Back To The Divide (27 page)

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a white marble frog. Then a third, which was larger. This held a starling -- also white, also marble.

Rutherford heard himself catch his breath. "The effect isn't limited to insects, then," he said.

"No."

"It can petrify any living thing?"

"Yes."

"So what exactly was in the plum -- some sort of systemic poison?"

"There was nothing in the plum."

"
What?"

"It's a chain-reaction thing."

"That's not possible."

"That's what I'd have said this time last week."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I doubt it," said Emily, "but try me."

"That this is a weapon that's being developed by a top-secret laboratory, either here or abroad. And that if anyone knows we've got it, they'll want to get rid of us rather quickly. Is there an antidote?"

"I haven't found one," said Emily.

"It could be the end of all life on earth," said Rutherford, the implications suddenly hitting home.

"Don't be silly," said Emily. "There are ways of containing it."

"Foolproof ways?" He ran a hand nervously through his thinning sandy hair.

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"Who needs foolproof?" said Emily. "Good enough is all that's required. And stop abusing your hair, or you'll have none left."

Rutherford fiddled with his glasses instead. "Good enough never lasts forever," he said.

"I don't care if it doesn't last forever."

"What about your children?"

"I don't have any children, Rutherford."

"But ... it could mean the total extinction of the animal kingdom."

"Not necessarily," said Emily. "The effect weakens the more links you have in the chain. Whatever turned your wasp to marble must have been a primary agent. I've been using fruit flies, infecting one from another in a sort of domino experiment. Eventually the fly only stays in its marble form for a few minutes. But the wasps you gave me are still exactly as they were. For all I know, they're going to stay like that for years."

Rutherford glanced around again.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Emily. "If this was an accidental leak it's quite possible that no one even realizes it's happened."

"What do you mean,
if?"

"I'm not so sure this phenomenon is man-made." Rutherford shook his head. "You're not making sense."

"I've been doing a lot of tests," said Emily. "This marble is seriously weird. So weird that it ... well, if someone told

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me it had come from another planet I might even believe them."

Rutherford laughed.

Emily's dark eyes narrowed. She was not someone people laughed at. "I want to know exactly where you found this," she hissed. "I need to locate the primary source. And then we start to think about what we're going to do with it. We're talking serious money here. Riches beyond your wildest dreams, if a cliché is the only thing that's going to get through to you."

"I'd better take you to the garden in question, then, hadn't I?" said Rutherford, beginning to spend his fortune in his head. A house in the Seychelles, a yacht in the south of France, a racehorse or two ... "We're going to have to keep this very quiet, aren't we?" he added.

"Obviously."

"Kind of limits who we can mix with afterward, doesn't it?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Well ... who could I marry, apart from you?" Emily nearly choked on her herbal tea. "When I said wildest dreams, Rutherford, I didn't expect you to go
that
far."

Snakeweed wasn't the most patient of muleteers. It didn't take him long to decide that things could be speeded up with the aid of a whip, so he broke off a small branch and whacked it across the rump of the closest mule. The animal stopped dead immediately, rolled its eyes, and kicked out at

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him. Snakeweed swore and lost his balance. The slope was very steep here, and once he lost his footing he couldn't regain it. He teetered on the edge of the path for a moment before falling, and then he was sliding down and he couldn't stop.

Stonecrop looked over the drop and gulped. Snakeweed had completely disappeared, although there was a long trail of crushed vegetation and mud showing the direction he'd taken. There was no way Stonecrop would be able to follow him down there. The mules didn't seem to like the narrow pathway very much at all and were getting restless. Stonecrop decided to carry on before he was kicked over the edge as well and wait for Snakeweed at the Divide.

Harshak shook the Tromm Fell dust from his coat and attended to a small burn on his leg with his tongue. When he looked up again, he realized that Granitelegs had gone, so he checked the rest of himself over. Everything seemed to be in order. He was ready to maim, torture, and terrorize whatever crossed his path. The choice was his and his alone. He was going to take to this free-will business like a creepy-biter to a lickit's big toe.

Before he decided which direction to select, he had a good sniff. There wasn't much to the west -- the land was probably barren. The south smelled mainly of forest with the odd whiff of nut-nibbler and faint traces of vamprey and worrit. There were unlikely to be many settlements in an area with

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such a high shadow-beast population. The east was more promising, with a tang of tangle-folk and candle wax and wood smoke. However, there was a stronger smell of brittlehorn, which seemed to be between him and the tangle-folk village -- and something else. He focused his nose more precisely and was instantly beside himself with excitement. He could smell a one-eye. One-eyes were delicious, and they were such fun when they were terrified. Their goaty legs were no match for a sinistrom's, and apart from their liking for filleting knives they were more or less defenseless.

Harshak left the ridge and started to make his way east, avoiding the main path and slinking through the brushwood. It felt great to be stalking things again, even though the one-eye was still a long way off. He dodged behind rocks, pounced at shadows, and snarled at tree trunks.

And then he smelled brazzle.

Harshak stiffened, remembering how Ironclaw had pinned him to the ground, and he became more cautious. He'd killed a brazzle or two in his time, but brazzles shouldn't be underestimated. There were only fifty-seven of the original one hundred and sixty-nine sinistroms left now, and Harshak didn't want to be the one to make it fifty-six. As the brazzle scent intensified, Harshak circled around so that he was upwind and crept forward on his belly. He peered over the next boulder and saw the most amazingly complicated construction of twigs and branches. The dwelling was dome-shaped with a large entrance hole on one

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side, and despite its ramshackle appearance it was spotlessly clean. Harshak sniffed again. The smell of brazzle was very strong, but it was slightly stale. The other smell was far more exciting. Harshak licked his lips and peered at the sky. There was nothing wheeling up above, waiting to swoop down and pounce, so he stopped trying to be inconspicuous and simply trotted over to what he now realized was a nest.

He peered inside. It took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but the delicious smell was much stronger now, and he was slavering with anticipation. A huge white egg lay in the middle of a small depression, which had been lined with golden feathers. He patted it with his paw, and it rolled first one way, and then the other. He patted it harder, but it wasn't as fragile as it looked. How to get at the contents? His jaws weren't wide enough for him to get his mouth right around it and bite down; he'd have to get it outside and smash it against something. There was always the option of assuming his lickit guise, picking it up, and dropping it over a cliff. It might be fun to bat it about a bit first, though. He had more difficulty than he'd anticipated getting it out of the nest -- every time he rolled it to the entrance it seemed to give him the slip and slide back down into the depression again, but eventually he managed it.

Once he'd gotten the egg outside on the sand, he treated himself to a game of ball, slapping it with his paw and chasing it. He became so involved in this newfound form of entertainment that the feathered bolt that hit him from

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above came as a complete surprise. He was knocked sideways with such force that the breath left his body with a loud grunt, and he did a couple of head-over-heels before he wound up against a boulder. Before he had time to collect himself the attack was renewed, and he felt a talon rake across his shoulders. He twisted around and snapped, but he was too late. The brazzle was hovering above him, poised to strike again, and there was pure murder in her bright yellow eyes.

Was one stupid egg worth getting his eyes pecked out? He dodged her next assault, decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and legged it. The rocky ground suddenly turned sharp-edged and treacherous, and he realized he'd reached an area full of crevices and gullies that were small enough to conceal his progress. Just before he jumped down into one of them he glanced back. The brazzle had picked up the egg in her talons and was returning to her nest with it.

Ironclaw, Felix, and Betony were following a path that zigzagged uphill beside a little Costa Rican stream.

"What happens if they cross the Divide before us?" asked Betony. "Supposing they've loaded all the gold onto the fire-breather and flown off before we get there?"

Ironclaw made a strangled sound in his throat -- and then he cocked his head. Felix listened as hard as he could, and after a moment or two he made out a sort of rushing

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sound that was getting louder. A couple of seconds later he could hear someone saying
"Ow!"
and
"By all that glitters!"
and shortly after that Snakeweed landed at their feet, covered in mud. His clothes were torn, and his wand was missing.

"Well,
peck me where it hurts,"
said Ironclaw. "It's Snakeweed."

Snakeweed stared at them for a moment as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Then he scrambled to his feet and felt for his wand.

"Lost something?" asked Ironclaw innocently.

Snakeweed realized his wand was missing, and his eyes narrowed. His hand went to his pocket, and his expression became faintly alarmed. He rummaged in his other pocket, and then he turned both pockets inside out. He glanced up at the hillside he'd just slid down.

"What have you lost, apart from your wand?" Betony asked Snakeweed.

"His personal organizer?" guessed Ironclaw. "His heart? His integrity? No -- he lost that ages ago."

"Rather my integrity than my heart," said Snakeweed, with a sly glance at Felix.

"I think we need to get everyone back across the Divide as quickly as possible," said Felix, ignoring him, "before anything else magical gets mislaid."

"The chances of his wand surviving intact are pretty remote," said Ironclaw. "And a broken wand has no magical properties whatsoever."

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"Let's hope it got smashed to bits, then," said Felix. "Hang on -- does a magic carpet also lose its magic when it gets damaged?"

"No," said Betony. "Don't worry, Turpsik will be able to mend it. As long as she doesn't drink too much fermented fertle-juice at Pewtermane's welcome-home bash."

When Felix's party negotiated the next hairpin bend, its members could see the trees thinning out and a lot more sky. They emerged on the rocky ridge of the Divide where Stonecrop and the mules were waiting. The moment Stonecrop saw them, Ironclaw shouted, "Hands in the air, or I'll peck out Snakeweed's eyes!" He leaned his great head next to Snakeweed's and clacked his beak a couple of times to illustrate the point.

Stonecrop shrugged and raised his hands. "I don't have a wand anymore, anyway," he said.

"Oh, all right then," said Ironclaw, and Stonecrop dropped his hands again.

"What are we going to do with him when we get back?" asked Betony, indicating Snakeweed.

Ironclaw looked worried. "I've no idea," he said.

"I think Grimspite wants to deal with him," said Felix.

"Oh, good," said Ironclaw.

They all straddled the Divide -- although it took a while to get the mules to cooperate -- and Ironclaw recited the spell.

***

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They all came to more or less together. Granitelegs was sitting on a nearby rock, watching them. The mules showed the whites of their eyes and brayed a few times, and Ironclaw started to count his gold to make sure it was all still there. Felix stood up slowly.

"Feeling a bit wobbly, Felix?" said Snakeweed cheerfully. "I told you the cure was only temporary."

"I feel fine," said Felix curtly. Once you started wondering how you felt, you noticed everything from a bruise to an insect bite.

"Tromm Fell never used to be this popular," said Granitelegs, eyeing the mules.

"Oh, hello, Granitelegs," said Ironclaw, adding up his crocks. "If you think you're using my dirt-board, you've got another think coming."

"Just got a bit bored with the party," said Granitelegs, who had sobered up since he'd encountered Harshak. Sinistroms had that sort of effect on people. "You know how it is. All fermented fertle-juice and silly jokes. No one wants to talk about solid geometry. Even Thornbeak left early; said she had some project or other."

Felix looked around. "Left for where?"

"Oh, she'll be around," said Ironclaw vaguely.

"Doing what?"

"Sitting."

"Sitting?"

"Sitting on an egg."