The Impressive Pain of Fendthorn
Christopher woke late. His first impression was that his limbs had been stolen in the night and replaced with rusty metal. His whole body ached.
But his second thought was of a bone-deep, bass-note thrill: of the unicorn and the behemoth, and the green-gold light that had flooded him. It had been blurred and staticky and unclear. And he had been sick, yes. But that feeling of light – he longed more than anything to experience that again.
There was a hercinia bird on the windowsill. He jumped out of bed, wincing, and looked it in its eyes. He tried to summon up the flash of light.
The bird cawed scornfully and took off.
Irian was alone at the breakfast table reading a book when Christopher came down. He stole a look at the title: The Care and Feeding of Behemoths by G.T. Readyrun.
He grinned at her. ‘Morning.’ The book was opened to the contents page. He leaned over her shoulder and read:
Chapter One: Behemoths Through History: A Story of Rampages Past and Present.
Chapter Two: A Behemoth’s Favourite Food: Human Hair, Human Skin, Salmon.
Chapter Three: How to Treat a Wounded Behemoth.
Irian gestured at the book. ‘You were right about the behemoth being injured. It’s septic. I need to put mistflower ointment on it, but every time I go near the gate of the walled garden it charges at me. I found this in the library, but it isn’t that helpful.’
He turned to the third chapter, ‘How to Treat a Wounded Behemoth’. It was very short: Do not attempt to treat a wounded behemoth. It will eat you.
‘At least it’s to the point,’ he said. ‘No waffling.’
She smiled. ‘Tell me, Christopher – what happened last night? I know the creatures have always sought you out. But this was different.’
Christopher tried to describe it – the green-gold invisible light, the surge of the creature’s emotions and thoughts and images that came barraging at him.
‘An invisible light?’
‘I know it sounds mad. I know other people can’t see it – but it’s as clear as my own hand. I see it glowing. I feel it with my eyes.’
‘That seems perfectly reasonable to me. There is more than one way to see.’
‘Have you ever heard of this happening before – the flash, the light?’
Irian shook her head. ‘It must be extraordinarily rare, Christopher. I think I might have read about it, but years ago.’ She drove both knuckles into her temples, thinking. ‘A man. A green-gold thread.’ She shook her head. ‘No. I’ll talk to the harpy. She might know.’
Just then there were thundering footsteps and the door burst open.
It hit the wall so hard that the doorknob wedged itself into the plaster.
Fidens Nighthand stood beaming in the doorway, Ratwin on his shoulder.
‘There you both are!’ he cried. ‘Superb!’ There was perhaps a flicker of awkwardness as his eyes met Irian’s.
‘Nighthand, my love,’ said Irian. ‘I wonder if you should open doors less like you’re going to war with the woodwork?’
‘Nonsense. Doors are made for slamming. Come, both of you. We’re locking the island and we need you.’
‘What do you mean, locking the island?’ said Christopher.
‘You shall seeses,’ said Ratwin. ‘To the greenhousings.’
As Christopher left the room, he heard Ratwin hiss sibilantly into Nighthand’s ear.
‘Yous was going to proposal her! Why don’t you do it now?’
‘I can’t!’ Nighthand hissed back. ‘I need the right moment. Music, fireworks, shooting stars!’
‘Pish,’ said Ratwin. ‘Don’t waits too long. Professors Vane at the parties was making distinctive eyeses at her.’
‘He’s a hundred and seven!’
‘Evens so.’
Anya was waiting in the greenhouse with her father and Jacques, a gagana bird on each shoulder.
She grinned at Christopher. ‘Morning. You look like you got run over by a cart.’
‘You can talk – you’ve got toast in your ear.’
‘Koo wedged it there,’ she said. ‘For later.’
‘Nice. Sensible.’
She fished it out. ‘Want it?’ Koo snatched it up and swallowed it, and Christopher laughed as Nighthand, Ratwin and Irian came in.
‘The time has come to fortify the islet,’ said Nighthand. ‘When Vigo Nex gives you a warning, you take notice. We must protect ourselves and the creatures.’
‘How though?’ said Christopher.
‘Vigo’s story wasn’t the first we heard of this, although it was the most worrying,’ said Irian. ‘I’ve been hearing troubling rumours from the nereids for weeks. Argus has been preparing a defence.’
‘A case of the justs in cases,’ said Ratwin.
Anya’s father smiled. He had gladly given up the throne of Dousha to spend his days outside among green things.
He gestured to the rows and rows of flowerpots.
‘This is fendthorn. As you see, it looks like an ordinary wild rose, but each bloom has thirteen petals, and the tendrils grow thirty feet long. If you make a circle of the plants and entwine the tendrils, nothing can break through it from outside. Nothing can fly over it or burrow under it. It forms a shield of glimourie, deep into the earth and into the sky above.’
‘Like barbed wire?’ said Christopher.
‘Far better!’ said Anya. ‘Show him, Father.’
‘Not in here,’ said Argus. ‘It’ll smash the place to pieces.’
They set a pot on the lawn outside, and Argus looped the long green tendril around himself so that it formed a circle on the ground.
‘Try to touch me.’
Christopher reached out to touch Argus, and the sky exploded. Red sparks erupted fifty feet high and the air was full of the whizz and crackling of fireworks.
‘Ow!’ The pain was vicious. His heart was racing at a hundred beats a second. ‘Bloody hell! You could have told me—’
Anya laughed. ‘That it was going to feel like being stabbed by a thousand fiery daggers? I know!’
Irian turned over Christopher’s hand. ‘Unmarked,’ she said. ‘Any pain?’
‘No. It’s completely gone. I do admit,’ he said grudgingly, ‘that’s amazing.’
Nighthand looked with pleasure at the rows of fendthorn in Argus’s greenhouse.
‘Miraculous, really. Smells like heaven and hurts like hell. Completely impenetrable. They used it once as an obstacle in the Race of Thieves; three people had their noses singed off, so they didn’t do it again. Happy days.’
‘But if we put them all around the edge of the island,’ said Christopher, ‘and no one can get through it, how will we come and go? Won’t we be locked in?’
‘That’s what’s so miraculous,’ said Argus.
‘Each fendthorn has tiny green filaments that read the skin of those who touch them; they know who planted them. And the planter – that’s me – can give you a key.
’ Argus took Christopher’s thumb and pressed it into one of the thorns.
‘There. Now you can come and go, and you too are a keyholder: you can let others in. Try to touch me now.’
Very reluctantly, given the prickling in his skin, Christopher reached out towards Argus; this time there were no red sparks.
‘And you’re going to put these all around Glimt?’ said Anya.
‘We are.’ Argus handed Anya and Christopher spades. ‘Irian, Nighthand and I will start at the dock; you line the gardens. Start digging.’
They dug; it was hot, dirty work in the sun, setting the plants at fifty-foot intervals along the lip of the island, as close to the water’s edge as they could put them.
They stretched out each plant’s long, spiny tendrils and entwined them with the next, and watched as the green fronds fused to become an unbroken chain.
They quivered slightly where they touched the earth, and if you bent close enough to the plant, you could hear the faintest thrum of the power within it.
Christopher’s back began to ache, and Anya grew steadily more covered in mud, but slowly the barrier took shape: a spiked, green defence snaking around the perimeter of the islet.
The digging gave them a chance to talk. As soon as they were alone, Christopher told her about the flash.
Anya was fascinated but mystified by the green-gold light he described.
‘I’ve never heard of anything like it,’ she said.
‘I wish I could do it. It was amazing to watch, Christopher. You should practise it.’ She set a fendthorn into the ground and filled the hole with compost. ‘Not with the behemoth, though, obviously.’
It was dark when they finished, and everyone was blistered and pricked by thorns. They met at the dock to plant the final rose. Irian wound its tendrils around those of its neighbour, and they stood back.
‘We’re locked,’ said Argus. Anya shivered.
‘Remember, it’s not forever,’ Irian said. ‘It’s just until this trouble passes.’
Nighthand shook his head. ‘If you ask me – and I say this as a trouble connoisseur – the trouble’s just beginning.’ His enormous hands, playing with his digging fork, bent it sideways, and Irian laughed and took it from him. ‘We’ll see the fendthorn tested soon.’
He was right, though not in the way he expected.