Feersum Endjinn

despite its obvious extreme height.

She sat in an open carriage drawn by eight fabulous black cat-beasts whose silky fur pulsed with muscly movement beneath harnesses of damascened silver.  They rippled along a road of dusty red tiles, each one of which bore a different pictogram picked out in yellow, between fields of grasses and shining flowers; the air whistling past was thick, humid and perfumed and full of birdsong and insect buzz.

Her clothes were delicate and fine and coloured lighter than her skin; soft ankle boots, a long flowing skirt, a short gilet over a loose shirt, and a sizable, firm-surfaced but very light hat with green ribbons which flew out in the slipstream.

She looked behind her at the road stretching back into the distance; the dust of their passing hung in the air, slowly drifting.  She gazed around and saw far-away towers, spires and windmills scattered across the cultivated plain.  The road ahead led straight towards the wooded hills and the vast castle-shape hanging above.

She looked up; directly over the carriage a flock of large, sleek grey birds were flying in an arrow-head formation, keeping station with the carriage with purposeful, coordinated wing beats.  She clapped her hands and laughed, then sat back in the soft blue upholstery of the carriage seat.

There was a man sitting in the seat across from her.  She stared.  He hadn't been there before.

He was pale-skinned and young and dressed in tight black clothes which matched his hair.  He didn't look quite right; he and his clothes looked speckled somehow, and she could see through him, as though he was made of smoke.

The man swivelled round and looked behind him, towards the castle.  He crackled as he moved.  He turned back.

'This won't work, you know,' he said, his voice whining and cracked.

She frowned, staring at him.  She tipped her head on one side.

'Oh, you look very cute and innocent, to be sure, but that won't save you, my dear.  I know you can't, but just for form's —' The young man broke off as several of the escort birds stooped screaming at him, talons spread.  He batted one away with an insubstantial fist and seized another by the neck without taking his eyes off her.  He wrung the bird's neck while it struggled, wings beating madly, in his hands.  There was a snap.  He threw the limp body over the side of the carriage.

She stared at him, appalled.  He produced a heavy umbrella of darkest blue and spread it over his head as the keening birds attacked.

'As I was saying, my dear; I know you don't really have any choice in this, but for form's sake — so that when we do have to kill you we feel at least we gave you a chance — hear this; cease and desist, now.  Do you understand?  Go back to where you came from, or just stay where you are, but don't go any further.'

She looked over the rear of the carriage at the body of the bird the man had killed, lying crumpled on the roadway, already almost out of sight.  The rest of the flock swooped and screamed and battered off the thick fabric of the night-blue umbrella.

Tears came to her eyes.

'Oh, don't cry,' he said tiredly, sighing. 'That was nothing.' He waved one arm through his own body. 'I am nothing.  There are things a lot worse than me waiting for you, if you continue.'

She frowned at him. 'I Asura,' she said. 'Who you?'

He gave a high, whinnying laugh. 'Asura; that's rich.'

'Who are you?' she asked.

'KIP, doll.  Don't be silly.'

'You are Kayeyepee?'

'Oh for goodness sake,' the man said, with an exaggerated isn't-this-tedious roll of the eyes. 'Are you really this naive?  KIP,' he repeated, sneering. 'Cliche number one, you stupid bitch; Knowledge Is Power.' He grinned. 'Asura.'

Then he opened his eyes wide, leant forward at her and made a funny face.  He sucked in, his cheeks concaving and his eyes staring while the air went sss through his pursed mouth.  He sucked harder and harder and his skin stretched and his lips disappeared and his nose came down to his mouth and she could see the pink skin under his eyes; then his skin ripped somewhere behind and suddenly it was all flowing in through his mouth; nose, skin, ears, hair; everything sucked in through his widening mouth, leaving his face bloody and slimed and his mouth fixed in a great broad lipless grin and his lidless eyes staring while he swallowed noisily and then opened his raw red mouth and between gleaming yellow-white teeth screamed , at her, 'Gibibibibibigididibigigibididigigigibibigibibi!'

She screamed too, and covered her face with her hands, then shrieked as something touched her neck and jerked back.

The birds had clustered round the man's face; four of them had snagged the umbrella in their talons and lifted it away; the rest beat and keened in a storm of wings around the man's face, where something long and red lashed to and fro, beset by pecking, tearing birds.

She sat and watched, horrified, while the birds tore at the man's face and the long lashing thing; an awful bubbling scream forced its way out through the fury of thrashing wings, then suddenly the man was gone, becoming smoke again for an instant before vanishing utterly.

The birds lifted in the same moment and resumed their arrow-head formation above.  No trace was left of the fight, not even a fallen feather.  The same number of birds beat rhythmically over the carriage.  The great black cats pounded on down the road, having taken not the slightest notice of the struggle.

She shivered despite the heat, looked all around, then settled back in her seat, smoothing her clothes.

Then there was a soft pop! and flying next to her face there was a tiny bat with a livid, skinned-red face.

'Still think it's such a good idea, sister?' it squeaked.

She grabbed at the bat but it flicked easily away from her grasp before side-slipping back towards her. 'KIP!' it hooted, giggling. 'KIP!'

She hissed in exasperation. 'Serotine!' she cried — surprising herself — and snatched the bat out of the air.

It had time to look surprised and to go 'Eek!' before she twisted its neck and threw it behind her.  It thumped twitching onto the road.  The last she saw, one of the escort birds had landed beside the body and started pecking at it.

She dusted her hands and looked through narrowed eyes at the vast, vague, unchanged shape of the castle above the distant hills.

The carriage bowled onwards, the thick warm wind whistled past, the birds stroked the air above and the giant cats swept along the dusty red road like a wave of night engulfing sunset.

She felt sleepy.

In the morning they found her dressed and sitting at the breakfast table.

'Good morning!' she said brightly to them. 'Today I have to leave.'

2

He took the Queen by the shoulders and pushed her back so that she had to sit upon the bed. 'You go not,' he told her, 'till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.'

'What wilt thou do?  Thou wilt not murder me?' she cried. 'Help, help, ho!'

Then from behind the arras came another voice, that of an old man: 'What, ho!  Help, help, help!'

He spun towards the noise, shouting, 'How now!  A rat?' He drew his sword, swinging it towards the tapestry. 'Dead, for a ducat —' He swept the arras aside with the tip of the sword, revealing the quivering figure of Polonius. '— Or just trapped, and justly?'

'My lord!' the old man cried, and sank, stiffly, to one knee.