Chimera Book 1

Kyp stepped blinking from the tunnel Cuthbert had described into a vast wilderness of discarded carpets. The carpets were layered in drifts, their colours clashing, and their patterns hectic. The horizon swam and shimmered, but Kyp could just make out the dark smudge of a distant city. He set out towards it. Gritty gusts blew across the hummocks of piled carpets, the wind reeking of cat pee and propelling tumbleweeds of dog hair across the dunes. The ground felt oddly coarse beneath Kyp’s feet; looking down, he saw to his disgust that the carpets were crunchy with toenail clippings and jumping with fleas.

Kyp glanced back at Thingopolis, dark clouds hanging above the distant city. He thought about the Berserker running amok, delirious with pleasure as it battered its way through the ruinous streets. He thought about the Tealeaf, its pale body  bright with guzzled Light - and Madame Chartreuse, gliding among the survivors of the Cavalcade, hunting for treasures; hunting for him.

‘Get out of here,’ demanded Circinus. ‘You cannot be found.’ Sir Regulus shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving you.’ ‘You must.’ ‘Whirlitzer must know you survived. It changes everything.’ ‘Which is why you have to go now before you’re discovered.’ ‘He’s coming back!’ said Jamie, looking into the warehouse at the approaching figure of the armchair-ape. ‘Go!’ said Circinus.

Just as it seemed as if they would be pulped against the ceiling, the basket tipped sideways to deposit Kyp and the others down a steep metal chute. They spilled out the other end onto the stone floor of a windowless warehouse, where they were set upon by a legion of penknife beetles. The beetles picked them up and bore them away as ants carry leaves, transporting them up ramps and along suspended gantries. They sorted Kyp and Jamie into a container filled with dolls’ heads and mannequin limbs and left Sir Regulus knee-deep in hubcaps. Bertram was left upside down in a hamper of broken chamber pots.

‘It’s eating us alive!’ wailed Jamie. ‘No,’ shouted Sir Regulus. ‘We’re being taken through into the bombardment compartments. Brace yourselves!’ The shovelisk made a raucous, revving noise at the base of its long throat. Then, with a sharp, quick flick of its head, it ejected the contents of its mouth. Kyp, Jamie and Sir Regulus hit the ground hard, covering their heads as debris rained down around them. Kyp grimaced as the lifeless body of Polly Honeydew landed close by. Ankle-snatchers lay twitching on their backs.

‘Slow down!’ whispered Jamie. ‘There’s no time,’ Kyp whispered back, leading the other boy onwards and upwards through more dank passageways. The dried mud covering their skin was starting to flake, rays of Elsewhere Light flashing from their hands and faces. Desperate metamorphs pursued them. Kyp had another reason for hurrying: the tealeaf’s contagion, the fugue. How long until he forgot about his determination to reunite the Bean twins? How long before he looked upon this other boy with confusion? How long before he became a lacunatic, a stranger even to himself?

‘Don’t bother with excuses,’ said Whirlitzer, walking further into the Museum Room. ‘I knew your conviction was weakening, Regulus, but I didn’t think you capable of such blatant defiance. I should have known better. This isn’t the first time you’ve betrayed me.’

The metamorphs turned and ran from the cave into a tunnel. The two boys sprinted after them, dodging debris and geysers of stinking water. The tunnel came down behind them, driving them onwards. At last, the violent vibrations ceased and slowing finally, the carousel stallion waited for Kyp and Jamie to catch up. ‘Nobody wants you here,’ it told them, as exhausted, the two boys flopped to their knees. ‘At the very least disguise your Elsewhere Lights. You won’t be safe otherwise.’

They landed on an enormous rubbish heap, their fall broken by large chunks of yellow foam and slashed sofa cushions. The rubbish heap was contained inside a cavernous chamber, its buttressed walls running wet with rainbow-slicks of oil. The chamber was illuminated by the flicker of fluorescent tubes that dangled from the walls on lengths of electrical wire. To his disgust, Kyp saw the walls were crawling with ankle-snatchers. More of them scuttled amongst the rubbish heap, their fingers worming through the refuse.

Kyp’s eyes snapped open. He was flat on his back, his body listing from side to side. He was being carried on some kind of stretcher through a narrow canyon of crumpled, colour-splashed paint kettles. As Kyp sat up a gruff voice complained, ‘Do stop fidgeting. You’re putting me off my stride.’ ‘We have to go back. We have to go back, we -.’ Kyp stopped, as a number of details impressed themselves upon him. His transport wasn’t a stretcher, but a large brown sofa. It resembled a kind of buffalo – a soffalo! - and he was on the creature’s soft, brown back.