by Mike Wilks
Mel looked at his friend. ‘I know how you feel. The Fifth Mystery’s got my parents.’
‘What?’ gasped Ludo. ‘How do you know?’
Mel told him what he had told Wren earlier. ‘The only way we’re going to get them back is to see this thing through to the end.’
‘I had no idea, Mel,’ said Ludo. ‘I’ve been selfish. Tell me what I can do to put things right. I’ll do anything. Anything.’
‘It’s OK, Ludo. Let’s just finish this thing together.’
‘Mel’s right,’ said Wren. ‘Let’s stick together from now on.’
‘Right,’ said Green. ‘Blue, you take the men and attack the Mystery. I’ll go with this lot and get the materials to Ambrosius. Good luck.’
As soon as they stepped back through the canvas, they could see that the enemy was winning. Dozens of flying, wraith-like creatures were surrounding Billet, attacking and retreating, only to attack again. Their forms were vaguely human and looked to be made from red-hot coals bound together with dirty cobwebs. Wherever they touched was seared black. The giant baby gurgled with pleasure as it stared at the beleaguered house from across the expanse of red sand.
Billet looked to be in an advanced state of demolition. One of the great studio windows that served as his eyes, and most of the wall surrounding it, was missing, the interior open to the desert air. Flames and black smoke billowed from the other. He was stamping his giant feet in the hope of crushing his attackers but it was haphazard, and obvious he could no longer see. ‘Is that the best yer can do, pip-squeak?’ he croaked, his voice nearly unrecognisable.
Blue led his men silently through the dunes behind the baby to await their moment to enter the camp from the rear.
Groot had made no effort to disguise the back of his hide, nearest the wall of mist. Mel could clearly see him and his companion in the strange studio inside the hollow baby.
‘Here, do this creature next,’ said the tall man as he turned the pages of the bestiary.
‘How dare you tell me what to do, you emaciated streak of snot! I’ll decide what to paint next, not some jumped-up flunky.’ Groot threw down his paintbrush and folded his arms, stubbornly refusing to continue.
‘Have some more wine. It might improve your temper,’ said Skim, proffering the bottle. ‘No? If you don’t want any more then I might as well pour it away.’
‘Wait!’ Groot held out his goblet and drained it greedily once it had been filled. ‘More.’ He held out the empty vessel again.
‘Can we continue now? Or have you run out of inspiration?’
‘What would the likes of you know about art?’
‘Not much – but I know what I like. And what I like is more monsters. Now, if you want some more wine let’s see another one.’
Mel could see from the way Groot tipped the chest to recharge his palette with the iconium that he had used up most of it. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we’ve seen enough here.’ He led the others towards Billet, making use of the giant heads that rose out of the sand as cover. Carrying their bundles of materials, they got as close as they could without being observed.
‘We’re not going to make it across the last patch of sand without being seen,’ said Green.
‘We will if we’re quick,’ said Wren. ‘Look at the wraiths.’ As she spoke, the highly fugitive pigment that had created them started to fade and, one by one, they blinked out of existence. ‘Come on.’
Mel, Ludo and Wren bolted for the postern door. Much to Farris’ annoyance, Bathor left his fellow angel to help Green while he spiralled up into the air and wreaked some serious devilry on the last of the fading wraiths.
There was so much smoke drifting over the desert battlefield that the Mystery men could not have seen them from their camp. When they entered Billet, they found his interior also filled with smoke, but they made it up the stairs to the library where Swivel had constructed a barricade in one corner from a mountain of books.
‘Hello! Master?’
At Mel’s shout three smoke-blackened faces appeared over it.
‘Womper! We thought you’d never get back. Did you bring all we need? Who’s that with you?’
‘It’s me, Ambrosius.’
‘Green? Is that you? Damn this smoke. Did you bring your men?’
‘They’re out there now – what’s left of them – preparing a nasty surprise for Brool and his men. Things don’t look good, Ambrosius.’
‘It’s just as well you came. We could use another artist.’
‘You’re an artist?’ said Mel.
‘Green used to be my apprentice,’ said the master, ‘just like you. Billet’s in a bad way. I see you’ve brought the materials. They’ll be a poor match against the iconium, but now at least we can try to fight back. Even if we fail, we’ll have given a good account of ourselves. Swivel, set up the easels here. Brushes and oils next to them. Where’re the colours? Womper, you didn’t bring any colours.’
‘No, Master, we brought this instead.’ Wren produced the small sack. ‘Lord Floris gave it to my father to give to you.’
The master took the proffered sack and eased the drawstring to look inside. ‘Oh, my word! Lucas, look! More iconium!’
‘No one has seen it for hundreds of years and suddenly we seem to be awash with the stuff,’ said Lucas Flink.
‘Now we’re in with a real chance,’ said the master. ‘To work! All of you.’
Swivel set up the five easels with blank canvases, while Ambrosius Blenk divided up the iconium into equal portions.
‘I’m not about to let you have all the fun this time around, Lucas.’
‘Please don’t rub it in, Ambrosius,’ said Lucas Flink.
‘How about you, Green?’ asked the master. ‘Are you up for this?’
‘Iconium? Just try and stop me.’
‘I’m sorry, young lady,’ said the master. ‘There are not enough easels or brushes for you.’
Wren smiled bravely to conceal her disappointment. ‘I think this work calls for real masters and apprentices.’
Once it was shared out, there was much less of the pigment than Mel had supposed. ‘There seems barely enough for one good monster each.’
‘As long as they are good monsters, it’s all we’ll need,’ said Ludo.
‘Right. Lucas, Green, Womper, Cleef. An easel apiece, I think.’ The master handed them a brush each.
Mel looked at his canvas, the brush in his hand and the iconium. He was about to paint the most important picture of his life with the rarest of pigments, alongside two of the greatest artists who had ever lived. Mum and Dad, this is for you. And Fa Theum. He had his picture already worked out in his head. He held his brush poised over the iconium.
Then he lowered it. ‘Here, Wren, you take my place. Groot’s got lots more iconium than we have. We’re never going to match him monster for monster. If I can’t steal his supply, then I can at least destroy it.’
‘You can’t go back out there.’
‘I must. It’s the only way to even things up.’
‘Then let me go. The best artists are needed here.’
‘You’re one of the best artists. Besides, I’ve unfinished business with Groot.’
He dashed from the library.
‘Be careful, Mel,’ said Wren to the empty doorway. ‘Be careful.’
Mel had just made it to the cover of the nearest giant head when it began. From the mouth of the massive baby flew a host of monsters. They were horrifying, but Mel could see they were sloppily imagined and imperfect. Groot was obviously drunk. Mel retraced his steps until he was abreast of the baby again. The giant illusion of the baby was vanishing before his eyes. Its creator could no longer be bothered to renew the small image on canvas that maintained the phantasm.
Then there came cries of alarm from Lord Brool’s pavilion as smoke billowed and flames blossomed. Blue and his men were beginning their attack. Mel watched as the tall man said something to Groot and ran through the fading image of the baby, back t
owards the camp.
‘It’s just you and me now, Groot. And pretty soon there’ll just be me.’ Mel felt in his doublet and withdrew his bodkin. He stood up straight and walked towards the head apprentice.
‘Groot. Enough!’
Billet was beyond fighting back. He was visibly crumbling away, and it was all he could do to remain upright. His cries of defiance now sounded like creaking timbers and falling rubble, the words lost in a chaos of decrepitude.
A ghoulish croak split the air as a new creature approached. A great toad-like apparition with evil, hooded eyes swooped towards them on green, webbed wings, its back poxed with poisonous warts. Immediately, Lucas Flink counter-attacked with a writhing mega-serpent that encircled the attacker. The toad-creature burst apart like an overripe melon and the air was filled with flying gobbets of flesh and milky strands of toad spawn, the black embryos within stirring menacingly. They landed on Billet and burst forth. Thousands of newborn tadpole-monsters with fat, rasping tongues tore chunks from the house as Billet began to dissolve like a sugar cube in hot tea.
Ludo’s and Wren’s inventive creations – a heronheaded crab and a voracious parrot-fish – attacked the tiny tadpoles, destroying them by the dozen. Hundreds of the squirming creatures were wiped out, but even more remained and continued the relentless assault as they visibly grew into toadlets. They swarmed over the crocodilian creature Green had created, smothering it by sheer numbers.
Ambrosius Blenk’s riposte was in the form of a giant, rainbow-hued hummingbird. It hovered in the air next to Billet, its wings noisy blurs, picking off the attackers with its long bill and sticky tongue. The desert below was fanned into towering dust-devils by the downdraft. But even this inspired conception was inadequate to tackle the sheer number of Groot’s creatures. A great many invaded the wreck of the library, where the fierce turbulence of the humming-bird’s wings whipped them into their own darkly swirling vortex amid a storm of paper from ruined books. Within this miniature tornado, the toadlets fused and combined with one another until a new and powerful monster dominated the remains of the room, with an ovoid toad head attached to massive shoulders covered in toxic carbuncles. Powerful arms ended in webbed claws. Its pot-bellied torso was supported on two legs with fat, amphibian thighs and splayed feet. Its black tongue darted in and out.
‘The iconium’s spent,’ shouted the master. ‘Everyone back to the barricade. Where have those angels got to now?’
‘If you’ll permit me?’ Swivel, cutting torch redeployed, shielded the master and his companions but was effortlessly brushed aside by one swipe of the monster’s powerful arm. He lay in the corner twitching, his many faces swivelling out of control.
The creature’s predatory instinct was to go for the weakest and it seized the injured rebel leader. Green swung his sword but this was snapped like matchwood by the monster, which shook him as if he were a child’s plaything.
‘No!’ cried Ludo as he climbed on to the barricade. ‘Let him go!’
‘Ludo, don’t!’ screamed Wren.
‘I must. Everyone’s suffered enough because of me.’ He leapt and encircled the creature’s neck and they whirled around in a macabre dance. Some of the carbuncles burst under him and the acidic poison they released burnt through his doublet. Crying with pain, he hung on and his fingers scrabbled over the toad’s face, clawing deeply at its eyes. The toad-monster howled with pain and dropped Green. It spun round, smashing Ludo against the library wall.
Still the apprentice clung on, tormenting the apparition with his probing fingers. As the beast attempted to rid itself of Ludo, the wall cracked and rubble cascaded from the ceiling. Then the monster lurched backwards. The wall gave way and the creature, Ludo still clinging to it like a limpet, fell through the gap and plummeted to the desert floor.
‘Ludo!’ Wren ran to the gaping hole and stared down. There, far below, lay the lifeless, spread-eagled body of the toad-creature. Of Ludo there was no sign. The master and Lucas Flink joined her.
‘Where’s Cleef?’ said the master as the monster began to fade.
‘There he is,’ said Lucas Flink. As the dead creature grew more transparent they saw a terrible sight. Lying beneath it, mauled by the monster and shattered by the wall, lay the unmoving form of Ludo.
‘Ludo,’ said Wren. ‘Oh, Ludo.’
… and Into the Fire
‘Groot. Enough!’
Inside the rapidly fading image of the baby, the head apprentice turned at the sound of Mel’s shout. At first, his drunken eyes refused to focus. He blinked rapidly several times and looked harder. Wide-eyed, he dropped his palette and backed clumsily into the easel. The canvas toppled to the ground. So did the small chest. What little iconium was left disappeared into the desert sand, to be trampled underfoot as he fought for balance.
‘Smell! It can’t be. You’re … you’re dead.’ Groot put out a hand to steady himself. The easel fell and so did he.
Mel said not a word.
Groot scrambled to his feet. ‘Stay away from me.’ He turned and fled.
Mel followed Groot across the burning camp and into Lord Brool’s pavilion where he was met by a solid wall of heat, as if he had walked into an oven. Anything that was not already burning freely was smoking. Overhead, the ceiling appeared to be made of a rippling mass of smoke.
Groot rushed, coughing, to one of the large paintings, its surface cracking and blistering in the heat. He made the mirrormark and pushed at the canvas, thinking that he could pass through it as easily as a door. He screamed with pain as the molten paint on the unyielding canvas stuck to his hand. He had chosen the wrong picture. He crossed to the other. Its surface was also beginning to bubble. He turned for one last look at Mel and, as he did so, the hem of his scarlet robe brushed the side of the tent and caught light. Groot tore it off and threw the blazing missile at Mel. Then he turned, made the mirrormark and vanished.
Disentangling himself from the burning robe, Mel made for the painting that had swallowed Groot. Its surface was now so badly blistered that it was impossible to discern what it depicted. No matter: Mel made the mirrormark.
He fell face down into soft snow. Blessed, cooling snow. Coughing uncontrollably, he rolled over, extinguishing his smouldering clothes and soothing his burnt head. He grabbed a fistful of snow and brought it to his mouth, chasing away the acrid taste of smoke and soothing his scorched throat. For a moment more he lay there, enjoying the blissful, cleansing iciness. Then he heard a fluttering sound and felt a chill breeze on the back of his head, and he lifted it and looked around to get his bearings. Behind him, he could feel the heat coming off the wall of mist and through it the faint sounds of battle. As he rolled over, the wall of mist bubbled and disappeared. In its place was a seamless continuation of the silent, snowy scene all around. He knew then that the painting had at last been consumed in the flames on the far side. There was now no way back. If he was ever to get home, he would need to find another exit.
He moistened a corner of Groot’s charred robe in the snow and used it to wipe his face. The icy shock temporarily banished his fatigue. He got unsteadily to his feet in the lightly falling snow. He did not need to guess which way Groot had gone. His footprints led off into the distance as clearly as marks drawn on paper. Mel followed them with his eyes and saw a stumbling figure, black against the pristine whiteness, running as fast as the deep snow would allow. But there was more than one set of footprints. Several people had also escaped this way. Mel wrapped the remains of Groot’s red robe around his neck as a scarf and set off to follow them across the too-perfect terrain of the Mirrorscape.
He soon lost sight of Groot, but continued to follow the trail. After a while, the tracks veered off to one side. Mel followed them until he found himself in front of a thick, impenetrable wall of thorns. The high hedge seemed impassable. Groot and whoever else he was tracking had evidently felt the same way, and the footprints set off in a new direction.
Presently, he arrived at a flat area that w
as obviously a frozen body of water. The footprints led out on to this but after a short distance stopped in a confusion of imprints next to a hole in the ice. Someone seemed to have fallen through. It could not have been too long ago as the surface had yet to refreeze completely. There was a flattened area nearby where someone had been hauled out, evidently with some difficulty. Then the trail led off again back towards the shore and in yet another direction. After several of these random changes of course, Mel came to the conclusion that whoever he was tracking was hopelessly lost.
He began to feel hungry. The last thing he could remember eating was dinner with the phantasms of his parents.
Mel wished his friends were there with him now. Ludo would have something funny to say and Wren would have practical advice. With them by his side, his trek would be that much easier. But he was alone. He shivered.
Mel trudged on, following the footprints as they led into a wood. His breath formed pale clouds in the air in front of him as he laboured through the deep snow. A little way into the wood, Mel’s attention was caught by a large, solitary icicle sparkling where it hung from a branch. He went closer. As he gazed at it, the colours refracted through it changed. The pure white of the snow and the blue of the shadows vanished as if a curtain had been drawn over them. A curtain the colour of blood.
‘Lost are we, Smell?’
Mel’s reaction was instantaneous. At the sound of the High-Bailiff’s voice, he turned to flee but tumbled headlong over the body of the dwarf crouching directly behind him.
‘The oldest trick in the book and he fell for it, Mumchance. That’s a joke, you may laugh.’
The tiny man blew an ululating trill on his whistle as he sat on his captive’s back. He ripped off Mel’s tabby sash, bound his hands tightly behind his back and dragged him to his feet. He patted him down and found the bodkin.
‘We’ve so looked forward to renewing Smell’s acquaintance, haven’t we, Mumchance? There’s so much to catch up on. So much unfinished business. There’s even a debt to be repaid. Repaid with interest. Of course, we don’t have our Instruments of Interpellation, but we can always improvise. Why even a delicate thing like this icicle here,’ the High-Bailiff snapped it off, ‘can work wonders in the right hands.’ Adolfus Spute held the glistening point at Mel’s eye. The cold air between them was filled with clouds of condensation, Mel’s coming rather more rapidly than his captor’s. ‘What do you think, Mumchance? Up for a spot of improvisation, are we?’