The game of cat and mouse resumed, but now with Valerian pursuing Boy rather than Boy trailing his master. Valerian was unable to travel fast, and the tunnel was low. He walked hunched over the lamp. The tunnel Boy had chosen was small and straight and narrow, and Valerian could clearly see Boy ahead of him, hurrying away.
Sickeningly, Boy knew this, and he scuttled along as fast as he could.
And then, abruptly, the roof lifted away above his head and Boy stood in a vast open space, though still far beneath the City streets. There were small hills in front of him, it seemed-piles of whiteness in the gloom. As he heard Valerian coming closer, nearing the edge of the tunnel, Boy realized that he had stopped at the threshold of this new space.
Valerian approached, and as he did, the light intensified. Boy lurched forward, missed his footing, and stumbled into one of the piles of white stuff. It was hard, but scattered under his weight. He could hear things cracking. Valerian emerged from the tunnel and shone the light straight at Boy.
“So!” he cried. “I have you at last.”
In the light, Boy realized he was sitting in piles of bones. Human bones of all sorts. He knew they were human by the large number of skulls rolling around at his feet.
He screamed.
As Valerian came closer, Boy picked up a skull and threw it. Valerian ducked but was too slow, and the ancient headbone hit his bad arm. He howled and wavered where he stood. In that split second Boy scrambled clumsily to his feet, bones skidding away under him. Picking one of many possible routes, he spun away between the piles of skeletons that filled this vast hall.
Boy ran and ran, hurtling into pile after pile of bones, making such a terrible noise that he was sure Valerian must be a moment away from catching him.
Finally it was too dark to see at all. Boy staggered forward a few more feet, tripped over yet another skull, and collapsed into one of the heaps, too scared of Valerian to worry about what he was lying on.
He lay still, breathing quietly, and realized there was no sound of pursuit. There was no light anywhere. Valerian was probably out in the bone-field somewhere. Without light he could move no further, but Boy was too upset and tired to care. He had passed over and by countless human remains in the last few days. Thousands of bones that were once people, maybe hundreds of thousands, and all because of one man’s struggle to avoid joining them.
Boy lay in the bone-field, where the exhumed remains from overflowing cemeteries all around the City had been moved hundreds of years before to make space for new arrivals. Exhausted, he put his head onto his outstretched arm and amazingly, sleep came for him and took him away.
He woke screaming.
He clamped his hand to his mouth and sobbed violently until he felt the panic subsiding. He breathed deeply. There was nothing to do but to keep moving. He got to his feet in the darkness and began to walk.
He tried to pretend that he was not blind, that he could see where he was going, and determined to walk until he hit something. He very soon did. It was a wall, but it felt peculiar. He ran his fingers across its surface and felt small, strange knobs, each about the size of his fist. He followed the wall and found a corner. Putting his hand out to the right, he found another wall close by that felt the same as the first. He was in another corridor. He put a hand on either wall and began to walk down the corridor as fast as he dared.
The knobs felt funny-smooth and cold, dry despite the general clammy nature of the catacombs. They were evenly spaced, with small gaps between, in an incredibly neat row from the floor to above his head. The whole wall was made of these things stacked in orderly fashion on top of each other. Just as he was trying to work out what they were, his left hand ran over something else in the wall, and he knew what it was instantly.
A skull. It was set into the wall, which Boy realized was made of bones-thighbones, stacked on top of each other so the thick knobs at the end overlapped and formed the wall.
The panic welled up inside him again and he ran, blind and shrieking, to nowhere.
He ran out through the end of the passageway. Had there been light to see by, and had he stopped to look, he might have seen another inscription above the doorway from which he had emerged.
Stop! This is the Empire of Death.
At least he was going the right way.
6
Valerian prowled on. He had long ago lost Boy.
His arm hurt so much that his mind was clouded by the pain, and yet he could not stop. He knew that his last day must have dawned, but down in this infernal darkness he had no idea what time it was or how long he had left.
The thought made him shudder. What was happening in the City, above this subterranean empire? It was presumably going about its normal business, whether sleeping, or waking, or working, or getting ready for the New Year’s Eve festival.
The end of the Dead Days, and the end of Valerian’s quest, one way or another.
He had to find Boy and he had to find him fast. That was all he knew. Very soon the gates of horror would open and a force would come to hunt over the Earth until he was found, speared and delivered to Hell.
Valerian staggered slowly on, his mind fixed on one thing, one alone: Boy.
And then, from his right, he felt a breeze on his face. Its freshness was so distinct against the fetid air of the catacombs that it gave him hope.
Valerian headed for the breeze. Quickly he came upon another, larger space, where one of the canals passed by, although here the water flowed as in a fast river. He looked about, saw a doorway, and then a shaft of light rising straight up above his head, and he began to wonder.
He began to smile.
He turned back into the low room, and waited.
7
Kepler led the way, holding the candle in front of him. Willow clasped the Book against her chest. It was so large and heavy that occasionally they would have to stop while she shifted it to her other arm. She wanted nothing to do with the book at all, but Kepler insisted they bring it with them.
“Can’t we leave it here?” she said. “You were going to hide it. Can’t we do that and come back for it when we’ve got a light?”
“Absolutely not!” Kepler said. “I made that mistake once. Valerian knows it’s down here now. I shall hold on to it-or rather you will-until we get out.”
They made their way across that open square where Willow, Valerian and Boy had first stepped ashore after docking their boat behind Kepler’s.
“If the other boat’s still there, then maybe we have a chance,” Kepler said.
There was a noise-a cry, and footsteps, coming at them from the side.
Boy stood in front of them.
“Willow!” He embraced her. The horrors he had felt drained away and were replaced by hope, as he held Willow tight and felt her clasp his hands to her.
“Boy!” she cried. “Boy! Boy!”
Swinging her around, Boy saw Kepler too.
“You!” he said. “You shouldn’t have done that” was all he could blurt out. He held Willow tighter.
“We would have come back for her,” Kepler replied. “Willow will tell you herself.”
But she said nothing.
“We had to get you away from him,” Kepler tried to explain. “You’re the one who’s in danger.”
“Why?” cried Boy. “What does he want me for?”
“Later. We’ll talk later. Come! All the time you are down here, with Valerian somewhere around, you are in danger. Let us leave this place. It does not lift my spirits, for it provides shelter from everything except death. When we are back in the air of the City I will tell you.”
“The other boat, Boy,” said Willow. “Hurry.”
There indeed was the boat, still with its pole.
They climbed aboard, and with Kepler in front, Willow sitting in the middle clutching the book and Boy holding the pole in the rear, they set off for the outside world.
Many thoughts passed through Boy’s mind, but there was one question above all. “Why does he want to hurt me?”
Silence.
“One of you answer me!” shouted Boy. “Answer me! What does he want me for?”
“Don’t!” whispered Willow. “Someone might hear you!”
“So answer me!” shouted Boy.
“He wants your life,” Kepler said coldly. “Your life is the only way out for him now.”
Boy shook his head in the darkness.
“No,” he said, choking. “He can’t. I don’t believe it!”
“Then tell me, Boy, why were you running?” Kepler asked.
Boy said nothing and they drifted on with the current. Kepler started to mutter to himself, then spoke.
“There’s a tunnel we must take!” he called. “On the right, somewhere soon… There it is!”
Boy shoved the pole as hard as he could into the bottom of the canal, but the current was strong. He wrestled with the boat and forced it to make the turn, but the pole suddenly held fast in the mud.
“Quick!” he called. “Help me!”
The current pulled the boat on. On the point of being pulled in, Boy let the pole go and the boat slipped away. They were now rudderless.
“It doesn’t matter,” called Keplen. “We just need to get to the side up ahead. That’s where we get out!”
The canal narrowed even more and the current turned into a powerful surge.
A few more yards and the canal plunged into a small tunnel, across which lay an ancient grille with gaps no wider than a man’s hand. The water hurtled through the grille at high speed. The boat smashed into the grille, tearing a gaping hole in its prow.
Willow nearly fell as the boat was pounded again and again against the grille by the relentless force of the water. At least they were going nowhere for the moment. Then, with horror, Boy saw that the grinding of the boat against the grille was starting to weaken it. If it gave way there would be no stopping them from plunging into an even blacker abyss.
Boy had always been led to believe that hell was a hot and fiery place, but now he knew that if hell existed it was this place, here and now. Cold, and wet, and very, very dark.
They clutched at the bank, and Willow scrambled onto the stone quayside, throwing the book ahead of her.
She rolled over onto her back and found herself staring up into Valerian’s eyes.
“Help them out,” he said to her.
She lay, frozen with terror.
“Help them out!” Valerian screamed at her, and Willow had no choice. In a few more seconds the weight of the boat would smash the grille away and they would be lost forever.
She stretched her arms and pulled Kepler out; then they both did the same for Boy.
They stood facing Valerian.
The book lay between them on the flags.
Valerian held Kepler’s light device. It began to weaken, and without taking his eyes off Willow, Valerian put it on the floor and, once again steadying it with his foot, wound the handle until it shone brightly.
He didn’t pick it up again.
“So, Boy,” said Valerian.
“Leave him, Valerian,” said Kepler.
“Silence! You traitor! You were supposed to be my friend!”
“I was once. I was.
You
taught
me
about betrayal long ago. Things are not what they once were. You have to admit defeat. You can’t take Boy where you should go instead. It’s your doing, not his.”
“But now we know what Boy can do for me,” Valerian said, smiling unpleasantly. “And in this case, I think it’s only fitting that he should go instead of me.”
“No!” cried Willow. “No! You’re evil!”
Valerian laughed at her.
“I am not dead! That’s all that matters. Now, Boy, come to me!”
Boy began to back away.
Willow and Kepler closed together in front of Boy, trying to keep Valerian from him, but he just laughed.
With his left hand he pulled a slim black tube from inside his coat. He shook it with a flick of his wrist. A spike, long and sharp, hissed out and locked in place with a click. He pointed it at them.
“All I want is the boy,” he said, coming forward again.
They began to circle, Valerian edging them backward, closer to the canal.
There were three of them against Valerian with only one good arm, but he had the knife. They stood near the canal bank, Valerian looking beaten, wounded and old. Seeing him like this, they approached, united in a common purpose.
Boy felt his heart stirring for his master. His end would come now, one way or another. He watched, as if in slow motion, as Valerian stuck his stiletto between his teeth, then reached inside his huge black coat.
“No! Stop him!” Boy began, but it was too late.
Valerian’s hand flourished back out from the coat in a way that Boy had seen before.
There was a brilliant flash of light that illuminated the whole underground room. The space was filled with purple smoke.
“Ho!”
The voice was dry and full of bitter humor.
“Ho! And away to fairyland!”
They choked on the smoke, could still see the flash of light even with their eyes closed.
The smoke took its time to clear, with little air to blow it away, but eventually it began to dissipate.
Willow, who had staggered into Kepler, looked around wildly. There was Kepler’s lamp device lying on the floor, its glow still strong. But that was all.
“He’s gone!”
“Valerian!” coughed Kepler, still trying to clear the smoke from his lungs and eyes.
“Oh no!” cried Willow. “Oh, please, no! He’s got Boy. He’s taken Boy with him!”
“Quick!” Kepler shouted. “We must follow!”
“But how?” she cried. “He’s vanished with his magic again. We can’t follow him.”
“Magic?” Kepler said. “Valerian has no such thing as magic these days!”
“But I’ve seen him vanish! And you saw what he just did!”