Wish Granted (2 page)

The new crater is immense. The wide grey bowl is littered with rocks and fresh, unbroken boulders. The Kletch smashes some of the boulders with its huge fists, sending rocks skittering across the ground. It hobbles towards the crater's centre and crouches down on its haunches, trying to loosen the stiffness from its aching muscles.

The blue globe is already halfway across the blackness. Too much time has been lost. The Kletch lifts its bulky head and searches the globe's surface once more. It's not long before it finds the thin creatures again. There are so many of them. Their bodies are thin and weak. The Kletch wonders how they were able to hunt the powerful grey beast with the horn. It watches them walking and running, fighting and hunting. Some sit in their green craters and walk in seemingly random circles.

The voice had called them people. Two of them were walking through the green crater together. It was a park. The Kletch was sure of it now, but it didn't recall the voice having told it so.

'It is a park,' the voice said.

The Kletch turns one eye towards the crater's edge. The yellow warmth reflects against the grey dust, making it difficult to see if there is anything beyond the shadows of the rocks.

'They are walking,' the voice says.

The Kletch jerks both eyes towards the people in the park. They are close together now, arms encircling each other. One of them looks even stranger than the other. The Kletch wonders whether there might be more than one type of creature in the park? Maybe there were more creatures that it hadn't seen before.

'Are they both people?' it asks.

The voice laughs, a soft, hollow laugh that echoes in the distance. 'They are both people.'

'Why are they different?'

'They are man and woman.'

The Kletch thinks about these new words. Man and woman. It sounds as though it might mean something, but the Kletch doesn't understand. It watches them walk and move their faces. The people have a holes in the middle of their face and they move them as they walk. The Kletch wonders whether they have to move their face to maintain balance on such weak legs.

The voice laughs again but it feels more distant than ever. 'People have mouths. They move them to talk.'

The Kletch does not understand this at all. It gazes at the holes in their faces and wonders what it means to talk.

'They share their thoughts by moving their mouths,' the voice says. This makes some kind of sense. The Kletch wonders why they would need to do such a thing, but it understands about exchanging thoughts - in a way.

A shadow slid along the edge of the crater. Jerking round, the Kletch raises its enormous fists in anger. For a moment, it felt like it was not alone. It knew that the voice had to be somewhere close. It was hiding and waiting. It wanted to trick the Kletch. It wanted to make it hurt.

The Kletch searches the crater's edge, but there is nothing there. The shadows have gone now. Despite what its eyes tell it, the Kletch can still feel the voice's presence, pulling at the corners of its mind. The Kletch fights against it, fearing an attack. It struggles to fend off the voice while images of the blue globe flash across its mind. The man and woman are walking in the park. It's important. The Kletch knows this somehow, even as it shuts its eyes tight in fear. Through the thick grey eyelids, the images continue to blaze across its mind, clear and sharp. The Kletch struggles to understand what it all means, but there is something else too - sound.

The Kletch opens its eyes in shock. It leaps out of the crater - an involuntary reflex that sends it high above the ground. It lands just outside the crater's rocky rim. Its muscles are tight and ready for violence as it scans the horizon for the source of its confusion. It can see nothing but the long shadows cast by boulders as they warm beneath the yellow light. Swivelling its thick neck back and forth, the Kletch lopes back towards the centre of the crater. It crouches down in the same dusty imprint that it had just left, and drags its talons back and forth across the ground, leaving deep furrows in the dust. The ground feels warm beneath its hind quarters.

'These are the sounds that people make,' the voice says.

The Kletch doesn't trust the voice. It listens to the strange new noises, but it doesn't remember having heard such sounds before. There has only been silence. The Kletch can make no noise, and the voice shares its thoughts without the need for sound. The Kletch wonders why people would want to make such noises. Could they not share thoughts without moving their mouths? The Kletch wants to understand. It stares at the blue globe and tilts its head to one side. The people are making lots of noises as they walk. Their mouths move, and sounds come out. There is a warmth too. The Kletch can feel it somehow, heat on their backs and a thin breeze against their thin pale skin.

'Katherine, why do you look so sad? Are you not happy for me?'

The Kletch realises that the man is speaking - making sounds to share his thoughts. The sounds he makes are deep, almost familiar, and they come in short bursts, intertwined in a rhythmic tone. The sounds are forming words.

'Oh Clarence, you know I have no wish for parlour games,' Katherine says.

The man - Clarence - laughs and sweeps Katherine up into his arms, kissing her flat pink face until her lacy hat is askew and her flapping arms have surrendered into his embrace. She smells of roses. Her hair is thick and rich, rolling across her narrow shoulders like a waterfall.

'You know your father does not approve of me,' he says.

Katherine shines. Her smile fills the park with wonder. 'My father does not approve of any man who would court his daughter. If I were to bring home the King of England he would still find fault.'

'And will you?'

Katherine laughs and slaps her lace gloves against his chest. As the trees sway in a light summer breeze, the two link arms and walk onwards through the park. An angry grey squirrel glowers at their impertinence while gripping a fresh nut between its paws, and the couple laugh as they make their way around it. They walk in silence for a time, enjoying each other's company. They savour the clean fresh air and enjoy the warmth of the sun. Clarence swings his uncle's cane by his side as he walks, the silver fox head handle feeling solid beneath his hand.

'Why must you go Clarence?'

Clarence pulls her closer and whispers into her pale white ear. 'I must. You know this is a wonderful opportunity. My Uncle's expedition will be incredible.'

'And what of me? Will you find an African woman to take to your bed?'

Clarence laughs. 'Oh Katherine, you know I shall not. My heart belongs to you. I shall be gone for just one year -'

'A year! You speak of a single year, and yet does it not contain so many lonesome days?'

'Ah, my love. It does. But each day will make us stronger, so that when I return... '

Katherine stops walking and turns to face him with excitement in her eyes. 'When you return...?'

'Nothing.' Clarence walks a few more steps as though he hasn't noticed her excitement, but she soon catches up with him, her small hands beating on his chest with mock anger.

'Do not tease me sir. Perhaps I shall send my father for the King of England after all.'

Clarence laughs and pulls her close for another kiss, and when they are done he finds the courage to say what he had intended all along. 'When I return from my Uncle's expedition, we shall be married, Katherine.'

Katherine leaps and squeaks and wraps her arms around his neck. 'Can it really be so?'

'I shall have to ask your father, of course, but when I return from my Uncle's hunt, he will see me with new eyes. You will see that it is true.'

She smiles a deep smile and holds him for a long time.

A group of children scurry past, singing a song about the burning bridges of London and giggling at the sight of them holding each other, but Clarence doesn't care. He is in a world of bliss.

'Does it have to be Africa?' Katherine asks. 'Could your Uncle not forge an expedition to Europe? Somewhere closer, so that you could return in... in a month?'

'A month! Why it will take longer than a month to reach Africa. Europe would not be the same, my dear. Africa is a wild and distant place full of creatures that you cannot imagine. To journey there is the only way to push ourselves to new limits.'

'But why?'

Clarence holds one finger to her lips, requesting her patience. 'I am young, Katherine. My Uncle has provided me with this wonderful opportunity to prove myself. When I return, I will be able to take any position I please. Clarence the explorer and hunter of wild beasts! Who will turn down such stories as I shall possess?'

Katherine gazes into his eyes but he can see that she still doesn't understand why he has to go.

'Oh Katherine. Africa is full of beasts you would not believe. Have you not seen the paintings in my Uncle's study? I have to see these creatures for myself. I wish I had the power of a lion, and the speed of a cheetah. I wish I could leap like a gazelle! Oh what it would be to be strong and powerful - to be the mightiest beast of them all.'

'But Africa is so far away.'

Clarence shakes his head. 'I am an explorer, Katherine. Had I the chance, I would journey to the Moon itself!' He lifts his silver fox head cane and points it at the matching silver crescent of the Moon.

'Go if you must,' Katherine says, 'but I wish you had not the mouth to say such things.'

Clarence gasps. He feels a pain in his chest. He knows at once that something isn't right. The cane vibrates in his hand. He lowers it, watching the fox's smiling face glowing white hot against the night. When he tries to drop the cane, he finds that his fingers refuse to let go. The Moon bulges in the sky above, and his hand rises against his will until the Moon and the fox head shine together with a vehemence that fills his heart with fear. He stumbles forwards into a strange black void that has opened up before him. The summer's warmth vanishes at once, replaced by a bitter cold that leaves no room for comfort. His thin arms contort in agony, rippling with the sprawling muscles of some strange beast. His back bends low, and his knees crunch as the joints reverse to pivot backwards instead of forwards. Clarence cries out in pain and despair. He doesn't know what has happened, but even his voice sounds wrong in the eternal blackness of the void. His words sound like an alien roar that fades as his ears seal over with a thick grey skin. His mouth closes also, and his nose is lost under a rough grey hide like a rhinoceros. Powerful strands of muscle bulge from his once slender neck, and long black talons extend from his grey, swollen fists. Clarence shudders in agony, tumbling onwards through the void, all sounds diminishing until there is nothing left but the blackness that will surround him for evermore. He finds himself shivering on grey rock, sprawled out beneath an unforgiving black sky.

Clarence crouches as he has always done, gazing through golden eyes at the beautiful white swirls that cover the earth's verdant lands and sapphire oceans. He remembers how, when he had first found himself alone on the moon, there had been a voice - some malevolent force that had laughed at his tireless pleas to be returned to Katherine. The voice had never shown itself to be a physical presence, but it had been real - for a time. It hadn't stayed long. Its foul deed done through the sickness of the fox head cane, it had mocked his wild wishes and granted them with equal glee.

As he gazes up at the blue globe of the earth, he realises that it has always been too far away to see the beasts of Africa, or to watch the people walking in the parks. His golden eyes had never been strong enough to see the woman who had loved him. He could never have seen more than a few swirls of cloud covering the continents and oceans beneath. All his visions had been glimpses of his own lost memories. They had been locked away by mental walls that he had built up over centuries of madness and solitude. Those same walls now came tumbling down upon him like boulders from the sky.

When he had first been abandoned, he had beaten his huge grey fists into the ground with mindless frustration. His anger had formed crater after crater of crumbling soft dust. After centuries of torment, he had forgotten where the craters had come from. He had visited a new crater each day, believing it to be somewhere new, where he had never been before. Travelling in an endless journey to nowhere, he had followed an endless path across the surface of the rock-strewn Moon. The voice had been absent for many years, but in his solitude, Clarence had held onto it, making it anew within himself so that he wouldn't have to feel so utterly alone. He knew now that he had always been alone. How long had it been since he had last stood on the earth? The time must be measured in centuries, not days or years. Everyone he had ever known would be long since dead. Even Katherine - dear Katherine would no longer exist. He had asked her to wait a year, but in the end, she had waited a lifetime.

What use was his own ageless existence? What good was his power now? It all meant nothing to him now that his memory had returned. His powerful muscles hung useless as he crouched in alone in the crater. His sharp black talons could do nothing but leave pointless tracks in the dust. Clarence Kletchly stretched the thick muscles in his neck as he pounded grey rocks to dust with hopeless swollen fists. He gazed up at the blue globe of the earth as it sank behind the crater's edge, and watched the sun following in its path until there was nothing left but an orange glow across the darkening horizon. When the blackness returned, he didn't close his eyes to protect them against the savage cold. Neither did he flex his muscles to keep his blood from freezing. He sat in the crater and thought of Katherine as his mind became numb.

After many hours, when the sun returned for the next lunar day, Clarence Kletchly crouched dead in his crater, his moist golden eyes staring out from a featureless grey face. In the distance, came the sounds of laughter.

'Wish granted.'

Information Cloud

Tales of Cinnamon City - #1