It should have been darker than the darkest night, as black as Indian ink. But it was not. He held his hand in front of his face and could clearly distinguish its outline in the feeble light. It was both a blessing and a curse. If he could see, then he could also be seen.
The man quickened his pace. There was little risk of stumbling now but where the light was coming from he could not yet tell. The echo of his footfall and the even floor told him that he was indoors and deep underground.
Then there was the smell. A smell of damp and decay laced with something sour and feral.
And sounds too. Sounds that could only be footsteps somewhere behind him, getting closer. Periodically they stopped, and he was sure he heard sniffing.
There was a sudden movement to his left and the man froze, his heart pounding. He turned his head slowly and so did his watcher. With an audible sigh of relief, he saw his own reflection. He approached the mirror. Its ornate frame was cracked and draped with cobwebs, its glass scabby with age. But the shadowy reflection was his, even if his own mother would not have recognised the gaunt features and the malachite green skin. Escaping from the island of Kig had been the easy part. It had only taken him a matter of hours to travel the hundreds of miles from the horror of the mines to here – wherever here was. But when he finally emerged, fumbling, into the pitch darkness he found a new peril. It soon became clear he was being stalked.
As the man hurried on the light gradually increased until he discovered its source. A forgotten gallery stretched before him, one long wall hung with many paintings. But these were unlike any paintings he had ever seen before. Weird vines and plants spilled out of the images and on to the gallery floor. The branches of gnarled trees, originally crafted in oil paint, snaked and intertwined overhead. Streams formed by deft brushwork and pigment splashed their way out of the canvases and coursed along the gallery floor. Light was leaking from these pictures, casting rectangular pools on the bare, stone floor. It reminded the man of a deserted city street at night, lit by the windows of many shops.
The green man walked down the long gallery open-mouthed, staring at the canvases. He stopped before one that depicted a clearing in the heart of a forest overflowing with extravagant plants where a band of travelling players dressed in gaudy costumes and masks slept. The scene was illuminated by thousands of candles that littered the floor of the forest and the branches of the trees. It was as if the troupe were dreaming a collective dream that had materialised into the forest around them. Dark spaces between the trees suggested shadowy forms that lurked beyond the light of the candles. In the foreground of the picture were strange creatures the size of small monkeys and covered with piebald fur. One had left the picture and was scampering around in its pool of light on the gallery floor. The man knelt and picked it up.
Then the smell was suddenly stronger. Behind him he heard a sound and without looking he knew what it was. The nightmare form of a monstrous creature slowly emerged from the darkness beyond the gallery. It stood erect on immensely muscular hind limbs, its enormous jaws filled with needle-sharp teeth as long and transparent as icicles. It had huge, pale eyes as big as tea trays. From between them extended a long, curved barbel with a luminous tip like that of a deep sea fish. For a long moment they stood staring at each other. Then the monster folded its long wings and charged. As it hurtled towards the man, it uttered a blood-curdling roar.
The green man thrust the small, piebald creature into his rags, turned and sprinted down the gallery, his feet splashing in the watercourse. He knew from his pursuer’s composition and fine detail that it was the work of Lucas Flink, and therefore exceedingly dangerous. But this was not the moment for the finer points of art appreciation.
Ahead, an interruption in the light betrayed the presence of a painting with its surface still intact. There was no time to examine the dark canvas closely; he had to trust that the seal remained unbroken. He came to a halt and made a complicated gesture with his hand and, with a faint smile of satisfaction, he saw the surface ripple.
Then he vanished!
Flink’s creature let out a howl of frustration and skidded to a halt in front of the canvas, its wicked jaws closing on thin air and its claws tearing great gashes in the floor. It sneezed loudly, spraying pellets of foul, black mucus on to the canvas, each droplet reflecting a tiny, distorted image of its maker as it slid slowly down. The ghostly light from the creature’s barbel revealed a snowy landscape with a group of lamp-lit dwellings nestling in a hollow. Misty, blue mountains graced the skyline silhouetted against the setting sun. If the creature had possessed the intelligence to comprehend the picture it would have seen a trail of footprints leading from the foreground down towards the village. And if it had followed that trail to its end it would have seen the beautifully painted form of a ragged man with a skin of malachite green cradling a tiny, piebald creature in his arms.
He was looking back over his shoulder and smiling.