The Society of Dread

by Glenn Dakin

  Theo remembered that when he had met Dr Pyre before, his own head had been bandaged and he had been hidden under a layer of soot. It wasn’t surprising the man had trouble recognising him.

  ‘How – how did you get here?’ Dr Pyre demanded.

  ‘I walked through the fire,’ Theo replied. ‘I may be a fool, but I am a very dangerous one.’

  Theo stood between Dr Pyre and the controls.

  ‘I can see it now,’ Dr Pyre said with a strange awe in his voice. ‘I can see your . . . face.’ The man’s voice had changed somehow and was tinged, for a fleeting moment, almost with wonder.

  Theo was puzzled. Why should his face matter so much to Dr Pyre?

  ‘It is too late,’ Dr Pyre muttered. ‘Too late now for all of us!’

  He raised a charred hand and, with a look of pain on his scarred visage, unleashed a searing blast at Theo.

  The fire struck home.

  Hungry flames licked at Theo’s body, but found nothing to burn – only pure green light. Theo gazed up at his attacker.

  ‘It’s never too late,’ he responded calmly.

  ‘No!’ roared Dr Pyre. ‘I will not be stopped!’

  He raised both blackened hands together and unleashed an even more terrible bolt of flame.

  This time, Dr Pyre’s blast did not strike Theo. Instead, it cascaded around him in a curious way, curling and swirling erratically. Dr Pyre staggered back, aghast.

  The flames began to dance around their slight, human target, flaring into extravagant patterns above his head, like the lightning of a personal aurora borealis.

  ‘What is it?’ Dr Pyre cried out, a tremor of horror in his voice. ‘What is happening?’

  The young Candle Man reached out towards Dr Pyre. With an agonised expression, the faceless man raised his arm desperately to keep Theo at bay.

  They touched. For an instant utter silence filled the chamber. Time seemed to stand still. Then, with a noise like the tearing of space and time itself, the aurora exploded outwards and ripped the control dome apart.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Doomed

  ‘What are you doing, you unintelligible gnorn?’ Skun screeched.

  The leader of the smoglodytes had scrambled through the cracks in the cavern wall to follow Theo’s trail. Now he had stumbled upon the last living garghoul, standing in the middle of his melting cage.

  ‘There is a battle going on!’ the smog cried. ‘Glory to be won! Have you not heard of the Society of Dread?’

  ‘I have not,’ Tristus replied.

  ‘Well, we just invented it. We are a great alliance – smashing Dr Pyre and his rotten melch, the crelp! There are legends to be writ, lives to be lost! And you . . . an ally of the Candle Hand, you stand up here like a statue?’

  Tristus let out the faintest of groans. ‘My sight has been taken away,’ he said. ‘But unfortunately, not my hearing – as I can still hear your infernal jabbering.’

  ‘You’re blind?’

  Tristus nodded.

  The smoglodyte crept closer, like a timid bird, his head cocked on one side.

  ‘And you’re just going to stand there?’

  ‘The fates have spoken,’ Tristus said. ‘Like a fool I tried to help the humans fix their cursed Aftertime, and this is how I have been repaid. It is a clear sign that my time for helping is over. Let the network fall down on me. Let the city become rubble. Let a thousand winters roll above. I will stay here and become one with the stone.’

  Whooom!

  An ear-splitting explosion shook the vault. Below, the Candle Man and Dr Pyre had just met in a terrible confrontation of ancient power – too much power for the stone around them to contain.

  The rock walls shuddered. Great cracks appeared, crazing the surfaces around them. The machinery in the vault groaned. Nearby, one of the gleaming spires toppled. Shards of stone rained down from the cavern roof high above. Behind Skun, several smogs leapt up and down in fright.

  ‘Disaster!’ one shrieked. ‘The whole crabang is going to come down on us!’

  Tristus did not stir.

  ‘Selfish monster!’ Skun screamed. ‘How can you waste your great power when there are cowards trapped in this disaster who need your help!’

  Tristus slowly raised his head.

  ‘I have often pondered what dark fate awaited me,’ he groaned. ‘But I never imagined being called “selfish” by a smoglodyte! Now I am too ashamed to return to the stone that created me.’

  The garghoul stood proudly, unfurled his damaged wings. ‘You are right, for once, nilfug,’ he cried. ‘Lead me to the wall of this vault.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Skun said, bouncing up on to Tristus’s shoulders. ‘Forwards, for the Society of Dread! If you will give me the honour, Mr Asraghoul, I, Skun, will be your eyes!’

  The rock walls gave another horrible groan. Orpheus officers up above, Chloe included, felt the cavern shake. Beneath the Furnace, in cells and dungeons, slaves trembled as the world seemed about to end around them.

  Tristus, guided by Skun, placed his hands against the wall of the great vault.

  Stand, Tristus commanded the cavern around him with all his heart and mind. As garghouls had done in ages past, he felt his way into the stone and gave it his strength.

  We will stand together.

  It was not easy. Tristus almost felt himself being torn apart as he supported the stone with all his strength and wisdom. We will stand.

  The stone shuddered and groaned. The walls of the vault, the tunnels of the Great Furnace, the roof of the great cavern above them – all seemed to creak, cry out, sigh and protest, cry and whisper, yearning for destruction or peace.

  Peace, Tristus told the stone. Choose peace.

  We will stand, he told the stone. We are standing.

  We stand.

  Then suddenly there was silence.

  Dazed, Theo rose to his knees. The control dome, now a blackened wreck, was dark and silent. Theo peered down into the central well and saw the alchemical bomb in the shaft below. It no longer gleamed with power, but rested, slightly askew, in shadows.

  A low groan reached Theo’s ears. Through the gloom he could now see Dr Pyre sprawled on the metal floor. Like Theo, then, the old alchemist had survived the incredible explosion that resulted from their encounter.

  Theo looked at his hand. It was solid, not glowing green any more, just flickering with the softest of lights. He had survived unscathed. The same could not be said for Dr Pyre. The faceless man lay on the edge of the central well, obviously hurt. His skin was no longer dull grey ash. Now it was black, scorched, yet broken up into a mass of fine cracks, which glimmered with a ghostly, green light.

  ‘And so . . .’

  A cracked whisper came through the gloom. ‘And so . . . doom takes us all.’

  Of all the things Theo had been expecting Dr Pyre to say or do, this was not one of them.

  Dr Pyre gazed around as a fine web of green energy flowed around his body, so faint it almost seemed like an afterglow.

  And it was eating him away.

  ‘So it is you,’ Dr Pyre remarked, trying to touch the ribbons of light as they flashed around him. A spark slipped through his fingers. ‘Here is my proof.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Theo asked.

  ‘I did wonder,’ the man gasped, ‘when – when I saw your face properly for the first time, Fool.’

  My face?

  A horrible cry split the darkness as Dr Pyre began to writhe with pain. Green flames poured from his eyes and he slumped to the ground. He lay there, his body glowing like the last coals of a dying fire.

  Theo stared, horrified. Gradually, the stricken man stirred again and rolled on to his side. At last, Theo’s curiosity got the better of him.

  ‘Why did you say,’ Theo asked, daring to step closer, ‘that I have doomed us all?’

  ‘What is the use?’ gasped Dr Pyre. ‘What is the use of words, in a world where truth turns into lies and disaster?’

&nbs
p; Theo felt afraid. Dr Pyre pushed himself up, racked with pain, and sat against a control panel. His ashen body looked delicate now, pale and spent – as if about to fall apart.

  ‘How can truth turn into lies?’ asked Theo.

  ‘This world can never be better now,’ Dr Pyre said bitterly. ‘Because of you . . . the one person in the world who could have stopped me.’

  Theo gazed at the ruin of a man slumped before him. It was a terrible sight. ‘Help me,’ Theo said slowly. ‘Help me to understand.’

  Dr Pyre sighed. ‘Words have always been used against me. Clever lies have beaten me and driven me mad. But for you, my Fool,’ he gasped, ‘I will attempt a little truth. A little truth before the horror that is to come.’

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Of Madness

  ‘Once there was a hero called the Candle Man,’ Dr Pyre began.

  Theo’s soul seemed to stir at the sound of that name. Here, in the dark and shattered control dome, deep in the heart of the now-dormant Wonderful Machines, it felt like he and Dr Pyre were the only humans left in the world.

  The faceless man was torn by a fit of coughing. He breathed slowly before continuing.

  ‘The Candle Man was pitted against a clever villain called the Philanthropist and they fought the great battle of good versus evil above and below the streets of London.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Theo. ‘A hundred years ago.’

  ‘A hundred years ago,’ echoed Dr Pyre in a hollow tone. ‘If you say so.’ His deep, dark eyes stared out into the darkness with something Theo could only regard as sorrow. The faceless man coughed again, then continued.

  ‘But the Philanthropist, a brilliant man called Erasmus Fontaine, was too clever for the poor Candle Man. The Philanthropist pretended to be good, used his money to buy important friends, and ran criminal gangs he called charities. Eventually, he rose to become important in the police.

  ‘From that time on, whenever the Candle Man fought his foe, people thought that the Candle Man was bad – or that he was going insane. Friends turned against him. Everyone began to distrust him.

  ‘Lord Wickland, the Candle Man, was determined to smash his foe. He tried to increase his power. In a disastrous experiment at Wickland Hall, his tripudon energy flowed out of control. It became a raging flame. Before Lord Wickland could control his power, it had scorched his body, and razed his mansion to the ground.’

  Theo felt a cold tingle rush along his spine.

  ‘Now Wickland had lost everything. His battle with the Philanthropist, his friends, even his face.’

  Theo gazed, spellbound, at the ruin of a man before him.

  ‘You,’ he breathed. ‘You are Lord Wickland!’

  The ashen figure assented with the slightest inclination of his head.

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed.

  Theo staggered backwards. His mind reeled. The events of the last days flashed deliriously through his mind.

  He had been sent to fight the original Candle Man.

  But there was no time to consider that now. In a crumbling whisper, the man before him carried on.

  ‘I decided to turn my disaster into an advantage. I abandoned the identity of the Candle Man. I became the villainous Dr Pyre. As Dr Pyre I could act as I wished, I did not need to work with the police, or observe any laws that inconvenienced me. I used my new, wilder power to burn down the hidden bases of my enemy, attack those who secretly worked for him.

  ‘The Philanthropist soon worked out who I was, but he could do nothing to stop me. Instead of defeating him by being good, I was destroying him by being terrible – by appearing more evil. It worked for me in a way I couldn’t have dreamed possible.’

  ‘But what happened?’ Theo asked. ‘How did you end up here, in my time?’

  A profound sigh, or perhaps a groan of pain, came from the dark human wreck.

  ‘A grim twist of fate,’ he said. ‘Blame it on the garghouls. While my war with the Philanthropist was at its height, the garghouls were arising. At first, some worked for my enemy, some worked for me. But soon they decided to rise up against all humans. And the devil that would lead them was that traitor, my once-friend Tristus.’

  ‘Tristus!’ Theo could only listen, astonished.

  ‘One night, I ventured into the network on a mission to stop the Philanthropist and the infernal devices he was building beneath the city. As I pursued him, we both stumbled across a great gathering of garghouls, a veritable war-council of the winged demons.

  ‘The Philanthropist and I were attacked by a cruel ghoulish spell. The events are confused to me now, shadowy, but a dark enchantment swept the caverns, turning both me and my enemy into shapes of lifeless stone. Our lives, hates, hopes and folly all taken away in the wink of an eye.

  ‘Lost to mortal sight, we slumbered a century away, petrified in darkness. Until, eight weeks ago, we returned.’

  The crumpled figure caught his breath. Not just physical pain, but bitter emotional turmoil seemed to be eating him away.

  Just then, light dawned in Theo’s mind.

  ‘Eight weeks ago!’ he blurted out. ‘That was when Dr Saint performed his terrible experiment in the Well Chamber.’ He looked on his ancestor with eyes of sad wonder. ‘Dr Saint, a modern-day alchemist, achieved Golden Time,’ Theo explained, ‘the time when miracles are possible.’

  Then Theo’s excited face clouded over. ‘His – his power went wrong. I – I defeated him before he had finished his work. But the forces he unleashed must have brought you back to life . . .’

  Lord Wickland stared at Theo from deep, sorrowful eyes.

  ‘Your words ring true,’ he whispered, in a voice that was growing ever more faint. ‘Golden Time was achieved by another, deep in these tunnels. When that miraculous state occurred, we were freed. We became flesh again, but at a cost.’

  ‘The alchemy that restored us to life was flawed. It had left us both damaged. I was hurt, dying. The Philanthropist left me in the ruins of the network. He headed for the surface, saying he would rise to power again, finish his Good Works. I was left for dead.’

  ‘I knew I had not long to live. But I swore one thing – that in the time I had left I would perform a final act of destruction as Dr Pyre.

  ‘I had discovered that the Philanthropist had a master plan – a terrible power hidden below the network.’

  Theo looked up at the vast wheels above him, now shadowy and silent again.

  ‘The Wonderful Machines!’

  ‘Yes. I devised a plan. I knew I didn’t have much time. I encountered some villains, the Sewer Rats, lurking in the tunnels. They recognised Dr Pyre from old legends kept alive by London’s underworld gangs, and I soon persuaded them to work for me.

  ‘Then, I went down into the Crypt and freed some creatures to be my watch dogs. I knew the crelp of old – frightening, sneaking things. I planned to release just enough to flood the network and keep any enemies at bay.’

  ‘But the crelp are evil!’ Theo said.

  ‘I did not care,’ Lord Wickland said bitterly. ‘All my heroic efforts to help this city had failed, left me branded a madman, a fanatic. I was using evil to beat evil. It struck me as poetic justice. I believed the crelp would keep the police at bay. That was all I cared about.’

  ‘But if you feared the Wonderful Machines why did you get slaves to start them up?’

  Dr Pyre gave Theo the bleakest of looks from the depths of his haunted, shadowy eyes.

  ‘I only ever started them up with the idea of creating enough power to blow them apart. The alchemical bomb I created had but one purpose: to destroy the Wonderful Machines – to course through the network annihilating every cog, pipe, well and furnace. My last act would be to destroy the Philanthropist’s life’s work.’

  ‘But why?’ Theo asked. ‘Why didn’t you explain what you wanted to do?’

  ‘To who? To the police? I knew my foe would outsmart me as ever. Look at my hideous appearance! Within a short time, with his lies and influenc
e, he would have me hunted as a monster.’

  Theo looked across at the fallen man. Lord Wickland. This bitter, half-insane, burnt shell of a man was what his great ancestor had become. Theo felt pity for him.

  ‘Now I know the truth,’ Theo said, ‘perhaps we can –’

  ‘Work together?’ interrupted Lord Wickland mockingly. ‘We would fail! I have fought Erasmus Fontaine for too long! He is too clever. He always wins. And besides – it is too late now, for me . . .’

  A sudden spark of green energy flashed between Lord Wickland and Theo.

  ‘In attacking you, I have been eaten away by the tripudon power. It seems it only acknowledges one master. You are the new, I am the old.’

  ‘But there’s so much I want to ask you,’ Theo cried.

  ‘My time is nearly up,’ Lord Wickland gasped. ‘But there is something I must say to you. Beware. He is out there. He has had eight weeks. That time is short to a mere human. But to one such as the Philanthropist, it is all he needs. He has had time to buy new friends, murder and bribe his way back to power. That most calculating, most cunning of evil fiends is in the world above, mark my words.’

  ‘Can I . . . could I beat him?’ Theo asked.

  ‘You will have no chance, I fear,’ Lord Wickland said. ‘He will dazzle the world with his fake kindness, his glorious lies. You will know he is evil, but no one will believe you. You will warn the world of its peril, but no one will care. You will defy him . . . and the world will brand you a madman.’

  ‘B-but it’s not like that,’ Theo stammered. ‘There is no Philanthropist now. He’s just an ancient tale, like – like you.’

  ‘Fool!’ snapped Lord Wickland. ‘He will not use that name any more. He will appear among you as a friend, a hero, a kind man. Beware of him. Because he will be out to rule this world, bend it to his will. And he will see you as his main obstacle.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Theo cried. ‘Together we can –’

  ‘No, there can be no “together”. The power must pass on.’

  And it seemed to Theo that Lord Wickland’s voice had become stronger. It seemed that in the darkness, he sat there, fair-skinned, with a lean, handsome, tragic face.