The Magic Lands (59 page)

advanced, the small scalpel
held in his white gloved hand gleaming coldly in the weak light, as
if eager to do its bloody work.

Dredger grew restless. He had
prowled around the interior of the bleak lighthouse long enough and
he sensed that whilst he did so, others were carrying the burden of
battle.

But was it not for him to lead
the fight? He had to gain release from this sombre prison.

The warrior knew that the
island was part of the Wolf's domain and so it followed that the
fabric of its reality came from within the Beast's scheming mind.
Thinking hard on this, Dredger concluded that if only he could
break the illusion of its substance, then he might escape, perhaps
to the place Mo or the boys had been taken to.

Acting on impulse, he moved
hurriedly to the outer door of the structure and flung it open,
confronting the now violent storm that thrashed the rocks, the wind
whipping at him cruelly as he walked out into it, braving the
onslaught. The rain lashed against him, fragments of stone and ice
picked up by the wind cut his face and hands, but still Dredger
strode on, out across the rocks, away from the tower with its
beacon of emerald light, his mind set on one thing only as the
elements tried in vain to force him back.

The lands of
the Beast,
his memory recited to him,
are forever shifting, for they are ephemeral
dreams forged from madness.

He knew that he must bend this
particular dream to his own will, if only for a moment, and coming
to the brink of a rough rock-face that stood out over the
boisterous sea, a mass of heaving darkness beneath him, with his
sword gripped tightly in his hand he dived out into the foaming
waters, reaching for the ebony depths that lay far below.

Fear seemed to have frozen his
muscles and Tom was left wide-eyed, disbelieving as he watched Jack
the Ripper approach him. Around them, a strange crackling sound
began, building slowly toward a crescendo, the noise quickly
becoming so acute that Tom reflexively put his hands over his ears.
He saw the Ripper hesitate, his gaze leaving Tom for the first
time, shifting rapidly back and forth, trying to ascertain the
cause of the disturbance; to Tom it sounded as though something was
being brutally torn apart, like the roar of the thunder when
lightning reaves the air. But that was as far as his reasoning went
for he knew that this distraction, whatever it was, had given him
an opportunity of escape, and he meant to take it.

Spinning around, his body at
last responding, Tom made to run but was stopped in his tracks by
an apparition that he hardly dared believe could be real, although
at that very moment it was probably the one thing in all the world
he most wanted to see.

Dredger, his eyes fixed on the
man who threatened the boy, stood only a few yards off, his sword
readied, his expression a promise of death. "It appears I come at a
welcome time," he breathed, never taking his gaze from the man who
wielded the scalpel.

"You have a new protector, I
see," Jack the Ripper uttered, his voice full of arrogance.

Dredger returned only a mocking
smile. "It will give me pleasure to send you back screaming to the
pit of corruption from whence you sprang," he hissed, "back to
wallow in your master's filth." The warrior nodded for Tom to move
behind him and the boy obeyed at once.

With a virulent laugh, the
Ripper came after him. "I have no master, fool," he spat. "I
worship only blood, and now I shall kneel at the altar of that of
the child."

Dredger began to caress the air
with his sword in a series of graceful, fluent disciplines, cutting
the fog into ribbons of white smoke.

"I have spilt more blood than
you could ever imagine," he said almost nonchalantly, his face
darkening, his eyes aglow with golden fire. "I am the bearer of
such nightmares even the likes of you should fear. Look into my
eyes, little brother, do you not see your sanctuary, do you not
know your homeland?"

Tom felt a chill run up along
his spine, and all at once a dread greater than any he had
experienced thus far gripped him with glacial fingers.

For a few seconds the Ripper
stared at the tall warrior and it seemed there was something in his
eyes, a moment of recognition, but then with agile speed he came
forward, his long cloak flying, gleaming blade poised to strike and
moving with a grace and precision that belied his large frame
Dredger went to meet him. The scalpel flashed and came down, only
to glance off the warrior's right shoulder as if it had met with
some kind of armour. Before he could stab at him a second time,
Dredger had seized the man's arm in one powerful hand, putting the
virtue of his own sinew against the demented strength of his foe,
the two of them just for a moment locked together, their eyes
alight with unearthly joy. But it did not last long. Sweeping in a
wide arc, Dredger's sword sliced through the vaporous air and
cleaved the Ripper's neck, the keen edge of the steel cutting
through muscle and bone effortlessly, blood spurting in a crimson
spray, staining the mist a delicate pink. The man's head tumbled
smoothly through the tainted air, disappearing into the heart of
the fog, leaving the now headless corpse to collapse upon the
pavement, where it twitched for a moment before becoming still.

Tom, who had watched the brief
fight in unblinking horror, only stared at the scene of carnage
that had followed; some of the man's blood had rained upon him,
upon his face and his clothes and he could only ask himself a
single question in the midst of his disgust, a question for which
there seemed to be no plain answer.

Was this all there was, kill or
be killed?

At that moment it seemed to him
that this was indeed the way of things, that the real truth of the
matter was that they were all nothing more nor less than beasts
themselves.

Absently, he shut his eyes to
bring an end to the picture of savagery that tormented him, tears
gently beginning to roll down his cheeks and he tried to find the
courage to face the man who had saved his life, but who frightened
him in a way which went beyond his understanding.

Sitting there in the grey
shadows, watching the deep mist moving aimlessly around them, Jack
let his thoughts drift away.

Jack the
Ripper,
his mind sighed.
Jack
the Ripper. Jack.

Beside him, slumped against the
wall, Dr. Watson had been quiet for some time and on several
occasions the boy had leaned close to him to check that he was
still breathing.

Maybe he's dead now. Maybe I'm
all alone with a dead man.

Somewhere inside his head
a ghost crept, an alien thing, tugging at his mind.
Who are you?
it asked
patiently.
Who are you really?

I'm Jack.

Yes,
that's right, the ghost agreed,
that
is exactly who you are.

Faintly, the man next to him
mumbled something, but Jack couldn't make out what it was.

Finish the job.

"What...?" Jack started to ask
but found himself unable to continue.

You must finish what you have
begun. Put this poor wretch out of his misery. He's as good as dead
already. Do it, Jack. You know you want to.

Jack shook his head, trying to
clear his mind of these strange thoughts.

You are JACK! You know who you
are, don't you? JACK. JACK!

A memory, peculiar and remote,
surfaced in his mind. An image of a woman all dressed in white.

"Did you think I would let you
go so easily?" she purred, her scarlet lips pouting very slightly.
She stood barely six feet away, leaning against the opposite
wall.

Jack felt an odd sensation
begin to stir inside him, an unchecked excitement that grew
rapidly, sending a shiver of pleasure through his body.

"You do know who you are, don't
you, my dear one?" the woman questioned, her eyes sparkling,
drawing him down into their brilliant depths.

"I'm Jack," he answered
confidentially. "Jack."

"Yes," the woman
confirmed, "you are Jack,
my
Jack. And Jack has a job to do."

A black cloud hung over him
now, eclipsing his reason and although part of him resisted it, the
darkness crushed him, the intensity of its power forcing him into
submission.

"Kill this man," she urged him
lightly, as if it had no meaning, yet still Jack wanted to say no,
the fading spark of his conscience not yet extinguished, but his
mind could not even form the word, the shape and sound of it
slipping from his memory.

"And when the deed is done,"
the woman in white promised, "I will take you home with me. Now
wouldn't you like that? I think that you would."

This is a bad
dream, nothing but a bad dream.
But then Jack looked
down at his hand and saw a small silver blade, gleaming
dully.

"Do not be afraid," she
counselled him, "this is your destiny, Jack. And you cannot contest
your destiny."

Struggling to gain control of
his mind, the face of the woman overwhelming him, the boy glanced
over at the injured man.

"Slit his throat," encouraged
the woman, her voice sweet, "feel the rush of death, know its
beauty as you slide the blade across his flesh."

His hand was moving with a will
of its own. Jack was powerless to stop it.

You are Jack. JACK! Jack the
Ripper.

As the scalpel's deadly point
advanced toward the man's throat, Jack could only wonder who he
really was.

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE WOLF

"I hate all of this," Tom said
softly, his emotions drained.

Dredger looked at the boy with
a detached air. "Evil must be vanquished wherever it is found," he
voiced gruffly. "The minions of the Wolf cannot deny the bite of
true steel, or the arm that wields it. You would be dead now if
that were not so."

"Maybe that would be better,"
Tom replied, bitterness in his voice.

Before them the headless
carcass lay sprawled out on the stone street, thick blood darkening
the pavement, and somewhere close by, hidden within the veil of
fog, the Ripper's severed head lay torn and discarded.

"Jack is waiting for me," said
Tom blandly, his eyes searching the grey mist, "and there's an
injured man with him."

"Lead the way," the warrior
ordered, his manner formal, but Tom did not move. He hadn't the
faintest notion of how to find his friend again. He couldn't even
say which direction they should take.

"I know the name of the street
they're in, but I'm...not sure how to get there," he admitted,
looking up at the warrior, his face conveying the dejection he
felt.

"Then follow me," Dredger bid
him and moved briskly away, passing by the lifeless form on the
ground without a second glance and on into the mist. For one awful
moment, Tom believed he would not be able to follow, the idea of
walking so close to the bloody remains of the murderer repelling
him with such violence that he thought he would be sick.

What if, as he went by, one of
the dead man's hands suddenly reached out and grabbed him? What if
all of this was just a ruse created from the cruel imagination of
the Wolf?

But if he remained there for
much longer he would surely lose Dredger in the murky street, and
the thought of that was worse still.

So with disgust and a knot of
terror in his chest, he ran past the corpse, giving it as wide a
berth as possible in the cramped alleyway, and of course, no hand
came snaking out to clutch at his ankle; Jack the Ripper was
certainly quite dead. But as he ran, dimly perceiving Dredger ahead
of him, he heard, or thought that he heard, a muffled sound that
chilled him, an icy grip tight around his heart.

He might have been mistaken, he
might have imagined it, but it had sounded very much like someone
giggling, somewhere in the shadows. And that was not all. It had
been the laughter of a girl, or perhaps a woman, trailing away as
he ran, distantly familiar to him.

As he raced to catch up with
the warrior, dread was his only real companion, a warning of
something wicked and twisted, a certain knowledge in him that the
horror was only now beginning. It was as though it had already
happened, the sense of it so definite, and in his anxious, troubled
mind, he wondered if perhaps it really had and he and Dredger were
no more than ghosts, playing out the past.

But whatever the truth, for Tom
it was all too real. And it would go relentlessly on. Until the
bitter end.

Ahead of the lion, a long
tunnel ran for an unknown distance. Only the soft thud of his own
large paws could be heard in that still-born place. It was a dead
territory, mute and solitary.

On and on Mo walked, knowing
that somewhere in this sterile domain, the White Wolf was expecting
him.

After a timeless period, in
which the lion never faltered, moving with purpose, he at last came
to a gigantic doorway, carved from a dark amber wood that shone
brilliantly, delicate carvings depicting the faces of many men and
beasts, some benign, others hideous and malevolent.

Patiently, Mo waited for some
sign that he should enter, and after several moments the doors
swung open, the peal of a bell heralding his arrival.

Inside, an immense hall became
visible, its walls and ceiling white barriers of marble. Upon the
floor was a magnificent mosaic portraying a rearing beast above a
cowering lamb, created from a multitude of precious stones, their
colours vivid. And there, appearing faraway in that vast place, was
a throne of gleaming white bone.

From his place there, seated on
a supple cushion of human flesh, it still fresh and bloody, the
Wolf gave a rueful smile. "Welcome, old one, welcome. Why don't you
come in?" Slowly, although not reluctantly, the lion walked
forward, pausing just inside the doorway. "Come closer," said the
Beast, its tone congenial. "Let me see you."