The Book of Beasts (29 page)

Era Mina
Present Day

It was a short drop to the rocky floor of the painted cavern where she and Matt had fought off Tanan's scaly demon in the summer. Em felt a frisson of fear at the memory. She turned on her torch and held it up to light the vast chamber.

Vaughn set the triptych on the ground, wiped his hands on his jacket and whistled. ‘Look at this place,' he said. ‘I can't believe I've never discovered this cave before.'

‘The drawings are over there,' Em said, pointing to massive etchings on the far wall of the cavern.

‘How long do you think they've been here?' signed Zach, looking at the images in wonder.

‘Perhaps Albion and the early monks of Era Mina painted them,' Sandie replied. ‘They look like they pre-date
The
Book of Beasts
. Are you ready, Em?'

Em felt support from Zach's mind to her own. She nodded.

‘Right,' said Vaughn, ‘I'm going to tie us together so we don't get separated, whatever happens.'

Em clasped her hands together to stop them from trembling as Vaughn looped the rope round their waists. If she got this right, she would see Matt again. If she failed…

You won't fail.

How do you know, Zach?

I just know.

‘Good to go,' Vaughn said, tightening the last knot. ‘All right, Em. This is up to you now.'

Sandie squeezed Em's hand, boosting her confidence. Keeping her eyes averted from the wounded Matt in the left-hand panel, Em focused her mind on the painted cave mouth.

Em felt the ground beneath her feet tremble. The etched beasts on the cave walls began to synchronize their pulsing to the beat of her own heart. The hellhound's four eyes snapped open, sending a shock wave bouncing round the walls of the chamber, and a low rumbling howl shook the ground, shooting up the wall in a wave of brilliant energy that burst suddenly from the snapping jaws of the beast, flashed across the cave, and hit the panel on the painting in an explosion of yellow light.

The hellhound thrashed from side to side as if it was trying to tear itself free. Em heard her mum gasp. She felt a tug on the rope at her waist.

In her imagination, Em took control of the light. The paint on her triptych lifted off the panel in ribbons that wrapped around her feet. The ribbons moved up her legs and surrounded her entire body in a cyclone of bright colours. The gyre widened, the brilliance of the colours wrapping round Em's chest, squeezing the breath from her lungs. She squeezed Zach's hand. He squeezed back.

Her feet lifted from the ground. Zach's fingers were slipping from her grip. She felt herself falling.

Em's ears began to pop. They were dropping fast. The colours were brighter, the surging air stronger the deeper they went. Em clung to the fact that the rope around her waist was taut. The four of them were still connected.

Zach, can you hear me?

Yes!

She could hear roaring now. The beasts were near. She was doing this for Matt. She was—

Em landed on something soft with a grunt. The others fell beside her, gasping in shock.

‘What a ride,' Vaughn croaked. ‘Everyone OK?'

Sandie patted the ground curiously. ‘This is fur. Did we land on some kind of rug?'

Zach tapped urgently on Vaughn's shoulder. His hands spelled five shaky letters.

‘BEAST.'

Everyone scrambled off the humped, furry back they had landed on and pressed themselves to the wall. The sleeping beast's fur was tufted like a sheep, but its bulk was closer to that of an elephant. Em could see neither a head nor a tail.

‘What
is
that thing?' she gasped.

‘No idea,' said Vaughn.

‘Maybe a Heffalump,' signed Zach.

Em couldn't help herself. She giggled. ‘If this is a Heffalump, what does Piglet look like down here?'

‘Whatever it is,' said Sandie breathlessly, ‘I don't want to be here when it wakes up.'

Zach wrinkled his nose. ‘This place smells worse than a cow shed.'

Although it was dark, they didn't need to light their torches. The walls looked like they were covered in glowing green foil. The chamber was as wide as a gymnasium, and when Em looked up she could see swirling ink blots of colour in the ceiling, as if she was looking at an expressionist's canvas.

‘I think it's some kind of antechamber,' she said. Then she pointed to the other side of the cavern. ‘There's a tunnel, look.'

Keeping their backs to the walls, the four of them followed Em to the tunnel's shadowy entrance.

As they stepped into the glowing green tunnel, the noise hit them like a tidal wave. Roars and bellows, screeches and screams. The whole place vibrated with sound, blasting into them and through them and around them. The din was everywhere, feral and full of fury.

‘We'll destroy our eardrums if we keep going forward in this,' shouted Vaughn.

He pulled a sketchpad from one of his front pockets and swiftly sketched several sets of earplugs, which rolled from the sketchpad one pair at a time. Em caught hers and pushed them into her ears as far as she could. They helped – but only a little.

Zach's shocked expression caught Em's attention.

Can you hear the beasts screaming, Zach?

His response was hesitant.
I felt the same thing, the first time I saw your painting. I hope the beasts responsible are in cages.

There was a curve in the tunnel up ahead. Rounding it, Em saw a bright line pulsing in the distance like a horizon at sunset.

The closer they got to the light, the wider and higher it became. When at last they reached it, it stood as wide as a door and as tall as Vaughn.

Zach's face was a picture of disgust.
It smells like a bear's den and the bear has died.

It smells like boys' dirty laundry, you mean,
Em replied.

Without thinking, she put her fingers against the curtain of light.

‘Don't!' said Vaughn sharply, but he was too late.

As Em's fingertips touched the wall of light, she lit up like a Christmas tree.

She was absorbed into the glowing curtain like water, disappearing in an instant.

Em found herself on a ledge, halfway down a colossal gorge of volcanic rock. Thanks to Vaughn's climbing rope, the others were still with her. The uneven ledge was barely wider than a cycle lane, and circumvented the gorge like a prehistoric catwalk. The geological architecture of the place reminded Em of the setting of a horror film, the rocks forming castle-like turrets with needle-sharp spires rising as high as her eyes could see.

Steadying herself against the cliff behind her, Em looked up. The rock face was slick with lichens that shimmered with a silvery lustre. Other parts of the gorge were thick with bright, multicoloured moss. Oddly shaped trees sprouted sideways from the massive cliff walls, their roots like veins. The walls of the gorge stretched above them into blackness. Em wasn't sure if it was a night sky, or just an eternal darkness. The thought made her shiver. Zach took her hand.

More extraordinary still were the beasts themselves.

Hundreds of grottos and chambers lined the gorge and were occupied by winged creatures of every imaginable size and shape, some perched, some flying, and all screaming and squawking. Decaying wraiths and devilish gargoyles wheeled through the gloom, trailing partially devoured carcasses and broken skeletal remains in their claws. Half-chewed beast heads lay skewered on some of the sharper needle-shaped rocks, dropped by the flying beasts overhead, while the flayed and stinking skins of beasts littered much of the ledge Em and the others were standing on.

The arches framing the grottos were covered in reliefs of beasts and demons howling and writhing against the rock. Everywhere she looked, Em recognized a beast from a fable or a story. Everything seemed to bulge outwards, threatening and grotesque and pulsing with life. The din was deafening, the earplugs about as useful as cotton wool. And the stink reminded Em of the putrid smells carried in the wind from a rotting fish carcass she'd once discovered under the jetty.

At the centre of each grotto – at least, those Em could see – was a wall of text, in a language she didn't recognize.

‘Looks like ancient Gaelic,' said Sandie, running her fingers over the letters.

The bottom of the gorge was dimly visible, its colossal structure reminding Em of a Roman amphitheatre with arched entrances to tunnels at various places round the periphery. The dirt floor was alive with
so much
overwhelming movement and chaos – beasts and bodies colliding, attacking, fighting in a hideous vortex of evil – that it was difficult for Em to comprehend exactly what she was looking at. It reminded her of a painting she had once seen at the Prado in Madrid with her mum: a dark, horrifying picture of Hell in Hieronymus Bosch's
Garden of Earthly Delights
. Fear bubbled in her mind like lava.

Don't try to absorb it all. I can feel your panic rising.

Em returned the pressure of Zach's hand, trying to calm herself.

The swoop above their heads was almost soundless.

‘Move!' Sandie yelled.

Em gasped. Vaughn swore. They all ducked as a griffin the size of a small plane swooped out of nowhere at them. Em stumbled, knocking backwards into Zach – who lost his footing and tumbled over the edge. His momentum yanked the rope and pulled Em and Sandie to the edge.

‘ZACH!' Em screamed.

Vaughn untied his rope and dived after Zach, grabbing his hand, and yanking him back up on to the ledge. They both rolled back against the rock wall, panting hard. Em felt dizzy with relief.

Above them the griffin's high-pitched call pierced their ears as it cut a tight circle and came back at them, its great eyes as green and brilliant as emeralds. Its breath felt like a hot wind on their skin as its wing tips almost swept them from the ledge. It swooped straight up into the darkness again, then dived into the abyss, snatching up a creature that looked like the cross between a hippo and a tiger. As the griffin tore its prey with its paws, half of the bloody carcass dropped again to the ground, where it was instantly set upon by a howling mass of monsters.

The griffin banked again, gliding high and lazy, then dropped back towards the ledge, its wings tucked close to its thick golden haunches and its ferocious gaze intense.

It was coming for them next.

‘Anyone know anything useful about griffins?' screamed Sandie, her back as far against the rock as humanly possible as the beast approached at breakneck speed.

‘I'm thinking…' Em stammered.

‘Think faster!'

Vaughn pulled his sketchpad from his jacket pocket, but the blast of wind from the griffin's wings blew it from his hand and sent it spinning several metres along the ledge. Zach dropped the rope from his waist and broke away from the wall, running along the narrow rocky path to retrieve it.