They reached the cloud ceiling and stilled, gaining their breath. “After you.” Arnie said.
“No, after you. From now on I want to see where your hands — I mean wings — are at all times.”
But when Arnie took the lead he began to tire. Skylark was alarmed to see that he was operating mainly on one wing. He was going so slowly she was soon overflying him.
“I’ll play leader,” she said in the end. It would be easier for Arnie to cruise in her slipstream.
The journey through the clouds was like going through candyfloss. Wisps of it kept breaking across Skylark like a dream. When she penetrated the upper atmosphere the sky was azure blue, beautiful, with tall cloud pillars like castles. But Arnie was lagging far behind and — oh no — the poultice had fallen off, and blood was streaming from his wing.
Desperate, Skylark searched the air and saw that a stratospheric windstream was pouring from the south, a river of cold wind which had come up from Antarctica. She sped back to Arnie and pointed it out to him. “There’s our train,” she yelled. Once Arnie was in it, all he’d have to do was open his wings and glide.
“Great.” Arnie nodded with relief. It wasn’t just his wounds that were worrying him. Although the sun was still in the sky, the heat was going off the air and the edges of the cloud cover below were turning crimson. Time too was ticking by. They’d make their rendezvous with the Time Portal only by the skin of their teeth. But where was it?
“There it is!” Skylark cried.
Hanging on the horizon was the Southern Cross. Right in the middle of it was a dark plughole, studded with gem stars. The stars were winking as if the Time Portal was already on a countdown to zero.
“We’d better hurry,” Arnie said. Although he was flying on his reserves, the sight of the Time Portal gave him renewed energy. However, rather than let Skylark take the lead again, he surged ahead, sensed what he thought felt like a short cut warming his underwings, and crossed into it. “Oh no,” he groaned. It was a cross-thermal, like a rip, and it began to pull him away from the stratospheric windstream.
Skylark flew quickly after him and recognised the danger. “What’s happening, Arnie?”
The air was shimmering. The atmosphere was heating up. “There’s a rogue thermal cooking,” he said. “We’re right in the middle of it. We have to get out of it quick, otherwise we’ll miss that ride home.”
It was too late. With a sudden whoosh, the air around them erupted into rising columns of heat. Arnie tried to stabilise himself but his left wing wasn’t up to it and he began to spin away in a giddying ascent.
“Arnie!” Skylark screamed. She soared after him, reached — and locked claws. “Hang on!”
Hydraulic elevator winds exploded all around them. There was nothing else for Skylark to do except maintain her own wing configuration for both herself and Arnie — wingtips upthrust for balance and steerage — and ride with him to the top floor. Sometimes she just couldn’t maintain her trim and they would tumble and twirl out of control, the winds trying to tear them apart. But despite the bone-jarring effort, Skylark held on to Arnie for dear life. She knew if she let go he’d be swept one way and she the other, and how would they find each other again?
Not only were they going higher, they were also ascending into a world of ever-increasing blackness. Soon they reached the realm that lay above the sky. A few seconds later they had gone beyond the stars. Suspended above an inky universe, they were swept into the belly of the Primal Night. The light blinked out completely.
When the elevator stopped, Skylark’s heart was thundering in her ears. Everything was so pitch black. She couldn’t even see Arnie. But she could hear him whimpering as he clung to her: “Skylark? Where’s the button that will make the elevator take us back? I don’t even want to know where we are —”
Arnie was going out of his mind with terror. He stared wide-eyed into that black universe and began to sob.
“What’s wrong, Arnie?”
“The darkness,” Arnie whispered. “Have I ever told you that I’ve always hated the dark? My foster parents used to throw me into a cupboard and lock the door and —”
“Sssh now,” Skylark soothed. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything harm you.”
But Arnie was rigid and sweating with fright.
“I can hear things moving around us,” he whimpered. “They’ve come to get us. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear them?”
Indeed, Skylark could hear the sliding, the hissing, the scraping as things with scales slid closer and closer. Quickly, she fumbled among her feathers, found her prize, and struck it. The match flared, a glowing light of comfort. The darkness erupted with screams as creatures with thousands of blind eyes shrank away from the light. When they screamed, Skylark screamed too. But Arnie began to gibber with gladness.
“Skylark! You brought the matchbox!”
“No, but I’ve got six matches. They’re under my wings. So hold on tight, Arnie, because I’m getting us out of here — and quick.”
Holding the match in her beak, Skylark closed her wings and hoped that gravity worked here. How could you tell with all this blackness? As she descended, she pulled Arnie down with her. His imagination was still working overtime. When the match went out, he gave a moan of horror and clung to her like a drowning man.
“I dreaded being put into the cupboard,” he said. “I used to yell and cry but nobody came to get me out. And then spiders, snakes and scorpions came to crawl all over me —”
“Sssh,” Skylark soothed. All around her the whispering had started. The blindworms were talking to each other. What are these two birds doing here? This is not their domain. Are you hungry, my sisters? When was the last time we ate, my brothers? Oh, let us keep them here with us. Grab them while they are unaware. Do it now.
Skylark struck the second match.
“They’re all around us,” Arnie screamed.
“Coming through,” Skylark roared. Down and down she pulled him, slashing out at the thousands and thousands of blindworms with their opaque shining eyes. The second match winked out. The creatures made a rush at them, and again Arnie started to blubber.
With quivering hands, Skylark lit the third match. Arnie had grabbed her around the neck and his tight hold was strangling her. “Arnie! Arnie —”
“We’re never going to get out of here, never. We’ll be lost in the dark forever.”
They were still descending, but there were no lights anywhere below them. And the creatures in the darkness were bolder now, coming closer, sliding after them, crowding in, taking away the air.
“Get back! Get back.” Skylark yelled.
A few seconds later, she struck the fourth match. Then the fifth.
One of the blindworms came close, pursed its scabrous lips and blew it out.
Now’s our chance. Attack, my brothers. Ambush them, my sisters. Cover them, weigh them down, go into all their openings and eat them from the inside. Quick.
“One more match to go,” Skylark said. She stopped herself from saying aloud the obvious next question: “And when it goes out, what then?” Instead she started to sing:
“Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for soothing the blood,
So follow me, follow, down to the hollow, and there let us wallow
In glorious mud.”
It was such a silly song and Arnie couldn’t understand. “How can you sing at a time like this?”
Then he saw stars below.
“We’ve made it, Skylark!” Arnie yelped. “We’ve made it!”
The blindworms gave a loud scream of anger. Grab them. Pull them back. Don’t let them get away. Shuddering, Skylark fought her way through them and plummeted down, dragging Arnie with her.