Xinder Rises Read online

  Sap hadn’t reacted to any of the dreams given to him. The Animais worried that if Sap could not understand his dreams, what chance would the children have with theirs?

  Were the dreams proving to be too complex, too terrifying? Were the dreams suited to a different time? Perhaps their dreams needed a different blending of powders to aid interpretation?

  Sola dipped a hand in her infiniti, removed the dream powder and rubbed a couple of fingers together. This wasn’t the time for reflection, that would come later. While the children were still alive, for the time being at least, she needed haste.

  She would give Sap a dream that would stimulate action and, at the end of the sequence, she would add a powder that would stimulate a shock. Yes, that was it. He needed something to get his brain working, to unlock his memory, so that he might help the Sacrum as he’d been entrusted to do.

  Sola worked fast, her slender fingers moving like a blur in her infiniti. In a flash, she was plucking tiny specks of dream powder out of her infiniti and feeding them to the old man as he inhaled. Sola took her time, and, digging deep into her memory of powders, knitted a dream ending with a reminder of a potion that Sap had stored away a long, long time ago.

  Sola stared down at the old man. Maybe this time, she thought, before inverting into her infiniti and vanishing.

  Sap

  Sap tossed and turned as the dream filled his head. He looked down and found himself wearing a pair of shorts. He was running. He felt young again, the same age as the twins. His skin was smooth and his mind was alert. He had hair! He dragged his hands through it. What a lovely feeling. As he ran, air filled his lungs.

  On his feet, he wore a pair of football boots. Red ones, just like Danny’s. He looked up. A football was flying towards him, and his immediate reaction was to duck out of the way. But out of the corner of his eye he spotted Anika yelling at him. What was she saying? Pass it? He went towards the ball but it was too fast and it bounced off him straight to an opponent.

  This wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  Anika swore and chivvied him to chase the player.

  He took off and was moving at speed. Much to his delight, Sap found himself gaining. He lunged for the ball but tripped the player.

  The whistle blew. ‘Do that once more and you’ll be booked,’ the referee said.

  Sap caught his breath and brushed the mud off his knees.

  Anika was there in an instant. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ she said. ‘There’s hardly any time to go. Don’t make stupid fouls like that. We’ve got to win or we’re never playing again.’

  The other team lined up a shot and the ball was cruising towards the goal. But Danny danced into the path of the ball and caught it smartly. In a flash, he punted the ball wide.

  One of his players passed the ball to him. This time he managed to control it and he slipped a neat pass through to Anika. Anika, now on the halfway line, jinked past one player, and then sped past another, her blonde hair bobbing up and down as she went. Boy, she was quick. He found himself sprinting just to keep up.

  A defender forced her wide and she played the ball inside to him. Looking up, he passed it to Olivia on the other flank. He couldn’t remember Olivia ever liking football, but she neatly passed it back to him just as she was clattered by an opposition player. He couldn’t help laughing at the horrified expression on her face.

  Now Anika was screaming for the ball.

  Sap found himself running with the ball and it felt brilliant. He did a dummy, just like Anika had, slipping past the player in front of him. He knocked the ball forwards, finding Anika, who held off a challenge and stood with the ball under her foot.

  In a flash, she turned on a sixpence, the ball rolling under her other foot. Totally foxing the defender, she headed towards the goal. Sap felt himself sprinting into the area as Anika smashed a shot at the goal.

  He held his breath as the ball sped toward the goal. It whacked against the post and rebounded directly into his running path. Out of the corner of his eye, a defender hared towards the ball. He had to get there first, so he sprinted harder, cocked his leg back, and kicked the ball as hard as he could a fraction before the defender got there.

  The ball screamed into the roof of the net, tearing a hole, and was still rising just as the defender crunched into his foot.

  A heartbeat later, and a lightning bolt smashed out of the sky directly into him. A surge of energy fizzed through his entire body, through every sinew and fibre and particle of his being.

  It took his breath away.

  When at last the sensation wore off, he peered down to find a bottle of gold liquid on his lap.

  Then he woke up, with a start.

  Olivia

  The water took her.

  Olivia’s world went blank. When she came to, her body tingled all over and every nerve and sinew sizzled like a spectacular case of pins and needles.

  She coughed, spluttered, and ejected water trapped in her lungs. She gasped as her hands and feet instantly kicked into action, her arms and legs moving faster than she could have ever imagined just to keep her head above water.

  She breathed, luxuriating in the intake of air.

  Her hand grappled with a shrub branch. She tried to hoist herself up, but it fell away plunging her back under the surface. When she surfaced, visibility zero, she knew she needed to touch down on the cottage side of the river.

  Treading water, she did a quick calculation. If the river ran from the moors down into the valley, she had to land on the left bank as it went with the flow. Olivia kicked until she could feel the water pushing against her before twisting with all her strength and swimming at an angle into the current.

  Moments later, she touched on something spindly and woody. She pushed her legs down and was relieved to find the water was up to her waist. With her feet on firm ground, she clambered across the bush and kept going until her knees hit on solid ground the other side.

  Olivia coughed, spluttered, and retched, as though her insides were coming out. Without hesitating, she continued uphill, searching for the cover of a tree. She found one, leaned in and put her head in her hands.

  Now it was exactly like her nightmare, except this time it was for real.

  Tears built up and for a moment they rolled freely down her cheeks. Anika! Danny! They’ll probably think I’m dead.

  She imagined them waiting for her. Please, please keep going! Every minute spent waiting is a minute wasted.

  She wondered what had happened to Sas. Did she find the boat? In any case, that little boat would fill with water and sink in minutes. The whole thing was hopeless.

  Olivia felt herself welling up, but a ripple of water washed against her shins. She had to move. Finding the others was futile now. She’d head uphill from tree to tree and find cover wherever she could.

  She had to survive.

  Xinder

  ‘Look at us, boy,’ Xinder whispered. ‘Well, look at me. Aren’t I magnificent!’

  Xinder studied his body in a tall mirror ringed with dull gemstones. Morning light seeped through a vast window. ‘You’re here, boy,’ he said, as his voice echoed off the walls. ‘Right here inside me. That’s right; half ash, half man… or boy. Only a fraction ghost.’

  Xinder examined his reflection.

  His borrowed eyes weren’t anything like the proper article, his vision was filtered by a grainy film. But, what a sensation to see anything at all when, for thousands of years, he had tuned into the vibrations and presence of things using his highly developed sixth sense.

  He studied his hands and turned them over. He clapped, the noise a muted thud. Ash puffed up and floated quietly through the air.

  Oh, the joys of having a body, he thought, whatever form it took.

  Xinder removed his overcoat, took off his hat, and returned, naked, to stand in front of the mirror. His figure was the same size as the boy and his torso was covered in layers of flaky ash in every conceivable hue of grey. How
utterly remarkable, he thought, as he rotated his hips from side to side.

  His chest was a boyish replica of the one he remembered. His pectorals and abdomen were not so hard and toned as perhaps they once were, but the sinews and muscles on his thighs, calves and buttocks were pleasingly accentuated by the light.

  His feet, he noted, were unusually large. He sprang up on his toes, only to find that a couple of digits simply dropped off. Xinder stared, fascinated, as they instantly regrew.

  In the reflection of the mirror, Xinder moved close. His face appeared sallow and partially skeletal, with a flaky grey chin that jutted out more than he cared to see.

  He nudged his thick plump lips, prodded his flat nose, and admired his eyebrows. He touched his hair, a mass of ash swept back off his forehead, and admired his eyes that sparkled like polished coals.

  Then he noticed a strange cluster at the top of his legs. Wasn’t this awfully important? Instinctively, he reached for it, but to his horror – and just as he remembered its purpose – the appendage severed, slipped through his fingers and careered to the ground.

  Xinder squealed.

  His concerns were short-lived. Moments later it reappeared and he and his organ were reacquainted.

  Xinder’s mood brightened.

  ‘Thousands of years without one, and instantly it falls to pieces!’ he roared.

  Xinder realised his new body was a by-product of his incineration all those years ago.

  His eyes narrowed.

  How could he forget the burning and the eye gouging when his powers were taken away from him?

  The verdict from The Council of One Hundred in Genartus, he remembered. Oh yes, the very bad deal. Part of his original punishment.

  Xinder flexed up and down on his knees. He had movement; real, gravity-based movement, and physical presence. None of this ‘floating around’ nonsense, none of this walking through walls and doors and people. Although this skill did, from time to time, have its advantages.

  Xinder, Frozen Lord of Halaria, is back! He could almost taste the fear of the strange creatures that now populated Halaria. Trolls had moved into the forests close to the silvery sea, a tribe of Neanderthals had swept over the pink mountains that surrounded Halar and some marsh-men had dammed the planet’s great river at its mouth. The dragons, snakes, lizards, and reptiles, once controlled by an undefeatable reptilian dragon, had risen in numbers, with many now living on the outskirts of the city of Halar.

  Xinder would return from the ashes to free his frozen people, so the rumours said, and bring the frozen domed puddles back to life. Xinder knew that he needed to make the most of his new form, and fast, which was exactly what he intended to do even if it meant that he had to forcibly drag the boy along with him.

  First, he would check up on the Sacrum’s progress towards their demise, now that their journey through the storm was underway. Perhaps he still had a chance of blending with a Sacrum, instead of this rather cumbersome boy.

  Guda’s dream-spinners were watching the Sacrum. When the time came, when they were close to deaths door, they would let him know.

  Xinder smiled. Everything was slotting into place.

  And when the time came, in an instant, he would be there.

  14

  Anika, Thursday

  Anika shivered, grateful that the rain was not particularly cold. Anika knew, though, that even warm rain quickly chills, and there was just so much of it. She ventured from one side of the path to the other, as far as she dared. She screamed for Olivia, but she knew it was hopeless; she couldn’t see and she could hardly hear her own voice.

  With every movement, her bones ached and her joints screamed out, as if her energy reserves were on empty. If only she hadn’t just played a game of football.

  She stamped her feet and jogged up and down. She concentrated hard on the water further down. For a moment, she was sure that she could see, much further down on the river bank, a body climbing out of the water. She shook her head. She must be imagining things, like a mirage in a desert.

  She put a hand around Danny and hugged him close. His body warmth was like a hot water bottle. He seemed better, his eyes clearer, and he smiled when she touched his odd hair.

  But the shock had rendered him dumb, as though his tongue had been cut out.

  What had Danny said earlier? That the storm would follow them until sunset. How did he know? She didn’t need him like this, she needed him on full alert, thinking and helping.

  Perhaps, she thought, he needs another shock.

  She slapped him on the cheek as hard as she could.

  ‘Blimey, Anika!’ he yelled, rubbing his cheek. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Got you back,’ she mouthed, kissing his forehead. ‘Sorry – necessary.’

  ‘There’s no need to hit me,’ he yelled.

  Anika hugged him tight, and spoke into his ear. ‘Aw, but it did the trick. Come on, Dan, we’ve got to go.’

  ‘What about Olivia?’ he cried, waving his arm downstream.

  ‘She’s a strong swimmer,’ she said. ‘She’ll be fine. Come on!’

  He looked at his watch and shuddered. Only two forty-five. Sunset at what, five fifteen, five thirty? He wished he knew.

  Every second of every minute would matter.

  Mrs Puddy

  Mrs Puddy sat in the kitchen, fretting and fiddling with a bunch of herbs, her hands shaking.

  She heard noises in the courtyard. The sounds weren’t the sounds of a soccer ball scuffing over the paving slabs, which she associated with Anika and Danny. Nor was it old Sap returning from the cattle. He’d been back a while.

  This was more like something being torn in two, and then crashing sounds audible even over the beating rain.

  Must be my imagination playing tricks, she thought, as she returned to her task of flavouring a large beef casserole.

  She concentrated on lighting the fire, before her ears instinctively pricked up. Those sounds, again.

  Opening the front door, she reeled as a wall of water poured like a waterfall over the low, extended roof. Seeing a branch jumping about in the water nearby, she realised that the sounds she’d heard must have been trees crashing down around the house.

  A pain, like a stubborn splinter, pierced her. For the first time in years, the long, thick scar beneath the mop of bright orange hair on her forehead throbbed, giving her a pressing headache.

  She’d never seen or heard anything like it. Instantly, she recognised the gravity of the children’s situation.

  The longer it went on, the more she pined, as though the cord that tied her to her children was being ripped apart and pins pressed slowly into her heart. She tried to soldier on and put these feelings behind her. She had to. They would return, she was sure of it. Sap would find them.

  But what if they didn’t? What if her children were stuck out there?

  Tears swam down her cheeks, falling in drops on the wooden surface. Her head pulsed with doubt and sorrow as she cradled it in her hands and wept.

  Realisation dawned on her that if this storm continued, and if Sap was to go after them, she might be alone in the world for the very first time.

  Sas

  ‘Oh, ARK!’ Sas exclaimed. ‘As in, "Joan of Arc".’

  Ryan clapped slowly. ‘Blimey. At long last. Remind me never to partner you in a pub quiz. Ever.’

  ‘You mean,’ Sas said, ‘you’ve actually been to a pub quiz?’

  ‘Of course, every Friday night with my dad.’

  ‘Really? My parents never do that kind of thing. What’s it like?’

  Ryan wondered if he should make it sound exciting. ‘Well, it’s OK. Actually, it’s quite nerdy, so you’d probably like it.’

  Sas’s eyes sparkled. Ryan was full of surprises. Just goes to show, she thought, you really can’t tell a book by its cover. ‘So, what subjects are you good at?’

  Ryan made his brainiest face, which made him look pretty stupid. ‘Particle physics, geography, Englis
h history from 1066, current world affairs and, yeah, modern American history.’

  ‘You’re joking me!’

  ‘Try me. Go on,’ Ryan said, moving even closer.

  Sas didn’t know what to think. She screwed up her face as though deep in thought and asked: ‘Which President of the United States of America wrote the Declaration of Independence?’

  Ryan scratched his chin and made lots of quite odd-looking faces. ‘Abraham Lincoln—’

  ‘Ha, wrong—’

  ‘Won the Civil War,’ Ryan continued, ignoring her. ‘Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the Declaration of Independence.’ He tried hard not to smile. But he did raise his eyebrows. And they were huge eyebrows.

  Sas couldn’t believe it. ‘Correct,’ she said, trying to think of another question. ‘Name the English monarch who came after William Rufus.’

  ‘You can do better than that, sexy Sas.’ He pulled a serious face. ‘William Rufus, heir to William the Conqueror. Shot by an arrow by a noble who thought he was a knob-end. Succeeded by Henry, as in Henry the first, also a son of the Conqueror, who sat on the throne for a middle-age marathon of thirty-five years.’

  Sas shrieked. She couldn’t believe it. ‘Ryan, you’re brilliant at this. Why are you such an idiot in class?’

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Low tolerance to teachers.’

  A clunking noise stopped them in their tracks. Ryan raced up to the bow step. ‘The Joan of’ has hit the roof,’ he yelled. ‘Here we go.’ Ryan ducked his head inside the canopy. ‘I hope you’re ready for this. Pass me that long bit of wood and sit at the end. And Sas...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t scream. It won’t help.’

  Ryan had never really expected the water to rise quite so high, nor so fast. In fact, he was pretty sure they’d remain in the boathouse, quite safe from the tempest outside. Now, it was different.