“So it ends,” Larten whispered, wondering how long he would fall, if there was ice at the bottom or fiery magma. Maybe this was a supernatural rip and ghosts would attack him and keep him alive, suspend and torment him. In this mysterious, eerie cave he could believe just about anything.
Larten was eager to leap, but first he made himself remember his master, Seba Nile, and praised his name. He thought about Wester too, the vampire who had been like his brother. The Princes, Vancha, Malora, Evanna. He considered them one by one and said a few words for each, apologising to those who might be hurt by his suicide. No vampire could be proud of taking his own life, but if you had to, there was a right way and a wrong way to go about it. This would be Larten’s final act and he didn’t want to pass poorly from this world.
When he had said his farewells, Larten stared once again into the abyss and smiled. He was glad it was over. Sorry that things had come to this, but at least he need suffer no more. If he was reborn and given a second chance, as some believed, he would try to do better next time round. In this life he had struggled from the start and it was maybe for the best that he was done with it.
Larten wanted to roar the death cry of the clan – “Even in death may I be triumphant!” – but there could be no triumph for him in suicide. Keeping his lips tight, he leant forward and let himself fall.
As he toppled over the edge, his eyes widened. Imminent death has a way of focusing the senses and in that moment Larten knew he was a fool. Yes, he had strayed, hit rock bottom, shamed himself and disappointed those who had tried to help him over the years. But life had been given to him by a higher force and he had no right to surrender his grip on it so cheaply. He should have fought on and done all that he could to redeem himself. This was selfish and wasteful. Cowardly. Nobody should voluntarily give up on life. If it was your time to die, death would calmly claim you. Otherwise it was your duty to press on and live.
Larten cried out with dismay and flapped his arms wildly to regain his balance. But it was too late. His weight had carried him clear of the ledge and he was falling. There could be no going back. Gravity had hold and all that lay ahead of him now was the fall, the crash and…
A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and Larten came to a stunned halt. Then, as his life hung in the balance and he blinked with confusion and dread, someone chuckled and said, “Well, well, what have we here?”
CHAPTER THREE
Larten tried to turn round to see who had hold of him. As he did, his shirt ripped and he lurched forward again.
“Careful,” the stranger tutted, grabbing another handful of shirt. “These stitches were not meant to take such a strain. If you don’t keep very still, they’ll snap and that will be the end of you.”
Larten gulped and stared at the drop beneath him. He had never felt so desperate to live. Or so helpless. “Who are you?” he gasped.
“The eye of the storm,” the man answered cryptically. “The heart of the sun. The shadow in your soul.” He paused solemnly, then teasingly added, “But you can call me Desmond.”
Larten had thought he could never feel any colder than when he’d been trudging through the purgatorial snow, but when he realised who had hold of him, a chill spread from the pit of his stomach that was even icier than the coffin of Perta Vin-Grahl. “Mr Tiny!” Larten cried.
There was an approving grunt. “My reputation has preceded me. That is how it should be. Now tell me, Master Crepsley, do you want to live or shall I let you fall?”
Larten’s throat tightened. Mr Tiny waited a few seconds, then shook him playfully. “It’s all the same to me, dear boy. This doesn’t have to be a reprieve. I can release you if you wish. Just say the word and…”
Larten felt the small man’s fingers loosening. “No!” he screamed.
“I didn’t think so,” Mr Tiny laughed and suddenly Larten was flying through the air. But not the air of the chasm — Mr Tiny had thrown him across the room and he landed in an untidy heap near the base of Perta Vin-Grahl’s coffin, on top of which the baby was still wriggling and gurgling.
Larten sat up, panting heavily, and watched the infamous meddler come towards him with a curious waddle. The tiny man had white hair, rosy cheeks and a thick pair of spectacles. He was dressed in a bright yellow suit and a green pair of boots. Larten recalled the flashes of colour that he had followed to this cave. “You led me here,” he muttered.
“Do you think so?” Mr Tiny smiled.
“I saw green and yellow when I was in the snow.”
Mr Tiny seemed to consider that. “It might have been me,” he conceded. “Or it might have been coincidence.” He beamed and there was nothing remotely warm in his smile. “Or it could have been destiny.”
Mr Tiny stopped close to Larten and gazed around the cavern. There was a large, heart-shaped watch pinned to his breast pocket. Larten had heard many vampires comment on that watch and wonder at its true purpose. Mr Tiny was older than any of the clan. According to the legends, he had been on this planet before the rise of vampire or man, maybe before life itself began. Nobody knew how powerful he was, or what his exact designs might be, but his love of chaos and suffering had been well documented over the millennia.
“I made a nice job of it, didn’t I?” Mr Tiny said, nodding at the roof. “You’d never believe how difficult it was to fit those crystals.” Larten frowned. “You created this?”
“Just the roof,” Mr Tiny said modestly. “Perta and his cronies did the rest. I added the crystals to cast more of a shine on things. You don’t have to worry,” he added. “The crystals filter the rays of the sun. This light can’t do you any harm.”
Larten hadn’t been thinking about the beams, but now that his attention was drawn to it, he realised he felt none of the pain that he did in normal sunlight.
“I like this place,” Mr Tiny said. “It’s atmospheric. I often come here when I’m in a reflective mood and want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the modern world. Even the mightiest of us need our time outs, as humans will refer to it in another few decades or so.”
Larten failed to pick up on Mr Tiny’s reference to the future. He was more concerned with why the diminutive man of magic had led him here… why his life had been spared… and what Desmond Tiny was planning for him next.
“Why did you save me?” Larten asked.
Mr Tiny sniffed. “You didn’t want to die. Most mortals don’t, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn’t. They see at the end how much they’ve given up, how precious life is, even when it’s treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they’ve passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.”
“And I appreciate it greatly,” Larten said truthfully. “But why save me? Out of all who teeter on the edge, why pull me back?”
Mr Tiny shrugged. “It was your destiny.”
Larten shook his head. “My destiny was to fall. You changed it.”
“Did I?” Mr Tiny’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe it was my destiny to save you. In that case this was your true destiny, not death.” Mr Tiny laughed at Larten’s confused expression. “Fate might seem like a complex puzzle, but it’s simple at its core. Near-misses and might-have-beens are nothing more than shadows of destiny. Each man has only one true path in life. You thought that yours ended here. You were wrong.”
Mr