clever at science, maths and geography as you two. Well, maybe science, but not geography. At least, not the geography of the modern world. I’m better at the geography of the classical world.’
‘All right, all right,’ grumbled Jordy. ‘You’re better at everything. Who cares right now? We’re lost. Can you make a compass with your bare hands? No. Can you draw me an accurate map of where we’ve been? Some things you’re good at and some things I’m good at.’
Chloe did not want to quarrel so she let this go, even though she was sure Jordy could do neither of those things.
Once or twice they ran into impassable hedges, consisting of mangled wire coat hangers twisted together into an impossible mass. Some of these barriers were more than two metres high and almost two kilometres wide, with no gaps in their twisted entanglements, just a torn rag or two to attest to victims who had tried to get through. There was no way over these metal hedges, whose glinting wicked hooks clawed at their clothing much as the thorns of African bushes might do.
To Chloe this was indeed the crossing of a continent fraught with unnatural dangers and hazards. She still had the feeling they were being followed and she often spun round, hoping to catch the creature who pursued them, only to find perhaps a lump or two on the horizon, but nothing that moved. All was motionless. Even the dust lay unmolested like a fine covering of tawny flour upon the ancient planks. The scene before them, and behind them, was almost holy in its silence and stillness.
Now that she knew there were people here like the Atticans, who could do them harm, she was especially vigilant. Who knew what beings might come at them out of the far reaches of the gloom? Now they had met with life of a kind, anything might be possible. Expect the unexpected.
‘What’s that, in the distance?’ said Jordy, pausing to take a drink from an oasis umbrella. ‘Can you make it out?’
Alex and Chloe peered into the gloaming of their twilight world. There seemed to be hills ahead, gentle at first, but rising to a monstrous-looking mountain. Visible in the haze of sunlight which came through chinks and cracks in the roof, they saw that the hills were fashioned from heaps of chairs, and others of sports equipment, but the mountain itself appeared to consist entirely of rusty weapons of war.
On this formidable vastness of dark metal they could make out old corroded guns, their muzzles like thousands of small black mouths jutting from the upper crags; rusty bayonets and swords which stood out as vicious spikes on the lower ridges to impede any climber; slippery helmets forming slopes of dangerously loose scree. The whole mountain exuded menace, forbidding and hateful, dominating the scene ahead. It rose to impossible heights far up into the arrowhead shape of the roof, higher than the bats flew, higher than the light from lower windows. Up, up into the impenetrable darkness of unbreathable space. There its peak no doubt shaved the topmost rafter of the roof with its pointed blade.
‘Have we got to climb that?’ asked Alex, in hushed tones.
‘Dunno,’ said Jordy. ‘We’ll find out when we get there. Could be we’ve found our way into a government storage place, where the army keeps all its old weapons. I mean, government buildings are massive, aren’t they? And you never get to see how big, because they won’t let you on their sites.’ His next question was almost a pathetic plea for support. ‘Did anyone see one near our house, anywhere?’
Neither Chloe nor Alex saw the point in answering.
Chloe had not felt so helpless since that time at school when she was on what her teacher Mrs Erland had called ‘expedition training’. They had gone to Scotland, to the Highlands, to learn orienteering with maps and compasses. Chloe and her friend had set out, each with one of those items, and they had been separated by fog. Thus, though Chloe had the map, she had no compass, and the fog had prevented her from seeing the sun or stars, so she had absolutely no idea which way to go. Fortunately she had had her sleeping bag and its waterproof cover with her, and some provisions. She was eventually rescued by a search party.
All the feelings she had experienced during that incident in Scotland came flooding back to her now. Not just a sense of helplessness, but