Free Lucia's Masks by Wendy MacIntyre Page B

colours did not sparkle and shift their shapes as he had expected. There was no spectral emerald curtain shimmering like the pictures he had seen. Instead the light now looked coarse and even ugly, as if the night sky had been whipped and was showing its bloody welts. But if this was not the North, then where was he?
    Half an hour later, he had his answer. He was on the border of Danger-land. The six-letter word was spelled out in bold red capitals on white signs fixed to a fence more than twice his height. Made of wire mesh, it stretched as far as he could see in either direction. The fence barrier hummed and thrummed, and then began to buzz and crackle, making the hair on his wrists stand on end.
    He did not like this place. It was time to retreat to the woods, although it seemed there was nowhere outside the Egg — other than in Miriam’s arms — that was not full of danger. As if to prove this thought, three black shadows glided toward him. He stood rigid, listening to their nails click against the hard ground. Their harsh panting, undercut by snarls, made him swallow hard.
    “Stay still,” Snake said.
    The hair stood up all over his body as the three dogs circled him, bounding in close; and then away. Strings of saliva hung from their mouths. They showed him their teeth, which were long and sharp. I will be torn apart, the boy thought, just as my parents were, except that wild dogs will dismember me and not an explosion.
    Wake up! What food do you have?
    Nuts, dried fruit. Do dogs eat fruit?
    Try it.
    Chandelier dug in his pockets as one of the dogs leapt toward his chest. The boy stepped back before the animal could topple him. He tugged out four little bags of Miriam’s food and tossed them so that they scattered as widely as possible.
    The dogs’ heads turned. Their nostrils twitched.
    Will they? Yes. All three were tearing apart the little cloth bags, and bolting down the contents.
    What now? Where?
    “Hole,” Snake said. “Do you see it?”
    Yes. He had already seen it: about twenty feet to his right there was an opening in the earth, with a metal cover partly pulled away. As Chandelier sped toward the hole, the dogs took chase.
    Go! Go!
    He dropped inside and found himself clinging to the rung of a ladder. Dogs cannot climb ladders, can they? The chorus of howls from above confirmed this was so.
    When he reached the bottom rung and turned round, he saw there was nowhere to go except forward into the mouth of a tunnel. Deeper and deeper he crawled into the cool dark. A sickening stench made him shrink back and retreat, bending as low and shuffling as quietly as he could manage. Then splat! He ran into an obstacle that had not been there when he entered the culvert. A blazing light shone in his face that made him wince. He blinked to adjust to the glare and saw before him a creature whose appearance made him feel ill because he was so unlike a man with his flat, deformed features and naked skull. A worm-man, Chandelier thought. Were there such things? This person was so ugly the boy almost pitied him. But fear far overwhelmed his pity. The inside of Chandelier’s mouth was dry and sore. He could hear his own ragged breathing and this sound of his own distress made him more panicky. He knew he must try to escape from this ill-made being and the nasty destiny it had in store for him. He could read his own fate on the worm-man’s face.
    But as he tried to slide away, bony fingers grasped his elbows from behind. A worm-man behind him and the other one in front had caught him fast. He found himself the captive of a band of Under-dwellers who had a penchant for mutilation. Their chief delight was decorating their sewer home and their clothing with fresh body parts. They coveted Chandelier’s ears, which were indeed exquisite: calyxes that might have been shaped by the hand of Cellini. Which of the five sewer butchers would secure the right to pin the severed ears to the shoulders of his jacket?