Page 78 of The Neverfear

Christopher froze.

The snake, its body smooth as silk, damp from Morax’s mouth, moved up over his face. It moved up his cheek, up towards his hair.

‘I have answered your questions. Now you will tell me something in return,’ said Morax.

The snake slithered over Christopher’s skull.

Morax’s voice was careful, educated, modulated. ‘How did you get the dog’s whiskers? And ride the hind? I have spies in every port. But I do not understand how you did it.’

‘I didn’t do it alone,’ he said. ‘I had a dragon, and a ratatoska. And I had Anya Argen.’

‘That is a lie; there was more. There is something between you and the creatures. What is it?’

Christopher looked Morax full in the eyes. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Morax studied him. The malice in his look was such that it seemed to poison the very air. ‘That is enough talk. Give me the child.’

‘Call off the snake.’

‘The child first.’

Christopher looked backwards, at the shape in the water behind him. It was close now: it was nearly upon them. He said a prayer. And he gave Morax the warm, living bundle in his arms.

Morax gave a hiss of satisfaction. He held the bundle close.

‘Do your work,’ he said to the snake. The snake wrapped itself around Christopher’s neck and squeezed.

Christopher dug his fingers under the snake’s body, but its strength was overwhelming. He tried to reach it – to summon the Light. It did not come. He met a block, hard as ice, as the snake’s mind revolted away from his own. But it was enough to make the snake loosen its grip to turn instinctively to Morax. Christopher hooked his fingers under it and flung it from him as Morax gave a bellow of rage. ‘No! How can you? You! Nobody but me—’ Morax lunged to seize the snake.

And then two things happened at once.

Christopher gave a cry: an inward cry of Ready, of Now, of Go!

The stain beneath the water became an eruption. There was a roar so loud it battered the waves, and the behemoth exploded from the ocean. Its mouth was open and it launched itself straight at Morax and Teren. A vast chunk was torn from the side of the boat, and wood flew like bullets in every direction.

At the same time, Teren twisted in Morax’s arms.

With a shriek of laughter, Teren shrank in size. As Morax let out a bellow of shock and rage, the Immortal child’s face blurred, changed – his body grew claws and a beak and red wings – as with a cry of glee and mischief the leshoki took on a new shape, rising in the form of a phoenix and rocketing into the sky.

The leshoki twisted triumphantly in the air, shifting between phoenix, firebird, jaculus, and finally in the shape of a red-spotted blackbird it vanished into the blue.

Christopher sprang upwards, praying feverishly for luck – and the white wings strapped to his ankles carried him skywards, up, up above the ocean, as down below the behemoth tore again at the boats – at the Neverfear and at Morax’s boat, and at the man and his snake who disappeared beneath the waves.

Christopher hovered above the water, the wings beating. He looked beyond the wreckage to the two Astorian ships in the water. There were cries coming from the bandits, consternation and panic.

And then there was the blare of alarms, as over the horizon came scudding six ships of the Gardai. They had powdered wind in their sails, and ranks of armed soldiers with weapons held in readiness, and they swept towards the Astorian vessels.

‘You’re surrounded,’ came a magnified voice from the Gardai. ‘Lay down your weapons. It’s over.’

The real Teren was waiting for him when he reached the dock. Christopher took him up and almost crushed him in his arms. Teren rested his forehead against Christopher’s and breathed his soft child’s breath on to his face.

Christopher tried to picture what the tiny child knew: the men like Morax he had seen; thousands of years of wrong and duplicity, pain and sorrow.

But Teren took hold of Christopher’s face in both hands and laughed. What would you hear, if you could make the roar of violence fall silent? You would hear the angels sing. Better, you would hear them laugh.

‘Yes?’ said Christopher.

‘Yes,’ said the child Immortal. ‘Yes!’ It was the second word he had ever spoken.