Part 25 (2/2)

'Tovel told me to give you something when you woke up,'

Polly said. She got up and went away.

'Did they kill Frog?' Haunt said thickly.

'No.' The gurgling voice came to her like she was underwater. 'No, the frog ain't croaked yet.'

'Stay with us,' Haunt whispered, as sound and vision lost all definition again. She felt a hot pinp.r.i.c.k in her arm, invasive, bruising the muscle. Shadows came for her again.

'Stay with us, Frog...'

'Wouldn't miss this party for nothing,' Frog muttered.

Marshal Nadina Haunt heard the voice die away.

The darkness swooped and caught her.

III.

'She should rest quietly now,' Polly told Frog.

'Great,' Frog retorted. 'What did Tovel say that was?'

'I'm not sure,' Polly confessed. 'Something to break the fever, he said. Help her sleep.'

'What's he want Haunt to sleep for?' muttered Frog. 'Think he likes being in charge?'

'He just wants to help, I suppose,' Polly ventured.

'Nah. He just likes being in charge.' Frog gave a crooked smile. 'Now Haunt's popped that shot, she may never wake up.'

Polly shuddered. 'Don't.'

They listened to Haunt's breathing, a sound just too ragged to be soothing.

'Now give me something to fix me up, will ya?' Frog said brightly.

Polly sighed. 'I wish I could.'

'Sure you do.'

'Of course I do!'

'Cause you feel soooo sorry for me.' Frog narrowed her eyes, spitefully. 'You, with your doll's hair, your long, young skinny body, your clear skin. Bet you grew up under a blue sky and a warm sun. Had yourself toys to play with.' She laughed. 'Where I grew up, I was the toy. People picked me up and did what they wanted. Whenever they wanted. Dad.

His friends. Anyone.'

Polly stared at Frog dumbly. She couldn't find a thing to say.

'Feeling sorry for me, now?' Frog sneered. 'That always follows. The sorries.'

'What do you want me to say,' Polly murmured, looking away. 'That I'm glad you're sick or something?'

'I don't need the sorries. Don't need nothing. I fight, see?

The army made me someone. Something Something.' Tears rolled down her scarred cheeks. 'Now I'm being made into something else.'

Faster than you know, thought Polly sadly. Frog's jumpsuit was zipped right up, but a track of the raw and puckered new flesh had crept up to her neck, right up to the small black disc on her throat which must make her voice sound so strange. The normal skin blistered and burnt round the edges of the patch.

Polly couldn't just sit and watch Frog cry. 'I'm going to check on Shade,' she said.

Frog didn't answer. Haunt had begun to snore softly. The sounds were taken by the weird acoustics in the great chamber and twisted, distorted, flung back at her. Polly felt horribly vulnerable. She kept glancing up at the bodies on their platform, counting them over and over. Six. Six. Six.

IV.

'You sure you can find this place again?' Roba asked in a loud whisper. He led the way up the pa.s.sage, rubbing distractedly at his injured wrist.

'There's a bend coming up, then the tunnel should fork,'

Tovel hissed back. 'It should get lighter too.'

'Polly had placed a pile of stones outside the relevant path,'

the Doctor added. He paused for breath, and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

Ben waited dutifully beside him, and Creben and Joiks both pushed past. Ben looked nervously around - a pointless exercise, since it was so dark you couldn't see your hand before your face. He was sure it hadn't been so dark before, and had become convinced that the fleaweed on the ceilings was able somehow to s.h.i.+ft itself about. Was there nothing that didn't move when it shouldn't in this G.o.d-awful place?

In an attempt to avoid unwelcome attention, they'd decided to have just the one torch on, Roba's, leading them on. It was like trailing after a lost little sunbeam in the cold, dark tunnels. Twice they had heard the soft, rhythmic flapping of stone wings in the blackness. Roba had flicked off the torch and they'd stood frozen like statues themselves until the noise had faded back into the shadows.

'Wait a minute, then!' Ben called quietly into the darkness, afraid the others would get too far ahead 'Don't fuss, my boy,' the Doctor told him stiffly, and they started off again.

They caught up with the others in time to see them crouched beside a little slate cairn that marked one of two tunnels. The fleaweed was back, casting its seasick glow.

'Polly must've left that,' said Ben.

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