Maddigan's Fantasia (21 page)

‘They won’t let my van through,’ said Yves with a sigh. ‘It’s the biggest van and it’s weighed down with equipment. They say it might be too heavy for some of the bridges in there.’

‘But what are we going to do then?’ asked Tane. ‘We can’t leave you behind on this side of the mountain.’

‘Bannister and I have been going over the maps,’ Yves said. ‘It seems there is a bush road that curves around the side of the mountain and it would be strong enough to take one van,’ Yves said. ‘I doubt if the Road Rats even know it’s there, so it’s probably not mined. I should be able to inch around that way and meet you on the other side. A group of Tunnellers have promised to keep pace with me in case I run into any difficulties.’

‘I’ll come too,’ said Tane. ‘An extra pair of hands is always useful.’

‘Hey, Eden … do you want to go with Yves?’ asked Garland. She could see Eden was torn in two ways. He hated the thought of the tunnels, and yet he did not want to leave his brother.

‘Make up your mind!’ Timon said. ‘We don’t have much time – or much choice.’

‘It might be a trap,’ said Eden. ‘Tunnels always look like traps to me.’ Nevertheless, as he spoke he moved to Timon’s side.

‘I’ll go with
you
, Dad,’ cried Lilith. ‘I’ll be able to sing to cheer you up.’

Yves did not look altogether thrilled by this suggestion, but Lilith scrambled in beside him, as the line of smaller vans edged into the underground darkness with a crowd of Fantasia people walking after them. Tunnellers gave them lamps to carry and once they were inside they found the tunnel dimly lit with torches burning in brackets on the walls.

‘Looks mysterious doesn’t it?’ said Timon. ‘I’m going to walk for a while.’

‘Me too,’ said Garland, thinking it might be rather romantic to stroll through deep shadows with Timon.

‘Me too,’ echoed Eden. ‘It’s bad enough being in a cave, but being shut up in a van which is shut up inside a cave would make me feel the world was really squashing me flat.’

‘Walk then, but stick close,’ Maddie ordered Garland. ‘It’s so easy to get lost down here. One tunnel is exactly like another.’

‘We’ll be able to hear one another, won’t we?’ Timon asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Maddie agreed. ‘But it’s not quite as easy as that. Down in the dark voices seem to come from every direction. Working out just where the sound’s coming from can sometimes be tricky. Stay close.’

And so the Fantasia began its long trek through the mountain
tunnels with certain Tunnellers bobbing along beside them. However they proved to be a difficult crowd to talk to, for they spoke an early language of the Remaking, and spoke it with a strange accent too. It seemed to Garland as ifTunnellers somehow communicated with one another with cries and gestures rather than with words.

In the beginning the paths they followed were long straight paths … well cared for and well lit, though the light was eerie … coming at times not only from lamps but also from swarms of fireflies moving overhead in wild spirals as they were disturbed.

‘This way! This way!’ called the head Tunneller, dancing and gesturing, irritated by their slow progress. Young Lattin drove Goneril’s van for her, for her sight in the semi-darkness was not good, and Goneril stumbled behind everyone else for a short distance, holding Jewel who began to grizzle. And then to cry. Wailing echoes came at them from all directions.

‘Wretched child!’ grumbled Goneril blaming Jewel for her own slow progress.

‘I’ll take her for a bit,’ offered Eden. ‘I’d like to.’ And as he took Jewel she fell silent.

‘Well,’ said Goneril sounding grumpier than ever. ‘There’s no gratitude in life. Next time she wakes at two o’clock in the morning, you can get up to see to her.’ And Goneril made for her own long van, which was being driven by silent Lattin. Although it was long, her van was just narrow enough to squeeze along the underground road.

Every now and then the ceiling above them suddenly seemed to vanish and they would find themselves in some high-roofed space from which roads seemed to go off in all directions. They laughed and talked rather defiantly for, in spite of the solid road underfoot and the glimmering torches, the tunnels were strangely threatening to outdoor people and the Fantasia people
needed to invent light-heartedness in order to be sure that things were going well.

And they were being followed. A tall black figure was coming behind them, certainly walking with more judgement than Goneril. Ozul was not quite at home in the dim passages, but the fireflies shone on the walls and ahead of him he could see the moving lights as the vans (with Garland, Timon and Eden, the baby Jewel slung against his chest, following them) retreated deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain.

Back in the outside air, another tall black figure inched along a narrow road watching a single big van creeping between trees and ferns, a green bank on one side, a fall into green nothing on the other. Every so often there was a turning space tunnelled into the bank or built out over the drop, but Yves did not want to turn. His van crept onwards while Maska followed, pausing if the van paused, standing back among the ferns himself, trying to look like a log tumbled down from above and propped against the side of the track. But perhaps he need not have worried, for Lilith’s singing was attracting almost all the attention of the Tunneller guides.

At last they came to a place where the track stretched out long and straight and with no turning bays in sight. Maska smiled grimly and pulled something from his belt. It gleamed like a thin dagger, but it was a metal tube. He put up a hand to his right ear and wound it around and around as if he were winding up a musical box, then put the tube to his lips as if he were planning to play a tune on it and hissed into it. Suddenly a dart shot out of the tube, twisting and glittering as it flew, fast as a bullet, to strike one of the back tyres of the van and bite deeply into it. Almost at once the van began to sag, and, as he watched it, Maska’s smile grew wider and possibly even grimmer.

‘
How are you feeling?
’ Garland asked Eden.

‘Don’t ask,’ he whispered back. ‘It’s better if I don’t have to think about it. Does it go on for much longer?’

‘I don’t quite know. I’ve never been this way before,’ said Garland. As she spoke it seemed she, too, could feel the mountains towering above her, pressing down on her and understood something of what Eden must be feeling. Ahead of her the voices of the walking adults and the lights of the last van disappeared around a corner.

‘We’d better not let them get too far ahead,’ said Timon quickening his step. ‘Here, let me hold Jewel for a while.’

Suddenly a strange soft voice spoke to them. It came from a little way ahead of them, and though it spoke gently and rather plaintively Garland quivered all over at the mere sound of it. Timon and Eden came to a sharp stop, as a woman appeared out of the darkness. She seemed to feel their surprise even though she couldn’t have seen their faces clearly. ‘Hello,’ she was saying. ‘Hello, Can you help me?’

She was very tall and was looking down at them – not through those dark glasses that the Tunnellers wore, but through the slits in a black mask embroidered with golden threads and with tassels of gold dangling down from between the eyes and ears. Even in the dim tunnel her clothes had a luxurious
shine to them. The faint lamplight caressed her shoulders and illuminated the fall of her skirt, so that her surface seemed somehow rich, velvety and elegant – and entirely out of place. As they stared at her, alarmed and suspicious, she moved towards them with a curiously wobbling step, almost as if she were just learning to walk, then suddenly, wobbly or not, towered over them.

‘Thank the stars,’ she said. ‘I thought I was lost and all alone here. I can’t find the group I was with …’ Her voice trailed away. Garland felt sure this velvety stranger was waiting for an invitation to join them. Then she spoke again. ‘My name’s Morag,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

Garland looked at Timon and Eden, and they began to walk forward again, the stranger walking rather quickly beside them.

‘It’s easy to get lost down here,’ Garland said, half apologetically. ‘Walk with us. Follow our lot, and we might find yours.’ (
Who on earth is she?
Garland was secretly wondering.)

Unexpectedly fireflies suddenly took off from the walls to dance madly around Morag’s head, so that, for a moment, she seemed to be wearing a curious halo of shifting light. Halo or not, it certainly seemed to annoy her for she struck out at it almost as if the fireflies were frightening her.

‘Garland?’ called a faint, echoing voice somewhere on ahead of them … Maddie being an anxious mother, checking to make sure she hadn’t run off to explore one of the side tunnels. Garland was horrified to hear just how distant Maddie’s voice was sounding.

‘Hey! We’re getting left behind!’ she cried, hurrying after Timon and Eden, while Morag followed closely on her heels, wobbling after her in that curious velvety way.

‘Have we lost them?’ Eden was saying.

‘Have they lost us?’ asked Timon.

The tunnel in front of them divided.

‘This way,’ said Timon. They turned a corner and found themselves looking into darkness.

‘Where are we?’ Eden cried, panting a little.

‘I heard them only a moment ago!’ Garland cried. ‘Oh look! I think there’s light along there. That’ll be them.’

They hurried towards that distant gleam which grew a little stronger as they stumbled towards it.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, they found themselves coming into an arched chamber, whirling with fireflies. Peering into the shadows Garland made out a track leading to the right.

‘There!’ she pointed.

‘Or there!’ said Timon, pointing in another direction. There, sure enough, was a second dark slot, but this time on the left.

‘It must be a sort of crossroads. Which one do we take?’ asked Garland. ‘Hey Maddie!’ she shouted. ‘Maddie!’

The ghost of an answer came out the darkness. Maddie was shouting back from somewhere, but now sounding very distant. Her voice was so confused with its own echoes that Garland had no idea of just where it was coming from. As she stood there, peering left and right, trying to work out just which path they should take, Eden tugged at her jacket and pointed ahead to yet another dark arched doorway – three possible pathways, all full of shadows and all alive with echoes.

Morag’s soft, elegant voice, speaking from behind them, cut into their confusion. ‘It was this way,’ she said. ‘The voices definitely came from this tunnel here.’

Turning back towards the stranger, so soft and velvety there in the dim light, Timon, Eden and Garland stared at her with a mixture of hope and doubt.

‘But you said you were lost,’ she said suspiciously.

‘So I am, but I know how sound travels,’ Morag declared. ‘
This
is the right road. Follow me.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Timon, pulling a doubtful face as he put Jewel over his shoulder. ‘We have to be sure. Who are you? What are you doing down here?’

‘What are any of us doing down here?’ asked Morag. ‘I am trying to find my way through the mountains. But I lost my friends, and if we don’t hurry we will lose yours too. Every minute we hesitate they are getting further and further away from us.’

‘But my mother will come back for me,’ cried Garland. ‘I know she will.’

‘In that case we’ll meet her halfway,’ Morag said. ‘Follow me.’

And they did follow her. At the time it seemed the best thing to do.

After a moment a shadow glided out of the darker shadows to stand in the middle of the crossroads, but it was not Maddie. Ozul stood there grinning right and left, though not from any sort of happiness. He paused, then set off down the tunnel Morag had chosen. A few moments later he dropped something on the floor of the chamber, then moved on even more quickly, bearing his yellow teeth at the darkness.

‘I hate this,’ he could hear Eden saying somewhere on ahead of him. ‘Something’s wrong.’

‘How true,’ said Ozul, nodding to himself in the dark. ‘But wrong for who?’

And then the world exploded. Feeling her way along after Morag, Garland felt as if she had been lifted off her feet and smacked violently against the wall. The tunnel lamps went out. It had been dim before but suddenly it was truly dark. Rocks tumbled and crunched against one another. The world seemed to be grinding its teeth with fury. As the first rumble of rock on rock died away Garland could feel someone beside her shifting around in the darkness. Then a familiar voice broke in on her. A baby cried out furiously.

‘Me!’ said Timon. ‘It’s me. Us!’

‘Is Jewel all right?’ panted Eden faintly.

‘She’s fine,’ Timon said. ‘Just frightened! But I think the tunnel has collapsed behind us. We’re not going to be able to go back that way – not easily anyway.’

And Maddie – who had left the other Fantasia people, coming anxiously back through the tunnels to look for Garland – opened her eyes. She could feel a slow beetle of blood trickling down the side of her face, and she could see that she was not quite alone. Several Tunnellers had appeared out of nowhere to cluster around her. They had taken off their dark glasses and their eyes shone in the darkness with a phosphorescent light.

Maddie picked herself up and looked around her. ‘What happened? What was that?’ she cried. ‘Garland? Garland?’

‘Surprise!’ said one of the Tunnellers. ‘Big surprise. Shock! Us too!’

Moving as quickly as she could, Maddie now stumbled back into the crossroads chamber, holding her lantern high. She could make out the strange walls and the arched mouths of two tunnels. And she could see rocks still trembling where there had once been the mouth of a third tunnel.

‘What happened?’ she cried again.

‘Rock fall!’ said one of the Tunnellers as if he were speaking to a young and very foolish child.

‘But there was an explosion!’ Maddie cried. She pointed at the rocks. ‘Dig!

‘No dig,’ said the Tunneller. ‘Risky. Need support. Need allies. Get help!’ And immediately the Tunneller set off up the tunnel through which they had just come.

‘Wait! Wait!’ Maddie called. ‘Don’t leave me. I’ve got to get our children out and … listen to me! Wait!’ She ran after the Tunneller, determined not to be left behind.

By sheer coincidence, Yves was almost immediately above that underground crossroads when he felt the explosion, felt the van rattle and heard Tane, who was checking the back tyre, cry out in alarm. Picking himself up from where he had been thrown, Tane flung out his arms in confusion.

‘What’s going on?’ he shouted. ‘What next?’

‘Change the tyre,’ called Yves grimly and Tane bent over the back tyre once more, frowning as he saw it was almost entirely flat. This wasn’t the only thing filling him with dismay. The bush around him was ringing with Lilith’s voice. She finished one song and mercilessly began another. Even Yves, peering out of the van window, was looking like a man who had had enough.

‘Lilith, love, maybe you should rest your voice,’ he called back over his shoulder. Lilith broke off and smiled at the back of his head.

‘No, I’m fine,’ she said, and began a new song.

‘Just a bit of a break,’ Yves suggested.

‘But they love me,’ said Lilith. ‘These Tunnellers really love my singing.’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Darling girl, I love it too,’ said Yves. ‘Of course I do. It’s just – just echoing in the van and –’

Tane came around to Yves’s window holding something in his hand.

‘Hey, look at this!’ he said. Yves looked at what he was being shown and frowned.

‘It’s – it’s like a dart,’ he said blankly, and then stared at Tane with sudden alarm.

‘It
is
a dart,’ Tane agreed, ‘and it was sticking out of our back tyre. Not an accident. No way!’

‘Sabotage?’ asked Yves. He turned to Lilith, ‘Listen, love, we’re going to have to jack up the van and change a tyre. You go
into the back of the van, get yourself something to eat. Have a rest.’ He swung himself down and moved towards the back. Lilith liked the idea of a small snack. She shifted sideways and made for the door that closed off their living space. Swinging the door open, testing a few notes as she did so, Lilith entered the back of the van happily enough. After all, this door was the door to her home – her safe place in a dangerous world.

But then she stopped still, staring in amazement and horror, for there in the centre of the living space … there at the tiny table between the bunks … was Maska himself, with the solar converter on the table in front of him. He looked up and gave her a smile of hideous triumph.

‘So happy to see you again,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you some good advice, even if it is a bit late for you to make use of it. Always lock the back door of your van when you travel through dangerous territory.’

But, as he reached for her Lilith screamed the loudest scream in the world.

To Yves outside, just beginning to work on the tyre, it seemed as if that scream filled the whole valley around them. To Tane it seemed as if it might split trees and cause birds to fall, stunned, from the sky. And as they staggered, staring wildly at each other in a moment of shocked bewilderment, Maska jumped out through the back of the van, swinging the package that held the converter in one hand and holding Lilith high above the ground in the other. Yves sprang towards Maska but Maska hoisted Lilith, kicking, screaming and struggling, even higher in the air and shook her at her father.

‘If you come after me she will be terminated,’ he said. Though his voice was broken it was still ruthless. He shook Lilith at them yet again, and then took off up the road, carrying Lilith under one arm as if she were nothing more than a small pillow stuffed with feathers. He was even able to carry the
converter, which Yves knew to be a great deal heavier than Lilith.

Yves stared after him, panting, stunned and helpless. Tane looked over his shoulder, his face twisted into a helpless grimace. A chorus of voices arose around them, coming out of the green edges of the track, coming through tiny cracks and wormholes in the ground.

‘The songbird! He has taken the songbird!’ the Tunnellers were shouting.

‘What shall we do?’ Yves shouted at Tane. ‘What shall we do? I can’t just let him carry her off.’

‘If we leave him he might – well – he just might let her go,’ Tane stammered. ‘I don’t know what to do. And he’s got that converter.’

‘Forget the converter! What about Lilith!’ Yves yelled. He turned from side to side, staring wildly into the air around him as if the banks of the road or the trees might suddenly give him an answer.

Neither of them noticed that all the Tunnellers had disappeared. There, where they had been only a moment earlier, shouting about the stolen songbird, was an empty track, thick with fallen leaves, dead twigs, but suddenly marked, along the bank on the right, by a line of holes in the ground.

Meanwhile in the tunnels winding almost directly under Yves’s van, Garland, Eden, Timon, Jewel and the mysterious Morag inched along their chosen passageway. They stepped out, at last, into another great underground hall, its walls set around with huge carved shelves. Their edges were inlaid with metallic symbols and runes, which flashed in the light of the lantern as it swung a little in Garland’s hand, and on those shelves were laid long boxes … hundreds of them, it seemed, retreating into a distance quickly blurred with darkness.

‘Coffins!’ exclaimed Garland.

‘Sarcophagi,’ said Morag, no longer speaking like that lost velvety stranger, but like a guide who knew the place by heart. Garland and Timon looked at her with startled suspicion, then peered up and down the walls for possible doors between the shelves, but there were no doors to be seen.

Garland turned back to Morag, only to find Morag was moving confidently over to a sarcophagus – an open one – and looking down at the man in it. Garland looked too. He looked fresh and at ease with the world … as if he had only just fallen asleep.