Page 16 of The Neverfear

Christopher swore. The golden thread wavered. He could feel the creature’s anger rising. If he let the connection snap he’d be trampled to death. He pushed further, deeper, backwards into the untouched, dormant places of his own mind, and he thought, Please. This is the only way out of pain.

The behemoth stepped closer. It bent its head.

Swiftly, his heart racing, Christopher smoothed more cream on the wound, and this time the beast only gave a low rumbling growl in protest. As quickly as he could – the pressure in his skull was mounting – he wound the bandage around the creature’s entire flank, double-thick, fumbling, and secured it with three knots.

The behemoth stamped, hard, at the earth. Its pain and impatience swept over Christopher: it was like being battered, again and again, by a too-rough sea. It had been less than sixty seconds, but the strain of holding the thread had almost bent him double. The behemoth opened its mouth, and roared.

The connection broke. The thread vanished. And the behemoth charged.

Christopher ran for the gate. He had no time to open it – he vaulted over it, and landed on the other side. The behemoth’s head crashed into it two seconds later. Christopher swore.

‘You,’ he said to the behemoth, ‘need to learn to relax.’

He lay flat on his back as the behemoth snarled and paced on the other side.

Christopher’s whole body felt foreign to himself. He was dizzy; the world lurched on its axis. He bent and vomited into the bushes.

‘You nearly died,’ said a small, haughty voice. Jacques flew into sight from behind a tree, where he had been watching. ‘You were very stupid, young man! A behemoth is not a thing to play with.’

‘I know that.’ He turned to Teren, and Teren, watching him with wide and seeing eyes, held out his hands.

It had been stupid, perhaps. But far more than that – it had been an overwhelming thrill. He could still barely breathe. But he had glimpsed the secret of something entirely other, alive and infinitely strange, full of knowledges in shapes and colours entirely new. It felt like the world had cracked open.

‘You must never do that again. Never!’ sniffed Jacques.

Christopher smiled, and said nothing.

But that night he wrote a letter.

If Irian didn’t know what was happening to him, there was yet someone who might.

In the end he kept it very simple. He wrote only that he had felt something, a kind of unspoken speech with the creatures, and he had thought that the sphinxes, who were ancient scholars, would know what it was and how it had come to him. Then he crossed out ‘ancient’, in case that was insulting. He left it outside the fendthorn, in the green post-box for the ratatoskas who came to collect messages. The envelope read: Naravirala. The Sphinx Peninsula.

A Brief And Simple Journey In Which Nothing Has Any Reason To Go Wrong

Everyone was up early the next day, readying Nighthand’s boat the Neverfear on the dock. ‘The Flying Senate will touch down in Heletha Square in the City of Scholars at noon,’ said Irian. ‘I need to be there an hour beforehand, to register for the speakers’ gallery. I must tell them what Vigo saw, and what Senan knows.’

‘Aren’t you going, Nighthand?’ said Anya.

Nighthand shook his head. ‘I must stay here with Teren. And besides, Irian will speak better than me.’

‘In that case,’ said Christopher, ‘I’ll go instead of you, Nighthand.’ He handed Irian the first-aid kit.

‘The Senate won’t let you in,’ said Irian. ‘No minors.’

‘Not to speak. To protect you.’

Irian and Nighthand exchanged glances.

‘Nighthand can’t leave Glimt,’ said Christopher. ‘But if Vigo Nex is telling the truth, nobody should be going anywhere alone. I’m coming.’

‘And me!’ said Anya. ‘Obviously if Christopher’s coming, I’m coming.’

‘Mine!’ said Koo. ‘Mine, come, mine.’

‘And Koo,’ said Anya.

‘Christopher has an obsidian sword,’ said Nighthand. ‘What would you be defending Irian with?’