© All content copyright Mike Wilks 2019. All rights reserved.
M I K E W I L K S
Prologue It should have been darker than the darkest night, as black as Indian ink. But it was not. He held his hand in front of his face and could clearly distinguish its outline in the feeble light. It was both a blessing and a curse. If he could see, then he could also be seen. He quickened his pace. There was little risk of stumbling now with the increasing light, but where it was coming from he could not yet tell. The echo of his footfall and the even floor told him that he was indoors, and the darkness that he was deep underground. Then there was the smell. A smell of damp and decay laced with something sour and feral. And sounds too. Sounds that could only be footsteps somewhere behind him, getting closer. Periodically they stopped, and he was sure he heard sniffing. There was a sudden movement to his left and the man froze, his heart pounding. Had it found him so soon? He turned his head slowly and so did his watcher. With an audible sigh of relief, he saw it was his own reflection. He approached the mirror. Its ornate frame was cracked and festooned with cobwebs, its glass scabby with age. But the shadowy reflection was his sure enough, even if his own mother would not have recognised him. The gaunt features and the malachite green skin of the fugitive stared back at him. Escaping from the island of Kig had been the easy part. It had only taken him a matter of hours to travel the hundreds of miles from the horror of the mines to here wherever here was. But when he finally emerged, fumbling, into the pitch darkness he found a new peril. It soon became clear he was being stalked by something every bit as cunning and murderous as his former captors, the Fifth Mystery. As the man hurried on, water splashed underfoot. The light gradually increased until he discovered its source. A forgotten gallery stretched before him, one long wall hung with many paintings. But these were unlike any paintings he had ever seen before. These paintings had been there so long that they seemed to have become bored of being confined within their meagre two dimensions. Weird vines and plants had become real and spilled out of the images and on to the gallery floor. The branches of gnarled trees, originally crafted in oil paint, had left the paintings to snake and intertwine overhead. Streams that once were formed by deft brushwork and pigment now splashed their way out of their pictures and meandered along the gallery floor. In the distance they could be heard as they erupted into cataracts when they encountered unseen stairwells. The light was leaking from these pictures and illuminating the space at regular intervals, casting rectangular pools on the bare, stone floor. It reminded him of a deserted city street at night, lit by the windows of many shops. The green man walked down the long gallery, staring at the canvases open-mouthed. He stopped before one. In a clearing in the heart of a nocturnal forest overflowing with extravagant plants, slept a band of travelling players. They were dressed in gaudy costumes and masks. The scene was illuminated by thousands of candles that littered the floor of the forest and the branches of the trees. It was as if the troupe were dreaming a collective dream that materialised into the forest around them as they slept. Dark spaces between the trees suggested shadowy forms that lurked beyond the light of the candles, only waiting for them to burn out before they became substantial. In the foreground of the picture were strange, nocturnal creatures the size of small marmosets and covered with piebald fur. They had wrinkled, pink faces peppered with minute tattoos depicting signs of the zodiac. One had left the picture and was scampering around in its pool of light on the gallery floor. The man knelt and picked it up. Then the smell was suddenly stronger. Behind him he heard a sound and without looking he knew what it was. His stalker had finally found him. Its nightmare form slowly emerged from the darkness beyond the gallery and into the light. It stood erect on immensely muscular hind limbs that could clearly propel it faster than he could ever hope to outrun. In front of its spine-covered body was its huge head, which was mostly comprised of enormous jaws filled with needle-sharp teeth as long and transparent as icicles. It had huge, pale eyes as big as tea trays. From between them extended a long, curved barbel with a luminous tip like that of a deep sea fish. For a long moment they stood staring at each other. Then it flexed and folded its long wings and charged. As it hurtled towards the man, it uttered a blood-curdling roar and the glowing barbel thrashed from side to side. The green man thrust the small creature into his rags, turned and sprinted down the gallery, his feet splashing in the watercourse. He knew from his pursuer’s composition and fine detail that it was the work of Lucas Flink, and therefore exceedingly dangerous. But this was not the moment for the finer points of art appreciation. Ahead, an interruption in the receding patches of light betrayed the presence of a painting with its surface still intact. There was no time to examine the dark canvas closely; he had to trust that the seal remained unbroken. He came to a halt and rapidly made a complicated gesture with his hand. With a faint smile of satisfaction, he saw the surface ripple as if it were a vertical wall of water kissed by a soft breeze. Then he vanished! Flink’s creature let out a howl of frustration and skidded to a halt in front of the canvas, its wicked jaws closing on thin air and its claws tearing great gashes in the floor. It sniffed the air but its quarry had gone. It approached the painting and sniffed again but inhaled only dust and sneezed loudly, spraying pellets of foul, black mucus on to the canvas. As these slid slowly down the picture they reflected back dozens of tiny, distorted images of the creature as it searched back and forth over the canvas for its lost prey. The pale light from its barbel illuminated first one small section of the painting and then another. If its uncomprehending eyes could have understood what it was looking at, it would have perceived a snowy landscape with bare trees leading down to a group of lamp-lit dwellings nestling in a hollow, their strange forms softened by the snow. Misty, blue mountains graced the skyline silhouetted against the setting sun. If it had been able to examine the picture more closely it would have seen a trail of footprints leading from the foreground down towards the village. And if it had followed that trail to its end it would have seen the beautifully painted form of a ragged man with a skin of malachite green cradling a tiny, piebald creature in his arms. He was looking back out of the canvas and smiling.
M I K E W I L K S
© All content copyright Mike Wilks 2019. All rights reserved.
Prologue It should have been darker than the darkest night, as black as Indian ink. But it was not. He held his hand in front of his face and could clearly distinguish its outline in the feeble light. It was both a blessing and a curse. If he could see, then he could also be seen. He quickened his pace. There was little risk of stumbling now with the increasing light, but where it was coming from he could not yet tell. The echo of his footfall and the even floor told him that he was indoors, and the darkness that he was deep underground. Then there was the smell. A smell of damp and decay laced with something sour and feral. And sounds too. Sounds that could only be footsteps somewhere behind him, getting closer. Periodically they stopped, and he was sure he heard sniffing. There was a sudden movement to his left and the man froze, his heart pounding. Had it found him so soon? He turned his head slowly and so did his watcher. With an audible sigh of relief, he saw it was his own reflection. He approached the mirror. Its ornate frame was cracked and festooned with cobwebs, its glass scabby with age. But the shadowy reflection was his sure enough, even if his own mother would not have recognised him. The gaunt features and the malachite green skin of the fugitive stared back at him. Escaping from the island of Kig had been the easy part. It had only taken him a matter of hours to travel the hundreds of miles from the horror of the mines to here wherever here was. But when he finally emerged, fumbling, into the pitch darkness he found a new peril. It soon became clear he was being stalked by something every bit as cunning and murderous as his former captors, the Fifth Mystery. As the man hurried on, water splashed underfoot. The light gradually increased until he discovered its source. A forgotten gallery stretched before him, one long wall hung with many paintings. But these were unlike any paintings he had ever seen before. These paintings had been there so long that they seemed to have become bored of being confined within their meagre two dimensions. Weird vines and plants had become real and spilled out of the images and on to the gallery floor. The branches of gnarled trees, originally crafted in oil paint, had left the paintings to snake and intertwine overhead. Streams that once were formed by deft brushwork and pigment now splashed their way out of their pictures and meandered along the gallery floor. In the distance they could be heard as they erupted into cataracts when they encountered unseen stairwells. The light was leaking from these pictures and illuminating the space at regular intervals, casting rectangular pools on the bare, stone floor. It reminded him of a deserted city street at night, lit by the windows of many shops. The green man walked down the long gallery, staring at the canvases open-mouthed. He stopped before one. In a clearing in the heart of a nocturnal forest overflowing with extravagant plants, slept a band of travelling players. They were dressed in gaudy costumes and masks. The scene was illuminated by thousands of candles that littered the floor of the forest and the branches of the trees. It was as if the troupe were dreaming a collective dream that materialised into the forest around them as they slept. Dark spaces between the trees suggested shadowy forms that lurked beyond the light of the candles, only waiting for them to burn out before they became substantial. In the foreground of the picture were strange, nocturnal creatures the size of small marmosets and covered with piebald fur. They had wrinkled, pink faces peppered with minute tattoos depicting signs of the zodiac. One had left the picture and was scampering around in its pool of light on the gallery floor. The man knelt and picked it up. Then the smell was suddenly stronger. Behind him he heard a sound and without looking he knew what it was. His stalker had finally found him. Its nightmare form slowly emerged from the darkness beyond the gallery and into the light. It stood erect on immensely muscular hind limbs that could clearly propel it faster than he could ever hope to outrun. In front of its spine- covered body was its huge head, which was mostly comprised of enormous jaws filled with needle-sharp teeth as long and transparent as icicles. It had huge, pale eyes as big as tea trays. From between them extended a long, curved barbel with a luminous tip like that of a deep sea fish. For a long moment they stood staring at each other. Then it flexed and folded its long wings and charged. As it hurtled towards the man, it uttered a blood-curdling roar and the glowing barbel thrashed from side to side. The green man thrust the small creature into his rags, turned and sprinted down the gallery, his feet splashing in the watercourse. He knew from his pursuer’s composition and fine detail that it was the work of Lucas Flink, and therefore exceedingly dangerous. But this was not the moment for the finer points of art appreciation. Ahead, an interruption in the receding patches of light betrayed the presence of a painting with its surface still intact. There was no time to examine the dark canvas closely; he had to trust that the seal remained unbroken. He came to a halt and rapidly made a complicated gesture with his hand. With a faint smile of satisfaction, he saw the surface ripple as if it were a vertical wall of water kissed by a soft breeze. Then he vanished! Flink’s creature let out a howl of frustration and skidded to a halt in front of the canvas, its wicked jaws closing on thin air and its claws tearing great gashes in the floor. It sniffed the air but its quarry had gone. It approached the painting and sniffed again but inhaled only dust and sneezed loudly, spraying pellets of foul, black mucus on to the canvas. As these slid slowly down the picture they reflected back dozens of tiny, distorted images of the creature as it searched back and forth over the canvas for its lost prey. The pale light from its barbel illuminated first one small section of the painting and then another. If its uncomprehending eyes could have understood what it was looking at, it would have perceived a snowy landscape with bare trees leading down to a group of lamp-lit dwellings nestling in a hollow, their strange forms softened by the snow. Misty, blue mountains graced the skyline silhouetted against the setting sun. If it had been able to examine the picture more closely it would have seen a trail of footprints leading from the foreground down towards the village. And if it had followed that trail to its end it would have seen the beautifully painted form of a ragged man with a skin of malachite green cradling a tiny, piebald creature in his arms. He was looking back out of the canvas and smiling.