LITMIR.BIZ

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it is only this last year that they have multiplied. They are taking over. I think they will become the dominant mountain spider, perhaps within ten or fifteen years.”

      “Seba!” I snapped. “I only released Madam Octa because you told me she couldn’t have offspring. Are they poisonous?”

      The quartermaster shrugged. “Yes, but not as deadly as their mother. If four or five attacked together, they could kill, but not one by itself.”

      “What if they go on a rampage?” I yelled.

      “They will not,” Seba said stiffly.

      “How do you know?”

      “I have asked them not to. They are incredibly intelligent, like Madam Octa. They have almost the same mental abilities as rats. I am thinking of training them.”

      “To do what?” I laughed.

      “Fight,” he said darkly. “Imagine if we could send armies of trained spiders out into the world, with orders to find vampaneze and kill them.”

      I turned appealingly to Harkat. “Tell him he’s crazy. Make him see sense.”

      Harkat smiled. “It sounds like a good idea … to me,” he said.

      “Ridiculous!” I snorted. “I’ll tell Mika. He hates spiders. He’ll send troops down here to stamp them out.”

      “Please do not,” Seba said quietly. “Even if they cannot be trained, I enjoy watching them develop. Please do not rid me of one of my few remaining pleasures.”

      I sighed and cast my eyes to the ceiling. “OK. I won’t tell Mika.”

      “Nor the others,” he pressed. “I would be highly unpopular if word leaked.”

      “What do you mean?”

      Seba cleared his throat guiltily. “The ticks,” he muttered. “The new spiders have been feeding on ticks, so they have moved upwards to escape.”

      “Oh,” I said, thinking of all the vampires who’d had to cut their hair and beards and shave under their arms because of the deluge of ticks. I grinned.

      “Eventually the spiders will pursue the ticks to the top of the mountain and the epidemic will pass,” Seba continued, “but until then I would rather nobody knew what was causing it.”

      I laughed. “You’d be strung up if this got out!”

      “I know,” he grimaced.

      I promised to keep word of the spiders to myself. Then Seba headed back for the Halls – the short trip had tired him – and Harkat and me continued down the tunnels. The further we progressed, the quieter Harkat got. He seemed uneasy, but when I asked him what was wrong, he said he didn’t know.

      Eventually we found a tunnel which led outside. We followed it to where it opened on to the steep mountain face, and sat staring up at the evening sky. It had been months since I’d stuck my head out in the open, and more than two years since I’d slept outdoors. The air tasted fresh and welcome, but strange.

      “It’s cold,” I noted, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms.

      “Is it?” Harkat asked. His dead grey skin only registered extreme degrees of heat or cold.

      “It must be late autumn or early winter.” It was hard keeping track of the seasons when you lived inside a mountain.

      Harkat wasn’t listening. He was scanning the forests and valleys below, as if he expected to find someone there.

      I walked a short bit down the mountain. Harkat followed, then overtook me and picked up speed. “Careful,” I called, but he paid no attention. Soon he was running, and I was left behind, wondering what he was playing at. “Harkat!” I yelled. “You’ll trip and crack your skull if you – ”

      I stopped. He hadn’t heard a word. Cursing, I slipped off my shoes, flexed my toes, then started after him. I tried to control my speed, but that wasn’t an option on such a steep decline, and soon I was hurtling down the mountain, sending pebbles and dust scattering, yelling at the top of my lungs with excitement and terror.

      Somehow we kept on our feet and reached the bottom of the mountain intact. Harkat kept running until he came to a small circle of trees, where he finally stopped and stood as though frozen. I jogged after him and came to a halt. “What … was that … about?” I gasped.

      Raising his left hand, Harkat pointed towards the trees.

      “What?” I asked, seeing nothing but trunks, branches and leaves.

      “He’s coming,” Harkat hissed.

      “Who?”

      “The dragon master.”

      I stared at Harkat oddly. He looked as though he was awake, but perhaps he’d dozed off and was sleepwalking. “I think we should get you back inside,” I said, taking his outstretched arm. “We’ll find a fire and–”

      “Hello, boys!” somebody yelled from within the circle of trees. “Are you the welcoming committee?”

      Letting go of Harkat’s arm, I stood beside him – now as stiff as he was – and stared again into the cluster of trees. I thought I recognized that voice – though I hoped I was wrong!

      Moments later, three figures emerged from the gloom. Two were Little People, who looked almost exactly like Harkat, except they had their hoods up and moved with a stiffness which Harkat had worked out of his system during his years among the vampires. The third was a small, smiling, white-haired man, who struck more fear in me than a band of marauding vampaneze.

       Mr Tiny!

      After more than six hundred years, Desmond Tiny had returned to Vampire Mountain, and I knew as he strode towards us, beaming like a rat-catcher in league with the Pied Piper of Hamlin, that his reappearance heralded nothing but trouble.

       CHAPTER SIX

      MR TINY paused briefly when he reached us. The short, plump man was wearing a shabby yellow suit – a thin jacket, no overcoat – with childish-looking green Wellington boots and a chunky pair of glasses. The heart-shaped watch he always carried hung by a chain from the front of his jacket. Some said Mr Tiny was an agent of fate – his first name was Desmond, and if you shortened it and put the two names together, you got Mr Destiny.

      “You’ve grown, young Shan,” he said, running an eye over me. “And you, Harkat…” He smiled at the Little Person, whose green eyes seemed wider and rounder than ever. “You have changed beyond recognition. Wearing your hood down, working for vampires – and talking!”

      “You knew … I could talk,” Harkat muttered, slipping back into his old broken speech habits. “You always … knew.”

      Mr Tiny nodded, then started forward. “Enough of the chit-chat, boys. I have work to do and I must be quick. Time is precious. A volcano’s due to erupt on a small tropical island tomorrow. Everybody within a ten-kilometre radius will be roasted alive. I want to be there – it sounds like great fun.”

      He wasn’t joking. That’s why everyone feared him – he took pleasure in tragedies which left anyone halfway human shaken to their very core.

      We followed Mr Tiny up the mountain, trailed by the two Little People. Harkat looked back often at his ‘brothers’. I think he was communicating with them – the Little People can read each other’s thoughts – but he said nothing to me about it.

      Mr Tiny entered the mountain by a different tunnel to the one we’d used. It was a tunnel I’d never been in, higher, wider and drier than most. There were no twists or side tunnels leading off it. It rose straight and steady up the spine of the mountain. Mr Tiny spotted me staring at the walls of the unfamiliar

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