The Magic Lands (47 page)

"Not I," responded the other
man, casting his eyes around the room, the occupants content to
silently look on, listening intently to the exchange. "But we have
other companions, or had you forgotten that they too can be
harmed?" Dredger's brow furrowed as he considered these words.
"Well?" pressed the newcomer and the warrior gave a small
shrug.

"The boy will have to
learn...or die," he said, his tone as cold as the steel he
carried.

"It would seem you have altered
a great deal, old friend," the man at the door told him, his
expression grim and disappointed.

"Perhaps, but you should have
realised by now that it will be the strong who will prevail. The
weak can do little else but fall by the wayside."

"The strong and the weak,"
intoned the other man with a considering nod, "but who is to say
which is which?"

This brought a thin smile to
Dredger's lips and he shook his head. "You are a romantic, Mo. And
for that there is no cure." Returning his attention to the man
whose throat kept company with the point of his blade, he addressed
all those gathered there. "I will bid you good day, gentlemen, as
it would seem that my comrade is unharmed. I trust I have not
unduly inconvenienced you." Saying this, the warrior strode away
from the bar and out of the building, closely followed by the other
stranger, leaving the red-bearded man touching his throat
delicately where the tip of the sword had rested.

As the seaman withdrew his
fingers to find a tiny trickle of blood, he mentally noted that he
would pity any who might make those men their enemy.

The terrain was much the same
as it had been everywhere else Tom had travelled since coming to
these lands, but though he knew the sea must be very close by,
however far he trekked, he could not catch sight of it. Every time
he clambered up a dune, he was certain that the horizon would
reveal blue waters, but each time only grass and trees appeared,
stretching away to the next rise.

After a long while, with legs
aching and hopes dashed to almost nothing, he decided that he could
not go on without a rest and sat down beneath the first tree he
came to. He could feel twinges of pain here and there in his body
and he did his best to position himself as comfortably as possible
against the smooth trunk.

The smell of the sea was
maddening and he thought he could almost hear the waves. But what
if he found the sea anyway? What good would it do him?

All Tom could see ahead of him
was hardship, a black certainty of misfortune to come. And while he
would continue to do all that he could to defy the treacherous
Beast that played with him so cruelly, he knew that a heart of
darkness beat relentlessly against his soul, pressing to gain
entry, urgent in its desire to possess him.

If this was a contest, Tom
wasn't sure the sides were even. But there was one thing he did
know. His side would win. It had to. He just wasn't at all certain
that he would be there to celebrate the victory.

PART THREE

Innocence is a flower

that blooms only in the
heart,

and its loss is much the
same

as waking from a dream.

1. THE SPIRITWALKER

2. THE SEVENTH STEP

3. WILD WATERS

4. INTO THE ABYSS

5. TRICKS AND TREATS

6. THE SHIFTING LAND

7. AN AUDIENCE WITH THE
WOLF

8. MYSTERIOUS WAYS

9. END OF THE LINE

10. FORGET ME NOT

11. THE SACRIFICE

12. THE WHITE TREE

13. THE PARTING OF THE SEA

THE SPIRITWALKER

"Join me," called a voice,
drifting up from the beach below.

The light was fading rapidly
now and Jack could hardly make out the broken form of the dead man,
the waves roughly mauling the corpse each time they surged in.

Jack's face held an amused
grin, although his good humour was without substance, his emotions
empty.

He looked out across the water
and listened to the sound of the waves, a murmur of sorrow, and he
wondered where Tom could be, whether he was somewhere over the sea,
beyond the dark horizon.

"Tom is dead," whispered the
phantom voice, confirming what he feared in his heart.

The corpse was talking to
him.

"Tom," said Jack aloud, feeling
that somehow he was responsible for his friend's death. He was a
murderer after all, an assassin of some experience, so why not add
Tom to the list. It really didn't make much difference now.

"Join me," cried the voice of
the dead man again. It seemed to offer him the peace he longed
for.

"No reason not to," he answered
staring out toward the darkening sea and quite carefully he began
to move his feet, first one step, then two, taking himself to the
threshold of oblivion. Beneath him dry earth and loose rock
crumbled, sending small fragments hurtling down onto the sand.

He began to laugh, the sound
hollow, the noise of wind and water swallowing it up instantly.
"Here I come!" he shouted and leapt forward, his eyes transfixed by
the rolling of the waves beneath him.

But incredibly, Jack did not
fall. He felt very strange inside, as if his stomach was turning
over and over, making him want to retch.

"Join me," came the voice from
below, but it was muffled now and Jack decided to ignore it. He was
much more interested in this new sensation of weightlessness.

He tried to look about himself,
but his eyes seemed to be impaired in some way and he could only
make out black and white contours that flashed by so fast he
couldn't identify what they might be.

"You must trust me," a man's
voice said within his mind, but this was not the corpse speaking to
him.

"I want to fall," Jack said
stubbornly. "I want to die."

"You are needed," the voice
told him, the words exploding in his head.

"I must pay for my crimes,"
Jack muttered, "it's the only way justice can be done. If I die,
then the slate is wiped clean."

"Foolish boy," the voice
reproached him harshly, "what makes you think it is up to you to
decide? Such judgements can never belong to us."

Jack's perceptions were
gradually returning and all of a sudden, he saw what had happened
to him.

He was suspended in the air,
about ten feet out from the cliff-top, but he was not still. He
whirled around in a mad circle at a dreadful speed, his arms thrown
wide, the muscles of his face flexing uncontrollably, frightened
eyes bulging from their sockets.

Stop it! Stop
it!
he cried out only in his mind, not able to
speak.

"Only if you help me," the
man's voice said abruptly, penetrating the hysteria that had begun
to claim him.

I will, I promise. Please just
make it stop.

"Focus on my thoughts. Let your
mind connect with mine. I cannot hold you for much longer."

All Jack wanted was for the
terrible spinning to stop, his head thick with nausea, his mind
reeling and when he felt another consciousness take hold inside of
him, he did not attempt to resist it. He welcomed it in, letting it
envelop him and almost at once he felt himself floating
effortlessly upward, his body still rotating, but at a much reduced
rate. Then his feet met with solid ground again, taking him
completely by surprise and for several moments Jack staggered to
and fro, fighting to stay upright before collapsing in a heap upon
the rock. His head throbbed and he wanted to vomit.

"You are safe," said a voice
from above him, the same voice that had guided him back from death,
and Jack heard the echo of it in his thoughts, the link between
their minds lingering on. His eyes fluttered open and looking up he
saw who had spoken to him.

"We are bonded now," Dredger
said with a solemn expression. "Fate is full of irony, don't you
think?"

Somewhere close by Tom heard
the jingle of a tiny bell.

All of his efforts to locate
the sea had been frustrated and feeling utterly lost, he hoped that
the sound would herald the appearance of a traveller, someone who
would be able to help him find his way. But of course, he had
learnt by now that it was just as likely to announce nothing more
than another one of the Wolf’s deadly games. So with this in mind,
he cautiously crept along a grassy bank, hunching himself down as
low as possible, unwilling to show himself to whatever lay
beyond.

To his amazement, a small lamb
came trotting over the ridge, a golden bell around its neck
tinkling as it moved. The animal didn’t appear to be aware of him,
even though it was no more than a few feet away and continued to
wander aimlessly, stopping now and again to taste the grass.

As Tom watched the lamb,
another came running over the hill and made its way down to join
the first, settling in beside it to explore the surrounding
vegetation. There then followed another dozen or so, all bunching
together at the foot of the rise and Tom was struck by the fact
that only the first wore a bell. Perhaps it was the leader. Even as
he thought this their shepherdess appeared, skipping nimbly down
the side of the bank toward him, her golden hair partially hidden
by a red hood, a crooked staff clasped in her left hand.

"Lisa," he gasped, delighted to
see her here in this wilderness and she smiled at him, patting the
lambs upon their heads as she moved amongst them.

"Hello there," she said,
unusually shy, keeping her eyes averted as she spoke. The hood she
wore was part of a one-piece cloak that flowed about her and upon
her feet were shiny black shoes with silver buckles. "Well, Tom,"
she breathed, eyeing him with an appreciative smile, apparently
unabashed now. "I've found you again. It must have been a long time
since we last saw each other, because you look so much older."

"I feel older," he told her, a
little more seriously than he had intended. She stood so close and
looked into his eyes with such a knowing gaze that he felt
uncomfortable.

"The little ones have come a
long way," she remarked dreamily, "they need a rest." She sat down
and began to stroke the nearest lamb to her, running her fingers
through its thick wool but looking at Tom the whole time.

"I'm lost," he announced
abruptly, throwing his arms wide as if this confirmed that he
didn't know where he was, at the same time thinking how foolish he
must appear to her. He didn't know how to act or what to say.

Lisa regarded him for a moment
with a slight frown and then laughed, a beguiling sound. "Why,
Tom," she giggled, "you really are funny!"

Not knowing how he should react
to this, Tom tried to laugh too but couldn't. If anything, he felt
rather annoyed. "It's not a joke," he asserted grumpily.

Immediately Lisa's expression
became thoughtful and standing, she came close beside him, so that
he could feel her breath on his cheek. "Oh Tom, I’m so sorry, I
didn't realise that you were feeling sad."

Her sudden change of mood took
Tom by surprise and though she seemed sincere, he couldn't be sure.
He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Was it all just a game to
her? Was life just a charade, in which feelings were nothing more
than masks to be worn and then discarded?

"I..." he began tentatively. "I
wish things could be different."

Smiling gently, Lisa touched
her lips upon his and Tom felt the warmth of her kiss move through
his entire body. Then drawing away from him, she laughed again.
"Now come on, Tom," she called, skipping away, "let's not be sad,
let's be happy!"

She began to run around him,
jumping gracefully in the air, laughing as she went, then left him
to weave her way among the sheep who rubbed themselves against her
legs as she passed by.

Throwing his cares aside Tom
ran after her, knowing that if such a thing as love existed, it had
taken hold of him and made him its own. Everything was forgotten in
that moment, his friends, the quest, even the Wolf. There was only
the girl, running toward the top of the hill, her blonde hair
flying and the feeling of elation that coursed through him,
spurring him on. And yet, as Tom chased after her and she eluded
him with frustrating ease, an image began to push its way into his
mind unbidden, a dreadful vision that threatened to overwhelm him.
He resisted it, concentrating on Lisa just ahead, just out of
reach, but it took shape before his eyes, blotting out all else and
he was forced to look upon a horrific scene.

Hanging from a tall, wizened
tree was the body of a large badger, its legs trussed, a muzzle
tight over its snout, and sitting cross-legged beneath the animal's
dangling carcass, eyes gleaming as he stared back at Tom, was Jack,
a deck of cards laid out on the ground in front of him. His friend
reached down and cut the pack in half and then held out the card he
had revealed.

"Am I the Joker in the pack?"
he asked with a flicker of a smile, the jester on the card bearing
an uncanny resemblance to Jack.

And all the while, inside Tom's
head, he heard the same words said over and over again. "There is
nothing you can do."

Tom stopped running and gazed
uncertainly at Lisa, who continued on, scrambling up onto the top
of the high bank.

"There’s nothing I can do," he
whispered. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to rid himself of the
terrible vision, but it remained, vivid and irrefutable.

Biting his tongue until blood
flowed over his lips, Tom fought against it, willing it to go away
and gradually the image began to fade. Shaking and close to tears,
he stood alone, his arms wrapped around his chest, his head hung
low. "No, it’s not true," he said with force. "It’s not!"