Benjamin Forrest and the Bay of Paper Dragons

by Chris Ward

  ‘Yes, fine, Master Benjamin.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Obviously, Lawrence wasn’t sure. As they broke through the trees along a ridgeline, with the river shimmering in the valley below them, Lawrence began to whimper louder.

  ‘There,’ the snake-train said, pausing for Benjamin to take in the view. ‘Source Mountain.’

  Benjamin gaped. Never had he seen anything quite like it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. Basic rules of geography suggested a river’s source should be nothing more than a trickle of water. Here, the Great Junk River was still at least a hundred meters across, flowing down the centre of the valley—an arc of glittering silver with junk bobbing in its waters.

  To the south, it disappeared into the forest. To the north, however, stood something Benjamin could barely believe.

  At the northern end of the valley, a towering volcano cone with a flattened-off peak rose up out of the ground, and through a cut in its southern edge gushed millions of tons of water. Rather than dropping straight down the side of the cone, though, it swung in a tight arc, wrapping around the mountain in a descending spiral before plunging into the river channel.

  Benjamin smiled, mischievousness bubbling up to the surface. If it was cleaned up a bit, it would have made the mother of all waterslides.

  ‘That’s it?’ Benjamin whispered. ‘The source? Up on top of that mountain?’

  Lawrence’s locomotive shook up and down in a nod. ‘The source,’ he boomed.

  ‘Can you take me up there?’

  This time, the great locomotive shook from side to side, and Benjamin grabbed on to the back of a seat to avoid being thrown to the floor.

  ‘The source is not life,’ Lawrence said. ‘It’s death.’

  ‘Can’t you just drop me off halfway?’

  Lawrence began to uncoil. ‘We’re too close,’ he said. ‘We should leave.’

  ‘Wait!’

  But Lawrence wouldn’t be stopped. He slithered off the hillcrest and headed back the way they had come. For the first few minutes, Benjamin tried to protest, but after a while, he gave up and sat back in his seat to watch the night flash by. He was frustrated, though at least now he knew what the challenge was.

  With his excitement gone, it took longer than he remembered to get back, and once there, Lawrence curled up in the same parking area as before, then wished Benjamin luck. Benjamin smiled as he waved goodbye, but he felt no happiness. He was no closer than before to figuring out how to escape from Endinfinium.

  Lost in thought, he had gone deep into the thick forest before he realised he had somehow taken the wrong path; instead of meandering through to the breeding pond, his path cut through tall pillars of rock in the direction of the beach.

  Benjamin decided to continue. He didn’t really feel like sleeping, and even though dawn was still some way off, the red sun had already begun its circuit of the world and was casting enough of a glow over the land for him to see by. According to the schedule, they were due to take an excursion in the morning out to the southern headland. Perhaps if he cried off sick, he could make another attempt to get to the top of Source Mountain, and perhaps if he could convince Lawrence to let him out near the bottom of the slope, he could climb the rest of the way himself.

  Up ahead came the gentle splashing of waves breaking on the beach, and he felt a sudden thrill of danger, of being alone down here with the dragons circling in the water. Had that dragon really been about to attack Fat Adam? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  He stepped out of the trees and onto the beach. With the water so calm, it reflected the swirling colours of the sky, and he had a sudden urge to run across the gentle sand dunes and splash through the pools of water caught by the tide. As his feet carried him up the nearest dune, he felt free and alive like he hadn’t in weeks. All alone on a deserted beach before dawn, he felt like a normal boy again, and that this wasn’t some strange world where trash came back to life, but a simple beach in England.

  As he crested the rise of the last dune before the shoreline, he stretched his arms up into the air and looked down over the beach. He opened his mouth to shout out something irrelevant to the sky, then snapped it shut at the sight of a figure standing by the water’s edge, barely twenty paces in front of him.

  He dropped to the sand, pushing back from the edge of the dune, then slowly lifted his head to look.

  Cuttlefur.

  The blue-haired boy stood by the water, gentle shore breakers lapping around his feet. A strange sound came from his throat, and Benjamin took a moment to recognise it as laughter, because there was no mirth in it, only sadism and bitterness. As Benjamin watched, Cuttlefur lifted his hands high over his head, waving them back and forth as if signaling to a plane.

  A massive black shadow rose up off the rocks in the narrow gorge between the headlands, made a quick loop just above the water, and then dropped out of sight beyond the distant cliffs.

  Benjamin slapped a hand over his mouth. By the shoreline, Cuttlefur gave the vanished shape a sarcastic wave, then turned back to the dunes.

  Benjamin pushed himself back until Cuttlefur was out of sight, then he turned and ran, bolting back across the sand to the path and then through the forest, past the breeding ponds and back through the rear entrance to the guesthouse. Gasping, he ran straight up to his room and dived under the covers, listening to his heart gently slow over the sound of Adam’s breathing.

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay there before he heard the door open and Cuttlefur come in, the blue-haired boy humming a happy little tune to himself. With his eyes closed to slits, Benjamin saw Cuttlefur aim a kick at Adam’s schoolbag, then climb into bed, a wide grin on his face.

  Only an hour was left until the wake-up call, but Cuttlefur had fallen straight asleep, snoring lightly. Benjamin couldn’t sleep. He lay awake, thinking about the thing he had seen and wondering if Wilhelm was right.

  The thing that had detached from the cliffs had looked like a great black dragon.

  And it appeared Cuttlefur could control it.

  27

  Broken Wheels

  The front wheel fell off of the bicycle. Wilhelm managed to jump clear as the bike slumped forward, landing in the wet grass as its wheel rolled away down the slope, then he rolled over to look back at the school’s uppermost towers still visible over the rise.

  He had gone perhaps five miles. No way he would ever get to the Bay of Paper Dragons in time to warn Benjamin and Miranda about Cuttlefur and the innkeeper’s plans. Before he was even halfway, they would be dead, or worse.

  It had crossed his mind to go straight to the teachers. After all, he and his friends had saved the school once. But in the corridors of an educational facility, good deeds were quickly erased by the bad, even here in Endinfinium. No one except for Grand Lord Bastien would believe him, and ever since the Dark Man’s attack, the Grand Lord had stayed in his tower, unavailable and unseen, doing whatever it was Grand Lords do. Of the other main teachers still at the school, that left Captain Roche and Professor Loane, neither of whom liked him much, and both of whom were highly unlikely to believe him if he made any accusation against Cuttlefur.

  So, he had no choice but to attempt to get to the Bay of Paper Dragons by his own steam. He had gone first to the school’s garage, where a number of old cars, motorbikes, and bicycles stood lined up, collecting dust. Unable to locate a key for anything motorised, he was stuck with the least water-damaged of the school’s bicycle fleet.

  Considering the harshness of the dirt-and-rock paths meandering through the hills to the north, south, and west of the school, the bike had done quite well just to get him this far. Unfortunately, it would go no farther.

  He hefted the bag of provisions he had poached from the kitchens on his own special kind of long-term borrow and struck out along the track. He had gone no more than a few steps, though, when he turned his ankle on a loose rock.

  ‘Waste of time!’ he s
houted and, sitting down on the turf beside the path, threw his bag aside, rubbing furiously at his throbbing ankle.

  He had to return to the school, tell the teachers what he had overheard, and hope they believed him.

  ‘Might as well just bang my head against a brick wall,’ he muttered.

  A few spots of rain appeared, and Wilhelm scowled, then climbed off the path and headed for a stand of scrubby trees in a hollow a short distance inland. He had enough food for a week’s expedition, a torch, and a handful of comic books to keep him entertained when he stopped for the night, but he hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella or any kind of jacket. As the rain began to get heavier, he realised how useless the nearly leafless branches of the wind-bent trees would be for shelter. Faced with no choice, he jammed himself into the space between the thickest of the crooked trees and tried to pretend he wasn’t getting soaked. His bag wasn’t waterproof, either, and while his food was well wrapped up, his comic books would get wet. Frustrated, he stared at the ground in disillusionment.

  The wind was getting up, too. Benjamin always thought bad weather was a sign of the Dark Man’s presence, but Wilhelm had been around a while longer than his friend. The weather had a mind of its own, swinging in for an attack whenever someone was most vulnerable. As he sat shivering and soaked, Wilhelm looked up at the trees’ branches, wishing he could weave them into some kind of net to keep out the rain, glaring at them as if to bend them to his will by thought alone.

  ‘Huh? What’s that?’

  Something under his knee was warm. He shifted to reveal a piece of old wood partly covered under the sod. With desperate hands, he scrabbled away the dirt and lifted it up.

  It looked like any other piece of broken branch—a couple of leafless twists off of a thicker, central piece—and now that he held it in his hands, it was cold and lifeless. Strange. He was sure he had felt…

  He closed his eyes, feeling for the warmth with his mind. And there it was, right in front of his face; not physical warmth, but the warmth of magic.

  How could a piece of old branch have any reanimation magic?

  The stand of trees was part of a dry gully through which occasional streams would pass when the Great Junk River was high. Its level rarely changed, except for when he and his friends had diverted it to wash away the Dark Man’s army. On that occasion, though—

  Wilhelm clicked his fingers. ‘Of course.’

  They had diverted the river through the tunnels below the school, but the volume had been too great, even for them, and much of the water had flooded out overland through long-dry tributary channels like this one, taking with it much of what had been left behind in the tunnels.

  ‘Fallenwood.’

  He and Benjamin had enlisted the help of their new friend to save Miranda; Fallenwood’s reanimated twig army had built them a tunnel into the caves.

  And this little piece of wood had broken loose and been washed out.

  Fallenwood refused to leave the forest around the abandoned botanical society building in the woods a few miles south of the school, but this was a matter of life and death. Wilhelm gripped the twig, held it against the side of his face.

  ‘Fallenwood, can you hear me? It’s Wilhelm. I need your help. Benjamin and Miranda are in great danger. I need to get to the Bay of Paper Dragons. If there’s anything you can do to help me … please. I’ll never forget it. I’ll be in your debt forever.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll even come clean up your home for you. I’ll do … anything.’

  He closed his eyes again, feeling the heat of the twig’s reanimation magic. In such a small piece it was slight, but it was there. If Fallenwood could speak to his people, perhaps he could hear Wilhelm.

  With a sigh, he sat back, giving up on trying to stay dry. He could do nothing now but wait.

  And hope.

  28

  Excursion

  Breakfast was actually rather good, even though everything tasted like varying shades of indecision. Benjamin had been squeezed onto the end of a trestle table beside Fat Adam, who was monopolising a platter of fish fritters, loading them one by one onto his plate while using his big elbows to deflect other forks making any attempt to infringe upon his domination. As he fought off a surprise sideways attack from a small first-year called Tommy Cale, Benjamin tried to catch Miranda’s eye. She sat a few places down on the other side, with Cuttlefur on her right, and Cherise, her second-year roommate, on her left. As Cherise tried to talk past Miranda to Cuttlefur, Miranda gripped her fork like a potential murder weapon. Benjamin relaxed and felt for her magic, but there was nothing. He felt a slight warmth from several other pupils around him, many of whom had no idea of the existence of their own magic, but Miranda was as cold as the rocks down by the beach after the yellow sun had gone down.

  From her expression, a crimson-flushed wall of anger painted with a light dusting of despair, she knew it, too.

  ‘So, I heard we have to make groups of three today,’ Cherise was saying to Cuttlefur, as Tommy finally managed to spear one of the fritters, much to Fat Adam’s dismay. ‘Professor Eaves said they have to be mixed. You can work with me and Amy, if you like.’

  ‘I was planning to make a group with Miranda.’

  Benjamin cringed at how Miranda’s face lit up, like she was under some kind of spell.

  ‘Well,’ Cherise said, not to be put off so quickly, ‘how about her, me, and you? We can let her join us if she wants. I mean, who else are you going to work with?’

  Fat Adam had pushed Tommy off of his chair while Ms. Ito stumped over with a face like thunder. Benjamin was torn between making a play for a fish fritter and listening in on the rest of Cherise’s conversation.

  ‘Forrest,’ Cuttlefur said suddenly, and Benjamin’s head snapped up. Miranda made to protest, but as soon as Cuttlefur opened his mouth, she closed hers. ‘We have to be in mixed grades,’ he said. ‘Didn’t the professor tell you that? Forrest doesn’t have anyone to work with so, you know, I thought we could do something nice for him.’

  He turned to give Benjamin a stare that made Benjamin shiver. His eyes said so many things, one of which was: I know you saw me on the beach this morning. Benjamin looked away, even as Ms. Ito loomed over them, black-and-white hair shimmering, mouth expelling a series of rapid-fire threats of Locker Rooms, long walks home, and nothing but stale cucumbers for lunch until the end of eternity.

  ‘I was planning to work with Snout and Adam,’ Benjamin said, defiantly meeting Cuttlefur’s stare.

  ‘They’re both first-years, and they’re both boys,’ Cuttlefur said, ‘despite the rumours I’ve heard about Snout.’ A couple of boys farther down sniggered. Snout, examining the embroidery of the tablecloth with his fork, didn’t appear to have heard the comment. Benjamin felt like thumping Cuttlefur, but as it was an opportunity to keep an eye on both of them, he forced a smile.

  ‘It seems you’re right. Since you offered, I’d be happy to join you.’

  Miranda glared, though she seemed less angry than he might have expected, perhaps happy to trade working with him in place of having to spend the day deflecting Cherise’s attention from Cuttlefur. She flicked her hair, then speared a fried potato so hard it broke in half. She scooped up the battered remains and tossed them nonchalantly into her mouth, glaring at Benjamin as she chewed, as if imagining she was crunching on his charred, bleached bones.

  ‘You have ten minutes to assemble outside in groups of three,’ Ms. Ito hollered, pulling a forearm-sized egg timer from a big pocket of her jacket. ‘Each minute of lateness will accumulate fifty cleans upon your return to the school.’ With a grunt of finality, she upended the timer on the tabletop with a loud crack.

  The dining hall immediately descended into chaos as pupils rushed to make groups, then make it back to their rooms for their packs before Ms. Ito’s timer ran out.

  Benjamin had brought his pack with him, having temporarily shelved his plan to climb up Source Mountain. Miranda had already left with Cuttlefur, so he trailed some
other pupils down into the car park, where Miranda and Cuttlefur waited.

  ‘Welcome to our group, Forrest,’ Cuttlefur said, and he reached out a hand Benjamin had no choice but to shake. Miranda, however, said nothing, while Cuttlefur wore a mischievous grin that immediately put Benjamin on edge. But he didn’t have time to worry about it. The chef, Jim Green, had reinvented himself as a green-clad expedition guide and was now waving them toward the path. Dusty Eaves walked beside him, with Edgar at the rear to shepherd any stragglers. Ms. Ito, due to her permanently casted left leg, had chosen to remain behind at the guesthouse.

  ‘Stick close to the path, would you please?’ Jim Green shouted back down the line. ‘No more episodes like yesterday, if you can help it. Some of the dragons aren’t quite so forgiving.’

  They headed into the forest, and as they walked, Jim Green pointed out various plants and animals that appeared in the undergrowth to either side.

  ‘Over there we have a Brazilian hotrod,’ he said. ‘See the red stalks that look like fire pokers? Don’t touch the tips. Very sharp. No idea how they ended up here in Endinfinium, but like most things, they were probably accidental. Some seeds left in an old box or caught in the tread of a discarded shoe.’

  Of course, half of the kids immediately behind him reached out to test the plant’s sharpness on the palms of their hands, with Fat Adam bursting into tears and snapping the head off of one plant in frustration.

  ‘A hundred cleans in your bank,’ Professor Eaves grunted, pulling out a notebook and jotting down something that only made Adam wail more.

  ‘And you see those in there?’ Jim Green continued. ‘They’re fan-flowers.’

  Gasps came from the pupils nearest to the front. Benjamin craned his neck to see what the fuss was all about, and he gasped too at a large assembly of what appeared to be electric fans that had reanimated and grown petals. Now, they stood pointing outwards in a circle on top of a little knoll, in an array of vibrant colours, their old rotor blades gently spinning in the breeze.