“A bit what?” said Rawley suspiciously.
No1 realized that he needed to dumb it down for his teacher.
“Sick. A bit sick.”
“Oh.” Rawley shook his head in disgust. “Slime makes you sick? What kind of imp are you? The others live for slime.”
No1 took a deep breath and said something aloud that he had known for a long time.
“I’m not like the others.” No1’s voice trembled. He was on the verge of tears.
“Are you going to cry?” asked Rawley, his eyes bugging. “This is too much, Leon. He’s going to cry now, just like a female. I give up.”
Abbot scratched his chin. “Let me try something.”
He rummaged in a cape pocket, surreptitiously fixing something over his hand.
Oh, no, thought No1. Please no. Not Stony.
Abbot raised a forearm, his cloak draped over it. A ministage. A puppet human poked his head over the leather cape. The puppet’s head was a grotesque ball of painted clay, with a heavy forehead and clumsy features. No1 doubted that humans were this ugly in real life, but demons were not known for their artistic skills. Abbot often produced Stony as a visual incentive for those imps who were having difficulty warping. Needless to say, No1 had been introduced to the puppet before.
“Grrr,” said the puppet, or rather Abbot said, as he waggled the puppet. “Grrr, my name is Stony the Mud Man.”
“Hello, Stony,” said No1 weakly. “How’ve you been?”
The puppet held a tiny wooden sword in its hand. “Never mind how I’ve been. I don’t care how you’ve been, because I hate all fairies,” said Abbot in a squeaky voice. “I drove them from their homes. And if they ever try to come back, I will kill them all.”
Abbot lowered the puppet. “Now, how does that make you feel?”
It makes me feel that the wrong demon is in charge of the pride, thought No1, but aloud he said, “Eh, angry?”
Abbot blinked. “Angry? Really?”
“No,” confessed No1, wringing his hands. “I don’t feel anything. It’s a puppet. I can see your fingers through the material.”
Abbot stuffed Stony back in his pocket.
“That’s it. I’ve had it with you, No1. You will never earn a name from the book.”
Once demons warped, they were given a human name from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow. The logic being that learning the human language and possessing a human name would help the demon army think like humans, and therefore defeat them. Abbot may have hated the Mud Men, but that wasn’t to say he didn’t admire them. Also, politically, it was a good idea to have every demon on Hybras calling each other by names that Leon Abbot had procured for them.
Rawley grabbed No1’s ear and dragged him from his seat to the rear of the classroom. A metal grille on the floor covered a shallow, pungent dung pit.
“Get to work, Runt,” he said gruffly. “You know what to do.”
No1 sighed. He knew only too well. This wasn’t the first or second time he’d had to endure this odious task. He hefted a long-handled gaff from a peg on the wall and pulled the heavy grille from its groove. The smell was rank but not unbearable, as a crust had formed on the dung’s surface. Beetles crawled across the craggy skin, their legs clicking like claws on wood.
No1 uncovered the pit completely, then selected his nearest classmate. There was no way of telling which classmate it actually was because of the slime cocoon. The only movements were small air bubbles around the mouth and nose. At least, he hoped it was the mouth and nose.
No1 bent low and rolled the cocoon along the floor and into the dung pit. The warping imp crashed through the crust, taking a dozen beetles with him into the muck below. A gush of dung stink washed over No1, and he knew his skin would smell for days. The others would wear their pit stink proudly, but for No1 it was just another badge of shame.
It was arduous work. Not all the warping imps were still. Several struggled inside their cocoons, and twice demon claws punctured the green chrysalis inches from No1’s skin.
He persisted, groaning loudly in the hope that Rawley or Leon Abbot would lend a hand. It was a vain hope. The two demons were huddled at the head of the classroom, poring over Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow.
Eventually, No1 rolled his last classmate into the dung pit. They were piled in there like meat in a thick stew. The nutrient-rich dung would accelerate their warp, ensuring they reached full potential. No1 sat on the stone floor, catching his breath.
Lucky you, thought No1. Dunked in dung.
No1 tried to feel envious, but even being near the pit made him gag; the thoughts of being immersed in it, surrounded by cocooned imps, made his stomach churn.
A shadow fell across the flagstones before him, flickering in the firelight.
“Ah, No1,” said Abbot. “Always an imp, never a demon, eh? What am I going to do with you?”
No1 stared at his own feet, clicking his baby talons on the floor.
“Master Abbot, sir. Don’t you think? Isn’t there the tiniest chance?” He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Abbot’s. “Couldn’t I be a warlock? You saw what happened with the skewer. I don’t want to embarrass you, but you saw it.”
Abbot’s expression changed instantly. One second he was playing the genial master, the next his true colors shone through.
“I saw nothing,” he hissed, heaving No1 to his feet. “Nothing happened, you odious little freak of nature. The skewer was coated with ash, nothing more. There was no transformation. No magic.”
Abbot drew No1 close enough to see the slivers of trapped meat between his yellowed teeth. The next time he spoke, his voice seemed different somehow. Layered. As though an entire choir were singing in harmony. It was a voice that could not be ignored. Magical?
“If you are a warlock. Then you should really be on the other side, with your relative. Wouldn’t that be for the best? One quick leap, that’s all it would take. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Runt?”
No1 nodded, dazed. What a lovely voice. Where had that come from? The other side—of course that’s where he should go. One small step for an imp.
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. The subject is closed. As Lady Heatherington Smythe would say,‘Best foot forward, young sir, the world awaits.’”
No1 nodded just as he knew Abbot wanted him to, but inside, his brain churned along with his stomach. Was this to be the whole extent of his life? Forever mocked, forever different. Never a moment of light or hope. Unless he crossed over.
Abbot’s suggestion was his only hope. Cross over. No1 had never seen the appeal of jumping into a crater before, but now the notion seemed nigh on irresistible. He was a warlock, there couldn’t be any doubt. And somewhere out there, in the human world, there was another like him. An ancient brother who could teach him the ways of his kind.
No1 watched Abbot stride away. Off to exercise his power on some other part of the island, possibly by belittling the females in the compound, another of his favorite pastimes. Then again, how bad could Abbot be? After all, he had given No1 this wonderful idea.
I cannot stay here, thought No1. I must go to the volcano.
The notion took firm hold of his brain. And in minutes it had drowned out all the other notions in his head.
Go to the volcano.
It pounded inside his skull, like waves breaking on the shore.
Obey Abbot. Go to the volcano.
No1 brushed the dust from his knees.
“You know what,” he muttered to himself, in case Rawley could hear. “I think I’m going to the volcano.”