The Tangle Box

Horris felt a chill climb up his spine. Biggar sounded awfully sure of himself. The big house suddenly felt much larger than it really was, and the silence that settled into it was immense. The riotous cries of the approaching mob disappeared as if swallowed whole. It seemed to Horris that he could sense a dark presence lifting out of the ether behind him, a shadowy form that coalesced and then whispered with sullen insistence,Turn around, Horris, turn around!

Horris took a deep breath in an effort to stop shaking. He had the sinking feeling that somehow, once again, things were getting out of control. He shook his head stubbornly. “I won’t look,” he snapped—and then added maliciously, “you stupid bird!”

Biggar cocked his head. “He’s reeeeeaching for you,” the myna hissed.

Something feather-light brushed Horris Kew’s shoulder, and he whirled about in terror.

There was nothing there.

Or almost nothing. There was a faint something, a darkening of the light, a small waver of movement, a hint of a stirring in the air.

Horris blinked. No, not even that, he amended with satisfaction. Nothing.

Outside, shouting rose up suddenly from the edge of the gardens. Horris turned. The faithful had caught sight of him through the open door and were trampling through the bedding plants and rosebushes and heading for the gate. They carried sharp objects and were making threatening gestures with them.

Horris walked quickly to the door, closed and locked it, and turned back to Biggar. “That’s it for you,” he said. “Goodbye and good luck.”

He walked quickly through the foyer and down the hall past a parlor, and a library sitting room to the kitchen at the back of the house. He could smell fresh wax on the pegged oak floors, and on the kitchen table sat a vase of scarlet roses. He took in the smells and colors as he passed, thinking of better times, regretting how quickly life changed when you least expected it. It was a good thing he was flexible, he decided. It was fortunate that he had foresight.

“Where are we going?” Biggar asked, flying up next to him, curious enough to risk a possible blow. “I assume you have a plan.”

Horris gave him a look that would have frosted a small child at play in midsummer. “Of course I have a plan. It does not, however, include you.”

“That is mean, Horris. And small-minded as well.” Biggar flew ahead and swung back, circling the far end of the kitchen. “Beneath you, really.”

“Very little is beneath me at this point,” Horris declared. “Especially where you are concerned.”

He went to a pantry, pulled open the doors, reached in, triggered the release for the panel behind, and stepped back as the whole assemblage swung open with a ponderous effort. It took a few seconds; the panel was lined with steel.

Biggar swooped down and landed on the top of the open pantry door. “I am your child, Horris,” he lamented disingenuously. “I have been like a son to you. You cannot desert me.”

Horris glanced up. “I disown you. I disinherit you. I banish you from my sight forever.”

From the front of the house came a pounding of fists on the locked door followed rather swiftly by a breaking of glass. Horris tugged nervously on one ear. No, there would be no reasoning with this bunch. The faithful had become a ragged mob of doughheads. Fools discovering their own lack of wit were famous for reverting to form. Would they be sadder but wiser for the experience? he wondered. Or would they simply stay stupid to the end? Not that it mattered.

He had to stoop to pass through the opening behind the panel, which was well under his six-foot-eight height. He had raised all the other doors in the house when he had renovated it. He had told everyone that Skat Mandu needed his space.

Inside was a stairway leading down. He triggered the release once more, and the heavy steel panel swung slowly back into place. Biggar flew through just as the door sealed and sped down the stairwell after Horris.

“He was there behind you, you know,” the bird snapped, flying so close he brushed the other’s face with his wing tip. Horris lashed out with one hand, but missed. “Just for a minute, he was there.”

“Sure he was,” Horris muttered, still a little unnerved by the experience, angry all over again for being reminded of it.

Biggar darted past. “Trying to blame me for your mistakes won’t save you. Besides, you need me!”

Horris groped for the light switch against the shadowed wall as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Need you for what?”

“Whatever it is you are planning to do.” Biggar flew on into the dark, smug in the knowledge that his eyesight was ten times better than Horris’s.

“Rather confident of that, aren’t you?” Horris cursed silently as his searching fingers snagged on a splinter of wood.