Rebellion

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Making Monsters

TOBY HAD BEEN slumped in the chair, as far as Mallory could make out, ever since Rimmon left. Certainly, he hadn’t heard any movement from the other side of the room. Not that he had a lot of choice – the Fallen had, ever thoughtful, apparently left him tied there.

“Toby?”

Nothing.

“Hey, Toby. Are you in there?”

Nothing.

“It’s just, well, I’ll be honest. This floor’s starting to get uncomfortable, and you’re not being very fair. I think, seeing as I’m basically your guest, that the least you could do is stop bogarting the chair...”

There was a soft hiccuping sound. It might have been sobbing, it might not.

“So, what do you say? You want to let me have a turn?”

“I would,” came the answer, in a voice that was far too thick for comfort, “but my hands, so to speak, are tied.” The hiccuping sound again, and with a sigh of relief, Mallory realised it was laughter. Or something like it. Maybe he was a fighter after all.

“How are you doing?” he asked, more serious now.

“How do you think?” There was no sarcasm there. It was a simple question.

“I think... not so good.”

“You’d be right.” There was a groan from across the room, and the sound of the chair creaking, of the rope straining, as Toby sat up. “Mallory, right?”

“That’s right.”

“You know this guy, don’t you? The way you talk...”

“I know him. We go back a long way.”

“What did I do?”

“I’m not sure I follow.” Mallory was glad it was dark: it meant Toby couldn’t see the look on his face.

“To deserve this. What did I do?”

“Take my advice: questions like that are rarely helpful.” Mallory chewed on the edge of one of his fingernails. “Particularly not when you’re dealing with Rimmon.”

“How do you know him? You’re not friends, are you.” It wasn’t a question, and Toby’s voice cracked as he spoke. At that moment, Mallory wished more than anything that he could reach him. But he could not. He’d tried, and he’d failed. Repeatedly.

“You don’t want to know.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask, would I? Besides, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.” He coughed, and there was a wet sound as though he had spat on the floor – although Mallory suspected it was something far less pleasant than that.

“It’s a long story...”

“I’ve got time.”

Mallory stifled a cold laugh. He had a feeling Toby had far less time than he imagined. “I’ll tell you a story instead, how about that? A long time ago, there was a village. Out in the middle of nowhere, a real backwater. They grew their crops, they kept their animals, they occasionally went crazy and sold some surplus at the market in the nearby town. But pretty much, they kept to themselves. That was how it went there: how it had gone, and always would go – until a baby was born beneath the comet.

“They weren’t exactly what you’d call ‘enlightened,’ so the boy was regarded with deep suspicion. Any day, as he grew, they expected him to sprout horns or hooves or something equally stupid, but he never did, so their suspicions began to fade. After all, portents came and went and there was no saying that a sign in the night sky over one village wasn’t meant for the people of the next. The kid had the right number of fingers, the right number of toes and when – by his twelfth year – a tail or a forked tongue were both still conspicuously absent, they decided that he was in the clear. Which was, as it happened, a year too soon.

“It was a spring morning, early, and one of the farmers went out to check on his animals in the field. He found every single one of them dead: their skins scorched, their eyes burned out, the grass where they had fallen yellowed and dried. Like they’d been hit by lightning. But the strangest thing about it was that they’d all fallen facing the same way: towards the house where the comet-child, as he was known, lived. So the farmer decided to pay him and his mother a little visit...

“They ducked her. Tied her to a chair and ducked her in the river. They made her son stand on the riverbank and watch while she drowned. Of course, that proved that she wasn’t a witch, so all eyes turned to him. And then he did the most extraordinary thing: he fell to his knees and begged their forgiveness, and when he held up his hands, they were full of lightning. All round his head, and in his hands and in his eyes and his mouth... everywhere. They ran, afraid for their lives. All of them ran – all but one.

“He was a stranger to the boy, and still he did not run. Instead, he took him away and taught him that what he had was a gift, and that he could learn to control it. The boy tried, but he was frightened. Too frightened, perhaps. And the man was a terrible teacher, which didn’t help. They fled to the woods, and there they hid: living off whatever came their way, and every once in a while, the man would go off poaching to supplement their larder, or gambling – and thieving – to keep their purse filled.

“It was a day like that, a day in the winter when there was frost in the trees and smoke in the air, that the boy met a devil. A devil who mixed just enough truth with his lies to make the boy believe. To make him doubt everything that the man had told him, to make him afraid: afraid of his past, afraid of his future, afraid of himself – and more than anything, afraid of the man who had tried to save him.

“And so he left with the devil, and when the man returned from the market, he found he was alone. The boy was lost.”

There was silence.

Then: “That was a weird story.”

“Was a bit,” Mallory said with a shrug. “Sorry about that. Probably a bit bleak, now I think about it.”

“A bit bleak? You could say that.”

“You didn’t specify cheerful, did you?”

“I’d have thought it was obvious!” Toby sounded indignant, and despite himself, Mallory smiled. It was working.

“Fine. You want cheerful, then you’re going to have to do the talking, I’m afraid.”

“Fat lot of good you are, mate.”

“I’m all ears.”

VIN GROANED AS he sat back, finally dropping his hands. The hinges were, as far as he could see, done. Just as well, because he was so tired he could barely move. Turning metal to stone – even old, rusty and generally knackered metal – was clearly more energy-intensive than he had imagined. On the plus side, old, rusty and generally knackered metal made for uneven stone, riddled with fault lines. It made it weak.

And that could only be a good thing.

All he had to do now was wait.

“SO, THIS GIRL. How did you meet her?” Mallory asked. Toby’s definition of ‘cheerful’ seemed to focus almost entirely on the description of a woman. He was quite clearly besotted, and listening to that wasn’t exactly Mallory’s definition of fun. He missed his flask. More than he missed his flask, he missed his guns – because if nothing else, he could at least shoot himself in the head if he sensed another description of Little Miss Perfect heading his way. More troubling, however, was the fact Toby had stumbled over several words. Words which shouldn’t have caused a five year-old any problems.