Gool (16 page)

Keech had handed the ropes that held the cousins to the man Ratty, who dropped them when Duro’s knife struck One-eye. All around, the guards began fighting, knifemen and bowmen attacking the enemies they knew; and Keech was using his knife, slashing at a man reloading his crossbow, driving him back. Sal and Mond snatched up a fallen rope, each one-handed, bent it in the air with a flick of their wrists, using the rope-skills of their people, jumped at Keech as though their limbs answered one set of commands, looped his head, thrust a foot each into his back, while jerking the rope, and broke his neck. As the Clerk toppled, Keech fell. (And somewhere close, yet far away, Xantee heard the gool’s cry of agony and loss.)

Duro and Danatok were among the fighting men, stilling them; and Xantee seized those left, until they stood vacant-faced, with their weapons hanging at their sides.

It was only then that Xantee heard the howling. The dogs howled at the cage door. Inside Tarl lay dying. The nurse wailed, cradling the dead Clerk in her arms. And Sal, lying beside Mond on the ground, raised her voice in terrible grief. A crossbow bolt had taken Mond in the back, and she had whispered one word, ‘Sal’, before she died.

What happened next? Xantee’s memory played things in a different order each time. She was kneeling beside Sal, comforting her, but Sal bit the hand that stroked her face, driving Xantee away. She was digging in the doublet of the dead leader of the guards, finding the cage key, flinging open the door. The dogs reached Tarl before she could move. They licked his face, they licked his wound, and snarled when she tried to pull the crossbow bolt from his chest. It would not have helped. Blood bubbled from Tarl’s lips and he died. The dogs raised their muzzles and howled. Then she was struggling with the Clerk’s nurse, who had found Tarl’s knife beside the Clerk’s body and was trying to plunge it into her own breast. Xantee could not get the knife from her so she stepped back and commanded: Sleep, and the woman slumped to the ground. Hers was the life Xantee saved.

Then, with Danatok helping, she entered Sal’s mind and found it turbulent with grief that would destroy her. She and Danatok shut down the girl’s consciousness and left her sleeping beside her cousin. They did not try to loosen her grip on Mond’s hand.

The sun was high over Mansion Hill. A breeze came from the sea. But still the air was thick with the presence of the gool. And now something was added: the creature’s smell.

It must mean she’s dying, Duro said.

There was no time to hunt for her. Wounded men were groaning on the ground. Xantee and Danatok disarmed the guards they had immobilised, then woke them and set them to work. There was nothing for dressing wounds and no medicine for pain, but they tore rough bandages from the clothing of dead men, and by mid-afternoon had sent the surviving guards and the wounded down the hill. Ratty, with a crossbow bolt in his stomach, rode in the Clerk’s chair. The nurse, half-woken from her sleep, trailed after them.

Xantee looked around. Tarl’s body lay in the cage. The dogs would not let anyone near. The Clerk was curled on his side, like a brightly dressed doll laid down to sleep. Keech was stretched out, his head thrown back, his good eye glaring at the sun. Six other dead men lay in the clearing.

Now, Duro said, we find this gool.

No, Xantee said, we’ll talk with the twins and find out how Hari is. She turned her back on the dead and went to the other side of the fountain. Duro and Danatok followed. She felt Duro’s mind jumping about, fizzing with the excitement of the fight.

Duro, she said, if you want to help you’ll have to calm down.

I want this gool.

After we’ve talked to the twins.

She slipped her mind into Danatok’s and in a moment felt Duro join them. All three together, they called out to Hubert and Blossom. The twins were waiting.

Xantee, what’s happening?

We found the red star and the white. They’re both dead. Was it in time? Is Hari alive?

Yes. He’s breathing. He’s getting more air. The thing around his neck gave a jerk and it rolled over. It cried out. It’s looser now and Hari can breathe. But Xantee, it won’t let go. We’ve tried to cut it and burn it and we’ve all worked together, telling it to release him, but it’s hanging on. We think it’s putting some sort of poison into Hari because he’s starting to sweat and tremble. We don’t know what it means, except Pearl and Tealeaf say the gool’s not dead. You’ve got to find her, Xantee. You’ve got to kill her. And do it quickly or Hari will die.

She’s here on the hill, Xantee said. Stay with Hari. We’ll find her.

The three unravelled their voices. They opened their eyes and looked at each other.

Where? Duro said.

Here, Danatok replied. He looked around helplessly. But she’s hiding and there’s a lot of ground to search.

Xantee shook her head.

We don’t need to, she said. All we’ve got to do is follow her smell.

FOURTEEN

It led them into Ottmar’s mansion. They went through long bare rooms with their ceilings collapsed and rotting tapestries hunched at the foot of walls. They crept past fallen chandeliers, heaped on the floor like forgotten treasure, and broken tables, and upholstered chairs with their seats ripped open and their stuffing piled like foam. Stairways led to open spaces where spider nests clung to the walls. But the gool was down. Her smell was buried under the floor – and less heavy as they went towards the front of the house.

They turned back through the wide rooms to the rear entrance hall. The smell was thickest there.

It’s down. She’s there, Xantee said, pointing at a narrow stairway turning into the dark. Again she remembered her parents’ story: the stairs led to the servants’ quarters, where Ottmar had stored his poison salt.

Dark, Duro said. He hated the dark and felt for his knife, but it was still embedded in the man called One-eye.

They found dry wood and made three torches. Danatok led the way down the stairs. The torches threw multiple soft shadows and the darkness beyond seemed spongy and wet. They advanced cautiously, not knowing if the gool would be in the open or hidden, not knowing her shape or size, and if she would attack or try to escape. But she was here. They felt her now – her presence, her malevolence and fear.

She’s different, Xantee whispered. She’s different from the ones we saw.

She’s afraid, Danatok said.

And she’s bloody dangerous, Duro said.

The stairs ended. They went through a door hanging crooked on its hinges. Beyond their pocket of light the torches showed a hill of broken tables and chairs. If the gool was as big as her children, as big as the one in the mountain pass, she would fill this room. But she was not here. Xantee could feel her through the wall – concentrated, wrapped in a ball.

She’s small, she whispered. She’s a small thing.

And dangerous, Duro repeated.

She’s in the next room, Danatok said.

Xantee remembered her parents’ story again. There were two corridors outside the eating room: a narrow one leading to a side door and, at right angles, a wider one to a wider door. The first opened into a washroom lined with latrines, the second into a dormitory that, in Pearl and Hari’s day, had been emptied of beds and set up as a factory for Ottmar’s poison bullets.

They went past the jumble of beds and tables, out of the eating hall, and chose the corridor leading straight ahead. It seemed safer simply because it was wide. Their feet whispered on the gritty floor. Their torches pushed the darkness back like skeins of wool and seemed to pile it at the corridor’s end. The door into the dormitory was jammed half open. Someone had drawn a skull on it with charcoal. Someone else had made the skull cry, with fat blood-red tears dropping down. But this whole downstairs space where the servants had lived gave the impression of being unscavenged and unexplored. Not even burrows men came here.

Duro edged into the dormitory, holding a club-shaped bed leg he had found by the door. Xantee and Danatok followed. A wooden table on trestles ran half the length of the room. There were no chairs and the table was bare except for two small balls, crouching like mice. Duro laid down his club and picked one up.

Heavy, he said.

Ottmar’s lead bullets, Xantee said. They were supposed to have poison salt in them. Put it down, Duro.

She was finding it hard to breathe. The smell of the gool was even thicker in this room. It was slippery, spreading on her skin like oil.

Duro put the bullet down. He gave a muffled cry. Two still figures lay on the other side of the table. Two dead men.

Again it was Xantee who understood. Not men. These long grey figures with rigid limbs were the lead suits Ottmar’s salt technicians had worn to protect themselves. They must have shed them here before they ran to escape his anger.

She calmed Duro. His fears were increasing every moment they spent in this underground place. He wanted to fight an enemy he could see and understand.

Meanwhile, Danatok had explored the room.

Here, he called.

He stopped before an iron safe bolted to the wall and leaned at it, feeling with his mind but keeping clear. Xantee and Duro approached, and felt at once why he did not go closer. He would have to swim through the smell of the gool like water, and chop and tear his way through her barrier of hatred – hatred of everything in this world not hers. It churned their stomachs and sickened their minds and they stood unable to move.

She’s in there, Xantee whispered.

Can she hurt us? Duro said. He was swaying as though he might fall.

She hurts us just by being herself, Danatok said.

The safe door was an inch or two ajar. Something oozed out: darkness that ran like a liquid and made a hissing like steam. It made their torches spit and tremble, and burn with a colour none of them had ever seen. It slid along their faces as though tasting their lips and eyes.

Duro, off to one side, reeled back, turned his back, gave a sob of pain. He whacked the thickened air with his club.

Duro, Danatok said, find a long piece of wood. Bring it back here.

Duro stumbled away behind his torch.

She’s strong, Xantee said. But she’s wounded. Killing Keech and the Clerk was like tearing something out of her.

But she won’t die, Danatok said.

She’s trying to find other things to feed on, Xantee said.

They heard Duro rummaging in the pile of beds by the latrines. He came back dragging a length of timber with a bolt protruding from one end. He had dropped his club but kept his torch.

Now, Danatok said, stand to one side. Use it to push the door open.

He and Xantee stood back. Duro put down his torch and fitted the bolt against the edge of the safe door. It slid off when he started to push. He reversed the timber and used the thicker end. The door was stiff, its hinges groaned. And something else groaned, low in the safe. The sound made Xantee’s skin prickle and her mouth go dry. It did not come from grief or anger or any emotion she could recognise. It was a sound no one was meant to hear, from a darkness no one was meant to see.

The hinge ran free, the door clanged open and a concentrated beam of hatred shot out and knocked Xantee and Danatok off their feet. It rolled them like logs on the floor. Somehow Danatok kept his torch alive. Duro, off to the side, snatched up his and moved to thrust it into the safe, but Xantee, jammed against the trestle legs, cried, No, stay back. She felt as if the gool’s hatred was tearing off her skin, but she managed to roll to one side of the invisible beam.

Danatok.

Yes, he answered weakly, and crawled after her.

Duro was on the other side. Crossing to them would be like stepping into the heat-blast from a furnace. Yet there was nothing to see. The gool stayed hidden at the back of the safe that was her home.

Xantee lit her dead torch at Danatok’s.

We’ve got to see her, she said. And then we’ve got to send her back.

If we join our minds, all three . . .

And make a shield. We should be able to keep her away from us. Duro, are you ready?

Ready, he gasped.

They folded their minds together and made their shield, visualising it – a sheet of light, as strong as iron, standing between them and the gool. Then, Xantee and Danatok from the right, Duro from the left, they stepped in front of the safe.

The gool’s hatred beat against the shield and buckled it, made dents the size of fists in its surface, but their minds kept it steady and inched it towards the open door. The torch-light mingling with the silver shine of the shield penetrated the safe. They saw the gool.

She was nothing like her children. Xantee thought at first she was a pile of rags, but that lasted only a second. Her hatred had the weight of an avalanche. It beat on their shield, sharp and blunt, like an axe one moment and a club the next, but they held steady, keeping their minds plaited like three ropes, keeping their gaze firm and their torches high, and studied her.

Not rags, Xantee thought. That had been an effect of the shadows. She was smooth and small and fat and grey, like a gourd taken from a vine – like an unripe gourd picked and stored for some reason in this safe. But that likeness would not do, for her smoothness was sticky and her greyness was transparent and something moved inside her, rolling and twisting like eels in a sack, making her lumpy, then moving deeper and sucking hollows in her skin. Heart perhaps, lungs perhaps, beating and breathing, and stomach and intestines, black and grey – but that too could not be right, for she had no mouth, no way to eat, and no nose to breathe through. Perhaps she breathed through her skin for it seemed to open and close in a thousand black pores, almost too fast to be seen.

She had no arms or legs, no limbs at all, breaking the swollen end of her gourd shape, and nothing at the thinner end, although some hidden part made a ticking sound and something protruded, no thicker than a wire, linking her, Xantee guessed, to the world she came from.

She had eyes. They floated inside her, white cloudy discs, deep one moment, shallow the next, and because there were two and because they watched, they became the focus of Xantee’s and Duro’s and Danatok’s attention.

They took a step closer, breathing lightly to stop her smell from overpowering them.

Gool, they said, speaking with Xantee’s voice. Gool, it’s time for you to go.

The creature had no language. All she had was hatred – hatred and enormous strength. It rolled from her in waves, rolled over them, but they braced themselves and held their ground, and Xantee said, Gool, your food is gone. The Clerk is dead. Keech is dead. The red star and the white that kept you nourished are gone. There’s nothing left to eat any more. No hatred. No cruelty. It died with them, and you’ll die if you stay here. Go back where you live. You and your children can’t have our world.

Still hatred rolled off the gool.

Does she understand? Duro said.

I heard her laugh when you told her there was no hatred left, Danatok said.

What can we do?

Force her back. Pick her up and throw her through whatever hole she came from, Duro said.

It won’t work, Xantee said. We’ve got to make her afraid of staying.

We’ve got to kill her, that’s what, Duro said. Give me your knife, Danatok.

Before Danatok had time to answer, Duro snatched it from the Dweller’s sheath, stepped out from the shield and threw in a single motion at the gool in her den. The knife struck between her floating eyes and sank in – and kept on sinking, blade and handle, until it disappeared. The gool’s eyes rolled over, then steadied and fixed on Duro. He stepped back behind the shield as a blast of hatred leapt at him. It clanged like a rain of spears but Xantee and Danatok held their cover firm.

She swallowed it, Duro whispered. She swallowed the knife.

We can’t kill her that way, Danatok said.

She’s stronger, Xantee said. Every time we try to kill her she’ll get stronger. It’s why she laughed. The Clerk and Keech fed her but she can survive even though they’re dead. All the bits of cruelty in our world are food for her. She can’t be killed.

We’ve got to try. Let’s take her down to the sea and drown her. Or throw her off the cliff. Or make a fire . . .

She’s laughing, Danatok said.

And that thing round Hari’s neck is still alive. It’ll never die, Xantee whispered.

So what do we do?

I don’t know. But she’s afraid of us. So there must be a way.

She looked at the gool. It looked back at her, turning the discs that served as eyes.

Go home, she whispered. Please. It’s not your world. She made a tipping gesture with her hand, as though sliding the gool into its place, and acknowledging that perhaps the gool heard a voice there that spoke its name, and everything it felt might be natural. Then she remembered
her
voice, the great voice, which said ‘Xantee’; which spoke – she was sure now – from a place of light opposing the gool’s darkness. She tried to hear it. There was only silence. Xantee, she said to herself, trying to command it. The silence went on – and deep in the gool she heard the gulping sound of its laughter.

Gool, she pleaded: but it was invulnerable. There was enough hatred in the world to feed it forever, and help it breed even more children. Hatred in the city, in the burrows: and hatred in Duro and, she supposed, herself. She was no different from anyone else. And so the gool could sip at her, and sip at her . . .

Xantee stared at the creature. It stared back at her.

You don’t have any other feelings, she whispered. This bulging sticky fat thing, with its blank eyes and surging hatred and huge greed, had no other feelings. I hate you, she thought, but as well as that . . . She was overwhelmed with pity for the things it could never know.

I don’t think you’re really alive, she whispered.

She put out her hand, pushing it through the shield that kept them safe.

Go back, she said. Go back where it doesn’t matter.

Silence. It was as if the world had stopped turning. Then there was a creaking, a groaning, and a crack like the breaking of a giant tree. The sound turned over, leaving a new silence that shivered with intensity. And growing out of it came a whimper, a baby’s whimper, as if the gool had drawn some knowledge into herself and disbelieved it. Xantee, Duro, Danatok could not breathe. A voice, not human, in a language not human, cried a single word they understood.
No
, it cried. Then a rumbling and splashing filled the room, as though a cliff was sliding into the sea. Deep in her head Xantee heard something scream, and scream again, and again. The sound fell gradually away, as though tumbling down long stairs into the dark. Soon it became a piteous mewing. Her own, her great voice, spoke to her, regretful and firm. She knew then that pity had been a weapon. Where Duro’s knife had failed, and flame and poison and spears would fail, pity had pierced the gool and made it shriek. Now the creature’s eyes rolled like wheels, she trembled and convulsed. She writhed in her den, making its iron walls bulge. Her eyes dulled and sank, fluttering like discs of tin deep in a pool, and her body sagged and seemed to melt.