Frail Human Heart Page 9

  “Maybe you should take Hikaru,” Jack suggested. “For backup. He’s got lightning – that’s at least as good as a katana.”

  “I’d rather know Hikaru’s here looking out for you if something nasty slithers into this cave while I’m down there.”

  Before anyone could argue, I swung myself into the hole. The rungs felt solid under my weight, but I bounced and tugged a little to be sure. The walls were completely smooth to the touch and offered no grip for climbing. I’d just have to hope that the “ladder” went all the way to the bottom of the shaft.

  “Be careful,” my dad said, leaning over the opening as I started down.

  “Shout if you need help,” Jack added.

  After a few rungs the light faded away and I was reaching for and finding each new rung by feel. Jack wouldn’t like this. With my next step, I found my foot dangling in what felt like empty space. I lowered my other leg and let both feet kick out, feeling for toe-holds. Nothing. The shaft had either ended or opened out. In any case, there were no more rungs for my feet. Using just my arms, I lowered myself down the last few rungs until I was hanging from the final one. Arm muscles straining now, I kicked out again. My feet still found nothing. I peered downwards, but all I could see was darkness.

  I would be mad to try to go any further when I couldn’t even see what awaited me. It could be a hundred-foot drop onto metal spikes. It could be water filled with man-eating sharks. It could be an endless black hole.

  My dad yelled from above, his voice echoing tinnily. “Are you at the bottom yet? What can you see?”

  “Not sure. Hang on!” I shouted up, my brain working rapidly.

  If I climbed back up and admitted what I’d found, they’d never let me go down there. But this was the only way forward into the realm of dreams, which meant the only other option was to go back. Back through the crevice, back into the punt, back to Mr Leech. Game over. That was not an acceptable outcome.

  I counted to three, then let myself drop.

  I fell in darkness for a heartbeat. Then light flooded my eyes and I landed lightly in a half-crouch. There was solid sandy rock beneath my feet, and when I looked up, the bottom of the hole was little more than three or four feet overhead. There had never been any danger at all. I had a strange sensation, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Disappointment.

  Wow, I’m even more messed up than I knew…

  I mentally slapped myself and began to examine my surroundings. It was a low-roofed space at the end of what seemed to be a sea cave. The walls were covered in small bluish shells like barnacles, and there were streaks of that green sea slime everywhere. The cave opened up ahead and beyond that—

  “Mio?!” Dad’s voice echoed down the shaft, fainter than ever. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m at the bottom! It’s a short climb and then a really short drop at the end. You can come down.”

  I quickly moved out of the way so that no one would land on my head, then kept walking until I had enough room to stand upright and stare out at what awaited us.

  This wasn’t underground any more. But it wasn’t exactly outdoors, either. In fact, I had no idea what it was, except that we had clearly left London Under London behind.

  Ahead there lay a seemingly endless expanse of water – maybe even a sea. Motionless and glossy, black as oil, the water was interrupted by a short path of white stepping stones that started practically at my feet. At the end of the path, a structure thrust out of the liquid in sharp spears, like diamonds glittering in the light: a white palace floating on a dark ocean. An iceberg, or a glacier. And beyond and above that, a sky that wasn’t a sky at all but water: vivid turquoise, rippling and shifting constantly.

  “Hooooly crap…” Jack whispered behind me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s time to start looking out for the flying monkeys.”

  Wordlessly, we all trooped out of the cave. I was careful not to look too closely at the dark water as I hopped onto the first stone – an ocean that still and dark probably had something nasty hiding in it. Knowing my luck, anyway.

  The stepping stones led to an opening in the side of one of the glittering iceberg’s white walls − a long, narrow split that started high up as nothing more than a blue line in the ice and gradually widened out until it was around the same width as a normal door.

  “Geronimo?” Hikaru asked as we made for it.

  I managed a quick smile for him. “Save it for a special occasion.”

  Jack quickly nipped in front of me and Dad pushed in to my left, and we entered the iceberg all bunched together. The tunnel beyond was wide and low. My dad’s head nearly brushed the ceiling, but there was room for us all to walk side by side.

  The quality of the ice around us was strange: glass-like and highly reflective, it formed extravagant eddies and bulges and whorls, like a raging river that had been frozen solid in an instant. The ice glowed, lit from within by a deep sapphire radiance.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jack said.

  Itssssss beautifulllll ittttttsssss beautifffffffullll itsss itsss sssssss…

  Her words echoed up and down the glowing ice corridor in a sibilant rush, as if the frozen river had stolen them to give its unmoving currents a voice again. Our reflections warped and flowed around us as we walked − blurred ghosts jumping and jerking through the frozen water. As the tunnel curved to the right, something – some alien flicker of movement – made my gaze snap to the right.

  A face stared out of the ice at me.

  “Ojiichan?”

  I barely whispered the word. But the frozen river seized the breath as it left my lips and rolled it up and around the walls and ceiling, the way a kid rolls a sweet around and around its mouth and over its tongue. The face faded back into the ice.

  Behind me, Hikaru jerked. “Did you see that?”

  Sssssseee see see thaaaa seeeeeeethaaaaseeeeeseeseee…

  “See – what is that?” Jack spun around, staring at the ceiling. Her face was stricken.

  Seeseseeeeeesssse whaaaaa isssssssss thatttttttttt…

  The echoes of our voices blended together, rushing through the corridor like water. We all staggered, buffeted by waves of sound that had somehow become more than sound. My dad made a slashing motion across his throat and held his finger to his lips. Be silent!

  Jack and Hikaru froze, fixing their eyes on him. I slapped a hand over my mouth to hold in any further noises – and the faint sound of my palm hitting my skin echoed through the corridor like a gunshot. Dad jumped and whipped round to stare at the ice behind him. He fell back, and I saw his lips move. “It can’t be…”

  Caaaaaantbeeeeeeeebeebeeee beeeeeee…

  I reached out to him, unable to keep silent. “Dad?”

  Dddaaaaaadadddaaaadaaaaaadaaaaaaaa…

  It wasn’t my voice any more. There were other voices now – strange, weeping, mad voices, wailing voices, voices no human should have to hear. A woman stirred in the ice-glass wall beside me. She had red hair, blue eyes and a friendly smile. Blood dripped in thick clotting rivulets from a gaping hole in her neck. Sssaaaave mmmmmeeeeee…

  Tooooo llllaaate… A homeless old man slumped to the ground in front of me, clutching at the terrible wound in his chest. His other hand groped for me, fingers warping the ice.

  Ojiichan’s face glared at me from the ceiling, angry and disappointed. Seeeecret Mmmmmio! Proooomisssssecretttt…

  The reflections were everywhere − doubling, tripling as faces loomed out of the glowing blue walls, ceiling, even the floor. The voices rose like a tsunami until they were deafening, unbearable. I clapped my hands over my ears, trying to block them out – but they wormed into my ears and my head.

  Miomiomiomio… Shinobu walked towards me through the ice, robes and hair rippling around him, bringing a tide of darkness into the corridor like storm clouds blotting out the sun. His dead, white face shone in the shadows, and his eyes were black holes of anguish. Mmiiooo Mio why why whywhywhyMioooo…
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  “No!” I screamed. The sound echoed back to me, piercing my eardrums like needles. I couldn’t see or hear Jack or Hikaru or my father. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. I was on my knees, drowning in the faces and voices of everyone I’d failed. I was going mad.

  Then I heard singing.

  It was a deep, powerful voice belting out the unmistakable lyrics to one of Lady Gaga’s greatest hits. I know that voice. I know it… Jack? Jack.

  I squeezed my eyes closed, hiding from the terrible images in the ice, and turned my head blindly, seeking the direction of the singing. Slowly, falteringly, I crawled towards the sound of Jack’s voice. The skin of my hands burned as I scrabbled across the ice. I hit a wall with my shoulder and bounced off, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. The tunnel still echoed painfully with an overwhelming wail of pleading, accusing, dying voices. But none of the echoes had the warm, living vibrancy of Jack’s voice – they weren’t real, and they couldn’t fool me while she was singing.

  My voice shaky and thin, I began to join in. My higher-pitched voice provided a counterpoint to Jack’s. The echoes around us became less distinct, less distracting, as a third voice – a light tenor that had to be Hikaru’s – chimed in, too.

  My groping hand found the rounded toe of a Doc Marten boot. Eyes still firmly shut, I climbed one of Jack’s long legs, grasping handfuls of her coat to help me get upright. Jack’s hands steadied me, and then one arm linked through mine, and Jack’s voice got even louder.

  My dad was singing now, too – humming and mumbling most of the words, but providing plenty of noise in his deep baritone. A hand suddenly closed around my wrist, clutching hard enough to bruise. Not my dad’s hand. It must be Hikaru’s; yes, his voice was right there, as close to me as Jack’s. I managed to get hold of his arm. I wanted to call out to my dad, but the song was working and I didn’t dare break whatever spell it was that was keeping the madness at bay.

  Come on, Dad, come on…

  I could hear his voice getting slowly closer. He was hitting more of the words now as he picked up the lyrics. Closer. Closer. Hikaru let out a little hiccup, as if someone had walked into him. Then fingers latched onto the back of my shoulder, winding into the leather strap of the sword’s harness.

  We were all together again.

  Slowly, stumbling and hesitating, we began to move forward. Was it forward? Maybe it was back the way we’d come. There was no way of telling, and right then I didn’t care. I just wanted out. We hit a wall again, adjusted, still hanging onto each other desperately, still singing at the top of our lungs, and shuffled on.

  It took three more full repeats of Lady Gaga – complete with whoooa oohs and la la las – before we finally fell out of the ice tunnel. The echoing phantom voices cut off so suddenly that the quiet seemed to punch my ears. Jack’s slightly hoarse voice went silent with a sigh. The rest of us slowly trailed off around her. We stood, still holding one another, our heads bowed close together, panting.

  “I just might get that song tattooed on my butt,” Jack said finally.

  My dad let out a strangled bark of laughter. “I wouldn’t tell Beatrice about that plan if I were you.”

  I forced myself to let go of Jack’s arm before collapsing down onto the ground. The others followed suit.

  “What was that?” Hikaru asked soberly.

  “One of those tests Ebisu talked about, I guess,” I said, not wanting to get into discussions of what any of us had heard or seen. “Which we’d have flunked completely if it hadn’t been for Jack.”

  “Yeah, you crazy genius,” Hikaru said. “How did you know that would work?”

  “I didn’t, really,” she confessed. “I just remembered a song from when I was a kid − about how when you’re afraid you should whistle a happy tune? I can’t whistle, so I sang.”

  My dad shook his head in disbelief, then reached across and ruffled Jack’s multicoloured hair affectionately with one hand. “We’re incredibly lucky you were with us.”

  “Aw, shucks, Mister,” she said, her grin tinged with shyness.

  CHAPTER 10

  SEAFOOD SURPRISE

  We sat at one end of a bridge beneath a huge dome that reached its rounded apex at least a hundred feet overhead. The dome was constructed of translucent panes of what I guessed must be ice, coloured in every shade of blue, green, turquoise, jade and purple. The panes had been fitted together to form stylized shapes: stars, moons, galaxies, strange planets. At the very top of the dome was a sun, with thin, waving amber rays radiating out from its golden centre.

  The bottom of the dome – which was about the size of a football field – was flooded. The water was as clear as uncoloured glass at the surface, but it went down, down, down, gradually deepening to an opaque blue that seemed bottomless. The thin bridge, made of pure white ice, stretched across the pool, from where we were sitting to the other side of the dome, where there was an opening in the wall that I assumed led deeper into the iceberg. The bridge was exquisitely carved in lacy fairytale arches that made it look like a sugar decoration from the top of a princess’s wedding cake, and supported by four thin columns which plunged down into the clear water, getting thinner as they went. By the time they disappeared from sight, none of them looked any thicker than my wrist.

  And the air was full of fish.

  They swam soundlessly through the coloured well of light above the bridge. Glittering shoals of tiny silver minnows darted and danced between the mantles of graceful manta rays, fat golden fish with drifting fins like angel-wings and the sinuous green-gold ribbons of eels. The only creatures that were in the water, as far as I could see, were tiny jellyfish. About the size of a fifty-pence piece and almost completely see-through, they looked like bubbles of cellophane decorated with fine orange or pink spots and short, delicate streamers in the same shade.

  “I need a new word for ‘wow’,” Jack announced. “It’s starting to sound repetitive.”

  Hikaru stared at the ice bridge dubiously. “How about ‘yikes’? That thing doesn’t look like it can take much weight, and I had a big breakfast.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go into that tunnel again if you paid me a million quid. And Ebisu told us to keep moving forward. So it looks like we’re chancing it.” I got to my feet.

  The ice bridge was steady under my weight, but no wider than both my feet if I stood with them together. That meant I had to walk like a model on the catwalk, placing each step precisely. I don’t think I could have managed to stay upright on it if the ice had been slippery, but there was a fine coating of crunchy frost that seemed to offer some grip. After about a metre I stopped and waved the others on after me. Soon we were all strung out along the bridge, leaving cautious spaces between us, just in case.

  Flooding down out of the glowing coloured lights of the dome, a cloud of silver fish broke around me, brushing curiously through my hair and tickling my face and hands with their delicate fins. Jack made an incredulous, nervous noise. When I glanced back, I saw a manta ray circling her in a tight corkscrew spiral, begging to be stroked, just like the weasels earlier.

  A low, mournful call filled the air and a large shadow glided overhead, staring at us with curious, wise eyes as its massive tail waved gently in the air. I knew it was some kind of whale, but I didn’t recognize the sleek grey shape until my father whispered, “A humpback…”

  Meanwhile, at the back of the line, Hikaru was trying to fend off a couple of mischievous eels that were nibbling on his long burnished-copper hair.

  In the middle of all this I might have missed the splash if a fine spray of water hadn’t blown into my face. We were only about three feet above the pool at that point on the bridge, and when I looked down I saw the jellyfish dancing in agitated patterns below, and the water rippling. I came to a halt, raising my hand to stop the others.

  “Something wrong?” my father asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  There were drops of water on the bridge ahead of me. Something must have come
out of the water just now. Had it swum overhead? The drops of water grew and spread into puddles as I watched. An almost imperceptible shiver travelled through the largest puddle.

  The curious fish, even the whale, had fled up into the dome above us.

  “Back up,” I said, keeping my voice steady and soft with an effort. “Slowly.”

  “Why—?” Hikaru began.

  “Just do it,” my father ordered.

  I took a cautious step back, then another, feeling behind me for the bridge with my feet. My hand crept upwards, longing to touch the hilt of the katana. There was no warning buzz from the blade, but I hadn’t expected one. I knew I was right. We were in danger.

  There was a shift in the light ahead of me – a movement somehow beneath the view of the bridge and the far wall of the dome. I froze, struggling to track the distance and size of … whatever it was. My fingers gently brushed the silk wrappings of my sword’s grip.

  Something else moved. I looked down to see a fat tentacle, the exact same silver-ice shade as the bridge, curling around my boot. The moment the suckers made contact with the leather, dark streaks began to form across the tentacle. Leather-coloured streaks.

  I sucked in a panicked breath. “Shi—”

  The tentacle pulled. I flew off the bridge.

  The icy water hit me like a concrete slab. Breath erupted from my lungs in a cloud of bubbles. My eyes and nostrils burned. Jellyfish scattered around me as I flailed, breaking the surface.

  “Mio!” My dad was kneeling on the bridge, staring down at me, with Hikaru and Jack behind him. Their faces bore identical WTF expressions. “What happened?”

  “Squid!” I managed to choke out. “Giant squid!”

  Something slapped against my back with a faint sucking noise.

  The katana!

  My hand clamped onto the hilt. A slimy tentacle coiled around my fist and yanked, dragging me down under the water again.