Ilse Of Illusion

4 - Trapped

While Jinks told lies of him in Del, Lief was struggling in the grip of a terrifying nightmare. He was trapped in a coffin. He was trying to beat at the coffin walls, but his arms and legs would not move. He was trying to open his eyes, but his eyes were sealed. He was trying to scream, but could not make a sound.

Somewhere, Kree was screeching. But closer, much closer, there were other sounds—small slapping, scratching sounds which filled Lief with dread.

Desperately he tried to wake, to free himself from the horror that had engulfed him. But every time he struggled towards consciousness, the dream dragged him down once more.

Then Kree screeched again, and this time the harsh sound was loud—loud enough to jolt Lief into true wakefulness.

He forced his sticky eyes open. He saw the tip of a black wing as Kree soared upward again, out of his view. And then, with a pang of pure terror, he realised that the dream had been real.

Or almost real. He was not lying in a coffin. He was upright. But his legs were pressed together and his arms were pinned to his sides. He could not move his head. His nose was filled with the smell of mud. His mouth was choked with it.

At first, he did not understand what had happened to him. Then he remembered.

The island, with its rippled shore and strange, cone-shaped rocks. The grub creature leaning forward, huge-eyed. The jet of yellow mist …

His bleary eyes focused on a tall cone standing directly in front of him. Giant grubs were crawling all over the cone, moving busily up and down.

Dimly Lief realised that they were building. They were bringing clay from the ground, mixing the clay with liquid that dribbled from their tube-like mouths, and patting the resulting mud onto the sides of the cone.

His gaze moved to the cone’s tip and his stomach churned as he glimpsed Barda’s head and face, almost covered by a lumpy helmet of thick, dried mud.

One of the grubs was working there. With its stubby front legs it patted and smoothed the sticky clay mess into a gap beside Barda’s mouth. It waited for a moment as the mud lightened and hardened with amazing speed. Then it hurried down to the ground again

Lief fought down panic as he realised that he himself was imprisoned as Barda was. A thick shroud of dried mud encased him from head to toe.

He could still breathe through his nose, and he could still see. But he knew that would not last long. His skin crawled as he heard a scrabbling sound near his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a large-eyed head nod towards him. He felt a horrible wet coolness on his cheek as new mud was pressed into place.

The grub which had been working on Barda’s mouth climbed the cone again, crawling over the mass of its fellows, who were adding to a lump of clay near the middle of the cone. Fury’s cage, Lief realised.

Small, familiar sounds were coming from beneath the lump. Fury was awake, and raging. The yellow vapour had not affected her. Perhaps it worked only on warm-blooded creatures.

But even a fighting spider cannot live without air for long, Lief thought. Soon Fury will die. Like us.

He realised that Kree had stopped screeching. Had Kree finally accepted that he could not attack the grubs for fear of being stunned by the yellow mist himself? Had he, perhaps, been caught on that last, desperate swoop?

Or—Lief felt a chill run through him—or had Kree sped away in despair because he had seen Jasmine, and Filli with her, smothered in choking mud?

The cones within his view were far too small to contain Jasmine’s body. A few had been broken open.

The one standing beside Barda had several holes in its centre. Through the gaps, silvery grey fur gleamed. Lief guessed that inside the cone was the preserved body of one of the little sea moles the companions had seen further out to sea.

No doubt the moles are the grubs’ usual prey, he thought. The herd we met would not follow us to the island, but other herds, no doubt, are not so wise. And the young, the weak, the lost and the injured would often be washed to shore.

A mud grub crawled up to the scarred cone. It lifted its front feet from the ground and grasped the cone firmly. It stuck its mouth tube into one of the gaps in the clay. Its body rippled as it drank.

Lief felt sick. So this was to be their fate. To die sealed within a coffin of clay, and then for months to be a food supply for the grubs. With all his might he tried to flex his arms, move his legs, twist his neck—anything to crack the walls that imprisoned him.

But he could not move a muscle. His legs were pressed too tightly together. His arms were held too firmly by his sides. The grubs had done their work too well.

With a shudder he felt the return of the grub that had been covering his face. He shut his eyes to block out the sight of its bobbing head, its blank stare, as fresh mud was patted onto his cheek, close beside his nose.

Then, suddenly, the patting and smearing stopped, as though the grub had been disturbed in its work.

Lief opened his eyes. The grub had moved out of sight, leaving its task only half completed.

It was clear that something unusual was happening. The grubs working on Barda’s cone were turning their heads, wriggling urgently. And the one feeding on the dead sea mole was pulling abruptly away from its meal, brown liquid dribbling horribly from its mouth tube.

The next moment, the grubs on Barda’s cone were scattering in a cloud of yellow vapour. A ferocious, yellow-backed brown spider had hurled itself into their midst, fangs snapping viciously.

Lief stared. Flash! But how could this be? Flash had been trapped in his cage at the bottom of the boat.

Somewhere above, Kree screeched triumphantly.

Lief’s heart leaped as he realised what had happened. Kree had opened the cage door. Kree had known that Flash, free at last, would have only one thing in mind: to reach Fury, wherever Fury might be.

Huge as he was, the giant spider seemed small compared to the grubs. But the grubs had no weapon except the yellow mist, which seemed to have no effect on Flash at all. And he had huge fangs, eight spiny legs, enormous strength and a fierce will to win.

Grubs fell writhing to the ground as Flash bit and tore at them, ripping between times at the clay over Fury’s cage. Already a few bars of the cage had been exposed, and Fury herself, desperate for air, was throwing herself against them, inflaming Flash even more.

More grubs were streaming into Lief’s view every moment. It looked as if the whole colony was rushing to defend the cone in which Barda was trapped. The cone’s lower half was covered in a seething mass of bodies. Flash was wreathed in swirling yellow mist as the newcomers attacked her in the only way they knew.

It is fortunate that the mist is not rising, or Barda would be unconscious again in a moment, Lief thought. Then all Flash’s work would be of no use.

But would it be of use in any case? The widening hole around Fury’s cage would not help Barda break out of his prison. The hardened clay around the big man’s arms and legs was untouched.

Then Lief felt something. The clay that cloaked his own left hand was being tapped strongly by something hard and sharp.

Lief guessed what it was, but did not let himself believe it until Kree’s beak broke through the clay and stabbed his wrist.

Never had Lief felt pain so joyously.

Another two taps and the clay covering his hand had cracked away completely. Violently Lief scrabbled at the edges of the hole, making it larger. Then, as Kree began work on his other hand, Lief felt even more vibrations—a scratching and scraping near his foot.

‘Lief!’

With wild joy, Lief recognised the whispering voice. Jasmine was crouching by his right side. He could not see her, but he could feel her dagger chipping at the hard shell that imprisoned him.

Jasmine was alive! Kree must have rushed to free her as soon as the grubs left her to defend Barda’s cone.

‘As soon as you feel my dagger against your boot, begin to kick,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘We may not have much time.’

Lief felt movement near his chin and, squinting downward, saw a small grey shape. His fur spiked with mud, Filli was nibbling and clawing furiously at the clay that swathed Lief’s neck.

Lief felt the point of Jasmine’s dagger against his foot and began kicking towards it, feeling clay crumbling away. He felt her start work on the other side. He felt clay crack from his right hand and wrist as Kree’s sharp beak broke through.

His left arm was already free to the elbow. He could bend it. And, thanks to Filli, he could move his head from side to side once more.

He struggled desperately, his eyes fixed on the squirming mass of grubs at the base of Barda’s cone. Absorbed by their struggle with Flash, the grubs still had not noticed what was happening behind their backs.

But at any moment, surely, one of them would turn and give the alarm. Then all would be lost.

Lief closed his eyes and took a deep breath, summoning up all his strength. He imagined the clay as an egg, enclosing him. Then, with every muscle in his body, he pushed outward, willing the shell to crack.