Keeper of the Realms: The Dark Army (Book 2) (15 page)

As the voice choked off into tears and sobs, Charlie felt something catch in her throat. She tightened the grip on the sword, swallowed and perhaps against her better judgement reached for the door handle.

‘Listen up, whoever’s in there,’ said Charlie. ‘If this is a trick, you’re going to upset me and, trust me, when you see what I’ve got in my hands you’re going to be real, reaaaaal sorry if I lose my temper.’

‘Wait! What do you mean by a trick?’ went the voice; it sounded panicked. ‘What are ya going ta do ta me?’

‘Well, if I open this door and find out you’re nothing more than a daemon trying to trick me, I’m probably going to cut your head off.’

‘Oh … uh, well, I’m not a daemon so hurry up and get dis door open and let me outta here!’

Charlie quickly transferred the sword to one hand, turned the latch, grabbed the sword again between both sweaty palms and kicked the door open.

Jumping forward with the sword raised, she stumbled to a halt when saw the young Treman girl tied to the wall. Charlie’s mouth fell open then, remembering where she was, she spun round looking for any hidden daemons, even going so far as to check behind the door. When she was certain they were alone, she gave the girl a good looking over to make sure she wasn’t a daemon in disguise.

The girl was indeed a young Treman, perhaps about seven or eight. Her dishevelled hair was still in some semblance of a topknot and she was dressed in typical Treman fashion:
three-quarter length trousers, waistcoat, jewellery and all. The girl must have spent some time crying, as her eyes were red and puffy, tear tracks showed in the dirt on her face and dried lines of snot had crusted her upper lip.

‘Um … I’m Charlie. Charlie Keeper.’

‘Yer a Keeper? Ya can get me outta here?’

‘Well … yeah. I guess.’ Charlie moved forward then stopped. ‘Wait a minute. How’d you get here?’

‘Oh, Sweet Sap, I don’t know! One minute I was asleep at home then the next thing I know I’m on some misty bridge with these creepy-crawly looking people. They stuffed me in ta a sack then the next thing I remember is being dragged up some stairs and being chained in dis room! I ain’t heard nothing or seen nothing since! All I wanna do is go home.’ The young girl began to cry.

The sight tugged at Charlie’s heart. She knew the feeling of being in a strange land only too well. ‘OK, OK, I’m gonna get you down from there. Just remember that if you do turn out to be some kind of daemon I’m going to make sure you’re sorry.’

‘I’m not a daemon,’ sniffled the girl.

Charlie used the sword to cut the girl’s bindings and did her best to catch her as she fell. ‘So what’s your name then?’

‘Lallinda,’ said the girl rubbing at her wrists. She stared up at Charlie with wide brown eyes.

‘How old are you, Lallinda?’

‘Seven.’

‘Seven, huh. Well it wasn’t too long ago that I was in the same position as you.’

‘Wot, ya were grabbed by the creepy-crawly people too?’

‘Oh no. I was chained to a wall too, so I know how your wrists hurt.’

‘Why were ya chained to a wall?’

‘Disagreement with a bunch of Stoman soldiers.’

The girl stared at her like she didn’t know what to think. ‘But yer a Keeper right?’

‘Uh, yeah.’

‘So ya came ta get me out?’

‘Er, no.’

‘But … wot am I gonna do?’

‘Look, uh, Lallinda,’ said Charlie, slightly flustered and none too sure how to handle the role of rescuer. ‘I’ll get you out of here, but there’s something I need to do first. So, um … you can either wait here for me or –’

‘I’m not staying here!’

‘You can come with me, then.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the end of the corridor.’

‘We’re in a corridor?’

Charlie rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She didn’t remember being quite so dense when she was seven, but then again she appreciated that the girl was scared and remembered only too well how terrified she had been when she found out monsters were real. She would never forget the first time Mr Crow had come to give her a beating.

‘Look, honey, I’ve got to be honest. We’re not in a good situation, but there’s something important that I’ve got to do. Really important. So what I need you to do is stay by my side, be really quiet and I’ll make sure the two of us get out of here in one piece. Think you can do that for me? Stay quiet?’

Lallinda nodded silently, keen to show that she knew how to keep her mouth shut.

Charlie couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were very wide. Very innocent.

‘And, Lallinda, I know how horrible it is when someone asks you to be quiet, particularly someone older than you, but I really, really need to keep my wits about me. I need to listen and I need to stay on my toes so, uh, just keep quiet and be ready to move fast. OK?’

‘OK,’ said Lallinda, doing her best to flash a brave smile even though her eyes were still wet with tears.

‘Great.’

Charlie took the girl by the hand, poked her head out of the door to double check the corridor was still clear, then headed towards the last three doors on the right. As she approached the first, she released Lallinda’s hand, grabbed the handle and pulled it open.

A huge mouth lunged at her, all sharp teeth, rotten breath and rolling tongue. The mouth was the size of the doorway and the tongue unfurled towards her.

Charlie hurriedly slammed the door shut.

‘Not that one, then.’

Ignoring the slobbering and scritchy-scratchy noises coming from the first door she headed to the next. Taking a deep breath she eased it open.

At first she thought the room was empty, but then she noticed a painting on the wall. It was a portrait of a woman with her eyes closed; something about it reminded Charlie of a pre-Raphaelite exhibition she’d seen on a school trip. So beautiful, but also so very, very sad.

The woman’s eyes opened and looked directly at Charlie. Tears began to track down her face and dripped silently off the frame.

Something about the painting – the woman’s eyes and her tears – dug at Charlie’s heart, but she honestly didn’t know if she should do something about it. Confused, she slowly backed away and closed the door.

The experience cut her deeper than that of the lunging mouth. Hesitantly she made her way to the last door.

When she opened it she was surprised to see that there were no beasties inside and no paintings – just a plinth, and on it a simple stone vessel, just as Darkmount had described.

Charlie approached the pedestal and stood on tiptoes so she could peer into the urn.

Stars. It was full of stars.

Her hands trembled a little as she reached for it.

As she plucked it from the plinth, a dry, rasping chuckle filled the room. The voice was promptly joined by others until the whole temple seemed to echo with wicked laughter.

‘Not good, not good,’ muttered Charlie, realizing that time had suddenly run out.

Moving as quickly as she could, she stuffed the vessel into her backpack, grabbed Lallinda by the hand and ran into the corridor before staggering to a halt.

The walls were sliding upward to reveal a forest of thick purple plants. Their fat leaves glistened with sticky-looking dew drops and stretching from plant stem to plant stem were thick strands of silk. The plants were so tightly packed and the light so poor that Charlie couldn’t tell how far the plants stretched, but she got the impression that the forest
was big. Really big. Which considering they were inside a building made no sense, but then again, she thought, nothing about this place behaved as it should.

The sounds of leaves being brushed aside reached Charlie’s ears as slowly and stealthily the temple’s inhabitants began to push their way through the foliage to step out into the corridor.

The Daemon Kindred.

They slunk, skittered and crawled into view. Hybrids. They were all insane and ghastly-looking hybrids.

Tremen who scuttled on hairy arachnid legs, Stomen who lurched on spindly grasshopper joints and Humans who scurried around with millipede propulsion. None of them were the same, all slightly different and each more twisted than the last.

They lined up along the length of the corridor and in unison their mouths twitched upward, their blackened lips peeled back and suddenly they were all grinning.

‘The creepy-crawly people!’ gasped Lallinda.

‘Good description,’ agreed Charlie, unable to tear her gaze away from their mottled skin, pointed teeth and ravenous eyes.

One by one the daemons put out a hand to gesture down the corridor towards the distant staircase, as though daring Charlie to run their gauntlet.

‘SweetSapBudandLeafSweetSapBudandLeafSweetSapBudandLeaf,’ chanted Lallinda in terror, scrunching her eyes shut.

‘Come this way,’ smirked one of the Kindred in a taunting voice. It pointed past the length of its brethren to the possible sanctuary of the stairs. ‘Oh, won’t you come this way, little girls, and play our games?’

Charlie’s mouth opened and shut. Her mind struggled to accept the reality of the situation, but her heart, far faster than her brain, was already bursting with fear.

‘Come, come this way,’ chuckled another in a voice that sounded like metal twisting and buckling. ‘Won’t you come and be our playthings?’

‘Come, come, come,’ chanted all the daemons on one side of the corridor.

‘Play with us, play with us,’ sang the others.

Their smiles grew wider, their eyes glittered with sickly hunger and their long fingers began to twitch as though eager for unspeakable delights.

Charlie could feel her fear sink deeper, feel her stomach flutter and the muscles in her lower back quiver and tense. She couldn’t take her eyes from their teeth, couldn’t bear to think what their idea of playing might be. But more importantly she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where she could run to, didn’t know –

And then the anger suddenly took over.

‘I’m not playing your games!’ she snapped. ‘And if I’ve got to play any sort of game it’s going to be by my rules!’

She spun round, grabbed Lallinda and sprinted back to the room that had held the urn. Wielding the Hell Sword she carved a large square into the wall, knocked it outward with a firm kick and peered through the makeshift exit to the ground below. The influx of wind ruffled her clothes, tore through her hair and brought that odd greenhouse scent to her nose. Looking out she could see the bridge to her right, the spider-web clouds in the sky above and the tiered roofs with their garden balconies below.

Sudden cries of rage burst down the corridor and punched into the room. The cruel shrieks gave strength to her determination and speed to her actions.

‘Lallinda!’ barked Charlie, her unexpected voice of command startling the terrified child from her vacant gaze. ‘Put your arms round my neck and jump on to my back.’

‘But –’

‘No questions, do it now!’

The scrabble of insect legs at the doorway caused her to look up, but she didn’t hang around. Making sure that Lallinda had a firm grip, Charlie edged backwards until her heels hung over the precipice. She flashed the first daemon that came into view a rude grin and an insolent wave then jumped backwards.

Out into the void.

21

Sting in the Tale

In the end Jook the Attentive agreed to allow Jensen, Kelko and Sic Boy to leave the Soul Mines of Zhartoum with suitable supplies (and with all their limbs intact). But before any of this was to happen Jensen had to provide his half of the bargain. To this end Jensen and Kelko had been hauled through the despairing tunnels of the mine to Jook’s office.

It was a luxurious room that had been split into two parts. One held a line of empty prisoner cells while the other had thick carpets, plush seats and an impressive-looking desk backing on to a long window that looked down across the hellish cavern of the main mines. The distant sound of lashing whips and slaves crying seeped into the room. The two guards had tagged along, and seeing that Jensen and Kelko were, for the time being, still prisoners, had wrapped them in chains.

‘Show me these Lindis seeds,’ insisted Jook.

‘I’ll need Sic Boy for that.’

Jook raised the eyebrow over his patched eye.

‘I’ve hidden the seeds on the dog.’ Jensen shrugged apologetically. ‘Really, wot better place ta hide them and keep them safe?’

‘You’ve got to be kidding if you think I’m letting that beast of a dog in here,’ sneered Jook.

‘Put him in one of those cells if yer worried about security,’ suggested Jensen.

Jook grudgingly nodded his assent. One of the guards left and after a short period returned with another eight Stomen who, swearing, grunting and groaning, hauled Sic Boy into the office. The dog immediately perked up when he saw the two Tremen.

‘Calm down, Sic Boy,’ said Jensen soothingly. ‘Don’t worry, Boy, everything will be all right.’

Sic Boy allowed himself to be guided into the cell before a guard slammed the door shut, sealing him in.

Jensen turned back to Jook with a disarming grin. ‘Happy now?’

‘Just get on with it.’

Jensen coughed into his fist.

‘What now?’