The Tiger's Egg (18 page)

D
octor Tau-Tau, suspended, upended and bleating like a sheep, hung by his belt from a tall tree. The Null sat brooding over him like a shadow on an X-ray. The light had all but gone from under the trees, but even so the creature seemed to radiate darkness, and only the red rims of its eyes showed in its hairy silhouette.

“It's Doctor Tau-Tau!” whispered Miles. “What's he doing here? I thought he was sick in his wagon.”

“Someone should call the police,” whispered a nervous voice behind him.

“We are the police, Constable Wigge,” said Constable Flap.

“Someone should call the army,” said Constable Wigge.

Lady Partridge huffed up behind them, her dressing gown trailing twigs and leaves along the forest floor. “There it is!” she whispered, as she arrived at the edge of the clearing where the search party crouched in the bracken. “What on earth has it . . . ?”

The Null shifted on the branch, causing the dangling Doctor Tau-Tau to bounce in the air. He whimpered loudly.

“It's all right, Doctor Tau-Tau,” said Miles as loudly as he dared. “We'll get you down somehow.”

The Null bared its teeth and growled. The fortune-teller, whose broad backside had been facing the search party, managed to twist himself around and peer over his shoulder.

“There you are, and not a moment too soon!” he said in a trembling voice. “Get my sleepwater, boy. Don't forget how I saved you from those underground barbarians, eh?”

“Sleepwater?” said Miles. The name rang a bell.

“In my leather case, boy,” said Doctor Tau-Tau, pointing to the ground below him. “A small yellow bottle, if the brute hasn't smashed it.”

“Be very careful, Miles dear,” said Lady Partridge.

Miles crept forward slowly, never taking his eyes from The Null. An old doctor's bag lay on its side below the tree, its mouth open and its contents scattered in the moss. Miles was directly below The Null now, and its eyes followed him unblinkingly. He could smell the musty odor of the beast, a smell that had always reminded him of rotten bananas, and he could almost feel the crushing embrace with which it had once tried to squeeze the life out of him. He sank down slowly on his hunkers, and the beast suddenly opened its mouth and let out an eerie cackle that froze him to the bone. His hand shook as he rummaged among the spilled contents of Doctor Tau-Tau's case. He felt notebooks of some kind, a small wooden figure, a coin with a square hole cut from its center. His fingers found a bottle, and he straightened up carefully. He wished that the tiger was there beside him.

“What now?” he whispered.

“Climb up here and make it drink the stuff,” said Doctor Tau-Tau.

“Do no such thing!” called Lady Partridge from the edge of the clearing.

“Just throw it up to him, Miles,” said Little. “I'm sure Doctor Tau-Tau has already thought of a way to make The Null drink it.”

“I have?” said Tau-Tau in a strained whisper. “I have, of course,” he added. “But you won't be able to throw it high enough. Better if you climb up here yourself. Boys like to climb trees, don't they?”

“Put your hand out,” said Miles, who had been learning all summer how to throw daggers and was now almost as accurate as his teacher, Stranski, “and keep still!”

Doctor Tau-Tau stretched out his trembling hand. Miles sized up the distance for a moment, then he drew back his arm and threw the small bottle. It arched up through the gathering gloom, straight to the outstretched fingers of the fortune-teller, who almost forgot to catch it in his surprise.

“Right . . . ,” said Doctor Tau-Tau, but before he could do anything The Null suddenly came to life. In a whirl of tangled hair it swept out along the branch, grabbed the collar of the terrified fortune-teller's jacket with its curved yellow nails and hauled him upright, freeing his belt from the branch that supported him. It snatched the bottle from the air as it fell from the terrified Tau-Tau's hand, and let him go. The fortune-teller dropped unceremoniously to the ground twenty feet below, where he landed with a soggy thump in a carpet of moss. There was a collective gasp from the edge of
the clearing. Constable Flap, who had earned a diploma in first aid from a course in
Modern Constable
magazine, crawled across the moss toward the crumpled figure of Doctor Tau-Tau, peering nervously up into the branches as he came. Miles, who had stepped backward in the nick of time, looked up, too, at The Null. The creature bit the neck clean off the bottle with a crunch, and much to everyone's surprise it emptied the contents down its throat. There was a moment's silence while the stout lady, the four-hundred-year-old girl, the boy, the sergeant and his constables all held their breath, and The Null crouched against the trunk with its eyes closed and its great jaw hanging open. The only sound was the soft counting of Constable Flap, who held Doctor Tau-Tau's wrist in his fingers and marked out his pulse like a whispering metronome.

Miles was just beginning to hope that the sleepwater had worked on The Null, when the creature's eyes snapped open and it let out a cackling howl that made Constable Wigge break cover and bolt for the safety of the van. It swung down from the branch and hung there for a moment, its great fangs bared and its wild black eyes staring down at Miles, who backed slowly away from the tree. The creature's
hollow eyes stared straight at him, and they seemed to suck in the last of the failing light. “Maybe,” thought Miles hopefully, “it remembers all those mornings I read to it from the newspaper.” He thought about all the gossip and tattle that filled the
Larde Weekly Herald
from cover to cover. “Maybe it's better if it doesn't,” he muttered to himself.

The Null let go of the branch and dropped to the ground, and the mossy earth jumped beneath Miles's feet. It leaped over the cowering constable and came toward Miles at a run. Time slowed, and Miles saw in sharp detail the swirling motion of its long black hair, the flaring nostrils and the red mouth open in a hideous grin. He felt rough bark at his back. From the corner of his eye he saw the open mouths and white faces of his friends, and he heard Sergeant Bramley shout “Halt in the name of the law!” from his hiding place in the bracken.

If you have ever found yourself backed against a tree with a nightmare charging at you like a hairy locomotive you have probably found yourself wishing, as Miles did, that something would happen in the nick of time to save you from a grisly end. A sudden flash flood. An intermission with popcorn. Sixteen stern nurses with folded arms. Miles, of
course, wished for a tiger, and so fervently did he do so that when he heard a rumbling growl from the undergrowth to his left he almost forgot to be surprised. The tiger burst from the bracken and crossed the clearing in a single leap, his great front paws landing with a double thud right in front of Miles and skidding in the loose leaves as he recovered his balance. The entire forest held its breath.

The tiger and the beast faced each other, no more than a tail's length apart, their labored breathing loud in the deathly stillness. They looked like two halves of a dream, black and gold, circling slowly in the dim clearing. The Null crept on its mighty knuckles, and the tiger moved as slowly as a rainy afternoon, low to the ground with his tail switching from side to side. Miles glanced across at where the search party crouched in the undergrowth. Little's eyes were fixed on the beast and the tiger. Lady Partridge was motioning frantically to Miles to get behind the tree, and Sergeant Bramley held a whistle to his pudgy lips, though he knew the only reinforcement was Constable Wigge, hiding in a van with nothing but a wheezy siren and one working headlight.

The Null stood upright and its hair rose until it looked twice its normal size, an inky shadow that
threatened to swallow everything around it. Even the flaming orange flanks of the tiger seemed to grow dull, as though he had moved from sunlight into cloud. The great cat looked suddenly tired, his ribs heaving and his baggy stomach swaying beneath him. The Null bared its yellow fangs and cackled, then in the space of a heartbeat it broke from the circle and leaped at Miles.

The sudden move took Miles by surprise, but the tiger reared up and took a swipe at the flying beast with his mighty paw. Miles threw himself sideways and felt The Null's straggling hair whip the backs of his legs as it collided with the tree trunk. The enraged beast's howl scattered the crows from the treetops. It spun around, clutching a bleeding shoulder, and found itself inches from the tiger, who had drawn himself up to his full height. The tiger seemed to make an enormous effort to meet The Null's desperate stare. The tiger bared his teeth, but to Miles's surprise he did not attack, but spoke to the gibbering beast instead.

“You have lost yourself,” he said, and his rich voice seemed to bring some of his strength back with it. The magnificent tiger took a deep breath, and the glow began to return to his flanks. His gaze grew steadier, and The Null seemed to deflate
before him. It turned to Miles, a haunted look in the black voids of its eyes. It was there one moment, then suddenly it was gone, bounding away through the trees and shedding its desolate cackle like a trail of shadows, with the mighty tiger on its tail and night falling softly through the trees like the curtain at the end of a play.

L
ady Partridge, dragon-wrapped and feather-crowned, sat in a high-backed cane chair on the lawn of Partridge Manor, beaming over a table set with a white cloth and a lavish breakfast served on fine bone china. The china was old and slightly chipped around the edges, like its owner, and was piled with eggs, bacon, sausages and mushrooms, fresh raspberries, and enough toast and marmalade to feed a small village. Miles and Little sat to her left, piling breakfast onto their plates as though they had not eaten for a month. The autumn sun shone on the lawn, and a fresh breeze tugged at their hair and flapped the corners of the tablecloth.

“I trust you slept well after all that excitement?” said Lady Partridge.

Little nodded, butter dripping from her chin.

“Not really,” said Miles. “It was nice to be back in my own bed, but I couldn't sleep for thinking about The Null.”

“I think you're quite safe from the poor beast for the moment. Our trusty policemen have continued the chase, and with luck they will track The Null down before any harm is done.” She looked at Miles with a curious expression. “What really interests me,” she said, “is how a tiger appeared from nowhere just in time to save your skin. I have never seen anything quite so astonishing, but I can't help feeling it came as less of a surprise to you.”

Miles felt his face flush. “I just hope they don't kill each other.”

“Or anyone else,” said Lady Partridge. “But who knows, they might have tired themselves out galumphing around the countryside and decided to sit down for a friendly chat. Pass the butter, Little, there's a dear.” She peered again at Miles over her glasses. “I could have sworn that tiger said a few words to The Null, though I may have imagined it in the heat of the moment.”

“The tiger is our friend,” said Little, “but Miles
doesn't like to talk about it.”

“I don't mind, really,” said Miles. “I suppose I never expected anyone to believe me.”

“With good reason, Miles dear,” said Lady Partridge. “It would certainly sound like a tall story if I hadn't been there myself. Isn't a tiger rather a dangerous sort of friend to have?”

“Maybe,” said Miles. “He can be quite frightening, but he has helped us out of a few tight spots, and he's had plenty of chances to eat us if he wanted to.”

“How on earth did he learn to talk?” asked Lady Partridge.

“I never asked him,” said Miles. “It would seem like a rude question. Anyway, you get used to it after a while.”

The conversation was interrupted by a small boy who ran up to Lady Partridge and tugged on the sleeve of her dressing gown. “What is it, Marcus?” she asked.

“Lady P., Baumella says that Mr. Tau-Tau is awake.”

“Is he indeed?” said Lady Partridge. “Well you run back in there, young man, and ask Baumella to escort Doctor Tau-Tau out here so that he may join us for breakfast.”

The boy stood where he was, looking up at Lady
Partridge's feathered hat.

“It means ‘bring,'” said Miles. “Ask Baumella to bring Doctor Tau-Tau here.”

“Quite so,” said Lady Partridge, and the small boy ran back across the lawn and disappeared around the corner of the mansion.

“Well,” said Lady Partridge. “Now perhaps we'll find out how this fellow managed to have himself hung from a tree by his trousers.”

“He does seem to have a knack for getting into trouble,” said Miles.

Doctor Tau-Tau appeared a moment later, and trod an unsteady path toward the breakfast table, the looming figure of Baumella the giantess gripping his shoulder firmly.

“Please join us, Doctor Tau-Tau,” said Lady Partridge. The fortune-teller slumped into a chair at the end of the table. His face was closer to peppermint green than its usual brick red. Lady Partridge fixed him with a stern gaze. “We haven't been properly introduced, since you were suspended from a tree when we met,” she said. “I am Lady Partridge, and you are a guest in my house. You've been unconscious for some twelve hours, but I trust a little breakfast might help revive you.”

“Much obliged, Lady Parfait. I am . . . Doctor
Tau-Tau,” said Tau-Tau, straightening his fez. “Or did you just tell me that?” He picked up his fork and speared a sausage on his third attempt.

“We were just discussing how a person might find himself hung in a tree by an unidentifiable beast, when he was last seen taking to his bed with a headache,” said Lady Partridge politely, pouring tea into his cup.

“I was called from my sockbed on urgent business,” said Tau-Tau. “My bicksed. My sickbed. Are those eggs?”

“Please pass Doctor Tau-Tau an egg,” said Lady Partridge to Little.

“In any case,” said Tau-Tau through a mouthful of sausage, “I am a renowned clairvoyant. I think.” His forehead wrinkled. “Yes, that's me. Doctor Tau-Tau. I'm often called on urgent business, and I have a perfect right to be escaping through the woods.”

“Escaping?” echoed Miles. “What were you escaping from?”

“Who said I was escaping?” said Doctor Tau-Tau, washing down his food with a gulp of tea.

“You did,” said Little. “Your second sight must be very clear if you knew The Null was on its way. You probably even know why it was heading for the circus.”

“It's a fr-freak. I mean a curiosity. The circus is its home,” said Doctor Tau-Tau, looking at Little as though trying to remember who she was. “Its home,” he added, “is the circus.”

“And why, one wonders, did you not want to be there when it arrived?” asked Lady Partridge.

“I would have thought that was obvious!” said Tau-Tau. “It would have had me for supper if I hadn't overpowered it with my sleepwater. It takes a potionful power to make a monster like that. A powerful potion. And a great degree of skill to subdue it.” He looked over his shoulder at the bright lawn and the children clambering around in the tree house. “I hope you've got the beast under lock and key again.”

“Unfortunately not. Your sleepwater seemed to be a tonic to the creature, and it was last seen cantering away through the woods without so much as a stifled yawn,” said Lady Partridge.

“Your sleepwater
is
very strong,” said Little. “I know, I was given it once and I slept for a day and a half. Still,” she said, mopping egg yolk from her plate with a piece of toast and looking at Tau-Tau with her clear blue eyes, “the potion that made The Null what it is must have been much stronger. Perhaps the person who made
that
potion could
teach you how to make a better sleepwater.”

Doctor Tau-Tau plonked his cup back in its saucer with a rattle. “Sleepwater is designed to be injeedled. I mean injected. With a needle. It's ten times more potent when it's used properly. And besides, there's no one else alive who could make a brute like that, nor was there ever.” His chest inflated like a balloon. “Only Doctor Tau-Tau has the knowledge to make a potion that can transform a hell into a man from baboon! I mean a man into a baboon from hell!”

“
You
made The Null?” said Miles in astonishment.

“How extraordinary!” said Lady Partridge. “So the poor creature really was once a man?”

The fortune-teller looked from one face to another. The red was returning to his cheeks, but his face still wore a puzzled frown. “Doctor Tau-Tau,” he muttered. “That
is
me, isn't it?”

“I think you should tell us more about this creature,” said Lady Partridge. “It may help us to find it. Perhaps we may even find a cure someday. With your help, of course.”

A hunted look came over the fortune-teller's face. “I don't think so,” he said. “It was a long time ago. I don't remember so well. I think I need to lie down.”

“A long rest will undoubtedly do you good,” said Lady Partridge, “but we do urgently need to find out more about this beast before it can do any more damage. Perhaps another cup of tea might perk you up enough to tell us more before you go for your sleep.”

Little poured more tea for Doctor Tau-Tau, who shifted uncomfortably under Lady Partridge's steady gaze. His hand shook as he lifted the teacup to his lips. “A skill such as mine involves a certain amount of risk,” he said. “In my work I use powers that would terrify the average man out of his wits. When I joined the Circus—the Circus Whatsisname—I still had much to learn, but it wasn't long before my skills were tested to their limits. The Great Cortado was angry. He had lost a popular fortune-teller in Celeste. His perform wouldn't tiger . . . his tiger wouldn't perform, not without Bumble. Fumble. Barty Fumble.” Doctor Tau-Tau mopped his brow with a table napkin. “Where was I?” he asked.

“The tiger wouldn't perform,” said Little.

“You know this story already?” said Tau-Tau.

“You were just telling us,” said Miles. He had heard this story before, deep under the ground in the caves of the Fir Bolg, but it seemed that Doctor
Tau-Tau had more to tell.

“Of course,” said Doctor Tau-Tau. He frowned for a minute, then continued. “The Great Cortado called me into his trailer one night and asked me how much Celeste had taught me about the healing of the mind. I told him the extent of my talent, and that I was making a detailed study of Celeste's notebooks. He cut me short and demanded that I restore Bumble Fumble to his wits at once. He had a whottle of biskey in his hand, and his blunderbuss lay across his lap. He threatened to shoot me there and then if I refused.”

Doctor Tau-Tau began to slice a sausage carefully on his plate. “It's not easy to work under such a threat, and I may have exaggerated my skills slightly. Celeste had allowed no one to see her notebooks while she lived, and I was only beginning to try to decipher them. It was tricky work, and mistakes were inevitable. With no time to make a detailed study I prepared a . . . a remedy from bitter herbs and rare ingredients that I found in her wagon, following Celeste's notes as best I could. I took the remedy in to Bumble Fumble, who sat in a darkened wagon staring out of the window as he had since . . . since whatever it was had made him like that.”

Miles stared at Doctor Tau-Tau as he spoke. A feeling of dread was rising up from the soles of his feet, making the fortune-teller's words slippery and hard to grasp. He felt Little's hand on his, and he realized he was gripping the tablecloth tightly. Doctor Tau-Tau rambled on, his poppy eyes concentrating on his sausage.

“Of course, I didn't realize the full power of those ingredients when prepared by a master healer such as myself. The remedy was supposed to lift the spirits of the desolate, but I must have misread the quantities of some key ingredients. The light was bad, of course, and the handwriting . . .”

“What happened?” said Miles. His voice was little more than a whisper.

Doctor Tau-Tau looked up, and for the first time he seemed to realize what he was saying. “Ah yes . . . m-most unfortunate,” he stammered. “The remedy was a hundred times too strong. Or was it a thousand? It drove the man mad with unbearable joy. He leaped from his chair and bounced around the wagon like a ball bearing in a pinball machine. Broke some fine pieces that Celeste had . . . but never mind. Where was I? Ah yes. Fumble. He was crazed with delight. He bellowed with laughter and embraced me so tightly that he nearly broke my
ribs. I was afraid the Great Cortado would hear the commotion and judge this spectacular remedy a failure. It hadn't yet reached its full potential either, as Bumble had fallen to the floor and was rolling with hysteria.

“I knew that I had to make things right and quickly, so I locked him in and ran to my own wagon as fast as I could. I rifled through Celeste's notebooks in a desperate search for oaty-dants to the herbs I had used. Antidotes, I mean. I looked out of the window and I could see Cortado weaving through the darkness with his gun. I made the best mixture I could improvise and ran back to Barty's wagon, shaking the bottle as I went.”

Lady Partridge cleared her throat. “Perhaps it would be better not to hear the gory details. I take it that the antidote was not a success.”

Doctor Tau-Tau nodded, avoiding Miles's eye. “Alas, no,” he said. “No one should have to work under that sort of pressure of course, especially—”

“I want to know,” said Miles, “exactly what happened.”

“Are you sure, my dear?” asked Lady Partridge. Miles bit his lip and nodded.

“There's not much to tell,” said Tau-Tau. “The ingredients I used were correct, of course, but the
mixture had never been tried, and I wanted to be sure it was powerful enough to counteract the initial reddy-me . . . remedy. I managed to pour some of the antidote into his mouth as he laughed hysterically, and it seemed to work. He calmed down at once, but unfortunately it did not stop there. His mood darkened by the second, and he became morose and then enraged.”

Doctor Tau-Tau seemed lost for a moment in unpleasant memories. He picked up the salt and shook some into his tea. Miles stared at the pop-eyed fortune-teller. His chest felt tight, as though The Null had him in a stranglehold once again. He found it hard to breathe.

“Barty . . . Fumble's skin mottled and began to turn black,” said Doctor Tau-Tau in a whisper. “His beard seemed to expand as I watched. His unbearable happiness was gone forever, and everything else went with it. He began to cackle then, a nightmare laugh unlike any sound a man ever made. I could see the light leaving his eyes, and a morning funster . . . a monster forming before me. I could see my reputation suffering unfairly. I saw the Great Cortado at the door with his blunderbuss raised. He fired a blast of the gun, but he was so drunk that he missed me entirely, and shattered the window
instead. I pushed past him and out into the night. The little man had lost all perspective, and I had to flee for my life. I had no time to pack anything, not my clothes, not my herbs, not even Celeste's precious notebooks.”