Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan Page A

you apart and hang your still-living pieces in the trees. Do not toy with me.
    ‘Oh, but I’m not, sir! I wouldn’t!’
    The hero brought the full heat of his amber eyes to bear on Diammid. The boy’s skin crisped and curled and flamed up like thin dry leaves. He arched on the ground. Screams forced themselves out of him, unconnected to his will.
    Then the black mist closed in with a sifting sound. Diammid’s skin rose into iron fur. The mist blotted out the sky; from here to high in the Vale behind him the air turned hollow, so that his cries echoed lostly. And something emerged into this hollowness, heavy, scrambling, tearing the vegetation, breathing hard and steadily.
    The hero’s head swung up to face that other, and his amber eyes glared and glowed. Show yourself, coward! He drew both swords; they tzanged and spat on the iron-rich air. The skulls at his waist clacked out a horrid laughter. The trees had turned to leafless bone on all sides.
    He strode up the hill. His iron boot-toe kicked Diammid in the side; his following foot caught Diammid’s head a blow that exploded the world into fireworks. The boy lay gasping, the enemy crooned farther away and higher, the giant’s swords whipped the weighty air and the trees rattled and rubbed their bones with his passing.

    It was nearly tea-time and Rickets was dozing, when Anderson pulled apart the coats and lifted him down from the coat-hook.
    Rickets shook out the arms of his shirt and blazer, blinking up at Anderson, not daring to speak. Anderson seemed taller, thinner. His face was one big roughfeatured scab, incapable of expression without cracking.
    ‘I thought you were— Shouldn’t you be in the San?’ said Rickets.
    Stillness and patience clarified the air around Anderson, spreading out from him like a pure oil.
    ‘Thank you,’ Rickets finally said, in a muted voice.
    Anderson jerked his head, Come on .
    Rickets bobbed along uncertainly beside Anderson, then settled to walking. He longed to ask, What happened to you in the Vale? What did you see? Will you ever tell, or was it too terrible? But the blunt, crusted ruin of Anderson’s face was too awesome; he could not quite bring himself to. And then they passed the last empty dorm and went up into the Prefects Wing.
    These stairs, these halls, were richly scented with Taylors Imperial tea and woodsmoke and buttered toast. A carpet runner muffled their footfalls, and peaceable sounds came from behind each door – the clink of glass- ware, Victrola music winding up, assured voices in conversation.
    They stopped at a door guarded by two big boys. Rowdier talk went on within. ‘I’m here to see Bully Raglan.’ Anderson’s voice was a burnt-out croak.
    One of the guards gave a startled laugh, and Rickets stifled a gasp. No one called Raglan ‘Bully’ in front of his lads.
    But the guard knocked on the study door and stuck his head round. The talk paused inside. ‘Anderson’s here to see you.’
    ‘Anderson?’ Raglan’s sharp voice shook Rickets like a gust of wind. Anderson’s hand rested briefly on his shoulder.
    ‘The boy who – the one who got burnt.’
    ‘I thought he was unconscious!’
    ‘Well, he’s here, Raglan, and asking to see you.’
    Raglan gave some signal, and the guard opened the door wide.
    Rickets stood on the threshold, his mouth sagging open. All was rich reds and browns in blazing candlelight. Every surface invited the hand, from curved polished wood to embossed wallpaper to gilded picture frames to plump velvet upholstery, to the rug on the floor, thick-napped, brightly patterned, quite unmarked by wear. The difference between this warm place and the scarred Prep Common Room with its mean coke fire made Rickets ache.
    The prefects sat around a table that was crowded with a miniature city of silverware and porcelain. At its pinnacle rose a many-storeyed cake stand. Sweet buns gleamed and glittered on the lower levels; a merry-goround – an entire carnival – of iced and