Sebastian Darke: Prince of Explorers (25 page)

'Trouble,' said Cal. And he turned away and marched up the stairs.

Sebastian shook his head; it was pointless now to hope that he and Cal could ever be friends. Galt's death meant there was a void between them that could never be bridged.

With a sigh, he followed the others up the stairs.

Phelan had not been exaggerating. They had to make their way up fifteen flights of stairs before he led them along a landing to a large room; and Sebastian noticed that yet another flight continued upwards. Max was quite exhausted by this stage and complained loudly to anyone who would listen to him.

There were more ragged children in the room. Sebastian counted twelve in all, again ranging from just a few years to around Phelan's age. They all seemed intensely interested in these newcomers, and when they heard Max talking, they flocked around him, prodding and slapping, trying to elicit a response.

'Do you mind?' he protested. 'Get off! Ow! Stop that! Now, which one of you is in charge of the food?'

One end of the room was dominated by a huge stone fireplace in which a log fire blazed merrily. Phelan indicated a series of tattered couches and chairs around it and invited the guests to sit down. He instructed a couple of children to fill some clay bowls from a huge cauldron of stew that was bubbling over the fire; somebody else filled cups with water from large skins hanging in a corner. Phelan took a seat beside them and watched as they ate. Cal was staring moodily into the fire, spooning stew into his mouth and clearly uninterested in talking, so Phelan addressed his questions to the others.

'Have you travelled far?' he asked them.

'Some of us have come from Ramalat up on the east coast,' said Sebastian, talking through a mouthful of what tasted like rusa stew. 'These three are Jilith from a village in the jungles of Mendip.'

Phelan nodded but didn't seem to recognize any of the names. 'You must forgive me,' he said. 'We have never known anywhere but here. I have no idea if these places you speak of are near or far.'

'Ramalat is a great distance,' said Cornelius. 'The Jilith village is just a few days upriver.' He thought for a moment. 'Actually, we're not the first from the village to come here. A man called Joseph visited many years ago when he was around your age. He only spent a few hours here but he told us he didn't meet anybody else. Perhaps there was nobody living here then.'

Phelan shrugged. 'It's a big city – there's no reason why he should have met anyone. Did he . . . stay here after dark?'

'I don't believe he did,' said Sebastian.

'Then he was lucky,' said Phelan.

'Does this place have a name?' asked Keera.

'We call this house Sanctuary,' replied Phelan. 'At least, that is what Aaron calls it.'

'Yes, you mentioned him before,' said Cornelius. 'What is he – a king, a general? And when do we get to meet him?'

'When he is ready,' said Phelan. 'One thing you learn about Aaron is that he cannot be hurried.' He looked at Salah, who was gulping her food down hungrily. 'You don't have much to say for yourself,' he observed.

'Salah cannot speak,' explained Keera.

Sebastian had expected Phelan to look embarrassed but his smile never wavered.

'Of course she can speak,' he said. 'She just hasn't chosen to yet. Isn't that right, Salah?'

Salah looked up from her bowl of stew and smiled at the boy. Then she nodded and went on with her meal.

'Where are all the adults?' asked Sebastian.

Now the boy's smile
did
falter. 'You have already met them,' he said.

Sebastian was puzzled for a moment; then realization hit him. 'Oh my . . . you don't mean to say . . . those
things
out there are . . . ?'

'My parents are among them,' said Phelan. He gestured around the room. 'Most of their parents too. Not that we would be able to recognize them now. You can for a few days, when they have first turned, but then they become like all the others.' He shrugged. 'You grow used to it.'

'But how do they—?'

'Aaron will explain more when he sees you,' repeated Phelan. 'He has made a study of it. He knows many things.

We call him Aaron the Wise.'

Sebastian frowned. 'Is
he
a child?' he asked.

This seemed to amuse Phelan. 'Aaron is not a child,' he said. 'You will understand when you meet him—'

'Ow, stop that! Don't you know it's rude to poke somebody?' Max's voice sounded muffled. Sebastian looked up to see that the buffalope had his head down in what looked like a bucket of fruit; however, some of the younger children were still creeping up and prodding him to see what kind of reaction they could get.

'Stop taunting the beast,' said Phelan; and, amazingly, the children did exactly as they were told, returning to their places around the room and getting on with whatever they had been doing before Max arrived. They all seemed to have jobs. Over in one corner of the room, a couple of girls were binding vines together to make rope. In another, a group of young boys were fashioning arrows.

'You clearly command obedience here,' observed Cornelius.

Phelan nodded. 'They understand how it works,' he said. 'Perhaps in some places they could afford to make the odd mistake. I'm sure it is how most children learn. But here, life is different. Disobeying an order might be the last thing you ever do.'

He smiled benignly but Sebastian felt a chill go through him. Something about Phelan didn't feel right. Sebastian's elf-sense was tingling – he had never encountered a boy like this before; one who smiled and was polite, yet underneath his genial mask was as cold and ruthless as any assassin. Sebastian remembered that the boy had been quite prepared to kill any of the strangers who had been bitten. He wondered what terrible experiences had made him like that.

Phelan regarded their empty bowls. 'I would like to offer you more,' he said, 'but as you can see' – he gestured towards the other children – 'we have many mouths to feed.'

Sebastian waved a hand dismissively. 'Oh no, that's fine, I'm full as a tick.'

'How do you manage to forage for food,' asked Keera, 'with those things roaming about out there?'

'Oh, that's easy,' said Phelan. 'They only come out at night. By day they sleep in the dark shadows of the buildings. They are not a danger then. Unless you're stupid enough to go inside.'

Sebastian remembered how he had entered one of the buildings to investigate the noise. Happily he had encountered nothing more frightening than a flock of birds.

'If they sleep, then they are vulnerable,' said Cornelius. 'You need only find their resting places, go out by day and slay them while they slumber. It might take you a little while, but soon enough you would be rid of them.'

Phelan shook his head. 'You cannot kill them,' he said.

'Why ever not?' argued Cornelius. 'I understand that some of them were once your parents, but they are hardly the same thing now.'

'No, you misunderstand me,' explained Phelan. 'You cannot kill them because they are already dead.'

'What did he mean,
they're already dead
?' Max couldn't seem to get Phelan's last words out of his head. 'Dead people don't generally hop about like great big spiders, do they?'

Sebastian and Cornelius groaned. A short while earlier, Phelan had led the three friends to another room, where a collection of hides were piled in one corner. He had taken Keera and Salah to a smaller chamber further along the landing, while Cal had elected to stay where he was, in the communal room, staring moodily into the fire. Sebastian and Cornelius had dutifully stretched themselves out with the intention of snatching some much-needed sleep, but Max was having none of it. He was clumping nervously up and down the chamber, his hooves clunking on the stone floor.

'I mean to say,' he continued, ignoring the resentful glares from his two companions, 'most dead things I know lie still and don't make a sound. So these Night Runner things can't
really
be dead, can they? Can they? Well,
can they
?'

Cornelius gave a groan of irritation. 'It would explain why our swords had no effect on them,' he said. 'And why their blood is that horrible greeny-black colour. Now shut up and go to sleep!'

'I will not!' Max continued pacing. 'It's always like this, isn't it? Wherever we go we encounter horrible, creepy, nasty things that want to kill us. Why can't you take me somewhere nice for a change? A sunny meadow with plenty to eat and pretty butterflies flapping around my head.'

'We'll keep that in mind for our next adventure,' Sebastian assured him. 'Now please, can you settle down? We haven't slept properly in ages and I for one could do with some decent shuteye.'

'Oh, it's nice for those who
can
sleep, isn't it?' protested Max. 'I shall probably never sleep again. Every time I shut my eyes I see one of those hideous things swooping down at me. It's a miracle I wasn't bitten. I could have been like Galt, reduced to going around like some great big zombie for ever.'

'So no change there then,' murmured Cornelius and Max gave him a wounded look.

'Go on, mock!' he said. 'I don't like it here. As soon as the sun comes up, we should walk out of this ruddy city and follow the river all the way back to the Jilith camp. It might be a bit rough there, but at least the people in it know that when they're dead, they're dead. I don't care how long it takes, we should go.'

'We're not going anywhere until we've met this Aaron character,' Sebastian told him.

'Oh yes, I can just imagine what he'll turn out to be! A giant man-eating frog with a kelfer's head . . . or perhaps some ruddy great spider with ten eyes and twenty mouths.'

'Don't be ridiculous!' said Sebastian. 'I have no reason to suspect that he's anything other than an ordinary human being.'

'No reason to suspect . . .? Forgive me, but that gives me no reassurance at all. Whatever happened to your famous elfsense, eh? I can't begin to count the number of times it's let us down.'

'Will you please belt up!' roared Cornelius.

'You'd like that, wouldn't you? All three of us fast asleep while unspeakable things come creeping up on us.'

'Those things are out there,' said Sebastian, pointing to a solitary window; the glass had long since shattered, allowing the night wind to come gusting through. Sebastian could see that it was protected by a series of thick metal bars – a fact that Max was quick to pick up on.

'What are the bars for?' he cried. 'Bars in a bedchamber? This is some kind of prison!'

'The bars are obviously to keep the Night Runners out,' said Cornelius through gritted teeth. 'All the windows in the building are like that; and it's not a very effective prison if the door is left ajar.'

Max sniffed and paced over to the window. 'Just the same,' he said, 'you won't catch me going to slee—' He broke off as a familiar voice rose on the night wind.

'Cal! Cal, help me!'

Max's eyes grew big and round. 'That's Galt's voice!' he gasped. 'Ooh, I don't like this! It's getting all creepy again!'

In an instant Sebastian and Cornelius were up on their feet and peering down through the gaps in the bars. Sure enough, Galt stood far below, his big figure dwarfed by distance. He was gazing up at the window. It seemed incredible that his voice should carry such a distance; but even from up here, they could see how horribly white his features were.