by Glenn Dakin
Watch the boy, Norrowmore had told him. If necessary, help with the escape. Norrowmore had said that Tristus could feel absolved after that. He could go away and dream his stone dream forever, forget the humans, the war, everything. But that had been weeks ago. What had happened to Norrowmore now, and his endless delicate machinations to free the boy?
Something is wrong. Tristus swooped low over the Condemned Cemetery, the great field of bones and stone images where he could blend in so perfectly. Its quiet walks of memory were not as he had left them. The cottage where the cemetery keeper lived was smashed and deserted. Tristus snarled, revealing fangs he seldom showed the world. The cottage had been one of Norrowmore’s planned refuges for the boy. The garghoul sensed enemy action.
He flew swiftly to the cemetery wall and scanned the windows of Empire Hall with his bright, penetrating eyes.
Something had changed. Lights shone in every window, figures strode the corridors with arrogant steps, a dangerous aura of energy crackled in the air. The Society of Good Works was in rude health, showing evidence of power and confidence that even Norrowmore had little suspected.
Tristus knew he had to speak to his old friend. The great design was not working out as planned. Norrowmore had always insisted that they meet rarely, for purposes of secrecy, but this was an emergency. The garghoul flew over the smog-bound city, a grey blur in the murky night. He soon reached his destination.
The elegant dome of the Watch Tower was shattered. Blackened beams jutted up like burnt ribs. Gone was the soft bleep of electronic signals, the quiet, endless chatter of human communications. Instead there were ashes, the smell of outdoors, of rain and ruin.
It didn’t take long for the garghoul to dig out the skull of his dead friend. He held the charred shell in his rough hands, studying it with a pang of wonder. There was something else here too – lingering traces of a substance – a subtle poison that had finally ended the life of the old man.
His keen senses alerted, Tristus now detected another odour as well, an acrid vapour creeping up through the Watch Tower. It was the smell of alchemy. The rank, dangerous scent took him back to a place and a time he had hoped to forget forever. His usually passive face twisted into a grimace of anguish as the memories hit home.
It was the last place he wanted to go, but there was little choice. This war is not over, he told himself. The bony hand of Norrowmore seemed to be pointing the way.
‘Dead?’ asked Lady Blessing.
‘Yes, shot dead by one of the Outer Network Patrols,’ said Baron Patience. He cut a ridiculous figure leading the twelve-strong work party along the flooded tunnel in his best salmon-fishing waders. There wasn’t much that could bring a smile to his face, but for once he enjoyed a self-satisfied smirk. ‘It looks like our fortunes are changing. The Vessel led us on a right goose chase for a while, but now he’s out of the picture. And it looks like this new killing has turned out to be rather a spot of luck.’
Lady Blessing motioned to the party to stop. They had reached the final bend in the tunnels before their destination. With her black hooded cloak on, the natural pallor of her angular face made her look like an elegant phantom.
‘Luck? In what way?’
‘Oh, we’ve eliminated a very significant member of the Vigilance apparently – a young lady. Dr Saint has asked to see the body. The funny thing is, the guard – hopeless bungler – didn’t even mean to kill her. He saw her in one of the tunnels near the surface, and only meant to scare her with a warning shot, he says.’
‘How kind of him!’ Lady Blessing exclaimed. ‘A most considerate gesture that went wrong. He must be terribly upset!’
‘Awfully. In fact I heard him and the other guards having a big laugh over it – to conceal their true feelings.’
‘Stout lads,’ said Lady Blessing.
‘It really is the kind of happy accident that makes one feel our luck is changing. The time is ripe for our Good Works to spread out across this once-great Empire!’ declared the Baron.
The heavy equipment had now arrived. Lady Blessing studied a chart and addressed the troop of Foundling engineers. ‘Circle three, junction fourteen A. One of the last hatches on this level to be sealed. It’s a type “C” – late Victorian. Don’t damage the percussive membrane. After this we can all proceed –’
‘I – I thought I saw something!’ blurted out Baron Patience.
‘Just a rat, of course!’ snapped Lady Blessing. ‘Honestly! Now, come on men, as fast as you can – this stinking sewer is ruining my best boots.’
The engineers stepped into the branch tunnel, dragging their torches and gas cylinders through the black waters.
‘Look! Another rat. Devil of a fellow!’ gasped the Baron, pointing at the huge bedraggled creature huddled on the hatch cover. It let out a hideous squeal. One of the men threw a wrench at it, but missed. The rodent slipped away into the shadows.
There was a scream. An engineer was suddenly dragged down under the black waters. Baron Patience gaped. The thick coils of a monstrous snake were glimpsed momentarily in the bubbling slime. The engineer thrashed around horribly, then was gone.
‘Out! Get out!’ shrieked Lady Blessing, racing away down the tunnel. She stopped dead. A dark shape barred her way. A caped figure with an enormous hooked nose and stiff, claw-like hands confronted her.
‘You dare!’ rumbled a deep, terrifying voice. ‘You have the nerve to come here and seal off my ancient right of access to the network?’
‘The Dodo!’ cried Lady Blessing.
Baron Patience clutched at his chest, as if fearing imminent heart failure. ‘We – we meant no harm!’ he stammered. ‘Call off your creatures! I assure you, we –’ The Baron’s explanation was brought to a premature halt as he was dragged away by a dripping tentacle. ‘Noooo!’
The Dodo snorted. ‘Obnoxious fellow,’ he said.
Lady Blessing couldn’t resist a quick peep at the Baron’s demise.
‘By all means, kill the others,’ she said brightly, affecting a girlish enthusiasm for the idea. ‘But you must protect me – preserve one eloquent voice to express your … your justified outrage to Dr Saint.’
‘A noble thought.’ The Dodo sneered, while screams filled the tunnel around them. ‘But my servants may not want any of you filth to get away.’
‘I – I can tell you things you need to know!’ Lady Blessing gabbled. ‘Everything’s changed. You’ll want to join the Society now – we hold all the cards.’
A strange calm had now resumed. A quick glance revealed to Lady Blessing that only she and the Dodo were left standing in the tunnel.
‘Indeed,’ growled the Dodo. ‘And what has changed?’
‘For one thing,’ she said with a cold smile, ‘the Vessel is dead. In fact, there is a new Candle Man,’ she added teasingly. She studied the Dodo’s heavy-lidded eyes for a reaction, but they remained veiled, distant.
The Dodo threw back his enormous head and let out a high-pitched whistle. Moments later, a tiny grey bat flapped gently down from the shadows above and clung tamely to the Dodo’s withered hand. Lady Blessing watched wide-eyed as the grotesque figure exchanged an outlandish shrill dialogue with the little bat.
‘Wickland dead?’ the Dodo retorted. ‘We don’t think so.’ Lady Blessing’s pale face went even whiter as the hulking figure lurched towards her. ‘You see? I believe I have more reliable sources of information than the lying tongue of a Society witch,’ he said, stroking the fur of the bat’s head with infinite gentleness.
Hatchway C/14A opened behind Lady Blessing and two men in white coats and goggles stepped out.
Lady Blessing threw back her dark hood and shook out her long raven hair proudly. ‘I’m too beautiful to die,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I know I could be very useful to you.’ She forced a rather ugly, desperate smile.
The Dodo stopped to ponder for a moment.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he replied. ‘Take her away. I could use someone to muck out the ma
mmoth.’
The Dodo let out a sudden series of barks. From the other side of the hatch an excited stamping of hoofs was heard in reply. Lady Blessing watched in silence as a horde of creatures she had never seen before in her life began to pour into the tunnel.
‘Now I have an appointment with young Mr Wickland,’ murmured the Dodo. ‘An appointment from which only one of us will emerge alive.’
Chapter Twenty-two
Discovery
Boom! Everything changed after Chloe left. The gloomy silence of the network’s eternal night was broken – by shuddering surges of power. The three remaining members of the Society of Unrelenting Vigilance gathered around the old monitors, their faces lit by the silvery radiance of the screens. There was no sign of Chloe – or any other human activity.
‘She must have touched something!’ Sam wailed. ‘She’s set off an alarm!’
The explosions of power rumbled on in a regular, thundering cycle. The temperature was rising. The bunker already felt like a tropical hothouse.
‘I told you coming down here was a rotten idea!’ Sam complained, wiping his sweaty face on his grimy shirt. ‘There’s stuff going on in the network that we don’t know about! We’ve got to get out!’
‘We are safe in here,’ said Magnus, who had taken off his tatty old raincoat and now sat in a threadbare white vest.
‘But it’s getting too hot to handle, isn’t it?’ nagged Sam. ‘Oh, yes. Chloe knew this was going to happen!’ Theo and Magnus gave Sam a dark look. Sam sat down on a crate, biting his nails like a worried child.
Theo wondered how much older Sam was than him – only a year at most, he guessed. They could almost have been schoolmates – if Dr Saint had ever let him go to school and have funny friends like Sam.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Theo. He didn’t like to see Sam like this. It made his own worries seem all the more real. He wanted to pat Sam on the back reassuringly, as Chloe often did, but he couldn’t work out how hard or where to hit him.
‘What is there not to worry about?’ Sam moaned.
Throom! The booming noise became louder. Sam grabbed a pack of bottled water and ripped the plastic cover off with nervous energy. He passed drinks round to the others as if administering relief at a disaster.
‘We might be hidden here,’ Sam said, ‘but we could still get cooked alive.’
Theo pulled off his jacket and sat there in a grey T-shirt he had borrowed from Chloe. Sweat was starting to run down his back. They sat in anxious silence as the network creaked and juddered around them.
‘I just wish I knew what they were up to!’ Sam moaned.
Theo pondered. He had been developing a theory. It was time, he decided, for the Candle Man to solve a mystery. He didn’t know much about being a hero, but he did know it didn’t involve being a complete waste of space.
‘I wasn’t allowed to read newspapers or history books when I was at Empire Hall,’ Theo began, swigging his lukewarm water. ‘They wanted me to be ignorant of the real world.’
‘Not quite the time for your life story!’ groaned Sam.
Theo grinned. A couple of days with Chloe had prepared him for that kind of attitude. ‘But,’ Theo continued, ‘Mr Nicely thought it would be funny to let me read boring things: plans, maps, blueprints, and so on. Like he’d give me a diagram of a sewage works to look at for the evening.’
‘Your life sounds more exciting than mine!’ grumbled Sam.
‘When Chloe first showed me Foley’s secret map of the whole network, she asked me what I thought it was. Then she laughed at my answer.’
‘Why?’ Sam asked. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘I said it was some sort of machine,’ said Theo. There was a pause, broken by the distant screeching of vapour in tubes. ‘I think all the tunnels, vaults and canals add up to make one big device.’
Sam’s eyes grew bigger. ‘This is supposed to make me feel better, is it?’ he gulped.
‘But think about it,’ said Theo. ‘The Society of Good Works is down here in force. They’re hardly likely to do anything to endanger themselves, are they?’
‘Look,’ said Magnus suddenly. ‘Everyone’s leaving!’
Sam and Theo jumped up and joined Magnus at the vigil station. Screens which had previously shown no action at all now revealed figures climbing stairways and long lines of people walking towards exit hatchways. It was an exodus – a calm, orderly evacuation.
‘It’s like they’re abandoning ship,’ murmured Magnus.
‘Leaving us trapped like rats!’ groaned Sam.
‘Not all of them are leaving,’ Magnus said. ‘One or two people – Dr Saint in particular – cannot be accounted for. Now look here,’ he croaked, pointing with a knotty finger at a fuzzy screen. ‘It shows a glimpse of the tunnel leading to the centre of enemy operations. That is our target –’ Magnus was about to say more, when a yelp from Sam cut him short.
‘What is that?’ gasped Sam. He was no longer staring at the screens but towards the corner of the ceiling. Dark slime seemed to be oozing down through a crack.
‘There’s more!’ Theo said, pointing to some pendulous black bubbles that seemed to have grown through tiny gaps in the ceiling, and were now swelling like balloons. Even Magnus got up from his chair, grabbed a walking stick and staggered across to get a closer look. One of the black shapes fell to the floor with a flop.
‘Stand back!’ Magnus cried. ‘They’ve found us!’
Skun, chief tracker of the smoglodyte tribe, reared up from the floor. Grinning like a little grey imp, he wobbled from side to side as his innards rearranged themselves into the right places.
‘I can see you!’ Skun cooed in a sing song voice, his narrow little eyes squinting towards Theo. Skun was ecstatic. Truly he was the greatest tracker of all. He had now found the precious Theo twice. This time, nothing would go wrong.
Another black blob squelched to the floor and began to reform itself.
‘A very clever hidey-hole!’ Skun said. ‘But I’ve been hunting for you so long – and it’s been such hard work …’
‘… And Dr Saint has been so very cross with us …’ butted in the second intruder.
‘… That we just couldn’t give up until we got you!’ completed a third, sprouting up to join its companions.
Three of them, Theo thought, upset by the recurrence of his unfavourite number. This is bad.
Magnus reached for the enormous old blunderbuss, but the smoglodyte leader leapt through the air and kicked him to the floor.
‘Naughty naughty!’ Skun mocked, jumping up and down on the old man.
‘Leave him alone!’ shrieked Sam. He landed a punch on the smoglodyte tracker, sending Skun flying into the wall. But the creature simply bounced back like a rubber ball and landed on its feet, cackling.
‘Plenty of time to get even with you,’ Skun hissed, his long tongue flickering out.
Sam didn’t have much time to worry about this threat, as the second smoglodyte sprang on him from behind and wrapped its flexible body around Sam’s head.
Theo rushed to help, but Skun’s tiny foot snaked out and sent him sprawling across the floor. Theo picked himself up, angrily peeling off his leather gauntlets.
‘Can’t – can’t breathe!’ gasped Sam as the smoglodyte squeezed itself tighter around his face and throat. Magnus was still lying, dazed, nearby.
‘Stop!’ Theo screamed at the top of his voice. ‘I’m – I’m warning you!’ The smoglodyte wrapped around Sam’s throat looked towards Theo. For a moment it seemed unsure. Then it resumed its fiendish grip.
‘Nah,’ it said. ‘I’m having far too much fun.’
Pop! It was the last thing the smog said. Theo reached out to grab it, but the moment his fingertips came into contact it exploded into grey dust. Everyone in the room – including Theo – stared in astonishment as a fine rain of ash and stringy innards dropped to the ground.
‘What – what happened?’ stammered Skun, backing away. Theo could see th
e smog’s heart pumping with panic inside its skinny chest.
‘Dunno!’ squeaked the other. It had been creeping up on the fallen figure of Magnus, and was now reaching for the old man’s neck. Theo was so fired up by rage he leapt straight at it, grabbing it by the ankle before it could flit away. Moments later there was no ankle – the imp went pop, just like the other one had. Theo grimaced as the sticky wet guts hit him in the face.
In a desperate attempt to escape, Skun sprang towards the crack in the ceiling. Theo leapt to stop the fleeing smog, and just managed to brush the creature with his fingertips.
Skun’s skin bubbled, blistered, but did not explode. Squealing with pain, the wounded imp squeezed his body feebly through the crack, leaving a syrupy brown stain behind him. The smog attack had been turned into a rout.
‘Yes!’ cheered Sam, punching the air in a triumphant gesture. ‘We’ve got the Candle Man!’ Then he sank to the ground again and knelt there, panting.
Theo put his gauntlets back on and helped Magnus to sit up.
‘I knew I was right!’ the old man wheezed. ‘The Ascendancy is vindicated! Well done, lad.’
Theo bent down to examine a black streak of smog-bits smeared across the floor. ‘But what happened to them?’ he asked. ‘How did I do it?’
Magnus mopped up some of the remains with a tissue and put them in a jar to study later.
‘I believe,’ he said at last, ‘that smoglodytes – like the garghouls – are creatures from an earlier age of this earth. They are semi-solid beings of skin and gas. Almost impossible to destroy by physical force, but very sensitive to other forms of energy. The power in you, Theo, called tripudon by some – or jump energy – obviously makes them combust in some way.’
The fact that there was a name for his power was of secondary concern to Theo in the wake of the attack.
‘But are they … dead?’ Theo asked.
‘Don’t worry – these ones can’t harm us again! Whether they are destroyed forever, I don’t know. Some reports say that smoglodytes can reform themselves out of polluted air. But the process would take many years.’