Herbie Brennan - Faerie Lord

‘Niiiice!’ breathed Loki. He made another gesture with his hands.

Blue felt the result before she actually heard it, a deep, subsonic vibration that gripped her bones, then swelled into a dull background organ note, packed with suspense and threat. The whole scene was beginning to turn into some ghastly stage production where good taste was sacrificed for the sake of melodrama.

‘Now, Jormungand, my dear, you must look your part!’

There were no gestures from Loki this time, but Blue heard a curious slithering noise behind her and swung round just in time to see the massive serpent shrinking rapidly and changing form. For an instant her eyes could not take in what was happening – it seemed as if space itself distorted – then she was looking at a magnificent silver-grey scaled dragon. The creature was far smaller than the serpent, but still huge. It tilted back its head and breathed a plume of flame. Heat rolled over her like a wave.

‘Ah, magnificent!’ said Loki. He watched fondly as the dragon stomped across the cavern floor to take its place before the platform. It curled its great barbed tail and breathed another smoky plume. Loki turned. ‘Now you, my dear.’

Blue had a moment of panic. There was something in his eyes she did not like. ‘Just a min -’

He reached out his right hand, which extended then extruded a single razor-sharp claw. Before she could move, the claw was at her throat. ‘You need to look the part as well,’ he said and slashed downwards.

Blue jerked back, but there was no blood, no injury. The claw had not touched her body at all, but her blouse was in shreds. She gripped the remnants quickly to cover herself. At once she was on the platform, manacled to the granite pillar. Below her squatted the dragon. It turned to gaze at her with lizard eyes. Beyond it stood Loki, hands on hips as he surveyed his handiwork with tilted head. ‘Perfect!’ he exclaimed. ‘The ideal damsel in distress.’ He smiled at her. ‘Now all we need to do is wait for Henry.’

It occurred to Henry this was all a bit of a mess. The trouble was he hadn’t planned anything – just took off looking for Blue without considering what sort of trouble she might be in (and he still didn’t know) or, more importantly, what he might need to get her out of it. The question of weapons was sort of obvious now it had been pointed out to him, but he hadn’t thought of it at all. Which meant he was stuck with a miserable flint blade and a hammer he’d left outside the cave because he couldn’t even lift it.

But it didn’t stop with weapons. He didn’t have ropes or picks for climbing, he didn’t have food beyond what Lorquin might be carrying in his pouch, and the last thing he’d thought of bringing with him was a light.

He’d really lucked out when he met the charno.

In the gloom of the cavern, Henry unwrapped the torch the charno had given him. It was a peculiar device of a type he’d never seen before, but there was a leaflet with written instructions wrapped around the shaft and its heading, Perpetual Flame, was reassuring. Unless that was just a trade name and the torch wouldn’t really last forever. He hated the thought of getting stuck in the caves with no light at all.

Apart from the heading, the instructions were in tiny writing, so he had to carry the leaflet back to the cave mouth in order to read it. The charno, still outside, stared at him curiously. Thankfully, there was no sign of Lorquin. Henry nodded and smiled weakly at the charno, then turned back to his leaflet. It was decorated with a drawing of the torch in use by a tall robed woman who reminded him of the Statue of Liberty. Irritatingly, most of the copy droned on about how wonderful the torch was without actually mentioning how to use it. The Perpetual business was a trade name, as it turned out, but at least the manufacturers claimed it would last ‘several years’ in normal use, which sounded unlikely, but not so unlikely as ‘perpetual’.

He wondered what normal use was as he turned the leaflet over and finally found a buried paragraph headed Instructions for Use. The paragraph read:

LIGHTS AUTOMATICALLY IN DARKNESS.

Henry stared at the words, thinking that couldn’t be right. The damn thing had been in total darkness in the charno’s backpack, for example. Did that mean it was lit in there? Of course it didn’t! It would have set the backpack on fire. Unless the drawing of the flaming torch was just a symbol and the torch didn’t burn with a flame, but just generated light the way an electric torch would at home. But even that didn’t make much sense because it would mean the thing was quietly running down every time you stowed it away in a box, or every night wherever it was, come to that. Hardly last several years under those conditions, would it?

He skimmed quickly through the rest of the leaflet, but there were no further instructions. He smiled weakly at the charno again and carried the torch back into the cave, where he held it aloft like the Statue of Liberty, but it still didn’t light. Maybe he should ask the charno how it worked. But he didn’t really want to do that: it would make him look stupid. Lights automatically in darkness. The thing was, it wasn’t totally dark in the cave. Gloomy, yes, but not totally dark since he was still only a few yards away from the entrance.

There was a passageway leading downwards at the back of the cave.

Henry didn’t really fancy walking into it without a light – there could be spiders or scorpions or bears in there – but if the torch wouldn’t light except in total darkness…

He stepped into the passageway and stopped. Then he held the torch high and waited. Nothing happened. He waited some more. Still nothing happened. Trust him to end up with an automatic torch that didn’t work. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he realised the tunnel wasn’t totally dark at all: it had only seemed that way when he first stepped into it. There was still light filtering in from the cave mouth. Actually, there was even enough light for him to see by. He could tell, for example, that the passageway ran downwards, then disappeared around a corner. He could also see what seemed to be some bones strewn across the floor.

Henry licked his lips. Maybe if he went deeper in, it would be dark enough.

Taking care not to kick the bones, he moved on. After a few hesitant paces, he turned the corner and fumbled his way a little further along. It was definitely getting darker here. In fact, he would have judged it to be absolutely, utterly, completely dark. He raised the torch again and waved it wildly. Still nothing happened.

He waited for his eyes to adjust again, but they didn’t. The darkness pressed in on him like a velvet shroud. Should he go on? Henry had a vivid imagination and it presented him with a sudden, frightening picture. He was standing in the dark on the edge of a precipice. One more step and he would fall to his death. Fall to his death in the total darkness, bloody useless torch! Henry thought of Blue and took another step forward. He didn’t fall to his death, but he did realise he couldn’t go on like this much longer. There was no way he was going to find Blue underground in total darkness.

He reached out to feel the walls of his passage and discovered one of them had disappeared. The wall on the right was no longer there, or at least no longer within easy reach, which meant that the passage had widened, or opened into another cave (or fallen away into a precipice, his imagination told him) or otherwise changed the nature of his situation, almost certainly for the worse.

Henry froze and forced himself to think logically. Forget precipices and bears. While he knew he was in a passage, could feel he was in a passage, he could turn and feel his way back to the surface. But if the passage opened out into a cave and Henry stepped into that cave in pitch darkness and tried to explore that cave, he might not be able to find his way back. There might be other passages. He might get confused. Dammit, he would get confused – he knew what he was like. He would be lost in the darkness, unable to find his way out, for ever.