by Alex Duncan
‘Apollo…Brash…whatever your name is?!’ he called over to him. ‘I’m not sure you know exactly what you’re dealing with here.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s all perfectly safe, for us at least. Isn’t that right Mr Monk?’
Monk was ignoring everyone, lost in a world of wonder, gazing around at all his horrors.
‘If any of those…things…gets out of here, the only thing you’ll have is more blood on your hands, is that what you want?’
‘Sacrifices always have to be made for what’s best,’ he said, wiping his damp forehead and catching his breath. ‘That’s the way it has always been, all the way back through history, Rameses, Alexander, Caesar, Khan, all great leaders of great civilisations who knew that lesson. Sacrifices have to be made. You have to break a few eggs to make a good pudding!’
The man looked less than convinced by his own words and Henry was quick to jump on this.
‘You’re not a murderer Apollo. You don’t want to be remembered that way do you?’
‘It…it’s quite all right,’ he stuttered, holding his ears against the constant cries of the nightmares. ‘Mr Monk knows what he’s doing. Egad, if you’d just give us what we want then we wouldn’t have to go through with this rigmarole.’
‘Why do you even want the stone?’ asked Rosie, drifting over to Henry’s side.
‘Mr Monk says Olkys needs it. If we are going to get more folk like him.’ He pointed at Zanga. ‘They come from the same place Olkys comes from, wherever that is, and he says he needs the stone if he’s to be able to go back and forth.’
Rosie span around to her father.
‘That’s why they want it, of course! Olkys can only get over to our side of the door if he is invited. Just like you said. With the stone he can come back and forth as he pleases, and bring anyone with him. He must have kidnapped all those people like Zanga and all the nightmares and brought them with him...Apollo?!’
The man, now visibly shaking in the white glow, jerked around to face her.
‘Apollo, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Olkys is more dangerous than you can imagine. Please, make the nightmares go away and we can talk this through. Please.’
Rosie saw Apollo’s gaze flick over to where Mr Monk was standing. He stealthily walked over to the ugly man, still mesmerized by the flowing fog around them all, and as quick as a cat, lunged for the tinderbox in Monk’s hand. Monk was quick too, and as soon as he felt a hand around his own he reached around and took a hold of Apollo’s wrist. They both looked as shocked as the other as they suddenly found themselves locked in a barbarous tussle and their arms went flailing about as each one tried to claim the tiny object.
‘What are you doing?’ croaked Monk.
‘Give it to me Monk, we’ve got to put a stop to this!’
‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a!’ the screaming went on, accompanying their scrapping. ‘How-la-la how-la-la!’
They thrashed about and the surrounding guards watched in horror as their leaders fought it out. At one point Apollo snatched his prize and made to push himself free but Monk leapt on him and as he fell forwards the simple tinderbox slipped from his grip and went sliding across the floor.
Everyone froze as they watched the silver box slide smoothly over the polished surface, over the lip of the moat and drop down past the smoke and into the depths.
‘Oh no,’ whispered Monk.
‘“Oh no”? What do you mean “oh no”?’ said Apollo, pushing his one time gentleman-in-waiting aside. ‘Are they going to stop screaming now?’
Monk answered by pointing over to the walls of the cave.
The smoke was splitting and forming and suddenly indistinguishable faces and bodies were stepping out of the fog, numberless and as white and insubstantial as the smoke. They took on the appearance of faceless people, without features or definite limbs, white shadows of reality, like unfinished pencil sketches. Time seemed to move quicker as many of the guards decided their loyalty wasn’t worth being in that cave a moment longer and they ran in all directions, looking for their escape.
‘What have you done?!’ yelled Monk, slapping Apollo across the arm with a muddy hand. ‘You’ve ruined it!’
‘I don’t know what you mean Mr Monk. I didn’t want any of this. I only wanted what was best for the country, for a civilised, safe future, what was best for all of us, a place where reason ruled above all else, not this chaos.’
Rosie, Henry and Zanga grouped together in the madness and watched as the smoky figures circling the cave pulled themselves free from the walls, stepping down onto the floor and began to approach them. Rosie couldn’t be sure of it, but even with their featureless faces, she thought the nightmares were smiling.
The old man took the hands of his friend and his daughter and shouted over the panic.
‘I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to start running!’
◆◆◆
For all his tyrannical foibles, Ambrose Brash, the self-christened Apollo, was bright enough to realise that it was time for him to leave. His night had swiftly transformed from the success he had always longed for, into an unmitigated disaster. He never should have trusted Mr Monk; the man was a lunatic and had brought this upon all of them. The hoards of nightmares were at the lip of the moat and edging ever closer in a disturbingly smooth and smoky gait. With the devilish white creatures moving nearer, Apollo needed little more encouragement and quick-footed it away from the centre of the cave floor.
He pushed his way past several guards who were amongst the brave few standing their ground in a line, swords aloft, all ready to face their new foe.
‘You’ll need more than swords, don’t you know!’ he cried as he barged his way through them and headed for the door leading to the underneath of the theatre.
The way was blocked by the faceless spectres, silkily moving towards the group, and Apollo shrieked aloud as they gathered pace and hungrily headed for him. He span on his heels and retreated back to the group of guards, shielding himself behind them.
‘Protect you master!’ he bellowed. ‘Protect Apollo, I’m the important one!’
The guards held their ground with an astonishing display of discipline (or stupidity) considering the circumstances and prepared, stiff-jawed and broad backed, to make their defence.
‘I’ll double the pay of the first man who kills me a nightmare. No, I’ll triple it. Now charge!’
With one great cry the guards lifted their swords high into the air and ran ahead to meet their enemy. The first man to reach them couldn’t have been long out of boyhood, but he hacked down a nightmare with all the bloodlust of a man possessed. His sword cut the thing from the side of its neck down to its waist in one fell slice and for a moment he looked to have killed it. The smoke parted cleanly where the blade had passed through it, but no sooner had it split than the smoke swirled and gathered and the wound disappeared. The nightmare was whole again. The young guard’s face fell and he looked up at the ghoul as it took one smooth step and passed straight through him.
The effect was immediate. All colour drained from the guards face and his eyes went so wide they looked to nearly pop out from their sockets. He went into a wild fit, screaming and crying, rubbing his arms up and down his body as if to brush some horrible thing off his skin.
‘Get them off me!’ he cried. ‘They’re all over me. Get them off me! I can’t bare it. The spiders! The spiders!’
He clawed at the invisible spiders, seemingly crawling all over him, and fell down onto his back and clawed and clawed until, in his own nightmare, he went quite still, stuck in some foul rigger-mortis of fright.
The young guard’s compatriots watched this with an unknowable confusion before turning on the nightmares themselves and renewing the attack.
The conclusion was inevitable. Swords sliced through smoky heads, briefly decapitating them before the tendrils wisped together and heads returned, arms came off and legs and bodies were cut in two, but the smoke just pa
rted and drew together again like water. There was nothing to do against the nightmares and as they remorselessly passed through each guard. The men’s own nightmares came alive and took them away.
‘I’m falling! Oh God help me, I’m falling!’ cried one, flailing about on the polished floor.
‘No, don’t throw me in, I beg you, I can’t swim. No, please, no!’ cried another, madly splashing like he was afraid of drowning.
‘Let me out of here, I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent I tell you, innocent!’ cried a third, banging against some imaginary door.
They all fell and were quickly still, locked in their contorted deaths with mouths wide open in silent screams.
Apollo, amazed, slipped on his gown and fell to the floor, scrambling away from the melee. Picking himself up, he dashed one way, then another, but there was confusion and noise all around him and the air smelt strongly of acrid smoke that caught the back of his throat and made him gag. Each exit he made for was blocked by the nightmares and as he turned again he felt his breath catch in his throat as he saw one of the figures seem to spot him and him alone and make its way smoothly towards him. He couldn’t have run fast enough, dashing through the skirmish like his feet were on fire, dodging guards right, left and centre, but the one apparition was still heading across to him and him alone, and gaining ground with every smooth step it took.
Apollo tripped on his own feet and went down, landing heavily on his side and turned onto his back to see the figure, wafting his way, wailing as it went.
‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a! How-la-la how-la-la!’
He looked around him, desperately, for some aid or escape, but there was none. And then, when the nightmare, was barely two paces away from him, he saw a guard running past him, making his own escape, and Apollo, as quick as a flash, threw out his leg and tripped up the guard who fell, quite perfectly, into the smoky embrace of the ghoul.
‘The fire, it’s burning my face. Not my face, anything but my face!’ the man yelled as he went down.
In the moments it had given him, Apollo was back on his feet and there, straight in front of him, was a clear line, uninterrupted by chaos, leading to a door. He couldn’t remember where the door led to and he didn’t have time to think on it, but anywhere was better than here, he thought. He ran across the cave floor, down the clear pathway, carved out of the clash, over the wooden walkway of the moat and slammed the door shut behind him.
‘Oh thank you, thank, you, thank you,’ he gasped, leaning up against the door, catching his breath and wiping the sweat back into his blonde hair.
The room he had entered was suddenly quiet compared to the cave and as black as pitch, but for the slight glow from the pyres, slipping in around the doorframe. He walked slowly forwards, with careful, awkward steps, into the black room, only stopping when he hit the side of a wooden table. Scrabbling about blindly with his hands on the top of the table he found the stub of a candle and carefully lit it using his own tinderbox in his pocket and the small glow lit up the dark.
He nearly dropped the candle when the first thing it illuminated was the face of a gaunt young woman sat behind the table in front of him. He put his hand to his heart and lifted the candle up above his head. The halo of light spread out and he could see many more faces staring back at him, from all the continents of the known world, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized where he was.
‘Oh, thank the heavens,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be safe in here.’ And he walked further into the room.
All the faces were turning his way, all eyes on him, but it didn’t concern him. He didn’t even think of them as human any more, merely folk who happened to have a special gift that he needed at the time.
As he walked down an aisle of tables the people turned in their chairs and continued to stare at him and then, Apollo was sure he wasn’t mistaken, great grins spread across their faces.
‘I don’t know what you’re smiling about!’ he called into he room, and was answered with a hundred voices speaking at once, a hundred voices speaking as one.
‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ they said in one chorus of voices.
‘Huh!’ Apollo stumbled, treading on a jangling chain at his feet. The sound of so many of them talking together was unsettling, but he kept his head held high and walked on.
‘What rot!’ he said. ‘How could you know I was coming here?’
‘We have known you were coming for a long time,’ they said as one, and Apollo remembered what their special gift was.
‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ they repeated, in a haunting, resounding chorus.
‘That may be so,’ he spluttered, ‘I know that you can all see things…events…that have already happened and events that have yet to happen, jolly clever I must say, but there’s nothing you can…’
All the people stood up from their chairs and, as one, stepped out of their unlocked chains.
Apollo felt suddenly cold and whimpered.
‘Bugger!’
◆◆◆
Henry kicked a corpse aside and pulled Rosie and Zanga along to another exit. Almost every route was blocked with screaming guards or approaching nightmares, but Henry was quick enough to curve around the chaotic scene and carve out a pathway that led to a far door.
As they moved on, Rosie took one look over her shoulder at the madness.
‘They’re following us,’ she said, leaping over another body. ‘Why are they following us?’
‘Because you’ve got the stone,’ answered Henry. ‘They want to get back to the other side of the door, they don’t want to be here as much as we don’t want to be here, and the only way of getting back is with the stone. They’ll kill everyone to get it.’
‘But I don’t have the stone!’
Henry shot her a look.
‘You don’t? Then who does?’
The door ahead of them, the door marked DELPHI, kicked open from the inside and Sam entered, pillared on either side by Thump and Dr Styx.
‘Sam!’ Rosie called out, but the young man didn’t notice her, he only stared wide and glassy eyed ahead of him, oblivious to the danger around him.
‘What in the name of ‘ell is goin’ on in ‘ere?!’ yelled Thump.
‘All the nightmares,’ said Styx. ‘They’ve freed all of the nightmares.’ He pulled them both back towards the door, edging away from the cave floor. ‘This is not a good place to be right now Thump. I suggest we head…elsewhere.’
‘But what about findi’ that stone ring? What about findin’ it and givin’ it to Apollo or Monk? I’m not goin’ to let a few bad dreams get in my way!’
‘Oh, do what you like Thump,’ said Styx, releasing them. ‘I’ll not stay here a moment longer.’ And the doctor disappeared back down the dark corridor beyond.
Thump stepped out in front of Sam, brushing him aside, and looked around with his one good eye. He cracked his knuckles and screwed up his fists.
‘Right, let’s be havin’ you.’
The first nightmare reached him at the edge of the moat, stalking towards him with unrelenting strides and Thump swung his arm around at it and punched its jaw with all his might. The white, smoky, faceless head broke apart and for a moment Rosie, Henry and Zanga believed that he had destroyed the thing as it seemed to stumble, but quickly the face reformed and the smoke gathered and it was whole once more. Thump, unperturbed, struck again, but this time the nightmare stepped away from his fist and as calm as a stream, wandered into him and stepped through him.
At first Thump didn’t take any notice of what had happened, then gradually his face fell, and he reached out his hands.
‘But there’s no one ‘ere,’ he croaked. ‘I’ll die alone, don’t leave me ‘ere, I don’t want to die alone.’
He fell face forward, crashing down onto the cave floor with an almighty crack, and he lay as silent and still as the others.
Rosie rushed forward and pulled Sam back towards them by his outstretched wrist.
‘Sam, w
ake up,’ she said, slapping him about the face. ‘Please Sam, wake up.’ But there was no reaction, his head turned with the slap and he turned back as though nothing had happened, still gazing straight ahead.
‘He’s been drugged I think,’ she said to Henry and Zanga. ‘I don’t know how long it takes to ware off, but it could be another hour at least.’
‘I do not think we have any more time Rosie Versatile,’ said Zanga, pointing at the exit they were heading for. It was blocked by a dozen nightmares, now turning their way. With Sam locked in Rosie’s grip, the four of them edged away and found themselves retreating back into the cave instead of out of it.
‘Sam’s got the stone,’ Rosie remembered. ‘He must have, I told him to give it to you, but he must have kept it.’
‘Right,’ said Henry. ‘Sam’s got it, good, all that means is…’
They looked around them and saw to their horror that any nightmare that wasn’t already devouring some poor victim in their fearful embrace was turned their way and moving slowly into the circular room, surrounding them at every turn.
‘There’s nowhere to go,’ said Henry. ‘We’re trapped.’
Rosie ignored him. There was always a way out, always some escape. But this time nothing seemed to stop these nightmares, there was no way of cutting them down.
‘Zanga?’ she called out as they moved further back into the centre of the circle. ‘How did you escape these things?’
‘He already told me,’ Henry cut in, kicking a path through the strewn guards. ‘It was of no help, he only said he ran as fast as he could and passed through a house, jumping over their fire, out a back door and up Hope Hill. We’ve got nowhere to run to!’
‘Pick up that torch,’ Rosie ordered her father.
‘What?’
‘Just do it. I’ve got an idea.’
Henry obeyed and picked up a barely burning torch, dropped next to a frozen guard.
‘Here.’
‘No, you hold it,’ she said, turning Sam around and pulling his sword from out of its sheath, running down his back. ‘I’ll use this.’