The cage jolted as something prodded the bars on one side.
‘There!’ Barda whispered. But almost immediately there was a second jolt, this time from the other side.
‘It moves swiftly,’ Glock growled. ‘We will have to separate. I will—’
‘No!’ Jasmine’s voice was very quiet. But something in her flat, even tone sent a cold trickle of fear down Lief’s spine. He heard her take a deep breath.
‘I think—’ she began.
But she never finished what she had been about to say, for at that moment red light began to gleam from the cavern walls. And as the light grew brighter, the companions saw The Fear.
Lief heard Glock cursing under his breath, saw Jasmine’s eyes darken, felt Barda’s body stiffen, fought his own terror.
The Fear was not on one side of the cage or the other. It was not above them, or below them.
It was everywhere.
Gigantic tentacles like the twisting trunks of vast trees filled the cavern from wall to wall, from floor to roof. The cage suddenly seemed tiny—dwarfed by the great mottled coils that wound above and around it.
At the end of every tentacle wriggled bundles of slimy white threads tipped with vicious hooks. Some of these were already sliding delicately through the bars of the cage. Others were slithering like worms over the dripping cavern walls as the tentacles from which they grew writhed into position.
And on the far wall of the cavern, visible only in glimpses as the tentacles moved, was the heart of the horror. A bloated mountain of slimy, billowing flesh hulked there, overflowing from a shell so ancient, so thick and crusted, that it seemed part of the rock itself.
The creature’s tiny eyes were invisible. Its hideous hooked beak gaped greedily as its tentacles explored its domain. Perhaps it had already realised that the cage was empty. But it could sense that prey was near.
It was in no hurry. It knew there was no escape.
‘The plan!’ muttered Glock. ‘What are we to—’
Lief felt an insane urge to laugh. Plan? The plan was a joke. The plan had been based on knowledge that was so out of date as to be worse than ignorance.
That carving on the panel—how long ago had it been made? Two hundred years? Five hundred? More?
Why had they not expected this? For centuries, The Fear had been left unchallenged. It had been unseen, even by its victims. It had been known only by its terrible cries, and the waves with which it flooded the land.
And in the darkness, it had grown.
Lief became aware that Glock had crawled to his feet, and was lumbering towards the nearest coiled tentacle, his sword raised high above his head.
‘Glock! No—’ roared Barda.
But he was too late. With a savage shout, Glock brought the sword down with all his strength. The mighty blade struck the tentacle with the sound of an axe on stone—and snapped in two.
17 - Nightmare
Glock stared, stunned, at his broken sword. He seemed unable to believe what had happened. He did not react to the rasping growl that echoed around the cavern. He did not move as the bruised tentacle shifted.
‘Glock! Beware!’ Jasmine screamed.
The tip of the tentacle lashed upward, striking like a snake. Slimy white threads caught Glock around the neck, the hooks burying themselves deep in his flesh. He fell to his knees, screaming in agony. In an instant the tentacle had whipped around his body, and he was being lifted into the air.
Jasmine darted forward.
‘No, Jasmine!’ shouted Lief.
But Jasmine either did not, or would not, hear. With Kree shrieking above her head, she leaped to the rising tentacle as once she had leaped from tree to tree in the Forests of Silence. She clung motionless for a moment, then, thrusting her dagger between her teeth, she began to climb, her fingers digging into the hard, slimy surface.
‘Your dagger will be useless against it, Jasmine!’ cried Barda. ‘Glock is lost. Save yourself!’
But Jasmine had already reached Glock’s limp body and was climbing over it, to the tentacle’s tip. The tip was bent, the white threads stretched taut as they kept their strangling, stinging hold around the groaning man’s neck.
Jasmine snatched her dagger from her mouth and slashed at the roots of the white threads. One by one the threads fell away, thick, green liquid bubbling from the ragged wounds.
The Fear bellowed in rage. The injured tentacle writhed. Its grip on Glock loosened and he fell like a stone. Jasmine jumped after him, shouting to Kree.
Rigid with horror, Barda and Lief looked down. They caught sight of Jasmine’s dark head break clear of the water, saw her stagger upright among the heaving mottled coils of the beast. She was dragging Glock by the shoulders, holding his head out of the water.
Shrieking, Kree swooped at the tip of the injured tentacle, stabbing at it, darting aside as it lunged for him. He could not hope to save Jasmine. All he could do was try to distract the beast, and give her time to save herself.
Did Glock still live? Lief could not tell. But his heart seemed to rise to his throat as he saw a jagged slash of silver in the churning water.
Glock’s huge hand still gripped his sword as though, alive or dead, he would never let it go.
The Fear’s terrible, ear-splitting roars echoed around the cavern. It thrashed the water, and Glock and Jasmine disappeared in a whirlpool of foam. Great waves swelled and rushed towards the cavern entrance, and into Lief’s mind flashed a picture of the Plumes waiting on the shore.
The tentacles around the cage tightened and the bars cracked like twigs. The tentacles above Lief and Barda began uncoiling and writhing downwards, their pale undersides ribbed like the belly of a snake.
The light flickered, and went out.
‘Jump!’ Barda roared.
Lief leaped for his life as the cage collapsed beneath him. He hit the foaming water and went under. He tumbled helplessly in the deathly chill, his mouth and nose filled with the taste and smell of the beast. Splinters from the shattered cage and the bones of long-dead victims of The Fear swirled with him in the stinking froth.
His right shoulder slammed against something solid, and agonising pain jolted down his arm. Blindly he reached out with the other hand, felt rock under his fingers and managed to haul himself to his feet.
He had been swept against the cavern wall. Shivering and panting, water foaming to his waist, he clung to the rock. His eyes were tightly closed, but slowly he became aware of wavering light against his eyelids. Somehow, as waves pounded their island, a little band of Plumes had managed to summon up their power once more.
Lief forced his stinging eyes open and, through a flickering red haze, saw a scene of nightmare.
Vast, thrashing tentacles filled the cavern. The water heaved and boiled with their writhing. One of the tentacles, the one Jasmine had attacked, twisted more wildly than the rest, its blunted tip jerking horribly, spattering the walls and roof with thick blobs of slimy green.
Lief shrank back, and only then realised that he was clutching a thick rock shelf that jutted from the cavern wall at water level.
Slowly, painfully, he hauled himself onto the ledge. He crawled to his feet, flattened himself against the rock and began searching desperately for some sign of Jasmine, Barda or Kree.
But he could see nothing. Nothing but the coiling tentacles, quietening now, beginning to search more patiently, more thoroughly. The threads at the tips of the nine uninjured arms wriggled, stretched and pulsed like hideous worms as they probed the rocky walls, combed the dark red water. Seeking, seeking…
How many crushed, drowned bodies were drifting just below that scum-covered surface, waiting to be found? Was Glock there? Barda? Jasmine?
Lief closed his eyes, fighting down the despair that threatened to engulf him. He tried to block everything from his mind but the need to survive. Cautiously, wincing with pain, he moved his injured arm.