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752 lines
37 KiB
HTML
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<head>
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<title>Mythlands - Chapter 3</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
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<h1>3</h1>
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<p>
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They were running in the dark, and they were running for their <em>lives</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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It had happened so fast, so terrifyingly sudden, and now they were running, running in the tunnel with that awful chittering sound behind them, echoing
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from the hard stone walls.
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Run lads!</em>
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The Major had opened the door in the wall and hustled them through before the next wave came. <em>Run like the wind and don't turn back.</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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And they had run, Jack and Kerry Malone both, with that shapeless, freezing dark oozing its way into the Major's bolt-hole, too powerful, too cold and
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relentless to hold back, too utterly evil to face, and yet the Major turned to face it.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had faced the living darkness alone.
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</p>
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<p>
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Anger and fear welled up inside him. The Major had shoved them to safety, through the door into the stairway, and they had run like he said, but they had
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left him alone to face that awful flowing <em>gibbering</em> dark.
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</p>
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<p>
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Now they were running away with the bag in Jack's hands and the backpack on Kerry's shoulders, running in the dark and running for their own lives, unable
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to comprehend how a Halloween night could turn so quickly and turn the world so inside-out.
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</p>
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<p>
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The dogs had been bad enough. They had been sauntering up the steep road, past Dr Balloch's gate when the two big Doberman dogs, black as sin in the
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shadows, had come racing down from the side of the house, howling like wolves, and launched themselves at the chain-link fence with such force it spanged
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outwards like a net and shivered the upright posts. The first one bounced backwards, turning a complete somersault, to land, slavering on the dead leaves.
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</p>
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<p>
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The sudden attack gave them such a fright that Kerry had jumped backwards, crashed into Jack, and the two of them ended in a tangle on the road.
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</p>
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<p>
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Behind the fence the big dogs were baying in a sudden fury. Moonlight glinted in their black eyes and caught the curve of bared teeth and the foam that
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flicked out between them.
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</p>
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<p>
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The boys found their feet, and fast. One of the dogs ran at the fence and one of the links snapped with a <em>crack</em>. Both of them took off up the
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road, hell for leather, and behind the barrier, the dogs came haring after them, growling and snarling, crashing through the bushes. The boys scooted
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across the road, down the lane while behind them the beasts scrabbled at the fence, trying to dig their way under.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Nearly gave me a heart attack," Kerry said when they finally slowed down. They had played with Dr Balloch's pets down on the shore, fed them biscuits in
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the passing. They had always looked fierce, the way Dobermans do, but they had always been gentle, playful creatures. "What got into them?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Full moon." Jack said. "Lunatic mutts." They were still charged up from the fright they'd got. Jack was sure if the dogs had managed through the fence
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they wouldn't have stopped at just barking and snarling. They had looked mad and vicious in the dim light, and they had sounded worse than that.
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's a funny night."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Nothing funny about it," Jack said.
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</p>
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<p>
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The moon was full, silvering down on them as they walked back together, casting dark and reaching shadows from the bare birches on the narrow road above
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Ardmore Harbour. Kerry had scrumped a couple of apples from Widow McLusky's garden and had tried his hand with the sling, lobbing the windfalls at the
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lamp-posts on the roadside. He looked the part, in that rabbit-skin outfit he'd made up to look like the boy David, but he'd never hit a Goliath, not
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without a whole lot of practice.
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</p>
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<p>
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The Major had lent them the sling from his collection of old arms in the library, marvelously woven from strips of fine leather. He had handed Jack the
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recurve bow and a quiver of arrows that Jack had seen on the wall.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Two heroes, both of you. Don't go spiking folk with those barbs. And watch that Amberhorn. It's got a hard draw to it." He warned the boys not to stay out
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too late and they had nodded agreement. Jack had cut the sleeves off an old leather jacket from the attic and swiped a plaid blanket for a cloak and was
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passable as his hero Cuchullain, even if nobody else had ever heard of him.
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</p>
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<p>
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"They thought I was Robin Hood," Jack said. It had been an eventful night, and it had been hard to avoid Billy Robbins whose gang had been waiting outside
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the village hall, standing at the corner, smoking and taking swigs from a six-pack of beer, just waiting for the younger ones to come out into the night.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had spotted Jack first and peeled away from the group who sauntered behind. The street light caught that mean look in his eye, beefy shoulders hunched
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aggressively, out for trouble and expecting to find it.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack dodged back into the light and found Kerry at the bottom of the stairs.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I knew he'd be waiting."
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</p>
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<p>
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"How many are there."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Half a dozen. We'll never get past them."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Come on then," Kerry said. "I know a way." He turned and they threaded through the crowd, down the narrow stairway to the basement.
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's not the first time," Kerry said. In a small place like Ardmore, there weren't too many places to hide, but Kerry probably knew most of them.
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</p>
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<p>
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They came out through the store-room window, small and high on the wall, but easily opened to let them scrape through, round the back of the hall and up
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the lane. Kerry lit one of Billy's smokes and blew out.
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</p>
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<p>
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"He won't let it go," Jack said.
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</p>
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<p>
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"That one couldn't find his arse with both hands in daylight," Kerry snorted. "Don't you worry about Robbins. He's all mouth and daddy's money. He'll come
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to nothing."
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</p>
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<p>
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"I wish he'd leave you alone." They had been friends for a long time, ever since Kerry had come over from Ireland and his Dad had got a job in the yard.
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Kerry always had patches in his jeans and worn down shoes and holes frayed at the elbows, but Jack knew he was better than any of the Robbins clique could
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ever know. Better than any of them would ever be. It took a whole lot to take the brunt of it and not hit back.
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's just one of those things. He thinks I'm a thick Irish hick. Given my Dad's track record, it's no surprise."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry grinned unexpectedly. "I mean, would you set off a quarry blast <em>under</em> the Stonemill Bridge? I mean, you can catch fish there with your bare
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hands any day of the week. Daft <em>Eejit</em>. And anyway, I wasn't the only one taking Robbins' crap. You got the black eye, remember?"
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</p>
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<p>
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He blew out again. "You watch, I'll get my own back at the card school behind the sheds. You get dealt a bad hand, you learn to skim the shuffle. I'll
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bleed him dry."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack had no doubt about that. He'd watched Kerry play with the rest of the guys behind the sheds where there was always a game of pitch and toss or
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three-card brag. Maybe his old man had taught him a thing or two and Jack never ever saw what he did with the cards, but he could always pull out a royal
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flush against a high run any time the pot was worth the taking.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack hitched the plaid on his shoulder. "Robin Hood. Can you believe that? They never even heard of Cuchullain. Only the Greatest hero ever lived."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Maybe," Kerry said. "But put him up against the Predator, who would win?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"No contest, Jack said." Kerry dug in his pocket and pulled out the little key ring with the tiny laser light on its edge. For the past couple of years
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they'd signalled each other, Jack in his aunt's Lodge House and Kerry way down the hill in the sagging cottage where the fields turned to reedy bog. He
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swung the beam on Jack, centering the red dot on his forehead."
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</p>
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<p>
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"A bow against a blaster? No chance."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Cuchullain would have eaten him for breakfast and then gone for the Alien." Jack countered with his own key-ring, trying to dazzle Kerry with the light.
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</p>
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<p>
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"How about Superman?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Kryptonite gets him. Nothing could get Cuchullain."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry lobbed the last apple, managed to skim the lamp post before they turned the corner.
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</p>
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<p>
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"One thing I always wondered. With that skin-tight suit, how does Superman go to the bathroom?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack giggled. "At the speed of light. Maybe in a phone box."
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</p>
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<p>
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"That's why they always smell. Imagine if he'd a bit o' wind. It would blow the place to smithereens."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry giggled. "Hey, maybe that's what happened to Stoneymill Bridge. Maybe I'm superman's secret son."
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</p>
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<p>
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They were still laughing at that when they turned the corner by the thick hawthorn and Kerry pulled up so suddenly that Jack barged into him.
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</p>
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<p>
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Robbins and the rest of the crew were waiting for them.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Nice try, tinkerbell." Robbins stood square on the road, his red hair a fuzzy halo in the street-lamp glow. He jerked his arm and lobbed a bottle overarm.
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It smashed into shards that spangled on the road just in front of them. The orange glow of the street-lamp reflected from his piggy eyes, making them
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glitter with feral light.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I'm getting really fed up with this," Kerry muttered.
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</p>
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<p>
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The gang came sauntering towards them, Billy Robbins big and menacing in the lead. Jack and Kerry and turned and ran back to the gate on the lane, scaled
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the five bars and into the field, scattering the big shapes of grazing cattle.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Get that Irish tramp," Jack heard Robbins snarl. "I'll teach him to lay a hand on me."
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</p>
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<p>
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The gang came lumbering after them, crashing through the dying nettles and burrdock on the far side. The boys vaulted the cattle-fence into the trees and
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they scooted along the track beside the stream, past the little waterfall and up the hill towards Kerry's cottage.
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</p>
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<p>
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Behind them, they could still hear the thrashing in the undergrowth and the occasional curse as Robbins or one of the others stumbled into thorn-bushes or
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barged into trees.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You know," Jack said when they slowed. "I'm really getting tired of running away. We're going to have to learn to fight, or it's going to get worse."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Fight seven of them? You're on your own, Jackie-boy. You've been reading too many books."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack could still hear the rasp in Billy Robbins' voice, and see that orange light in his eyes. The Major was right. There was something wrong with Robbins,
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and it wasn't going to get any better.
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</p>
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<p>
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They got up the path, listening hard for sounds of pursuit and when they got to Kerry's place Jack waited outside in the gathering darkness as his friend
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went to gather his gear for their foray in Cromwath Blackwood. Behind them, the wind had been picking up, still warm off the sea, but the towering clouds
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threatened thunder. Kerry came back with his backpack. It would be full of his rods and snares and fishing gear. Out of sight of the cottage he opened the
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bag and pulled out a steel camping flask.
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</p>
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<p>
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"This'll be a hoot. My old man doesn't know I found his secret still. There's two pints of best moonshine here."
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</p>
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<p>
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"You're going to drink whisky?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Are you crazy? That hooch would blow your socks off. No. We can light it. I want to try that Greek Fire stuff you told me about. And don't you go tellin'
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old Iron Britches."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack laughed. Aunt Clarice wasn't just as stern as Kerry made out, though she had a way of pursing her lips when Kerry was around and he knew she
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disapproved, but you couldn't pick your friends, not really. Not your <em>real </em>friends.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Just don't swear," Jack said. "And no smoking either. She'll pitch a fit."
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</p>
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<p>
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He stopped in his tracks. "Did you hear something."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack nodded. "I did."
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</p>
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<p>
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He was whispering and he didn't know why. The hairs on his neck started that creepy walk again. A cloud passed in front of the moon, leaving them in
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darkness and a strange sense of apprehension started to roll in his belly. Something the Major had said almost came back to him and danced away as the wind
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abruptly dropped to silence. They both stood still, listening.
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</p>
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<p>
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Without warning a purple flash sizzled in the sky, so close they could smell the bitterness of ozone, so brief and fierce it burned orange after-images in
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their eyes and a screech ripped out across the night.
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</p>
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<p>
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"What the hell was <em>that</em>?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Somebody let off a rocket," Kerry said. "Two weeks early. Flash-cash Billy Robbins I bet."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack found he couldn't move.
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</p>
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<p>
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Something was wrong and he didn't know what. The wind started as quickly as it had stopped, but suddenly it was a cold wind, a winter wind that whirled
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round the trunks and snatched at their clothes and Jack shivered. A deeper cloud cut off the last of the moonlight, leaving them truly in the dark.
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</p>
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<p>
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It could have been a rocket fired up from Ardmore Harbour. It was near enough Guy Fawkes night.
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</p>
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<p>
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But something in him knew it had been no rocket. He didn't know what had caused the flash, but it had been close, as if the air had ripped apart for one
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brief second..
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</p>
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<p>
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Al of a sudden, the hairs were standing to attention on the back of his neck. The apprehension inside him swelled. Here he was, dressed as his Celtic hero,
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and he was all of a sudden scared.
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</p>
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<p>
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He didn't know why.
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</p>
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<p>
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Overhead, beyond the pine-tops, something big and dark flew in the night. Jack clearly heard the whoosh of wings and he recalled the flock of rooks that
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had exploded in panic from Cromwath Blackwood.
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</p>
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<p>
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"….home before dark..." The Major had told him. He should have listened.
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</p>
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<p>
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They moved slowly out of the pines and Kerry stopped him.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Something's wrong." His voice was a whisper.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You feel it too?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"Man, something's funny and I don't mean ha-bleeding-ha."
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</p>
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<p>
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The wind moaned and it sounded the way ghosts would on a Halloween night.
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</p>
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<p>
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"There!" Kerry's voice was a hoarse whisper. Jack stood close. "There. Look."
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</p>
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<p>
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Darker than dark, a shadow covered a thick stand of firs beyond the shrubs.
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</p>
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<p>
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Two small animals, martens or stoats came rippling out, fast on blurring legs. A blackbird squawked, went silent. Two woodpigeons catapulted into the sky.
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One of them faltered, fluttered madly, and tumbled to the ground.
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</p>
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<p>
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"What <em>is</em> that?" Jack could hear the shaky shiver in Kerry's voice.
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</p>
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<p>
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"They sneaked up on us," he whispered back.
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</p>
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<p>
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Something big and heavy moved in the shadows. The pair stood stock still, breath held tight, pulling back into the cover of the trees.
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</p>
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<p>
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Out there, the shrubs whipped back and forth and then a shape came stumbling out. Billy Robbins gasping breath could be heard across the distance. It
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sounded like somebody choking. Jack heard it like an animal snarl.
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</p>
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<p>
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A shadow seemed to <em>reach</em> out from the trees as if Robbins was trailing it like a cloak. He turned towards them and the darkness rippled with him.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack froze, heart somewhere in his throat. Kerry was gripping his arm, fingers dug in hard.
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</p>
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<p>
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Robbins snarled again, raised both hands to his head. He stood stock still for just a moment and then he turned towards them, even though they hadn't moved
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a muscle.
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</p>
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<p>
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He took two steps, three, each one of them heavy and lumbering, and the dark umbra around him seemed to press down on him. He raised his fat face and the
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moonlight caught his eyes, just the way the streetlamp had done.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack stood transfixed as the pale light gleamed out at him. A mad light. Lifeless, yet somehow filled with empty hunger.
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</p>
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<p>
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"What in the name…" Kerry started. Jack couldn't even speak. Fear was willing his feet to move and he couldn't.
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</p>
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<p>
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Robbins took another step towards them and Jack saw that his footprints on the grass were deep and dark as if he had sunk into the ground with each step.
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</p>
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<p>
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The gurgling rasp came again and Robbins raised both hands, fingers splayed, the pose of a strangler about to choke the life out of a victim.
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</p>
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<p>
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He grunted and then stopped, hands still upraised. His body shook like tuning fork.
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</p>
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<p>
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There was a <em>twist</em> in the air, an inexplicable shift, a judder, like a tremor in the earth. Jack felt a wave of nausea loop through him. His fear
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simply <em>exploded</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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Billy Robbins screamed then, a sound of pure agony. His head arched back and he sank slowly to his knees only yards from them. The moonlight in his eyes
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was pale and blind. The sound of his scream sent a shiver into Jack's core.
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</p>
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<p>
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The darkness, so black it almost hurt the eyes just to look at it, flowed away from the kneeling form, elongating outwards as Billy Robbins swayed on the
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grass.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack and Kerry stood transfixed, breath held, unable to move. The darkness seemed to slither and ripple they watched, a thick stream of night that oozed
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out of Billy Robbins across the turf towards the Major's house.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack wanted to run, but he couldn't draw his eyes away.
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</p>
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<p>
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Robbins stirred, got to his hands and knees and crawled heavily in a tight circle, like a wounded beast then pitched over, rolled and exhaled long shuddery
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breath. He hit the turf with a thud, arms splayed. The inexplicable, terrifying darkness had flowed away to the gable wall.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack's feet unlocked. He took a tentative step forward, breath still backed up, scared in case Billy Robbins suddenly got to his feet and grabbed them
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both.
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</p>
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<p>
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But Billy Robbins did not move. Sparkles of silver gleamed like a halo in his frizzy hair and when they got to within two paces of the sprawled form, the
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air crackled with cold and their breath plumed in freezing air.
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</p>
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<p>
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Robbins' face hair was covered in ice crystals. His skin was blue and shiny.
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</p>
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<p>
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But it was his eyes that rooted them to the spot. He lay there, arms splayed, eyes wide open with the shards of moonlight pale as death in them.
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|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
And both eyes were filmed over with pure ice.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
A chill shuddered through Jack. A picture of the crazed and dying Thomas Lynn flickered unbidden in his mind. He grabbed Kerry's arm and pulled him away
|
|
from the grotesque stare. He didn't know what had happened to Billy Robbins. Didn't <em>want </em>to know<em>.</em>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He just wanted to be away from here, out of the dark and into the warm.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
But when he turned, he saw the rolling darkness pool at the gable wall, and then slowly ooze its way upwards on the old stone.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"What the hell is <em>that</em>?" Jack found his voice. It came out in croak from a dry throat.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"That's impossible," Kerry whispered. But they were watching it happen. In mere seconds, the blackness was up at the window. The light in the room began to
|
|
dim, almost imperceptibly at first and Jack thought he was imagining it, but the dimming seemed to speed up, as if the light itself was being sucked out.
|
|
In less than a minute, it was just a red glow on the wing wall and then it just went dark, completely dark. In the turret room above it, the light was
|
|
beginning to fade.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I think we should get out of here," Kerry said. "This is getting weird."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"No," Jack said, squeezing down on the oily fear in his belly. "We'd better go tell the Major."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"At this time of night?" Kerry was snatching at excuses. He was badly shaken.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"It's dark, not late and he's in danger." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the blind-eyed form on the grass. "Look what happened to <em>him</em>"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Up on the wall, the impossible stream of pure night gathered at the gable window and then seemed to melt its way through the pane.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
This was more than crazy.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I'm not sure we should go in there," Kerry said. The telescope room light was now almost gone, and the next one along the wing wall was beginning to turn
|
|
red.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I'm sure we have to." Scared as he was - <em>petrified </em> as he was - Jack knew he had to warn the Major. Billy Robbins had been swallowed up by the
|
|
darkness and then his hair and eyes had turned white…and the darkness had flowed out of him.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack grabbed Kerry by the wrist and pulled him along beside him, down the path through the evergreen bushes, crunching the gravel of the driveway and round
|
|
to the far side of the building, only a hundred yards from where Aunt Clarice would be doing the autumn books. The cellar door was open and made no creak
|
|
as he pushed it open, crossed by the wheezing old boiler that was beginning to toil against the coming winter, and up the stairs to the hallway.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He sensed it again, an absolute <em>wrongness.</em> The air seemed to tingle with an energy all of its own and the shadows here were darker than he
|
|
remembered them. Upstairs, far on the west wing, came a low thrumming sound, like a wind in the pylon wires up on the moor, hardly a sound at all, more a
|
|
shudder that went through both of them. Despite it, despite the shivery apprehension, they went up the stairs two at a time, turned the landing and stood
|
|
facing down the long narrow corridor that spanned the whole wing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Darkness was growing there, a thick black that crept on the walls like a disease. The thrumming was louder here and behind it was a strange snuffling sound
|
|
that Jack could hear deep inside his head, the way he could sometimes hear the bats as they chased the moths under the trees. The sound at first seemed to
|
|
come from inside his own brain. His heart gave a lurch and wanted to climb into his throat, but he swallowed hard and made himself turn past the newel
|
|
post, hauling Kerry with him towards the east wing where the Major had his library.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
They stopped outside the big polished door and Jack willed his breathing to slow down. He put an ear to a panel and listened. All was silent in there. Out
|
|
here that pulsing vibration was getting louder and the air was colder, suddenly much colder. Jack saw his breath billow out in a frosted plume. He reached
|
|
for the brass handle and felt the sharp sting of ice on his palm, but he didn't flinch back. Instead he turned the handle, pushed the door open and they
|
|
walked into the library.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major turned his head, his cropped hair and beard silver against his weather-beaten skin. His eyes widened when he saw them.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Lads. <em>Lads.</em> What on earth are you doing here?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Something's happening," Jack blurted. "There's a…a…<em>dark</em>. It got Billy Robbins and now its in the house."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Oh, boys." The Major wiped a hand across a furrowed brow that suddenly made him look old. "It's the wrong time to come here."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He was sitting at the long table, with a massive chart spread out in front of him and old brass instruments that Jack had never seen before. Jack could see
|
|
symbols on the chart but he didn't have time to look.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"What's happening?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major closed his eyes for just a second and sat down on the edge of the big armchair where Jack had spent many an hour reading since he was small.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"You have to go, Laddie, you and young Kerrigan. Get yourselves out of here and home. And I mean <em>now</em>."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He reached behind the chair and drew out the big over-and-under shotgun that Jack hadn't noticed before. With ease of practice, he slipped two orange
|
|
shells into the breech and snapped it shut, and then Jack saw the pistols, big ivory handled revolvers jammed into the Major's waistband.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"What is it? What's happening?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Thin places," the Major said, almost absently. "And Samhain night."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He crossed slowly to the door and put a hand on the doorknob. He drew it back, rubbed frost-rime from the tips of his fingers.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Something bad's going on, lads," he muttered. "Something old and bad's coming this way."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Where from?" The question just blurted out before Jack could stop it.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"From the worst of places," was all the Major said. "We may be too late and you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. We'll have to buy you some."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He shook his head, almost sadly.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I could send it back, but not with you two here. Far too dangerous."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"But what's going on?" Jack's voice was almost a whisper and his breath was frosting in the air, even here. Was the light beginning to fade? It was hard to
|
|
tell.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Thin places between the worlds," the Major muttered. "And they get thin enough to rip through at times. Full moon and Samhain, with this conjunction,
|
|
that's a thin time. Lads, I'm afraid something's made a breach." He opened the door, just a crack, and cold, cold air squeezed into the library. He cocked
|
|
his head back at them.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Tonight you need a bolt-hole."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"What's coming?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"That'll be the nightshades, Jack lad. Some would say the Banshee. From a very dark place, and they won't be alone. You say this feller was <em>in</em> the
|
|
dark?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack nodded. The Major shook his head. "They find the cracks and worm their way in. They couldn't get in here by themselves, so they use another way.
|
|
Someone flawed and broken inside."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I don't believe this," Kerry said.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Believe it, Laddie. There'll be a shadowmaster guiding them, and they should be sent right back to where they belong. But with you two here, we must try
|
|
another way."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He reached into the big poacher's pocket of his tweed jacket and drew out a long thin thing, broke off the top with his teeth and a white light flared so
|
|
brightly both boys had to turn away. Crooking the gun in his arm, the Major swung the door open wide and held the fizzing light high.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Out there in the corridor, darkness expanded like a living thing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The major pushed the fizzing light-stick outwards and the dark fell back, just a little.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The major turned his head. "Go on now, you boys. Jack, get into the room and wait there." The major jammed the stuttering light in the door jamb, hefted
|
|
the gun up to his shoulders and stood there between the boys and the flowing dark.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The darkness oozed towards him, coiling and roiling, shapeless and expanding until it filled the corridor. The light in the room began to dim.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Kerry followed Jack through the door into the side-room while the Major stood in the open doorway. From the oozing dark, a gobbling, muttering sound came
|
|
louder, like a multitude of hungry voices. Jack held the door open a crack, heart hammering.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Where is this?" Kerry asked. Old arms and shields festooned the walls. "It's a dead end. We're stuck."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Whatever was out there, whatever the flowing dark was, Jack couldn't think of anything that could stop it. Even as he spoke, the bright white flare began
|
|
to lose against the dark, as if the black was swallowing it up.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major stepped back from the door jamb, raised the big gun and fired into it. The boom of the shotgun shook the room.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
All hell broke loose, and it seemed to be all in Jack's head. The dark fell back and the chittering sound soared so high it was a tearing sensation in the
|
|
ears, little sharp needles of sound that scratched on the brain. Still Jack couldn't turn away from the door.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major stepped back and a long tendril of pure night like living tar-smoke that seemed to have no real form and no substance yet carried enormous <em>threat</em> snaked between the door jambs, draining the light from the flare as it came. Another one followed it, and another, as if all the night in
|
|
the world had coalesced right at this point and come to some foul life.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major fired again, right into the mass of black. From way beyond it, out there in the inky hallway, came a rumbling sound that shivered the stones of
|
|
the old house.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"<em>Shadowmaster</em>," Jack thought. Whatever a shadowmaster was, that sound had to be it. He drew back, fear swelling inside him. He did not want to see
|
|
the thing that had made that sound, the noise of great stones grinding in a cave. Yet the Major was standing up to it and he was trying to protect both of
|
|
them.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"We have to do something," he told Kerry, hoping his voice wasn't shaking as much as he knew it was. "We can't leave him there."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Any suggestions?" Out in the library, the Major had drawn the guns and leveled them through the door frame. The shots came fast, right into the darkness,
|
|
holding it at bay, but not seeming to hit anything solid at all. The dark rolled back, roiled forward towards him.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack turned. He had the short bow in his hands, but the arrows in his quiver only had wooden tips, and they'd be pretty ineffective against anything. He
|
|
couldn't think what might be effective at all, but his eyes scanned the wall where the Major had chosen the bow only hours before - how long ago <em>that</em> seemed now - and fell on the black quiver. He crossed and snatched it from the wall.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack nocked an arrow, keeping his fingers clear of the glistening tip. It had an acrid smell, and he hoped whatever it could do to humans might work on
|
|
that looping, gibbering dark. He swung the door open just as the black tide came swelling into the library, solid night on the move. The Major fired once,
|
|
twice, into the blackness, making it draw back just a little, but Jack knew that guns were not enough. Whatever the Major had been preparing for, he'd run
|
|
out of time. Jack pulled and loosed an arrow. It flew straight into the centre of the mass and kept on going, dwindling in the distance as if it had fallen
|
|
into a bottomless hole. Something moved in there, a poisonous, liquid motion that defied logic.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack shook his head in dismay. The arrow hadn't hit the wall on the far side. It was as if the wall had disappeared completely leaving nothing but a vast
|
|
and empty space. And how could you fight an empty space, even if it <em>was</em> moving? How could you fight something you couldn't even <em>see</em>?
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Get back <em>now,</em>" The Major roared, almost as loud as the big pistol.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
His guns blared again, once, twice, another twice, fast as a gunslinger in the adventure books, each one causing brief pull-back, before the darkness
|
|
swelled again.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"No time. No damned time."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major turned again. "Back! Get back I said." Moving quickly he swept them before him into the bolt-hole room.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"There's too many of them, boys," he said, breathing hard. "A horde of them. Took me by surprise this time."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<em>This time?</em>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"You have to get out of here, and now."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"How do we do that?" Jack wondered. Kerry said nothing. He was breathing hard and his face was flushed with excitement and fear.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Why are they here?" Jack asked. Outside the bolt hole door, a big oak door that was maybe six inches thick, the muttering sound was muffled, but getting
|
|
louder yet. Already a thin ooze of the nightshade dark was beginning to leak past the jambs, and the room was turning colder. A sheen of what looked like
|
|
oily sweat glistened on the door panels and began to trickle down the grain. As it moved, grey, fungus-like growths swelled and oozed sickly at its edges.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"There's something they want, but they can't have it."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major strode to the desk, past the massive antlers that stretched from side to side, stopped in front of carved bronze box that Jack had opened up in
|
|
the turret room. Jack heard the snick and when the Major turned, he had the heart-shaped stone in his hand. It was set in a silver claw on a thick chain.
|
|
In his other he held a little satchel. He handed it to Jack and then stooped to loop the chain around his neck.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"This is what they want Jack lad, so you take care of it and don't let them have it."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
A tumble of thoughts ran through his head. Take care of it…<em>how….where?</em>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I don't understand," he began to say.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"I wished there was time to tell you. But time's pressing and so are those damned imps. This is where it starts." He reached for the old gnarled walking
|
|
stick that he'd always used on their walks up on the ridge He cupped both hands around the polished grip, twisted, and the stick just fell apart. When he
|
|
turned back towards them, he had a long straight sword in one hand, and a short wavery one in his left. Without a pause, he moved to the corner furthest
|
|
from the door, touched the stone high on the wall and this time a narrow doorway ground open and another darkness yawned.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Guard the heart and guard it well. Your father guarded it. You have to be keeper now. Too young, y'are. I'd planned to wait a while, but that's fate,
|
|
lad."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"My father?" Jack started. Despite the need to flee, his feet wouldn't move. "What about him? What <em>is</em> this?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack stared at him, willing the Major to say more.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"It's the most important thing in the worlds," he finally said.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"But what do I do with it."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"You run, boy."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Then he simply shoved them both and they stumbled through onto a tight stone staircase that spiralled into shadows.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Trust your instincts. Trust that sense of direction. Trust your heart. You'll know when you get there."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"But what? How…?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The Major tried a smile that ended in a grimace. He simply shoved them both and they stumbled through into a tight stone staircase that spiralled down into
|
|
shadows. Jack turned and the door was swinging shut on them. Before it did, he saw the major's sword flashing, fast slices of light that were suddenly
|
|
overwhelmed by the darkness and then the door slammed and the Major was gone.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Now they were running, running for their lives. The stairway took them down, well below the level of the foundations and stopped on the flat. They ran on,
|
|
along a narrow tunnel, and the compass that existed in Jack's head told them they were running north. Behind them, the murmuring was faint but he knew it
|
|
would get louder, because with the major gone, there was nothing to hold it back, whatever it was. They'd find a way through. All he could see in his mind
|
|
was the Major, his friend, leaping at them like some Viking hero to protecting him and Kerry. Tears tried to force into his eyes, but he blinked them back.
|
|
He had to think now, and he had to think fast. Where they were going, he did not know. Jack Flint was fifteen years old, nearly sixteen and tall for his
|
|
age, but he had to think fast despite the overwhelming fear. He was just a boy still, and his adventure was just beginning.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The tunnel curved downwards, damp and dripping with moss when they reached the curve at the bottom. It twisted west, then swung east, but all the time they
|
|
were running northwards and the air was getting colder. He could sense the oozing blackness surging down the narrow confines after them. Kerry was ahead
|
|
and while Jack was faster, he had to bite on the panic urge to overtake him and keep on running.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
When the ground started to slope upwards, he could make out the shapes of great twisted roots that poked through the masonry. Feathery tendrils brushed him
|
|
and he could feel the tug of old cobwebs snatching at his hair.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Move, Kerry! It's behind us."
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Kerry kept going, breathing hard, stumbling over the roots which now almost blocked their way and Jack felt a burgeoning terror that they'd soon come to a
|
|
place where the passage was completely blocked and they'd be trapped here underground forever where nobody would ever find them, down in the dark amongst
|
|
the roots. It gave his legs new speed and he almost tripped on Kerry's heels.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Suddenly they were out into the air again, running through trees before they even knew they were out of the tunnel. Thorns snatched at their clothing and
|
|
twisted branches smacked them on the face, poking at their eyes and they hared it through piles of old dead leaves, scattering them in little whirls.
|
|
Through a stand, they came to a place where the trees were thinner. Up above them the moon was bloated, but not silver as it had been before. Now it was a
|
|
poisonous orange, sending weird toxic shadows against the gnarled boles of these trees.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Where are we?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"We're in Cromwath Blackwood."
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</body>
|
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</html>
|