Palace of the Damned. Darren Shan

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СКАЧАТЬ made a nice job of it, didn’t I?” Mr Tiny said, nodding at the roof. “You’d never believe how difficult it was to fit those crystals.” Larten frowned. “You created this?”

      “Just the roof,” Mr Tiny said modestly. “Perta and his cronies did the rest. I added the crystals to cast more of a shine on things. You don’t have to worry,” he added. “The crystals filter the rays of the sun. This light can’t do you any harm.”

      Larten hadn’t been thinking about the beams, but now that his attention was drawn to it, he realised he felt none of the pain that he did in normal sunlight.

      “I like this place,” Mr Tiny said. “It’s atmospheric. I often come here when I’m in a reflective mood and want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the modern world. Even the mightiest of us need our time outs, as humans will refer to it in another few decades or so.”

      Larten failed to pick up on Mr Tiny’s reference to the future. He was more concerned with why the diminutive man of magic had led him here… why his life had been spared… and what Desmond Tiny was planning for him next.

      “Why did you save me?” Larten asked.

      Mr Tiny sniffed. “You didn’t want to die. Most mortals don’t, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn’t. They see at the end how much they’ve given up, how precious life is, even when it’s treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they’ve passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.”

      “And I appreciate it greatly,” Larten said truthfully. “But why save me? Out of all who teeter on the edge, why pull me back?”

      Mr Tiny shrugged. “It was your destiny.”

      Larten shook his head. “My destiny was to fall. You changed it.”

      “Did I?” Mr Tiny’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe it was my destiny to save you. In that case this was your true destiny, not death.” Mr Tiny laughed at Larten’s confused expression. “Fate might seem like a complex puzzle, but it’s simple at its core. Near-misses and might-have-beens are nothing more than shadows of destiny. Each man has only one true path in life. You thought that yours ended here. You were wrong.”

      Mr Tiny approached the baby and tickled his stomach. As the boy giggled, Mr Tiny asked, “Does he have a name?”

      “No,” Larten said.

      “Every mortal should have a name,” Mr Tiny murmured. “It separates you from the beasts of the wild. How about we call him… Gavner Purl?”

      Larten blinked dumbly. “As good a name as any, I suppose.”

      “Then Gavner Purl it is.” Mr Tiny smiled and licked his lips. “Now that we’ve named him, how about we carve him up and share him between us? Little Gavner looks tasty.”

      “Leave him alone,” Larten snapped, standing quickly and snatching the boy from the drooling man in the yellow suit.

      “Be careful,” Mr Tiny said coldly. “I don’t take kindly to orders. If I want the child, I’ll take him.” He smiled again. “But I don’t. You can have the mewling, bony thing. I already ate today.” Mr Tiny nodded politely at Larten and turned towards the exit.

      “Wait!” Larten called him back. “You cannot simply walk out on us. You never answered my question about why you saved me.”

      Mr Tiny shrugged. “And I have no intention of doing so. I helped you because it was my wish. That’s all you need to know.”

      “And now you are just going to leave me?” Larten asked.

      “Yes,” Mr Tiny said. “I’ve done all that I care to do for you. You’re on your own from this point on.”

      “What if I jump into the chasm again?”

      “You won’t,” Mr Tiny said confidently.

      “But how will we get out of here?” Larten roared as Mr Tiny headed for the tunnel. “The baby cannot endure the cold much longer. I do not know where we are. We have nothing to eat. How will we survive and get back to civilisation?”

      “You’ll find a way, I’m sure,” Mr Tiny answered without looking round. And then he was gone, leaving an astonished Larten and a hungry Gavner Purl alone with the dead in the palace of coffins and ice.

PART TWO

      CHAPTER FOUR

      As the engine roared and the aircraft picked up speed and bounced over the grass, Larten glanced around and thought, This is never going to fly! The wings looked like six boxes, three on either side, a mix of bamboo and silk, joined by something that Alberto had called aluminium. How could a contraption like this ever leave the ground?

      “Go on, Vur!” Alicia cried, shaking her fist in the light of the almost full moon. “You can do it!”

      Alberto stood next to her, doubled over with laughter. He’d told Larten not to try – no amateur could fly his 14-bis, his beloved bird of prey – but Alicia had dared him and Larten never backed away from a dare.

      “By the black blood of Harnon Oan!” Larten growled, then pulled on the lever that was meant to control the craft. To his astonishment – as well as Alicia’s and Alberto’s – the aircraft lifted a few feet. He flew for all of five seconds before the wheels hit the ground. He thought that would be the end of it, but the aircraft continued to power ahead, and when he tried the lever again he rose maybe nine feet in the air and flew for eighty or ninety feet before crashing back to earth.

      One of the wings dipped and tipped towards the ground. Moments later the aircraft screeched to an abrupt halt and Larten was thrown forward to roll across the grass until he came to a painful stop.

      “Vur!” Alicia yelled, racing after him. “Are you all right? Have you broken any bones, my darling?”

      “I am intact,” Larten muttered, standing and wincing.

      When Alicia saw that he hadn’t been seriously injured, she threw herself into his arms and knocked him down again. Larten was laughing by the time Alberto caught up with him, mock-wrestling with the beautiful Alicia.

      “That was superb!” Alberto applauded. “It must have been a hundred feet at least.”

      “I think slightly less,” Larten said.

      “Even so… magnifique! I’ve managed no more than two hundred feet myself and I’m an expert.”

      “You do not need to be an expert to fly one of these,” Larten sniffed. “Just insane.”

      “Didn’t you enjoy it, darling?” Alicia asked.

      “No,” he grunted. “Monsieur Santos-Dumont and the Wright Brothers can wage their war for the air without me. I have experienced all the joys of flight I ever intend to. It is a crazy form of transport, Alberto. If you heed my advice, СКАЧАТЬ