, it wasn't my fault, was it? It wouldn't be fair for me to be blamed for things he chose to do. He chose to sell his sand. I even tried to help him, but he still chose to go with Sammael …

“No,” he said. “You can't take him. It's not right.”

Sammael grinned, catching the last rays of the dying sun in the whites of his eyes and teeth.

“I thought your voice would say that,” he said quietly. “But it's betrayed by your face, I'm afraid. I know what your cowardly heart really wants. Well, off you go. Don't look back, mind you. Your friend's told you that enough times, hasn't she? If only there were more people like her.”

And you? What will you do? Danny wanted to ask, but he didn't dare. There was a closeness about the way the shadows were drawing around Sammael's face, and a silence in the air that could only have been the quiet at the beginning of a long wait.

“Oh, I'm not going anywhere,” said Sammael. “How can I? I'm stuck on earth. You've burned my boots, and Zadoc has all but vanished. I don't think he'll be leaping to answer my call anytime soon.”

“Good,” said Danny. “You can't go back to Chromos then. We're all safe.”

“Safe?” said Sammael, raising a thin eyebrow. “Do you really think you're safe? You've got a world without anymore Chromos now. You took away the darkness because you were afraid of it. You never had the courage to try and see what it really was. But there are some things a lot more dangerous than darkness in your earthly world. And those, my friend, are the
shadows
. What color are they? You'll find out. Now if you'll excuse me, I've a meeting arranged with a stoat. I don't think she'll take it kindly if I'm late.”

He gave an elegant bow, turned on his heel, and walked off down the sand.

*   *   *

Danny watched him go. Why did he feel like a great weight had launched itself off his shoulders? Had he been scared of that tall, thin man disappearing into the distance? Of course he hadn't. That couldn't have been the terrible Sammael. It must just have been a stranger passing by, looking for his lost dog.