The Magic Lands (54 page)

Welles glanced around at the
faces of his crew who had congregated about them, their expressions
apprehensive and yet excited, waiting for their Captain to speak
again. "You would be swallowed up," he said at last, knowing that
his men were ready to do battle if he should ask them to, many
hands already reaching for weapons, preparing for his word. "Look
around," he bellowed, "we are too many, even for the likes of you."
His contempt was clear in his voice. Anger and superior numbers
made him bold. But still he was taken aback when a deep chuckling
came from Dredger's throat, the sound of a man unhinged or so
Welles believed in that moment, the laughter of a madman.

"There is a story," the warrior
intoned, his voice reaching even the furthest from him. "It tells
of a great army that came upon a valley where only one stood
against them. Their weapons glinted, forged of precious metals and
encrusted with jewels and they thought themselves invincible. And
so, they marched on that single figure, proud in their armour of
steel. Yet within an instant, that army was ravaged, their flesh
stripped from their bones, their minds shrivelled, for they had not
understood, that on that bright day in that valley, they had come
to do battle with Death itself."

For a long time a silence held
them all in its vacuous embrace, the creaking of the spars high
overhead the only sound intruding. In the failing wind, the ship
swayed slowly having braved the fury of the elements and won, but
now a new threat had risen from within, one that could prove far
more destructive than any storm.

"You tell a pretty tale,"
Captain Welles said presently, most there grateful that the moment
of indecision had passed. "But you are only men and soon you shall
swim in the deep, there to spend eternity with the fish!"

This time it was Mo who
spoke, his face grim. "But have you not realised," he said evenly,
"for you,
we
are
death."

"I think we should go up," Jack
said, an uneasiness stirring inside him.

Noticing his agitation, Tom got
up from the bunk and went to stand beside him. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," his friend
answered, "but I think Dredger is in danger."

Tom stared at Jack and gave him
a quizzical grin. "What are you talking about?" he asked, shaking
his head. "Are you cracking up or something?"

"A lot of things have happened,
weird things," Jack responded, moving toward the door as he spoke.
"While you were gone Dredger saved my life and it sort of left a
link between our minds, so don't ask me how or why because I don't
even understand it myself, but I do know that something's going on
up there. I can feel it."

"You don't have to convince
me," said Tom, joining Jack at the door, "with everything that's
happened to me so far, I'd be a fool not to believe you."

"We've got a lot of catching up
to do," stated Jack, pausing a moment, aware that they both had
stories to tell. He opened the cabin door and quickly led Tom to
the ladder that

would take them above, and as
they came out onto the deck they immediately saw that Jack had been
right, for Dredger and Mo were there facing the Captain and what
appeared to be the entire crew.

Tom looked at Jack and sighed
wearily. "It looks like we're in trouble again."

"Back boys!" called the
Captain, spying them, cutlass in hand. "This need not be your
affair. Keep clear and you shall not be harmed."

The two boys stood very
still.

Casually, as if nothing out of
the ordinary was taking place, Dredger spoke to them, his eyes
never leaving those of Captain Welles. "It seems we are
outnumbered. We would play at better odds as four rather than
two."

Without need of another word,
Tom and Jack edged slowly to the warrior's side, positioning
themselves between him and Mo.

"Are you mad!?" Welles called,
watching them helplessly, incensed that the man should involve the
two youngsters. "They are just boys!"

"We stand together," Dredger
told him easily, his fingers caressing the hilt of his sword.

"Does everyone have to be our
enemy?" voiced Jack, glancing first at the warrior and then at
Mo.

"Sometimes," the fair-haired
man replied, "influences beyond our control take hold and cannot be
turned aside."

The wind had died completely
now and the waves had calmed, so that an unnatural

stillness descended upon them.
Every man there felt the tension of the situation, their

muscles tightening, and though
some had misgivings, most just wanted the conflict to begin, the
waiting only causing disquiet to spread furtively among the crew,
adding to their hostility.

There were at least thirty
sailors ranged against the four passengers and as if responding to
some unspoken signal given by their Captain, the men at last began
to inch closer, knives, swords and pistols brandished, their eyes
clouded with the coming of violence.

"It would take no more than
four shots, each into your hearts," Captain Welles informed them,
"will you not stand down?"

"You have a lot to learn,"
answered Dredger, "and your first lesson shall be, he who plays
with fire will surely get burnt."

Welles spat at the deck,
angered by the arrogance of the warrior and though he was reluctant
to include the children in their quarrel, he saw now that he had no
other choice. "So be it," he said and made to close upon them,
knowing his crewmen would follow.

Tom and Jack watched the men
come and there was the sound of scraping metal as Dredger and Mo
freed their swords, the stark glimmer of naked steel cutting the
air, the sight of many resolute faces bearing down upon them. But
even as the two boys resigned themselves to having to fight, they
were knocked viciously sideways, their bodies hitting the deck
painfully as they were thrown off-balance.

Shouts and screams rang out,
exclamations of terror rather than battle as the Spiritwalker was
almost turned on its side.

We're going
to capsize!
was all Tom had time to think as he went
sprawling across the

deck, unable to stop himself.
Black water appeared to rise up all around him, looming

over the ship and the last
thing he remembered was the cries of men at the mercy of what he
realised was a fickle sea, advancing on them irresistibly.

When Jack opened his eyes, he
saw the sky. But it was not like any sky he had ever seen before.
It was lurid and startling, discoloured by a sickly yellow taint,
as if it were infected.

He lay upon a hard
uncomfortable surface and he could hear no sound, except perhaps
the whispering of the wind.

Pushing himself upright, he
groggily looked around and the first thing he saw, to his great
relief, was Tom's face ruefully regarding him.

"Wake up you sleepy head," his
friend said with a listless smile.

"What happened?" Jack
questioned, struggling to shake off his haziness. He squinted his
eyes, trying to focus properly and saw they were once again in the
longboat, drifting lazily in an endless sea of grey water. At the
head of the craft, Mo and Dredger were seated apparently in urgent
conversation, their hushed tones inaudible.

"The ship went down," said Tom,
matter-of-factly.

"But what about the crew?" Jack
asked, shocked.

"Lost," was the other boy's
simple reply.

"But how?" Jack challenged,
finding it impossible to believe they could all have perished.

"I...I'm not sure," Tom said
with difficulty. "Everything went black…the water…the water seemed
alive. I remember the ship turning onto her side and I thought we
were all going to die. I couldn't even see you or anyone, only dark
water all around me. It was so huge. And hungry…I felt that. It
just swallowed everything up, all except us four. I think I went
into the sea, but I’m not sure. It all happened so fast, but then
someone pulled me out and I blacked out. I only woke up a few
minutes before you did."

"I don't remember a thing,"
Jack confessed. Tom just gave a helpless shrug.

Mo moved up from the brow of
the small craft and sat down beside Tom, leaving Dredger alone to
brood, dark eyes watching them.

"Good," said Mo, looking first
at Tom and then at Jack. "You have both recovered I trust? I
thought it better to let you rest while you could."

"What happened?" Jack asked,
both boys needing some kind of explanation.

"What was it?” added Tom.
“There was something in the water, wasn’t there? Something
terrible.”

"Yes," the fair-haired man said
quietly, "something from another place, another time. It was sent,
that much is sure, but not for us, or we too would have been taken.
No, once more it is the Wolf's game. It wanted us here, just we
four on its infernal sea, for we have reached the outskirts of its
true domain now and it waits for us at its heart."

"If the White Wolf is so
powerful, why doesn't it just kill us and get it over with?" Jack
wanted to know, a sense of futility overwhelming him.

"Yes, the Wolf
has
power, but it is flawed," came
the gentle reply. "In the eyes of the Beast, we are merely pawns, a
means to an end. But it is vain and therefore vulnerable. It is
like a spoilt child who wants for nothing and believes all are
beneath it and we have no choice but to play its game until the
time comes for the final confrontation. And although it may seem
that it does not intend to destroy us, that is a misconception. Its
greatest hope is to destroy our spirit, and it has already lent its
will toward that aim many times. That is the victory it most covets
and it will strive for that until the very end. Should it fail in
this, well then, it will simply kill us and so eliminate us from
the game."

"So what are we going to do?"
Tom queried, unsettled by what their friend had told them.

Mo looked around him, his
expression philosophical. "We have no oars, so we must drift. But
this is where the Wolf becomes our ally, for it will guide us.
Already we have come a great distance. Soon we will pass into the
true land of the Beast."

"What do you mean?" demanded
Jack, "I thought that's what we had been travelling through since
the start!"

"Not so," Mo countered turning
his head to gaze directly at the boy. "We have travelled through a
land of dreams, but it was never your own dreams that I referred
to. We have journeyed a realm governed by a dreaming Beast. But now
we must enter one in which it never sleeps. It will be very much
awake once we go beyond the abyss and then we shall all discover
the malevolence it cherishes so dearly. All that has occurred
before now was merely a prelude to the real game. And it is a game
of death. And our souls are the stake we play for."

How far they had travelled was
impossible to say, but time had become a lazy, dragging thing, the
sound of the waves a monotonous dirge.

"What are we going to do about
food and water?" Jack complained, licking salt from his lips.

Dredger, seated at the head of
the boat, his eyes scanning the horizon as if searching for
something, chuckled to himself. "Do not fear. We shall reach our
destination before you die of thirst."

Tom was unconvinced. "Let's
hope you're right," he said moodily, "or the quest will end right
here."

"That reminds me, Tom," Jack
interjected, "I suppose you've still got the map, haven't you? We
won't get very far without it."

Tom gave him an odd look that
his friend found difficult to read. "It's safe," he answered, "but
it's not a lot of good to us now, is it?"

"That is true enough," put in
Mo, joining the conversation. "Perhaps the time has passed when
maps and runes were of importance."

"But how does that make any
sense," queried Jack with a bewildered expression, "what about
Pandora's box?"

"It is still our goal. But
could it be that there will be more inside the box than we first
suspected?"

"I really don't get this,"
complained Jack, "I thought we had to find the box and release hope
again. Isn't that the whole point of all this?"

"Yes," acknowledged Mo, "but
things are never simple or straightforward. That’s one

thing you have learnt by
now I’m certain. We all wish for a happy ending, but can we be sure
that we would recognise one if we saw it? We now face the final
trials, foretold in ancient times. We have been chosen, each of us,
to play a separate part, so that a conclusion can be arrived at for
the greater good, for the one
and
the many. You often accuse me of speaking in riddles, so I
will make it as plain as I am able. We are approaching the end of a
magnificent undertaking. And we are here simply to answer one
question. Are we worthy of love? And although love is only a word,
it conjures enough emotions and images to make any one of us sense
its power. All things are now in the balance...love against sin.
Which shall we choose? We have struggled with this choice since our
beginning. Now we must decide."

Suddenly, with a grunt, Dredger
stood upright in the boat. "There!" he cried with satisfaction.

Before them, a gigantic wall of
darkness hung like smoke, black and impenetrable, drifting over the
water toward them. It rose up like a fantastic curtain suspended
from the sky. As far as the eye could see it spanned the ocean,
there was no escaping it.

"Is it solid?" Jack asked,
staring at the dark barrier, knowing that they were about to pass
into an unknown territory, which frightened him more than anything
he had encountered so far.

"It is merely a boundary," Mo
instructed him, "there can be no going back now. Once inside there
is no way to return, not till matters have been settled with the
Beast. We are going to pass beyond all reason, into mystery. Now,
more than ever, do not trust anyone or anything. Beware the
deceivers, for they wait for us there."