Deep Amber (6 page)

“So… which way, do you think?” said Jem, pointing to the fork. To their right, the path broadened and became flatter and straighter. To the left, it wound further into the trees, like a narrow dark river.

“I don't know,” said Dora. “There's only supposed to be one way – and the Druid said we mustn't stray off it.”

“I think we need to take the left-hand fork,” said Jem. “I think that's the real path.”

“Are you sure?” said Dora, taken aback. “The other one looks much better used.”

Jem gave her a superior look.

“That's what you're meant to think. It's an illusion, obviously. To catch out the unwary traveller. We'll take the left-hand path, because we're not idiots.”

Dora frowned. She really didn't like the look of the left-hand path, but Jem was already heading firmly up it – and there was a certain sense to what he'd said. Everyone knew the forest was tricky, so things were not likely to be what they seemed. Perhaps Jem was right, and the obvious-looking path was the false one. She shrugged, and followed him.

It wasn't long before Dora was regretting her decision, and wishing she'd never even
heard
of Jem, never mind had to travel halfway across the kingdom with him. She was pretty sure they were lost. And ever since they'd moved onto the narrow dark path the forest had been getting stranger and stranger. There were noises, now, from all directions – weird screeches and howls and the grinding of metal on metal. Sometimes Dora thought she could see a movement – a shadow, a gleam of silver, a flash of some bright colour – but then it was gone, and all they could see around them were trees.

She and Jem were sticking very closely together, and Jem had his hand permanently on his sword. Suddenly, without warning, there
was a booming sound and the light in the forest became incredibly bright. Dora could feel hot sun on the back of her neck, and her feet appeared to be crunching across yellow sand. She clutched Jem, both of them dazzled momentarily by the reflections of sunlight on water. There appeared to be people not far away, and Dora could see rocks. Great blue waves were crashing down on the rocks and sending up plumes of spray.

But before Dora and Jem had a chance to move, or say anything, the dim greenness of the forest closed in around them again, and there was just soft leaf-mould under their feet, and no sound but the branches rustling gently in a faint breeze. Where the sea had been crashing down on the rocks, there a little bit to her right, there appeared to be nothing but mossy green undergrowth and trailing brambles.

Jem looked at Dora, and she looked back, wide-eyed. Neither of them quite dared to say a word. But the forest continued to stretch out silently around them with no apparent changes, and suddenly Dora realised she was still clutching Jem's arm. She let go hurriedly, and moved away.

Jem straightened up, and took his hand off his
sword hilt. “Shall we… er… carry on?” he said, in a slightly shaky voice.

Dora nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

And then they both heard a rasping, snorting sound that was very, very close indeed.

They froze.

The snorting got louder, and suddenly they could see the shadow of a huge creature moving between the trees, right next to where they were frozen to the spot. Jem started to ease his short sword out of its scabbard again, and they both started to slowly back away down the path.

Dora could see flashes of grey between the trees, and hear the crack of branches snapping. Whatever it was, it was enormous, and it wasn't disappearing. In fact, it seemed to be getting closer, and Dora was pretty sure Jem's sword was not going to be of any use at all. Her legs were feeling like they didn't quite belong to her, and she rapidly started reviewing the possible spells she could use.

At that moment an immense wall of grey flesh came crashing out of a clump of trees ahead of them, and Dora screamed. The creature was like nothing she'd ever seen before. It was the size of
the castle gatehouse, and it had four massive thick grey legs and huge flapping ears. Some kind of grey arm was waving angrily from the front of its face, while two huge white fangs curved out of the front of its mouth. It was screeching like a hundred horses neighing all at once, and they could hear the sound of trees splintering and cracking as the creature hurled itself towards them.

“Run!” shouted Jem. “I'll try and hold it off!”

Dora watched in horror as Jem threw himself in front of her, waving his sword and shouting. The creature hesitated for a moment, as if confused, and then lowered its head and charged at the tiny figure.

Dora raised her hands. She gabbled the words of a shrinking spell, threw all the magic she could muster at the huge grey beast, and shut her eyes tight.

There was a sudden silence. When Dora opened her eyes, the creature seemed to have disappeared. But unfortunately, so had Jem.

Chapter Six

Simon woke suddenly, with a sense that something was very wrong. His room was silent, and dark, but he had a feeling that he had been woken by the crash of something falling. The silence around him seemed to shiver with the aftershock… He held his breath and lay still, trying to work out what had happened. He had been dreaming of a mountainous land, with sheer cliffs plummeting to deep stony rivers, and there had been reddish creatures with leathery bat wings, swirling in the sky above him…

Simon jumped, startled. A small, rasping sound was coming from the direction of his wardrobe. He heard it again - it was like something being rubbed along the edge of the wooden door. There was a small flutter, like air whispering through
the central heating pipes, then a distinct chirrup.

He reached out one arm and switched on the bedside lamp. As the room flicked into sight, he found himself staring into the intelligent black eye of what looked like a small red pterodactyl, perched on the end of his bed. It cocked its head and stretched out its wings for a second, and as it did so a second identical creature squawked from the top of the wardrobe.

Simon felt as if a cold finger was tracing a line down his spine. The creatures in his room couldn't be real – yet he could smell a faint burning smell coming from them, feel the air move as they beat their wings, hear their rasping croaks. They looked exactly like the creatures from his dream. But how could they be here, in his room? They didn't even
exist
.

They bobbed their heads and shuffled from foot to foot, and then the one on the wardrobe decided to fly down. It crashed into his overhead light, sending it swinging wildly, while the creature ricocheted off and flapped desperately as it slid down the wall to his armchair. Then the other one took off and flew straight into the glass of his window, scrabbling uselessly at
it for a few seconds before wheeling around for another attempt.

Simon, protecting his head as best he could with his arms, tried to open the window before the creature dive-bombed him. It was like the time a pigeon had got into the living room by mistake, but this was worse, because there were two of them, and they were the size of large seagulls. The first one kept throwing itself at the window, while the other was squawking and trying to disentangle itself from the heap of clothes strewn over Simon's chair.

Finally, he wrenched the window open, and the first creature flew out with a screech like a hunting owl. It wasn't long before the other had followed it – both of them, Simon thought, were clearly considerably more intelligent than pigeons. He wasn't quite sure whether that was a good or bad thing.

He banged the window shut hurriedly, and sat down on the edge of his bed, breathing hard. The room seemed undamaged, and miraculously, no one seemed to have heard the commotion. Simon looked at his alarm clock. One in the morning. Urgh. And he had school tomorrow.
As he sat there in the deepening silence, the whole episode began to seem unreal. Had there actually been pterodactyls in his bedroom? Had he just dreamed the whole thing?

He shivered, crawled back under his comforting duvet, and turned off the lamp. He'd worry about it in the morning.

“Simon!
Simon!
”

The voice was low and urgent, and insistent. Simon tried to unglue his eyes, but it felt like he was a hundred metres under water and was only slowly swimming up to the surface.

“Simon! Wake
up
!”

It was Cat, and she was shaking him, her voice hissing in his ear. He opened his eyes, and saw that it was morning. His sister was kneeling by the side of his bed, looking worried, and suddenly he remembered the creatures from his dream. Had they been real after all? Had they somehow got back in the house?

“Wh– wha?” he asked, a bit gummily, as he raised his head. “Wha'sit?”

Cat put her finger to her lips with a warning look, then leaned closer and spoke in a low voice.

“There's someone downstairs. Mum left for work ages ago, but I heard something downstairs, and when I leant over the banisters, I saw someone in a black suit going into the kitchen.”

Simon immediately felt very wide awake.

“A black suit? Like…”

“Yes,” said Cat. “It was one of the radiation people, I'm sure it was. They have a funny way of walking. I think it was the older one. Jones. But I can hear voices, so they must both be down there.”

Simon sat up and pulled the duvet round his knees. He looked quickly around the room for the wooden box, and then saw it, sitting safely on his bedside table.

“Where's the sword?” he said.

“I don't know,” said Cat. “I think Mum put it down in the cellar, after we went to bed. But they've got that machine, haven't they? They'll be able to trace it… or anything else strange in the house.”

She looked at the box, and Simon reached out and slipped it under his pillow.

They could both hear the noises from downstairs now. There was a crash that sounded
like a kitchen chair falling over, and then the bang of the back door – or was it the cellar door? There was silence for a minute, then the stomp of footsteps along the hall, followed by what sounded like someone knocking over the hat stand and cursing in a loud voice.

They looked at each other in sudden relief.

“That wasn't Smith or Jones!”

“That was— ”

“Albert Jemmet!”

Nervously, in case Smith or Jones was still there, they crept out of Simon's bedroom and peered down the stairs. It was indeed Albert Jemmet, just picking himself up off the floor and replacing the tall wooden hat stand in the corner of the hallway.

“Mr Jemmet!” called Simon, and a jolly face looked up at them, smiling cheerily.

“Good morning!” he said. “Nothing to worry about – just me down here now. What do you say to a spot of breakfast?”

Simon padded into the kitchen after Cat to find Albert cracking eggs into a large frying pan and slicing bread for the toaster. Next to him stood
a strange contraption. It was rather like an old-fashioned bicycle horn attached to a paint spray can. Simon could see a black rubber bulb and a trumpet-like mouthpiece, and under them both a small brass cannister.

“My fumigator,” said Albert, picking it up and squeezing the bulb. A fine mist sprayed from the mouthpiece towards Simon and he caught a fresh smell of new-mown grass, overlaid with a faint tang of wood smoke. Then it was gone, and all he could smell was frying eggs.

“I got a call from… your mum. Asking me to come over and check your pest problem,” said Albert, gesturing with the fumigator. “And while I was here, I thought I'd dish you up some breakfast and we'd have a little chat.”

“Pest problem? What pest problem?” said Cat. “And I thought you were electricals anyway.”

“Ah, yes,” said Albert, sliding two fried eggs onto buttered toast and plonking it down on the table. “Well, pests are one of my sidelines.”

He handed them each a card, a green one this time, with
Albert Jemmet, Senior Pest Control Executive
embossed on one side. On the other side was a black rat in silhouette and the words
All your pests dealt with, no questions asked
.

“But we don't have any pests,” said Cat. “Did Mum really ask you to come? And what about… I thought I saw…?”

She trailed off as Albert lifted up his fumigator and directed it with a stern expression at a large black feather lying close to the back door. It looked like a crow's feather, thought Simon, but what was any sort of feather doing in the kitchen? As the fumigator's spray reached it, the feather suddenly curled up and dissolved in a fine scattering of grey ash.

Albert looked pleased with himself and put his contraption back on the kitchen table.

“
No questions asked
,” he said meaningfully, and tapped the side of his nose with his finger. “Although,” he continued cheerfully, “in this case, that's not strictly true. I
do
need to ask a few questions, as it happens. So – tuck into your eggs, and then we'll have a little talk, shall we?”