Darkmouth

“Mam! You’re supposed to knock before coming in.”

“Sorry, Finn,” his mother said, entering the room. “I was just worried about you. I heard you had a tough day.”

They sat on the edge of his bed together. “How was work?” he asked her. His mother was a dentist and, as she did most days, she had brought home a faint odour of chemicals and ground teeth. This was more comforting to Finn than he had ever stopped to consider.

“Not as exciting as your day thankfully. Although everyone was talking about the Legend that came through this morning. Luckily, all I had to do was wave the drill at them and they shut up pretty quickly.” She put her arm round Finn and went to give him a kiss on the top of his head.

Finn smiled, but squirmed away. “I’m not a baby, Mam.”

“You’re still my baby,” she replied quietly.

He groaned in protest. He didn’t want to admit that it warmed him when she said that.

There was a phwump from deep in the house, followed by the long squeeee of a drill. “I wish he’d hurry up and finish whatever it is he’s building down there,” said Finn’s mam. There was another thud. “Have you talked to him? About … this morning?”

“Not much. It’s fine, really. Stop worrying.”

Finn’s mam looked at him. “I knew what I was getting into when I met your father. You never had that choice.”

“Sometimes, I wish you were a Hunter too,” said Finn. “You’d be a really good one.”

Finn’s mam grinned. “I don’t think my parents would have let me marry your dad if I’d been expected to do that. I don’t think I would have married him. Anyway, you know the rules. Civilians can’t become Legend Hunters, Finn. You’ve got to be born into it.”

Finn and his mother were quiet for a few moments, the only sound the goldfish pecking at pebbles.

“I mean it, though, Mam. You’d be a great Hunter.”

“I could give them a good flossing until they succumbed. Or threaten them with a root canal.”

Finn smiled weakly, sending another trickle of warmth through his chest, loosening the knot a little.

“I’ll talk to your dad,” his mother said, standing up. “Get him to go a bit easier on you.”

“No!” snapped Finn, before quickly calming down. “Please don’t. I’m trying really hard, it’s just …”

“I understand.” His mam gave him another kiss on the head before she left. This time he didn’t squirm so much.

Finn got up and locked the door after her, then went back to his desk and took the diamond from its hiding place. He heard the front door of the house open and looked out of the window to see light spilling on to the pavement.

His father’s long shadow knifed across the street. Finn could see that his attention was focused on the far end of the street, where a parked van started up its engine and, without even turning on its lights, slowly pulled away.

His father turned back to the house and there was the heavy sound of the front door being bolted.

Finn wrapped the diamond in an old pair of pants and placed it at the back of his underwear drawer where it would be safe. He didn’t know what he was doing with it, only that it felt too late to admit to having picked it up in the first place. It was his souvenir. No one would need to know.

He sat back down at his desk and flipped through The Most Great Lives, only half registering the text, until, from beneath it, he pulled out a smaller thinner book. On its cover was a man in blue medical overalls holding a dog by the jaw. It mightn’t have been too clear if he was about to help the dog or punch it except for the title, half obscured by a school library stamp: So You Want to Be a Veterinarian.

Finn read a few pages, poring over the images of dogs, cats, birds and lizards, with instruments pointed at their ears, or holding down their tongues, combing through their fur, feathers or skin, each in the hands of a confident-looking person in scrubs. He imagined himself in those scrubs rather than a fighting suit. He closed his eyes and saw himself tending to an animal rather than blasting one, healing creatures rather than shrinking them into little balls.

His daydream was interrupted by the sounds again, deep in the house. Finn placed his head on the desk, the page of the book cool on his cheek, and listened to the noises, feeling the vibration tickle his face. Khrump, khrump, khrump. Silence. Squeeee.

They didn’t stop him from quickly falling into a deep sleep.

From A Concise Guide to the Legend Hunter World, Vol. 2, Chapter 65: ‘The Infested Side: A Guide to What We Know and What We Don’t’ (published by Plurimus, Magesterius, Fortimus & Murphy).

Over the years, there have been instances of Legend Hunters travelling to the Infested Side, either to wage an attack or because they were abducted by a Legend. There was even one infamous attempt to make peace with the Legends. And, in at least three recorded cases, people simply tripped and fell into a gateway.

The experiences of those who have returned from the Infested Side are largely unverified. However, there are consistencies in their accounts: they each arrive home with vivid descriptions of a scorched world, poisoned and poisonous, where death clings to every bare tree and every shard of burnt scrub. They also arrive home with a really, really bad smell.

So, over hundreds of years of such visits, added to the words and screams of thousands of interrogated Legends, we have learned many things about the Infested Side.

Some of them may even be true.

Broonie did not know where he was being dragged to, but the simple fact that he had a bag over his head, and his arms were tied, gave him reason to suspect that it was not anywhere pleasant.

At first, he had thought it was a practical joke played on him by the Hogboons who lived three mounds over and with whom Broonie had been engaged in a battle of pranks for a few months now. The most recent gag played on Broonie had involved a small rodent being released into his home, which in itself wouldn’t have been so remarkable if the small rodent hadn’t been on fire at the time.

It was, Broonie reckoned, a fair response to his own clever and complex jape involving ivy, sharpened sticks, a large hole and a bag full of beetles.

So, when he was woken rudely from his standard all-day nap by a bag being placed over his head, he was certain it was just another revenge prank. “Oh right, lads, very funny,” he’d said as his arms were being tied. “But wasn’t it my turn to play the joke?”

That was when he got punched in the head for the first time.

Even through a minor concussion, he could tell that there were two assailants and they were big. They clearly weren’t Hogboons like him, because Hogboons were a short, spindle-limbed race, though what they lacked in physical stature they made up for in length of ears, crookedness of teeth, greenness of skin and general mischief.

“Stay still, you ugly little thug, or I’ll snap your arms off and use them to break your legs,” one of the assailants roared as Broonie found some energy to struggle.

“You’re calling me ugly?” exclaimed Broonie. “I can see your feet through the bottom of this bag. Do you mind me asking, are all of those warts yours or did you borrow some for this special occasion?”

That was when he got punch number two. It knocked him out.

When Broonie came to, he was being dragged up a slope of some sort. It was steep and brutal underfoot. Actually, brutal underfoot would have been a luxury to Broonie right then. As he was dragged along, it was brutal under his toes, brutal under his shins and particularly brutal under his knees.

Worse than that was the stench in the air. It seeped through the canvas of the bag until he could feel it burning his throat. He had heard about this intense smell from other travellers, or at least from those who claimed to have survived it.

“If you were to leave a bag of fish to rot inside a corpse stuffed with already rotten fish, that would be sweet perfume compared to the stench of this place,” one traveller had insisted.

“I burned every item of clothing I owned to get rid of its foulness. Even then it wasn’t enough,” whispered another. “In the end, I had to shave every last fibre of fur from my body, pluck every hair from my nostrils, pull every lash from my eyes, to free myself of it. Yet, even now, if the wind blows in a particular direction …”

The air seemed to grow more putrid with every step Broonie’s captors took, with every bump and scrape his body absorbed. He understood now where he was being taken. It was to a place of death. Most probably his.

Eventually, the climb evened out, the ground becoming flat, hard stone. It was warmer and the echoes of his captors’ footsteps told Broonie he was indoors.

A door groaned open and heat smacked Broonie hard. They stopped. Broonie was flung to the floor. As he pushed himself up, one of his kidnappers yanked the bag from his head. The Hogboon was briefly blinded by numerous fires, burning tall in huge cauldrons that lined the large stone room. In front of him, the largest of them popped and crackled and leaped high towards the ceiling.

His captors shuffled their hulking bodies away. Broonie realised now that they were Fomorians, brutal, merciless giants who were all either very intelligent or spectacularly dumb, with nothing in between. He wasn’t entirely sure which type was better to encounter.

His eyes adjusted quickly and he saw, stomping towards him from the far side of the room, a figure Broonie had dearly hoped he would never have to lay eyes on.

Gantrua’s massive bulk was turned away from Broonie and, when he spoke, he turned his head only slightly towards him, just enough to reveal the curved edge of great fierce horns that sprouted from his forehead.

The light of the flames danced off armour that ran from his waist up to a jagged grille across his mouth. Even in the uncertain light, Broonie could see that it was made up of many individual teeth fixed on to a metal rim.

“Do you know who I am, Hogboon?” Gantrua’s voice was so deep Broonie felt it quiver through the stone at his knees.

“Yes, Your Greatness. The whole land trembles at your very name.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Broonie did not. So he took a guess. “Is it the beetles? It was only a bag of them, Your Lordship, and no one was eating them at the time. If they were yours, I am truly sorry. I had intended to sweep them all up and return them, but, you know how it is, Your Powerfulness, there were other things to do, and—”

“Quiet,” commanded Gantrua with an authority that terrified Broonie so effectively he briefly lost his balance. “I don’t care about your pathetic thieving. If you had decided to steal from me, you would have been struck down before the thought had even entered your head.”

Broonie’s head drooped from exhaustion and humiliation. His body ached from the violent journey. His head hurt from trying to figure out why he was here in the first place.

He lifted his head again to see that Gantrua was ignoring him now, engaged instead in a conversation with a smaller hooded figure in the shadows. Gantrua signalled to this other creature to wait, then turned fully and loomed over Broonie.

In the flickering light, Broonie could make out the scars that marked Gantrua’s skin, valleys sliced across his arms, rivers of wounds crossing at his shoulders.

“You are trained?” asked Gantrua.

Broonie had not expected that question. “We all were, Your Greatness. A long time ago now. Before the sky closed.”

“You had better search your memory for those lessons. The sky has not closed entirely.”

So the rumours are true, thought Broonie. There are still gateways to the Promised World. There had been talk among the armies of this, but he had never heard it confirmed. It had been a long, long time since he had heard of anyone going through and coming back.

“We are on the verge of a great invasion of the humans’ world,” continued Gantrua. “It must succeed or the way through could be locked for eternity and we will be trapped. Forever. In this place.”

He spat into the flames, shocking them into chaos. He composed himself again as the fire settled into its normal dance. “You, Hogboon, shall go to the Promised World.”

“I’m flattered, Your Worship. Really. I am greatly honoured. But, Your Masterfulness, I have not trained for many years. I fear I’ll get captured as soon as I step through the gateway.”

Gantrua leaned forward so that the flames licked the metal guard at his chin. “I am counting on it.”

He stood back, acknowledging a whisper from the hooded figure who was still lurking in the shadows. Then Gantrua addressed Broonie again. “The boy will be there.”

“The boy?”

“Do not act dumb, Hogboon. I know what they talk about beyond these walls. I know they talk about the boy. They wonder if it is true, if he is real. Well, he is real. You will meet him and you will take with you two things for him. One is a message. The other is a gift. My guards will give you both.”

One of the Fomorians removed a pair of tongs from his belt and approached a cauldron. Ignoring its angry flames, the guard plunged his tongs into the fire and pulled out a long clear crystal. He brought it over to Broonie.

“The miners work day and night to find the meagre supply of these crystals,” growled Gantrua. “Each has the power to open up a path between the worlds. We need to send one to the Promised World, but it will only retain its power through a sacrifice. I suppose I should tell you that yours will be a noble one, but I doubt very much nobility would ever stoop to be an acquaintance of yours, so we shall just get on with it.”

Gantrua turned away to exit from the far side of the plinth, then paused mid-step. “Which of your fingers is least precious to you, Hogboon?”

“Erm, they’re all kind of useful to me, Your Superlativeness. I’d find it hard to choose.”

“They all say that,” snarled Gantrua, then disappeared off the far side of the plinth.

The guard holding the crystal came closer. From his waist dangled a rather bloody-looking pair of pliers. The second Fomorian grabbed the Hogboon by one arm and pinned him to the ground.

Broonie had held out for this long, but he decided it was finally a good time to scream.

At breakfast, Finn’s father came into the kitchen and began rummaging through a drawer.

“How are you feeling this morning, Finn?”

Finn had a mouth full of cereal and couldn’t quite get an answer out.

“Good stuff. Listen, I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday,” said his father, now searching through a cupboard. “It’s a lack of live Legend practice that’s held you back. My fault really. We’ll remedy that. Get hold of a Legend for you to fight.”

Finn swallowed his cereal. “Um … is that what you’re looking for now?”

His father had moved to another cupboard, his head stuck in it as he searched for something. “It’s all very exciting, Finn. You becoming Complete, me joining the Council. No other family in the world has that to look forward to. It’s really something.”

He emerged empty-handed, then stood up straight while looking around intently. “That’s going to have to do,” he said, grabbing a knife and moving towards Finn, who dodged as his father made for the toaster behind him. Using the knife, he forced off the toaster’s handle and left the room with it.

A few seconds later, Finn’s mother arrived in the kitchen. “Hello, sunshine,” she said, grabbing a couple of slices of bread and putting them in the toaster. She paused, realising what was missing. “Hugo!”

Finn left the house for school, and Emmie appeared just as he passed the corner where their streets met.

“What’s happening?” she asked, stepping in beside him as if the two of them had known each other forever.

“Erm, eh …” was Finn’s reply. It occurred to him that he should be a little more articulate from now on.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to worry too much because Emmie did most of the talking. She generally seemed to treat silence like an enemy. And what she mostly liked talking about was Darkmouth. While most newcomers found themselves compelled to run out of the place as fast as they could, Emmie was fascinated by almost every detail.

She had noticed there were bars on the windows of many homes and businesses. “Even the church looks like a prison. What if you had an actual prison here, would they put bars on the bars?”

Then there was the way the people greeted every drop of rain warily, as if it might be a deluge of blood, not water. “If they’re afraid of rain,” observed Emmie, “Ireland isn’t a great place to live, is it?”

She greeted every dent in a lamp-post and every crack in the pavement as possible damage from a Legend attack, and was disappointed when Finn dismissed each one as just another dent caused by someone not watching where they were backing up their car or yet more cracks that hadn’t been fixed.

Finn hadn’t given a tour of Darkmouth to a newcomer before and he could see how much Emmie longed to hear of adventure. So, as they walked along the seafront, he pointed to the large weathered rock jutting straight up some distance off shore. “That’s called Doom’s Perch. A Legend threw that there. It’s called Doom’s Perch because, about a hundred years ago, a local man escaped a Legend attack by stealing a boat and taking it out to that rock.”

Under her fringe, Emmie’s eyes encouraged him to continue.

“He climbed to the top, assuming that it would be a good place to hide out, and waited for the Legend to pass. Once the attack was over and everything looked safe, he went to climb back down to the boat.”

“Did he get eaten on the way down?”

“No, he slipped on seaweed, fell into the sea and was never seen again. They’ve called it Doom’s Perch ever since.”

Emmie screwed her face into a taut grin. “Yeah, nice one. Try and fool the city girl. You’ll have to do better than that.”

Finn felt a bit defeated by that. The story was pretty much true, although he might have made up the part about the boat being stolen.

Because they had dallied on the walk to school, they were late and Finn was again forced to take the last empty seat. As he sat down, he saw a half-melted toy car on the desk. The Savage twins were sniggering from the back, Conn Savage fiddling menacingly with his misshapen ear and Manus rubbing his knuckles beneath his eyes. Boohoo.

Over the next few days, Emmie asked Finn a lot of questions about Darkmouth and about his life, and the thing that came up most was this: she wanted to see inside his house. She was quite persistent.

“Maybe I could come to your house instead,” he’d suggested.

“Nah,” she responded.

She did this a lot, and it worked as a verbal weapon of sorts, a swift stab of a needle that punctured any talk she didn’t want to carry on. Finn had learned little about Emmie, other than that her father had come here to work because of a contract on the phone lines, and he planned to go back to the city once his job was done. She had met all Finn’s other enquiries with a wall of Nahs.

“Will your friends come and visit you here?”

“Nah.”

“Do you have a nice house back in the city?”

“Nah.”

“I suppose the city was really exciting to live in.”

“Nah.”

“Do you miss your cat? I’d like to have a cat, but my dad’s not big into pets.”

“Oh, I’d love it if Silver was here, but I couldn’t bring him.”

“Is a friend minding him?”

“Nah.”

But, when it came to Finn’s house, the words poured out like water from a burst pipe.

“Why can’t I come in? I won’t touch anything I’m not supposed to. I just have to see what it’s like in your house because I can’t imagine what kind of place it is, when your father’s job is, you know, what it is, and the way everyone talks about your family and how you’ve spent, like, centuries doing this so there must be amazing things lying around, because of all that time and all those Legends—”

“Legends?” interrupted Finn.

“What?” asked Emmie. “Isn’t that what they’re called?”

“Yes,” said Finn, frowning. “But people don’t usually get it right. They call them monsters instead. Did you know about Darkmouth before you came here?”

“Nah.”

It also became clear, over the following few days, that Emmie wasn’t particularly interested in getting to know anyone else in the school, only Finn. He didn’t quite know what to make of it, but he was glad she did most of the talking because it stopped him saying anything stupid.

That Friday afternoon, as they walked home, Emmie asked yet again if she could come to see his house, and his resistance broke so suddenly he could almost hear it snap.

“OK.”

That stopped Emmie dead on the street. Finn kept going, quietly satisfied with having said the right thing, and keeping his mouth closed in case he followed up by saying the wrong thing.

They walked past the derelict house fronts on Finn’s street, Emmie staying quiet the whole way.

When they finally reached Finn’s front door, he opened it and walked in, Emmie close on his heels. But, as she stood in the narrow entrance hall, Finn could see her struggling to hide her massive disappointment as she realised the Legend Hunter’s home was as ordinary as any other house.

The coat hooks weren’t made of serpent skeletons.

The wallpaper wasn’t made of dragon leather.

The pictures of Finn and his family showed them sitting, eating picnics and generally doing anything but wrestling beasts from another realm.

“This is the sitting room,” Finn said as he opened its door. He could see how crestfallen Emmie was to realise that it was, indeed, a sitting room. Nothing more, nothing less. The same with the dining room, with its dining chairs and dining table. And the kitchen. And the utility room, with its ironing board and an iron that could, at a pinch, be thrown at an onrushing Legend, although this clearly wasn’t its primary purpose.

He could almost see what Emmie was thinking. This could have been any house. On any street. In any town.

Finn couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her. “There is something else …” he said, going to a small door squeezed between the kitchen and dining room. A stranger might think it was a cupboard because there was seemingly no space for anything larger.

The door had a handle, but Finn ignored that and instead pressed each of the door’s four panels in a practised sequence. He made a bit of a show of it, enjoying this rare dose of power he felt from knowing he’d kept the best for last.