Maddigan's Fantasia (22 page)

‘Who is he?’ she asked, suddenly sure that Morag would have an answer.

‘He’s the gravedigger,’ Morag answered, and this time there was something curiously familiar about her voice … familiar and terrifying too. ‘Imagine his surprise when, just as he was about to fasten a lid over me, I sat up and smiled at him. There are not many men who can resist my smile.’

Then Morag turned … turned slowly, and looked at them out of green, suddenly glowing eyes. Her face stretched sideway in a horrible grin. Eden screamed, ‘The Nennog!’

‘Uncle!’ hissed Timon. As the two boys backed away from the transforming figure of Morag, Garland backed with them, wondering how on earth the Nennog, that ruler of a future time, could possibly be down in the dark under the Silica Mountains, grinning that dreadful grin. How they could possibly escape anyone who had such power? She shot a quick glance behind her. And now, entirely blocking the way they had come, stood Ozul, arms outspread as if he were longing to embrace them all.

No hope!
Garland thought.
Not here. Not this time
.

‘Time to go home, boys,’ she said – the Nennog said – still speaking with the tongue of this recently dead woman. Garland
realized Morag must be dead … she was an empty body the Nennog had been able to possess. As she thought this, Morag reached out an arm that seemed to stretch further than any true person could stretch, to grab the silver chain around Eden’s neck, and to twist it into a strangling halter. Eden made a dreadful choking sound as both Timon and Garland leapt to rescue him. The Nennog loosened his grip and flicked the chain over Eden’s head. The medallion dangled from a hand that suddenly seemed to Garland to be covered in green scales.

‘Mine! Mine at last!’ Morag’s lips moved but now it was entirely the voice of the Nennog that came out between them. ‘You certainly won’t be needing it any more. Get them!’ he commanded. And Ozul obediently moved in on them.

Garland, Timon (holding Jewel) and Eden were being herded back onto an empty shelf among the sarcophagi. Ozul stood over them, guarding them, and now began passing metal units drawn from the pack that swung at his hip, to Morag who fitted them together slowly constructing a device all too familiar to Timon and Eden. Garland, looking over Ouzel’s bent shoulder, watched it grow.

‘What’s that?’ she whispered to Timon.

‘A slider. It’s the machine we used to ride a time-pulse back here, to you.’

‘You said the Nennog couldn’t move through time,’ she whispered to Timon, but it was Eden who answered her, his lips barely moving.

‘He can’t. Not in the way we can. But he can put out tentacles of power. His power can move in on certain people.’

‘He can sometimes
possess
!’ said Timon. ‘When the circumstances are right it seems he can possess empty people,
dead
people, and take them over. And I think there might be radioactive links here under the mountain that he can ride on …’

‘He’s been able to take over a body … a fresh body,’ muttered
Eden. As he said this the Nennog looked across at them and smiled. Using Morag’s hand with its elegantly painted fingernails he held up the medallion, waving it mockingly at the boys.

Then two fireflies appeared, and began dancing around his head. For some reason this seemed to annoy him, and he struck them away with more that ordinary irritation.

‘You’re giving off radiation,’ Timon said. ‘They want to feed off you.’

‘It is I who will feed off them,’ said the Nennog, plucking one of them from the air and sliding it between Morag’s painted lips. Morag chewed and swallowed, still waving the Talisman before them. ‘How about a magic trick, Eden? How about a little miracle? But I forgot. I have the Talisman. You will be powerless now.’ He hung the medallion around his neck – around Morag’s neck – then touched it tenderly.

‘It
is
beautiful,’ he said, and went back to building the unit that would transport Eden, Timon and Jewel back to their own time and to some fate Garland could not imagine. And perhaps she, too, would be carried away with them, away from the Fantasia … away from Maddie, and Boomer and Lilith … away from all the people and all the things that suddenly seemed infinitely dear to her.

Even as she watched the device suddenly came alive between Morag’s elegant hands. It was hard to say just how. There was light of course, a pulsing blue light and a continual soft beep, but there was more than that. It was as if some entirely new element was revealed in the aura that extended around it. It was, thought Garland, as if actual seconds had become visible – almost like fireflies of a different kind.

Morag turned, looking over at them with the Nennog’s eyes, then turning towards Ozul.

‘Contact Maska!’ he said. ‘Tell him we have the children and that solar converter too. It is a great source of power and I long
for all the power in the world. Tell Maska to join us. We will soon be home in our own time.’

‘Let me go!’ Lilith was screaming, up on the mountain track. ‘Let me go!’

But Maska took no notice of her furious cries.

‘Let me go!’ she screamed again and began kicking wildly.

They were negotiating a dangerous curve in the path, and perhaps her furious kicking annoyed even Maska, for he stopped and held her up so they were nose to nose, looking into each other’s eyes.

‘Quiet!’ he said. ‘Quiet, or I will consume you.’

‘Let me go or else …’ Lilith was sobbing with fear, but with fury too. She aimed yet another kick at him.

‘If you are good, I just might let you go in due course,’ he said. ‘If you annoy me I will bring about ultimate termination – then throw you like rubbish over the cliff.’

Something caught between Lilith’s panting body and Maska’s iron chest began to utter a shrill peeping sound. Reaching up with his free hand, he twisted his left ear slightly. Something in his throat shifted. Lilith stared unbelievingly as a narrow jointed rod with what looked like the head of a tiny microphone unfolded from that ear and quivered in front of his lips. Maska spoke into it.

‘Yes?’

‘At last,’ said the Nennog. ‘Ozul will meet you, accompanied by the shape I am controlling. It is hard to maintain. I may have to retreat. You have their converter and we have the Talisman.’

Silence.

Maska twisted his ear once more, and the communication device folded back into him. And as he did this there came a sound far down the road behind them.

‘That’s my daddy,’ Lilith wept. ‘He’ll show you!’

‘No! I will do the showing,’ Maska said. ‘After all, I do have his treasure don’t I?’ He slung Lilith across his shoulder and set off down the road swinging the converter in his left hand as if it were a big box of thistledown.

But all at once the path ahead of him erupted. Maska hesitated, then found himself confronted by about twenty Tunnellers. The road on which his feet were so firmly planted suddenly seemed unreliable. It crumbled at the far edge. Maska leapt back towards the centre of the road, stumbling as he did so.

‘What now?’ he cried furiously.

One of the Tunnellers jumped out in front of the others.

‘You are threatening the songbird!’ he cried.

Yves, desperately chasing after Maska, paused as he saw the way the road was breaking up and twisting in the middle.

‘Set the songbird free!’ the Tunneller was shouting. ‘Restore her.’ And Yves was filled with a strange, wild hope.

‘Lilith!’ he yelled. ‘Stop screaming. Sing something! Quickly! Sing!’

And Lilith, being Lilith, did sing. There wasn’t too much difference between her squealing and her singing, but the Tunnellers began swaying in time to her song.

I am dancing, dancing a rainbow dance,

Singing a rainbow song …’

The ground under Maska’s feet suddenly subsided, and his left leg sank into earth. In shock and surprise, desperately trying to keep his balance, he dropped both Lilith and the converter.

A singer has to take her chance
… Lilith sang in her screaming fashion, rolling away from Maska while the ground beneath him crumbled even more dangerously. He tilted, flailing his arms as if they were the blades of a propeller, and staggered towards the space on the other side of the road.

‘Lilith! Lilith!’ cried Yves, terrified that she would fall too.

A singer must be strong
! sang Lilith, trying to pull the converter to safe ground. It was much too heavy for her to carry but all the same, like a true and unexpected heroine, she struggled to drag it back towards Yves.

‘Protect the songbird,’ cried a chorus of Tunneller voices, and the whole track under Maska suddenly disappeared. With one of his strange metallic cries, he toppled out of sight and they heard him crashing down, down, down through the bush below them. The converter wobbled dangerously and seemed as if it was about to tumble after him.

‘Oh, Lilith, darling!’ cried Yves embracing her and pulling her back to a safer part of the road. ‘Thank goodness! Thank goodness. Now just stand there against the bank.’ He reached for the converter and pulled it back to safety.

‘Daddy, I saved that converter thing,’ Lilith said proudly. ‘I saved it by singing.’

‘You did,’ said Yves. ‘You surely did! And you can sing as often as you like from now on.’

Far down below Yves
and Lilith, hemmed in by the sarcophagi, Garland, Timon and Eden faced dead Morag who looked at them with the eyes of the Nennog.

Timon was crying out in out in protest.

‘But if you destroy the converter you’ll release all that energy – it could destroy everything … everyone … for kilometres around …’

The Nennog interrupted him.

‘Why should you care? You will be safe with me. You will be hundreds of years on ahead of this cursed time.’

‘The time lines will twist!’ Timon shouted.

‘But no one here is of any importance,’ The Nennog said. ‘Believe me I have read about this stupid circus very carefully. I have followed a thousand time threads and, though there will be alterations for a great many other people, none of them will be changes that dislodge me. That is all that matters. Ozul. Bring the boys and the baby over here.’

Ozul moved in on them. Timon passed Jewel to Eden then jumpt to his feet, prepared to defend Jewel, and to defend Garland, too, perhaps, but it was Eden and Jewel that Ozul seized, only to drop him and leap away uttering a cry which was certainly a cry of pain.

‘What?’ cried the Nennog. Ozul turned towards him.

‘Lord,’ he began, crying out in agony and confusion, ‘my arm … my arm …’ He clasped his right shoulder with his left hand, while his right arm dangled beside him as limp and useless as an arm plaited of wet string. ‘I can’t feel my arm,’ Ozul said.

‘Must I then …?’ cried the Nennog. ‘Must I …’

And the shape of Morag, still with something of the elegance that had once belonged to a live woman, advanced towards them. Behind her the device pulsed with light … pulsed with time. Garland shrank away. She could not help herself. It was a curious comfort to find Timon also shrinking beside her. Only Eden, hoisting Jewel rather clumsily, stood firm. He stared at the Nennog-Morag figure and suddenly fireflies surged in on them, not so much flying from the walls of the cave around them as dissolving out of the air, and flying directly into those eerie green eyes, crawling into Morag’s ears and up her nose. Incredibly that terrifying figure began a sudden dance of desperation, but more and more fireflies appeared swarming all over the figure of Morag. Now the Nennog who possessed her and moved her began to roar with fury and fear. Eden jumped to his feet to gaze intently at that dancing roaring shape, concentrating on it as if by mere staring he would wipe it out of existence. The tall figure writhed, flailing at the air to drive away the glowing swarm that was slowly enveloping it, then stepped back again, while the time unit behind flashed continually with its own strange light. Ozul yelled out in sudden consternation … and then there was a flash … a furious flash, not only of light, thought Garland, but of time itself, as if minutes hours and years – centuries even – had suddenly exploded around her. She heard her own voice screaming. She heard Timon call her name – felt him grab her arm and pull her backwards. She heard Ozul saying something that was perhaps a curse.

And then it was over. The huge dazzle died away and after a while – a few seconds, a few minutes, she could not say – she was able to see again. The lamps they had brought with them still shone with that faint and faded light that was the light of these tunnels, but the carefully assembled time unit lay like a heap of metallic sticks on the floor, disconnected and dead.

‘Gone!’ cried Timon. ‘What happened?’ But, before anyone could say anything there was a growl from the shadows. Ozul was picking himself up, glaring over at them. No time for questions let alone answers. No time for anything but running away, even if there was nowhere safe to run to. Timon snatched Jewel from Eden, and grabbed Eden’s arm as he and Garland jostled past Ozul who had not quite regained his feet, making for the crossroads once more, Eden flopping beside Timon in a confused way just as if he had forgotten how to run.

‘But it’s blocked … it’s blocked …’ panted Garland. Within a minute they were once more confronting the fallen debris that had shut them off from their friends … from the Fantasia who were somewhere on the other side of those stones, no doubt looking for them, desperate to find them again. Jewel’s grizzles turned into a loud bawling.

‘Now what?’ cried Garland, swinging around to face Ozul, thinking that there were three of them and that Ozul, whatever else he might be, was not that terrible Nennog any longer. They might be able to beat him off.

‘I will take you back myself,’ Ozul was shouting above Jewel’s racket, but now Eden began to pull himself together.

‘No way! Ever!’ he shouted, and flung out his hand in front of him. The jagged roof above Ozul suddenly crumbled. Rocks poured down on Ozul. He crouched down but one rock stuck him powerfully on the head just as if it had aimed itself at him, and he fell unconscious at their feet.

Timon and Garland stared at their enemy brought so low,
and then looked, with uneasy astonishment, at Eden, who had suddenly slumped down beside them and was sitting there with his head sunk down between his knees. ‘Okay, Eden,’ said Garland, scarcely recognizing her own voice. ‘The Talisman’s gone with the Nennog. How did you do that?’

Eden looked up, as bewildered as they were.

‘Yes,’ said Timon, and his voice was shaking too, ‘you’ve got some explaining to do. But escaping first, explaining later. We’ve got to work out a way of getting out of here, and we’d better do it now.’

‘I didn’t do anything back there,’ said Eden. ‘I called the fireflies, but I can’t quite work out why. And I don’t know what happened to the Nennog after that.’

Timon was staring at the blocked passage in front of them. ‘These rocks going to be hard to shift,’ he said.

And at this very moment, just as if a wish were being answered, a voice broke in on them … faint, a little broken, but definite. There it was again.

‘Garland! Garland, where are you?’ Maddie’s voice. And though it was blurred anyone could tell it was just on the other side of those fallen stones.

‘Garland!’ shouted another voice – Bannister’s voice – and then a whole chorus of voices joined in, all calling her name. Suddenly the whole tunnel (rock fall or not) seemed to be ringing with it.

‘Here!’ Garland shouted back. ‘Here we are.’

‘Thank goodness! Just stay where you are. We’ll have you out in no time,’ Maddie called. ‘Our strong man will manage two or three of these rocks easily. You will, won’t you, Bannister?’

And indeed Bannister did roll a few rocks to one side. And in next to no time there was a space they could climb through, and join their Fantasia once more.

Goneril ran to grab the grizzling Jewel from Timon’s arms.

‘What sort of brother are you?’ she cried. ‘How could you take her off to dangerous places? Oh, I’ve been so worried about her. I’m never letting her out of my sight again.’

So the Fantasia set off once more, trekking back down the tunnel road to the place where the vans were waiting patiently for them. And, after that, it seemed no time at all before they were coming up from under the mountains, just as Yves arrived, driving his van out of the bush, so that they were reunited – all together once more with alarming stories to tell as they sat around the campfire in the evening. ‘I saved us with my singing,’ Lilith boasted over and over again.

But Garland found herself wondering … wondering about how it was that suddenly she owed so much to Yves … and wondering about other things too.

‘That Talisman vanished with the Nennog,’ she said to Timon. ‘But Eden still – well, he still did magic things. He made fireflies come. How could the Nennog be frightened of fireflies?’

‘I think the fear of fireflies belonged to Morag,’ Timon said. ‘I know she was dead and the Nennog was using her, but something of her was still there and still working and the Nennog couldn’t altogether control it. And there was more to it than that, wasn’t there, Eden? I mean they weren’t just ordinary fireflies were they?’

‘I tried to make them radioactive,’ Eden sighed. ‘These tunnels are quite radioactive.’ He sighed again. ‘I tried to draw radiation out of the rocks … the Nennog couldn’t stand up against it.’

‘The Nennog fell – and that medallion of yours fell with him. So how could your magic go on working?’ said Garland.

Eden was silent and Timon shrugged and shook his head.

‘I just don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘We don’t know everything. I mean we don’t even know for certain what the Talisman
is. We always thought it must be that medallion, and the medallion’s gone. But Eden says he can still feel it … feel the power of the Talisman, I mean.’

‘Does that mean he’s – well, he’s sort of in touch with it even though the Nennog’s carried it off with him?’ asked Garland.

‘I don’t know,’ said Timon again. ‘I only know that Eden says he can still feel its power – just as if it was close to him and connecting to him. And, like I said, there’s a lot about the Talisman that is a real mystery – even to us.’