The Magic Lands (63 page)

His brethren had spoken and
forgiven him. Now he must show himself to be worthy of that
forgiveness in the battle to come.

The children would soon feel
the terrible pull of temptation once more.

As tears of gratitude and love
ran from the badger's eyes, Mo prayed that this time they would be
able to resist.

The underground station was
startlingly modern, fluorescent lights illuminating the interior,
presenting a stark and lonely landscape.

Passing several ticket machines
and an abandoned kiosk, they negotiated a turnstile that led to an
escalator, apparently in working order.

"What is this?" Dredger
enquired with a curious smile, halting at the top of the moving
stairway.

"It's called an escalator," Tom
told him. "Where we come from, people use them to travel up and
down without having to walk."

This explanation provoked a
slight frown from the warrior, who regarded the contraption with
obvious distaste. "The people of your world must be weak indeed,"
he observed, "that they should design and build such machines
merely to avoid an easy climb!" He gazed sourly at the silent
apparatus, watching the top step as it continually disappeared in
front of him.

Tom stepped nimbly onto the
mechanism and turned to face his companions as it began to carry
him away. "We might as well conserve our energy while we can."

With considerable contempt, the
warrior carefully approached the escalator and boarded it in
ungainly fashion, gripping the handrails on either side to maintain
his balance.

"Why are we going down here
anyway?" Tom asked, as they made their smooth descent.

"Because it is the right path,"
the man said categorically, without turning his head to look at the
boy.

Once they had safely
disembarked, Dredger glanced back at the metal monster that in Tom
and Jack's world transported thousands of people each day and he
shrugged absently. "Easy prey," he commented, but neither boy
bothered to question him, suspecting that they knew exactly what he
meant by it.

Making their way through a long
tunnel, the walls and ceiling an expanse of white tile, they soon
came out onto a deserted platform, where the lighting was less than
adequate, the fluorescent strips that lined the ceiling flickering
intermittently, plunging parts of the platform into temporary
shadow.

Posters advertising strange
merchandise covered the walls and one in particular caught Tom’s
eye. EDEN, declared the poster in large red lettering, WHERE YOUR
HOLIDAY WILL BE PARADISE! Beneath this was an illustration of a
tree-lined valley, a stream winding through its centre.

Nice
place,
mused Tom, thinking how tranquil it looked, but
as he studied it more closely, he thought that he saw something
moving amongst the undergrowth, a black and white shape low to the
ground.

"Tom," said Jack behind him and
he turned away to see what his friend wanted, his mind quickly
dismissing what he knew must have simply been a trick of the
light.

Jack was looking down at the
track, tracing its line with his eyes until it reached the yawning
entrance of the tunnel at one end of the platform and there
vanished into darkness; only a few small lights upon the inner
walls provided any source of illumination and these glowed dimly,
like dull eyes staring out of the gloom. "Do you think there are
any trains running?" he said uneasily as Tom came alongside, his
voice louder than he had intended, the sound ringing through the
subterranean domain.

"No people, no trains," Tom
returned with a shrug.

"We are not alone here,"
Dredger interjected calmly, scanning the length of the grey
platform.

"Are you sure?" Tom questioned.
He took a nervous glance around but could see no-one.

"I sense it," the man said
without fear of contradiction, his fingers moving to touch the hilt
of his sword.

"What should we do?" asked
Jack, feeling vulnerable on the exposed platform, the shadows and
the eerie silence of the place taking on a threatening
ambience.

"Wait...," Dredger instructed,
"and see."

"Is there more than one?" Tom
pressed, keeping his voice low now.

A dark frown crept over the
warrior's rugged features as he surveyed their surroundings
carefully. "One is enough," he answered.

Both boys understood that the
Wolf was with them, skulking somewhere in the underground tunnels,
watching them, perhaps making plans for his final assault.

But even as they contemplated
some sudden attack by their enemy, a distant rumbling began and as
they listened grew steadily closer.

Quickly, Tom looked at Jack and
saw by his friend's expression that both of them had recognised the
sound. "Train's coming," he announced, wondering anxiously who its
passengers might be.

In the guise of a man, Mo stood
before the gurgling waters of the stream, lost in thought. The
darkest of times was upon them all and each would have to face a
personal test.

Of Tom and Jack, he had no
knowledge, no way of divining what had become of them. But he
sensed that at the very least, they still lived and were fast
moving toward the completion of the vast undertaking in which they
all participated.

And there was Dredger,
also.

Mo knew well that the warrior
could very easily turn out to be the weakest link amongst them, for
though the man believed himself to be strong, his was an unstable,
dangerous power, not to be trusted or relied upon.

Their ultimate strength, their
true strength, lay in the hearts and minds of the two children who
had been asked to grow so much, so that they would be ready for the
day of reckoning that was now upon them.

For Tom was about to face the
maelstrom. And Jack would have to learn the true meaning of honour
and friendship.

The train came hurtling into
the station at such a great speed, Tom doubted that it would be
capable of stopping.

"Stand back!" ordered Dredger,
his sword whipping into the air, but what the warrior saw as a
metallic demon roaring toward them from the darkness of the tunnel,
suddenly slowed, the reduction of its momentum unnaturally abrupt,
as it came to a halt with a screech of brakes. At the sound even
Dredger retreated a little, thinking that this was a cry of attack,
but Tom and Jack had stood their ground and now peered through the
windows of the train, searching for any sign of passengers within
the brightly lit carriages. As far as they could tell however, it
was quite deserted.

With an automatic hiss, the
doors opened in unison, and the three companions were able to get a
better view of the interior. Although no-one appeared to be on
board, clearly something had been travelling in there recently.

To Jack, it looked as though a
hurricane had been trapped within the carriage directly in front of
him. Glass from windows and overhead lights was littered across the
seats and floor, the seats themselves mutilated, the fabric torn
and gutted, other unidentifiable wreckage strewn across the length
of the compartment. "Vandals?" he said blankly.

Moving along to the next
carriage, Tom saw that the same destruction had been visited upon
it too. He walked further up the platform, glancing in through the
broken windows and the open doors as he came to them. Each yielded
the same conclusion.

Someone or something had run
amok inside the train.

"What does it mean?" he asked,
returning to his friends, but Dredger made no reply, only remained
where he stood, his sword held in readiness in anticipation of
something that was about to happen.

Then, as if to prove the
warrior's instincts, a sound shattered the stillness, a woman's
laughter echoing through the station, an unearthly expression of
delight.

Turning fearfully to look at
the far end of the platform, Tom saw a shimmering figure dressed in
white step from the last compartment of the train. In her hand she
held a length of iron which resembled a fence railing, and even at
the considerable distance between them, he could see that she was
smiling. From behind him there came a sound like a whimper, a gasp
of breath and he knew that it was Jack, and as he edged slowly to
his friend's side, Dredger once again took a step in front of them,
to place himself between them and their enemy.

Facing each other along the
dingy expanse of grey stone, neither the warrior nor the woman
moved, both of them eyeing each other, Dredger with defiance, she
with keen amusement. Tom and Jack huddled close behind the man,
aware that he was their only protection.

"Do you like my handiwork?" she
called, nonchalantly swinging the iron bludgeon into one of the
windows beside her, sending glass crashing into the carriage.

"I will not break so readily,"
Dredger retaliated stiffly, but the woman in white only laughed at
this, playfully rotating the iron railing with her fingers.

"That will only make the taste
of your destruction all the sweeter," she promised, and began to
walk leisurely toward them, her eyes flaming with murderous hate,
the makeshift weapon she held cutting the air as she lashed it from
side to side.

In a muted, harsh voice,
Dredger spoke to the two boys. "Get inside the machine. Stay there
until this is over."

Accepting his instruction, Tom
and Jack very deliberately moved toward the nearest carriage, a
fearful anticipation gripping them. As soon as they were inside,
Dredger walked forward to meet his opponent and from the windows,
they watched him go, striding along the platform without
hesitation, confidence and power in every step. The woman came on
just as swiftly, her slender frame gliding through the pools of
shadow.

Almost inaudibly, the train
began to tremble and the boys felt a slight vibration, a shudder
running through the floor beneath them and almost without thinking
they gripped the handrail, experience telling them that the train
was preparing to leave the station.

With his concentration fixed
solely on his adversary, Dredger failed to realise what was
happening, and it was only when, with a girlish giggle, the woman
leapt into the open doorway of a nearby carriage, that the sudden
chill of understanding went through him and he knew that he had
been tricked. All the doors closed together with a hiss of
contempt, and the train began to move away, accelerating rapidly;
he heard Tom and Jack shouting at him to get on board and saw the
woman laughing at him as her compartment drew level.

With a snarl of rage, Dredger
threw himself at one of the broken windows, his blade knocked from
his hand to clatter into the gloom below as he grabbed hold of a
rough frame, unmindful of the jagged glass, intent of clawing his
way inside the carriage, but with lithe speed the woman was upon
him, her pale face filling his vision.

He felt her breath sickly sweet
upon him and then she brought the iron down hard across his
fingers. Pain like fire shot up his arm but still he held fast.
With savage zeal, the woman smashed at his hands again and again,
even as Dredger made to pull himself through and into the
compartment, the blows crushing his knuckles until he could hold on
no longer and he found himself falling backward.

Landing heavily, the warrior
still managed to heave himself to his feet, a bellow of frustration
wrenching itself from his lungs as he saw the back end of the train
disappear into the darkness of the tunnel. He flailed with his
arms, a spasm of anger, unable to accept that he could have been
cheated so easily and catching sight of one of the huge stone
columns that supported the ceiling, he lashed out at it, punching
it with all his strength. It felt good, so he struck it a second
time and a third, raining blows upon the hard stone again and
again, his already damaged hand spitting blood and gore, venting
his fury upon the pillar with animal savagery. When he was done,
his rage spent, he stepped back and saw that the column was
cracked, a ragged fissure opened where his fist had struck,
stretching from the floor almost to ceiling. But he took no
pleasure from the sight, for when he looked upon it, he saw only
the shattered remains of his own self-belief.

As the train shot forward, Tom
experienced a sensation as if his throat were tightening, his
stomach lurching, nausea hitting him hard.

At his side, Jack was caught
off-balance and fell to the floor of the carriage; darkness
surrounded them, the internal lights a haven amidst the black
exterior world that flashed by.

Both boys knew exactly what had
happened and what it meant for them. They had been ensnared by the
Beast and there was little hope of escape. Distantly, they heard a
crash of glass, the noise coming from a carriage somewhere further
along toward the rear of the train.

"She's coming for us," Jack
said, still on his knees and as they looked at each other, fearing
not just death, but a far greater loss, the acceptance of defeat,
he began to laugh.

"Jack!" Tom hissed
uneasily.

Through tear-stained eyes, the
other boy stared up at his friend. "It's just so ridiculous," he
said, his laughter abruptly ceasing. "This can't be happening, can
it, none of it can be happening." But even while he spoke, another
internal voice was whispering deep within his subconscious, calling
to him, beckoning him. The woman slithered through his mind,
searching for some hold, a way to capture his senses once more.

"Jack?" he ventured, but he did
not seem to be heard.

"Leave...me alone," Jack said
in a quiet, determined voice, forcing the sound from his mind, even
as a vision of sensual lips whispering promises of love and rewards
began to form in his head. "NO MORE!" he suddenly cried out, making
Tom flinch.