Mirrorscape (20 page)

After a while, the butler turned. ‘Not far now, young sirs, miss. There appears to be a large cavity all around the drain.'

The cavity itself was formed by the upturned hull of a truly enormous galleon. Most of the decks were missing, exposing its ribs and keel, and the gigantic masts and yards had crumpled and were wedged crossways in the drain, causing the blockage.

The friends could all breathe more easily now that the smoke was escaping into the cavity, but even above the rhythmic noise of the steam engine and the musical pipes, they could hear the ominous creaking of the countless tons of rubbish above them bearing down on the hull.

‘The scrapheap's about to collapse!' cried Ludo.

Swivel navigated the excavator through the jungle of fallen rigging and spars that littered the floor. As he manoeuvred up to the drain, he worked a handlebar lever that engaged a circular saw. It bit into the debris that was causing the blockage, sending a fountain of bright sparks high into the air. Then, suddenly, the obstruction tumbled down into the drain. Without hesitation, the butler drove the excavator forward and into the hole. After a brief, vertical plunge, the passage of the drain evened out into a steep, downward slope. Swivel wrestled with the controls as they dived deeper and deeper.

‘You won't be getting away that easily.'

‘Look!' cried Wren in alarm.

The face had appeared out of the wall of the drain. It was much bigger and angrier than before and was moving along at great speed, keeping pace with their descent.

‘That brain cell of yours is getting a real workout,' it sneered. ‘But you won't be getting out of the mine just yet.'

Muscular arms emerged from the wall and their powerful hands grabbed two of the excavator's ribs, snapping them apart as if they were matchsticks. One hand thrust into the excavator and made a grab for Mel. Mel leapt from his saddle as the hand crushed the bicycle frame, and his satchel fell to the floor. It burst open and the contents spilled out. Wren grabbed the regulator, and Ludo the sketchbook with one hand and the omniscope with the other. Mel lunged for the pencils but they rolled out of the machine. The hand reached in again and seized Ludo and Wren.

‘Help! Help!' cried Ludo.

Ludo and Wren wailed in pain and struggled vainly to free themselves from the face's grasp.

Mel reached down, grabbed one of the snapped-off ribs and thrust it out of the excavator and into the face's left eye. ‘Let go of my friends!'

The face howled and dropped the youngsters. ‘You vicious little tyke!' spat the face, rubbing its wounded eye. It formed its other hand into a fist and punched hard into the machine, catching Mel a hefty whack that bowled him across the floor of the excavator. He made a
fruitless grab for one of the ribs on the far side but was hurled out of the machine as it reached a fork in the drain. Mel fell into one side-branch, while the excavator with Swivel, Ludo and Wren careered on into the other.

Mel forced himself on to his back so that he was sliding feet-first. Fortunately, the lining of the drain was smooth, but this also prevented him from slowing himself down. He veered wildly from side to side, striking his elbows, ribs and, occasionally, his head. One half of his mind fought against mounting panic while the other half tried to concentrate on avoiding any more collisions. He came to a halt with a jarring thud, stopped by a heavy grille blocking the end of the drain. Through its criss-cross bars he could see a long slope of ejected scrap and, beyond, a green, flat landscape.

The face appeared from the opposite wall of the drain and stared balefully at Mel with its uninjured eye. The other one was swollen and closed. ‘I'm going to wring your ruddy neck, you whelp.
Come here!
' The muscular arms emerged from the drain wall and made a grab for him.

Mel jumped back and the face's powerful hands closed on thin air just in front of him.

‘Come here, you little blighter.' The face vanished and reappeared on the opposite wall but Mel jumped back the other way. It then flowed sinuously around the inside of the drain and on to the floor like quicksilver. Mel leapt on to the circular grille and climbed to the centre just as the face smashed its great fist into the wall where he had been standing only an instant before. The face made another vain attempt to grab him, this time from above. But Mel was just beyond its reach. As long as he stayed put right in the centre of the grille, the hands could not touch him.

Then he heard a clanking rumble echoing down the drain. There was no mistaking what it was. It was getting louder and the drain began to shake. A sizable proportion of the monstrous scrapheap was hurtling towards him where he was perched like the bull's-eye on a target.

‘Now we've got him. There's nowhere left for him to run to.' Adolfus Spute rubbed his hands together. ‘We've got him and his atrocious abode surrounded. Mumchance, my leprous leprechaun, signal the men to attack. This is finally the end of Ambrosius Blenk.'

The Excavator Excavated

‘Slow down!' yelled Ludo as the strange excavator hurtled on through the dark and winding network of drains.

‘No, go faster! Or we'll all be crushed,' shouted Wren as the rushing scrapheap grew increasingly louder behind them.

Then Swivel spied a heavy iron grille over the end of the drain ahead of them. ‘The young sir is correct, miss. We really need to brake.' He frantically engaged another lever on the handlebars, and the feet beneath the machine dug in their many heels. But this only served to create sparks and make the excavator unstable.

‘There's the end of the tunnel. We're going to crash!' Ludo raised his arms to shield his face.

‘No, look!' said Wren. ‘It's opening.'

The grille covering the tunnel exit began to rotate upwards and outwards with a nerve-jangling, mechanical squeal.

‘I do believe the way ahead's clear,' said Swivel, just as the colossal bolus of debris reached the rear of the excavator. The machine shot out of the end of the drain into thin air, along with the geyser of junk.

They had emerged on the far side of the crag high above a wide, deep pit. The butler operated another of his levers and a pair of scruffy wings unfolded from the top of the machine, flapping wildly. With the aid of the wings the contraption landed with a jarring bump in the bottom of the pit, just a few yards beyond the end of the outflow.

‘Phew, that was close,' said Wren. ‘I thought we were done for when the face grabbed us. You saved us, Mel. Mel? Where's Mel?'

‘He was just behind us.' Ludo looked around for his friend.

‘I'm sorry, young sir, miss, but your companion parted company with us some way back,' Swivel informed them.

‘
What?
You mean he's still in there? We have to go back and get him,' said Wren.

‘That's impossible,' said Ludo flatly. ‘That drain
was miles long. There's no way we could climb back up there. Besides, the grille's closed again. You saw how many other drains branched off to the side. He could have gone down any one of them.'

‘The young sir's right, miss. I'm afraid we've lost him for good.'

‘We can't just abandon him. Perhaps he's come out of another exit. We have to try and find him,' pleaded Wren.

‘But where, Wren? We don't know if there
is
another exit. We don't even know where
we
are,' said Ludo.

Wren looked desperately from one to the other. She sat down on the edge of the excavator and felt tears begin to well up behind her eyes. After a moment she choked them back. ‘No. That's not going to help us find Mel. He's still alive; I know he is. We came into the Mirrorscape to do a job and we owe it to Mel to complete it. We must go on and find the master.' She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

‘I agree, miss. The young sir struck me as an eminently resourceful chap. Why, he's probably got out of the mine and is searching for us right
now. He'll surely make his own way to the master.' The butler seemed to have a face for every occasion. This time it swivelled to display one with a sad but hopeful smile.

Wren was grateful for the reassuring gesture but felt no better. She knew as well as the others that the odds were against Mel.

‘At least we've still got the satchel and most of the stuff. We stand as much chance as we did before of finding the master,' said Ludo.

They studied their surroundings. The pit had steep rocky sides from which the occasional gnarled tree grew out horizontally. Perched on them were strange birds whose forlorn cries echoed off the walls. There was a long, sloping pathway that spiralled around the inside of the pit to the top.

‘It's an awfully long way up to the rim,' said Ludo.

‘Why don't we take the excavator?' suggested Wren.

‘A splendid idea, miss. However, our supply of fuel has diminished considerably. Perhaps if you and the young sir would be so kind as to search the scrap and procure anything that is in any way
combustible to fuel the boiler, we might proceed.'

Impatient at the delay, Wren and Ludo rushed around collecting anything from the ejected junk that might burn.

As they set off, neither Wren nor Swivel noticed the yellow arrow pointing up the path behind them.

When they finally reached the top of the pit, Swivel brought them to a halt.

‘Any idea of where we are? Which way do we go?' asked Wren. She glanced back towards the grille in the pit far below them, and the scavenger birds picking over the junk. ‘Where are you, Mel?' she said under her breath.

‘I believe it would be constructive to consult the omniscope,' answered Swivel. Ludo took it from the satchel. ‘If you were to try this knob here, for instance, we might learn something to our advantage.'

Ludo put the omniscope to his eye and twiddled the control the butler indicated. ‘I can't see a thing. Everything's gone black.' He removed the contraption and looked at the lens, but it was unobstructed. ‘Maybe it got broken in the mine.'

‘Perhaps if the young sir were to pan around in the other direction.'

As Ludo swung around the light in the device increased and he could see clearly. He continued panning and the image darkened again before he swung back to where it appeared brightest. He fumbled with the other knobs until he found the magnifier.

‘There it is! There's not just a single track of footprints but a great churned-up mass of them leading away. We've found the trail.'

‘That particular function of the omniscope is somewhat like that of a compass, young sir; a rather intelligent compass. It is always brightest in the direction of what one is searching for. In this case, the master.'

‘Then why can't we use it to search for Mel?' asked Wren.

‘We can, miss, but not yet. It can only point in one direction at a time. You may have noticed that our master is rather ….'

‘Absent-minded?' suggested Ludo.

‘… Liable to go off at a tangent, shall we say. Therefore, I took it upon myself some time ago to set
the omniscope to always point the way to the master. Once that's been achieved it can be reset to look in another direction,' explained Swivel.

‘So let's hurry up and find him,' said Wren.

They set off across the Mirrorscape, leaving the comparatively delicate footprints of the excavator alongside the broad furrow ploughed up by Billet and his pursuers. They made good time on the flat terrain and soon Swivel called back to Wren and Ludo. ‘There's a cloud of dust up ahead. Why don't you two see what you can make out?'

The friends clambered up and on top of the rapidly moving excavator. When they were seated side by side on the dinosaur head, Ludo used the omniscope to study the cloud.

He raised his voice so that Swivel could hear him above the musical tune of the pipes. ‘I can see the house – I mean Billet. He's surrounded by a whole herd.'

‘A whole herd of what?' asked Wren.

‘Here, see for yourself.'

Wren took the omniscope and trained it on the distant cloud. She recognised Billet from the master's
canvas, and milling around him were huge shapes made indistinct by the dust. Occasionally, a burst of light erupted within the cloud, followed seconds later by the low rumble of distant thunder. As they got closer, she could make out progressively more detail. ‘There must be a dozen strange contraptions circling Billet.'

‘Yeah, and every one is crammed with men-at-arms,' said Ludo.

Each contraption seemed to have been cobbled together from items plundered from the Mine of Inspiration. Some spat bolts of lightning, and had succeeded in setting fire to the thatch that crowned Billet's head. Other machines sported huge iron fists or a variety of wickedly sharp blades of various shapes and sizes. Still more war engines were like long-legged steamships that fired nets and miles of sticky string that tangled Billet's feet and prevented his escape. One rhinoceros-shaped machine, which seemed to be in command, hovered in the air above the battleground. It was suspended from many wires attached to a great flock of birds of all shapes and sizes. The omniscope now clearly showed the High-Bailiff and his dwarf
peering out from between the exposed ribs, organising the assault and telegraphing instructions to the ragtag squadron with a small semaphore machine hanging beneath them.

‘It looks like we got here too late,' said Ludo.

‘There must be something we can do.' Wren anxiously scanned the scene with the omniscope. ‘Wait a minute. I can see ….'

‘What?
What?
'

‘Ludo … it's the master! He's alive! He's on the roof trying to beat out the flames. We're not too late.'

‘We've found him. Swivel, we've found the master and he's alive,' said Ludo.

‘
Ahem!
'

‘What now, Swivel?' said Ludo. ‘Don't tell me you've thought of some urgent tidying up to do.'

‘In a way, young sir, I have. It occurs to me there's an awful mess down there surrounding the master that simply must be attended to. I can't abide mess.'

‘What did you have in mind?' asked Wren.

‘Might I suggest that it is not beyond your decidedly superior creative abilities and my more humble,
workaday skills to engineer, as it were, a way out of this predicament.'

Swivel set the excavator on automatic pilot. The smoke from the steam engine now worked to their advantage. The butler rearranged some pipes that blew thick clouds from the mouth of the excavator to mask their approach. The moth-eaten wings fanned this towards the enemy.

Through the smoke and din of battle they could make out Billet's booming voice. ‘Call that a slap, yer limp-wristed twerp? I've been hit harder by snowflakes.'

Before the attackers knew it, the excavator was in among them and using its powerful jaws to hamper and maim the assailants. Blinded by the smoke, the monsters were unable to receive instructions from the High-Bailiff hovering above. In the confusion they began to set about each other.

‘Our smokescreen seems most effective,' said Swivel. ‘Now, if we remove the enemy's head we might be able to make inroads into his body.' Swivel launched a carefully aimed circular saw blade at the flying
contraption from an improvised catapult strung between the handlebars. The spinning projectile found its mark and severed many of the lines that attached it to the flock of birds.

‘Good shot!' Wren and Ludo cheered as the machine crashed into the midst of its brothers, sowing yet more panic.

While the enemy contraptions were busy laying into each other, Swivel manoeuvred the excavator right up to Billet and dismounted. ‘A spot of gardening is called for, I believe.' With a sickle attachment on his hand he began to cut away the entanglements that bound the house.

Meanwhile, Ludo and Wren had noticed that the smoke was beginning to clear. Adolfus Spute had climbed from the wreckage of his aerial vehicle and mounted a tortoise contraption. It had a tall steel pylon on its domed back from which swung a spiked, iron ball on a chain like a rotor. The High-Bailiff used this to blow the smoke back towards the excavator.

‘There goes our smokescreen,' said Wren. ‘Time for another of Mel's machine guns, I think.'

‘Two are better than one,' said Ludo as the pair grabbed pipes from the excavator to use like Mel's improvised weapon.

‘But what are we going to use for ammunition?' asked Wren. ‘There's no scrapheap here.'

‘There's one thing,' said Ludo. ‘The excavator!' He tried several of the handlebar controls until he found a combination that set the excavator to begin devouring itself. It started to gyrate like a puppy chasing its own tail. Beginning with the sousaphone and moving steadily along the length of its sinuous body, it chomped while the friends stood to one side and aimed the remains at Billet's attackers like firemen dousing flames.

‘It's working,' said Ludo, ‘but not fast enough.'

‘We're running out of ammunition,' said Wren. They could see that the excavator would have totally consumed itself before the assailants could be put to flight.

‘We might not need much more. Look!' Wren nodded towards Billet. Swivel had finally cut the house free from its entanglements.

‘Right, yer bogey-chewing sticks of rhubarb. Let's
be having yer!' bellowed Billet as he weighed into the melee. ‘How d'yer like
that
!' Those monsters he could not flatten with his enormous feet, he butted with his head. From one of his great windows, the master rained down pieces of furniture and other household items.

‘We're winning!' said Ludo, seeing the High-Bailiff in the tortoise-machine wheel around and flee the battlefield, followed by his men in the remains of their battered contraptions.

With a final and seemingly impossible contortion, the excavator munched its own head and the last of the debris was fired from Wren and Ludo's truncated hoses as parting shots before they became limp and useless in their hands.