Wardstone 7 - The Spook's Nightmare (20 page)

‘The buggane?’ I asked.

‘Maybe – but it could be acting for Lizzie. By now she’ll probably know that we’ve escaped the tower. We either retreat the way we came or go down there,’ he said, pointing towards the new tunnel.

‘If we go back, they’ll be waiting. This time Lizzie will put us
all
in the dungeons,’ I said.

The Spook shrugged. ‘Then we must go on. I’ll take the lead now, lad – who knows what we’re about to face?’ And with those words he set off, crawling along the tunnel.

The descent got steeper and I was growing increasingly uneasy. I sensed danger ahead.

Then the passage began to widen, and the Spook got to his feet, lifting the lantern. Moments later, we saw a vast space ahead, the walls so distant that the light couldn’t reach them. We were at the entrance to a huge cavern.

Even the dogs were silent. They stayed behind us, unwilling to venture in any further and explore. Perhaps they felt as we did: a sense of awe; a feeling
that we faced something totally new and beyond our experience.

‘I didn’t expect this,’ said the Spook, his voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘I think I know what this place is. I thought it was just a myth – a story. But it’s real …’

‘What’s real?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

But the Spook just muttered something to himself and didn’t answer my question.

‘This ain’t been done by the buggane,’ said Alice. ‘Take ten lifetimes to make a burrow this big, even if its claws could dig through rock.’

‘This was here already and the buggane chanced upon it,’ my master said.

‘Or maybe it knew about it,’ said Adriana, emerging from the dark tunnel. ‘Maybe it deliberately chose to build its labyrinth here because it knew about this cavern.’

‘But what would it want something so big for?’ I asked, thinking aloud.

‘Well, as I’ve already told you, lad,’ said the Spook, ‘a buggane takes the animus, the life force of a human,
and stores it at the centre of its labyrinth; it was working with the shaman, so it needed lots of space. But this is immense – far beyond what it should need.’

‘What does it use the animas for?’

‘Well, we know that for a shaman they’re a source of magical power, giving him control over animals and allowing him to project his spirit far from his body. But as for the buggane, nobody’s ever had a real conversation with such a creature. It whispers, it threatens, then sucks out the animus and kills its victim, but we don’t know why. The shaman, Lord Barrule, would know more, but he’s dead now …

‘Well, lad,’ my master went on, ‘you asked me what this place is, and I’ll tell you. It’s something I didn’t think I’d live to see. Something I’ve only heard tell of. It’s known as the “Grim Cache” after its creator, and it’s the largest source of animism in the world. It was first accumulated by a shaman called Lucius Grim many centuries ago. It’s said that he was able to project his spirit into the dark itself, but eventually his soul was consumed by a daemon. This is his legacy, no doubt
added to by other shamans since – the latest being Lord Barrule. Anyway, let’s move on – but keep close to the cavern wall. Who knows – we might find another way out.’

The Spook led the way, the dogs following behind, still subdued. Underneath our feet soft mud gave way to rock. It wasn’t long before Alice gasped in astonishment – she had noticed something ahead. ‘Something up there,’ she said. ‘I can see lights moving. Don’t like the look of ’em.’

We looked up to where she was pointing. Tiny points of yellow light like distant stars were combining to form intricate patterns, moving more like a shoal of fish than a flock of birds. I tried to count them; it was difficult, but I thought there were seven. Suddenly one detached itself from the rest and floated down towards us. As it approached, I saw that it was a glowing sphere.

‘Fire elementals!’ cried Alice. ‘Just like the ones we saw in Greece …’

We’d faced different types of fire elemental there,
ranging from fiery orbs to asteri, which looked like five-pointed stars. They were all deadly and could burn you to cinders in moments. They’d certainly done for Bill Arkwright.

However, the Spook shook his head. ‘Nay, girl, whatever they are, they won’t be fire elementals. It’s too damp in this cavern. In fact this whole island has a wet climate very similar to the County. It’s no place for entities like that. They couldn’t survive here.’

As if to prove him right, rather than attacking us, the glowing orb backed away, drifting upwards, and once more became a distant point of light, having rejoined its companions in their strange dance. It was as if it had taken a close look at us and decided we were of no interest.

It was then that the Spook first noticed that Alice was carrying a book. ‘Where did you get that, girl?’ he demanded with a frown. ‘Did it belong to the shaman?’

Alice nodded. ‘It’s his notebook. Brought it so that Lizzie wouldn’t get her hands on it and learn new
things about the dark. Best that we have it, don’t you think?’

My master looked unconvinced but said nothing, and we continued to follow the curved wall of the cavern. Once again it was Alice who brought us to a halt. She sniffed loudly, three times. ‘There’s something ahead and coming this way,’ she warned. ‘Something from the dark …’

No sooner had she said that than all three dogs began to growl; they had sensed the danger too. We held our lanterns aloft and saw a figure approaching us.

‘It’s the abhuman,’ Alice said as he moved into the arcs of light.

She was right. Horn was alone. The two holes in his ears where they’d attached the chains still appeared inflamed, and his blind, milky-white eyeballs moved as if he were assessing each one of us in turn.

The union between the Fiend and a witch could produce a wide range of different offspring. Grimalkin, the witch assassin, had once given birth to a perfectly
human baby boy; the Fiend had killed it on the spot for just that reason. Then there was Alice, born fully human but with the potential to become a powerful witch. Here, at the other end of the scale, was this daemonic figure, a horned beast like the father who’d sired him.

The Spook readied his staff and approached the creature.

The abhuman hissed at him through his teeth, then spoke in a harsh voice. ‘Follow me,’ he rasped.

‘And why should we do that?’ demanded my master, raising his staff threateningly.

‘Follow me,’ Horn repeated. He turned and headed into the darkness.

I didn’t like the idea of leaving the relative safety of the rock wall. I had a bad feeling about venturing out into the vastness of the cavern: you could get lost; or just be swallowed up by the darkness.

‘Wait!’ cried the Spook, no doubt thinking the same thing. ‘You need to give us a good reason to follow you – otherwise we stay here!’

The abhuman turned back to face us, and his face twisted in anger, the glare of a feral beast rather than a human being. ‘You
must
follow. You have no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice to be made,’ said the Spook. ‘Aye, there’s always that. Suppose we choose to stay here …’

‘Then you will stay here in this cavern until you die. There is no escape from here unless I wish it. Now that my master is dead, I control the buggane. Despite all the efforts of the witch, it still does as I command – at least for the moment.’

‘He could be lying,’ Adriana said, lowering her voice. ‘It’s safer to stay here.’

‘Not if all the entrances and exits are made by the buggane,’ I replied.

‘And I suspect that’s exactly what we’ll find,’ said the Spook. ‘I fear that the wisest option for now is to do as he asks.’

So we reluctantly followed the abhuman into the cavern. Soon the walls were far behind us and we continued in the pool of yellow light cast by our lanterns,
beyond which nothing seemed to exist. Darkness extended in every direction. Our footsteps echoed in the silence and I grew increasingly nervous.

The situation soon became even worse: our lanterns all began to dim until, after a few moments, they gave off only the faintest of glows. This had to be the work of dark magic, and the Spook immediately held up his hand, motioning us to halt. No sooner had we done so than the lanterns went out completely, plunging us into absolute darkness.

Was it a trick? I wondered fearfully. Had Horn lured us out here to our deaths?

I
stood there, preparing myself for some sort of attack at any moment, but nothing happened.

‘Keep moving forward,’ Horn commanded from up ahead in the darkness. ‘We are almost there …’

We shuffled along very slowly; it was so dark that I couldn’t even see the Spook in front of me. But for the sound of his boots on rock, he could have vanished. Then I saw a faint glow.

As we got nearer, the luminosity grew; not in intensity but in size. It reminded me of the glowing sphere that had descended from the cavern roof to take a look at us. But whereas that had been small and yellow, this was red and immense. Neither was
it a true sphere; it flexed and shifted its shape, as if under pressure from invisible internal or external forces.

From a distance it had appeared to have a definite outline, but as we approached, we saw that it was more like a mist in a forest dell, diffuse on its perimeter but far denser within. Already the abhuman was walking into it and becoming more indistinct. We followed – on my part, with increasing reluctance: I wondered if everybody else felt the same. The skin on my hands and face was tingling, my sense of danger increasing with every step I took. Then the abhuman came to a halt and turned to face us – just a horned silhouette against the radiance.

‘This is indeed the cache of Lucius Grim – I was right,’ said the Spook.

‘It presents no danger to you,’ Horn told him. ‘At least, not in itself. It’s the place where the buggane stores the life force that it steals from the living. It’s energy, that’s all – a vast store of animas reaped over centuries.’

‘Think of the hundreds of people it’s murdered.’ The Spook shook his head in disgust.

‘Not just hundreds – thousands upon thousands,’ said the abhuman. ‘Other bugganes have added to the cache; the process has gone on for centuries. This cavern is now a great source of energy and a meeting place for all those who are skilled in animism magic – not only shamans in spirit form, but Romanian witches. At present a coven of seven have temporarily projected their spirits from their distant homeland. They saw you enter the cavern and warned me of your whereabouts.’

The seven lights were now dancing high above our heads – they must be the witches’ spirits, I realized. I remembered reading an entry about such things in the Spook’s Bestiary. They were dangerous: a group like that could suck the life force from a human victim in minutes.

‘Come on then! Out with it,’ demanded the Spook, an edge of impatience in his voice. ‘What do you want?’

‘Revenge,’ said the abhuman, his cruel face
contorting in anger. ‘I want revenge upon the witch who killed my master, Lord Barrule. I want her destroyed!’

‘Aye, we’d also like to put an end to her,’ said the Spook. ‘But have you brought us here just to tell us that? If so, it would have been better to let us go on our way.’

‘I needed to show you this – and to give you vital information,’ Horn went on. ‘Information that might help you to stop her in her tracks before she rules this whole island. You see, without realizing it, the witch is using my master’s thumb-bones as a conduit and drawing on the power stored here. And it will get worse, much worse. I’m using that same power and trying to resist her. But she is stronger than me, far stronger, and will soon have the buggane in her power. Then this vast reservoir will be at her disposal!

‘At the moment she knows nothing of this cache, but once she has made the buggane her creature, she will quickly learn the truth. Then she’ll realize what she’s capable of. And she won’t stop here.
Eventually nations beyond our shores will be at risk.

‘My master was obsessed by gambling and never bothered to harvest more than a fraction of the magic that is available here; the witch is sure to seize it all and use it against those who cross her. You must act quickly before it’s too late!’

The Spook nodded. ‘We need to get those bones away from her – though that’s easier said than done. How long can you resist her? Just how long can you keep her away from the buggane?’

‘It’s impossible to say. All I know is that it’s getting harder with each day that passes,’ Horn replied. ‘There’s no time to waste. I’ll show you a tunnel which will take you up to the forest above. You needn’t face the witch’s bone-yard.’

As the abhuman led us across the darkness of the cavern, our lanterns flared back to their full brilliance. He guided us to a freshly dug tunnel before retreating back into the gloom. It went up at a steep angle, and it was indeed clear; within minutes we had emerged among the trees. It was still dark, but the sky was
growing lighter on the eastern horizon and we could see Greeba Keep in the distance, lanterns gleaming on its battlements; the guard would be on full alert.

‘That tower’s too close for comfort,’ said the Spook. ‘The more distance we can put between it and us, the happier I’ll be.’