Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

by Chris Ward

  ‘Down there,’ Edgar said. ‘Those foothills mark the entrance into the Dark Man’s domain.’

  ‘What’s beyond the mountains?’ Benjamin asked.

  ‘The beginning of everything, maybe.’ Edgar shrugged. ‘The truth is, I do not know.’

  ‘How far have we come from the school?’

  ‘Many hundreds of miles, depending on how you count them.’

  Benjamin wasn’t sure what to say to this, so he pointed at the valley floor. ‘We have to go down there and find the Grand Lord. If we stick together, we’ll be safe.’

  Edgar shook his head. ‘No. It’s too dangerous. The ghouls will smell us before we even get close. They can smell purity, and all of us together … it would be overwhelming.’

  ‘How then?’

  Edgar looked uncomfortable. ‘You must go, you and Miranda. Wilhelm and I must stay here.’

  Miranda stared. ‘You’re going to let us go down there without you? I trusted you—’

  ‘Calm your tongue and your blood,’ Edgar snapped. ‘One day that temper of yours will get you into trouble.’

  ‘But you said—’

  Edgar lifted a hand, and Miranda’s mouth snapped shut. She glared as her cheeks puffed out, then she let out a long gasp and sagged, catching herself with her hands on her knees.

  ‘As you can see, I have significantly better control of the magic of reanimation than you, my dear,’ Edgar said, somewhat sadly. ‘With a cloaking spell, you and Benjamin could get into the Dark Man’s camp and search for the Grand Lord without your presence being known. However, it is not easy, and it will require all of my concentration.’

  ‘So you have to stay here?’

  Edgar nodded. ‘Where I am safe from detection.’

  ‘What about Wilhelm?’

  Wilhelm gave them a brave grin. ‘While I appreciate that this Dark Man guy might be a little more dangerous than anything we’ve encountered so far, and my gut instinct tells me to stay behind and wash Lawrence’s windows … there’s no way I can let you go down there without me.’

  Miranda beamed, but Edgar shook his head. ‘No, I need you to stay with me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need you to help me. With your magic.’

  ‘What magic?’ Wilhelm put up his hands. ‘Look, these two, they might be able to make things explode and stop it from raining, but I can’t do any of that stuff.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘And to be honest, I’m quite glad.’

  Edgar smiled. ‘Oh, but you can. In certain circumstances.’ At Miranda’s look of surprise, he shook his head. ‘I think it’s time I explained a few things about the nature of what we’re all calling magic.’ He turned to Miranda. ‘My dear, we have only ever focused on your abilities; however, there are others. Both Benjamin and Wilhelm possess skills of their own.’

  Wilhelm gave a sharp shake of his head. ‘I don’t think—’

  Edgar put a hand on his shoulder. ‘The power that you find here works in two basic ways,’ he said. ‘Reanimation, or creation; and deanimation, or destruction. Like most things in life, however, there is rarely just black-and-white, but a whole spectrum of grey. With the right practice, it is possible to achieve all manner of things. If, for example, I cause the dust particles around me to reanimate, I can give the appearance of levitation.’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘Like when I met you for the first time?’

  Edgar nodded. ‘In a vacuum, it wouldn’t work. But even the smallest particles can be manipulated.’

  ‘Why can’t I do that?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘Because you haven’t learned how. It takes time. And it is not possible for all of us to do everything. That is something I have learned over the years. Back in the days before the Oath and the restriction of its use, the magic of Endinfinium came to its users in three distinct ways, and everyone who woke up here possessed one of those three abilities.’

  Benjamin listened but said nothing. He hoped no one had paid too much attention to the cuts on his arms and legs, but when Miranda had mentioned one particularly sore one on his forearm, he had shrugged it off as a fall from his stolen bike.

  ‘Miranda.’ The girl looked up, and Edgar smiled. ‘You, my dear, are a channeler. You can use small amounts of power at will, with no adverse effects to you. Your skills are raw, but they can be refined.’

  ‘A channeler? Why don’t the teachers tell us any of this?’

  Edgar shrugged. ‘Too many accidents. I opposed the sanction to restrict all use, which is one of the reasons I left. They were trying to protect you, I know that. But lying about it? Making people swear an oath that there’s no such thing? Ridiculous. It’s caused more deaths than it’s saved, I’m sure. That was why, when I encountered you, I did my best to teach you.’

  ‘That’s awesome,’ Wilhelm said. He stuck out his arms and made a blasting sound in the direction of the nearest rocks. ‘Am I a channeler, too?’

  Edgar shook his head. ‘Wilhelm, you are what we refer to as a weaver. Alone, you have no power, but when linked to a powerful channeler, great things can be done. You amplify the power in the same way that a microphone amplifies sound.’

  Wilhelm smiled. ‘So I do most of the heavy lifting?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Wilhelm looked at Miranda. ‘Typical.’

  Miranda glared at him, then turned to Edgar. ‘You’re a channeler, too?’

  Edgar nodded. ‘My power is no greater than yours, my dear; perhaps even less. The difference is, I’ve learned how to use it.’

  ‘And Benjamin? Is he a channeler or a weaver?’

  Benjamin pulled his hand out of hers. ‘I’m neither,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any magic. I told you, I’m here by mistake.’

  Edgar watched him, nodding slowly. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not afraid—’

  Edgar reached out a hand and Benjamin flinched, making Edgar cry out as an invisible force threw him backward. As Edgar climbed stiffly back to his feet, Benjamin winced at a sharp, needle-like pain that had appeared in his side, bringing with it a tingle that ran up his back and his neck, making his hair itch. His cheeks burned and he wanted to run, run run—

  ‘Benjamin!’

  He lifted a hand. ‘Keep back!’

  ‘Be calm,’ Edgar said. ‘I can teach you how to control it. You pulled down the water walls in the river, didn’t you? You broke a spell of the Dark Man himself. That takes greater power than I can imagine.’

  ‘No! It had nothing to do with me!’

  ‘We both know it did.’

  Words meant nothing. All Benjamin felt was the damnation in Edgar’s eyes. The wizard was looking down on him, almost mocking him, and Benjamin felt his anger building. It would be so easy to force them away. He could crush Edgar in an instant. He could crush all of them, disperse their pieces to every corner of the known world.

  He stepped back, and something caught his foot. The sky spun anticlockwise and he landed heavily on a clump of lush grass, rolling sideways. Something soft yet sour pressed into his mouth, something that tasted like washing up liquid. Gagging, he spat it out.

  A flower shaped like a kitchen sponge lay on the ground. Similar ones in green, yellow, and purple bobbed nearby in the breeze. Benjamin looked up, his anger raging … and saw tears of laughter running down Wilhelm’s face.

  ‘Oh, that made my day. That kitchen-flower went right in your mouth. How did it taste?’

  Edgar was smiling. As Miranda ran to help Benjamin up, he felt his fading anger being replaced by a deep, dark sadness, like the water at the bottom of a lake that never sees the light. He wiped a tear from his cheek and let out a long breath. ‘What’s happening to me?’ he whispered.

  Edgar sat on the ground beside him. ‘You, Benjamin, are a summoner,’ he said, ‘capable of using great bursts of power. Uncontrolled, it will destroy you. I knew it as soon as I met you, then when Miranda and Wilhelm came to me, it was easy to follow your trail. The m
agic you control is like a scent, if you have the nose for it.’

  Benjamin pulled up his sleeves. Several cuts had broken open, and blood oozed through the fine hairs on his skin.

  Miranda and Wilhelm stared.

  ‘Every time,’ Benjamin said, lifting up his arms as though he had never seen them before. ‘How do I stop it?’

  Edgar frowned. ‘There are ways, but none of them are here, in the shadow of the Dark Man, whom some say is the greatest summoner of them all. It would be prudent to return you to the school. You should have told me of this before. The magic’s backlash is harming you. If you can’t control it—’

  Benjamin shook his head. ‘Not until I’ve found the Grand Lord and discovered what happened to my brother.’

  ‘It’s foolhardy.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Edgar sighed. ‘Then we must do as I suggested. Wilhelm and I will prepare a cloak for you and Miranda, but I can’t hold it for longer than a couple of hours. You have to be back by the time the red sun completes a circuit of the world. Even if you can’t find the Grand Lord, you mustn’t linger long. When the mask wears off, the ghouls and the Dark Man will feel your presence, and believe me, they will come for you.’

  Benjamin looked up at Lawrence’s huge spiraling form, curled around the rocky outcrop. The snake-train seemed to be humming, his huge, metallic maw opening and closing like the mouth of a panting dog. ‘He’s afraid, isn’t he?’ he said.

  Edgar laughed. ‘He’s terrified. Lawrence isn’t known for his bravery, but this close to the Dark Man, few are. Are you ready?’

  Benjamin glanced at Miranda. ‘Are you?’

  The girl pouted. ‘Of course I’m not. But if you think I’m letting you go down there alone…’ She punched him on the shoulder, making him wince. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  Benjamin turned back to Edgar. ‘I’m sorry for being such a pain in the butt,’ he said. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am that you got me this far.’ He paused and looked around at Miranda and Wilhelm. ‘And you guys, too. You’re the best friends I could want. But this isn’t over. I still don’t understand much about Endinfinium, and I’m tired of it. I want answers. Edgar, do what you have to do.’

  Edgar nodded. ‘Let’s go hunting,’ he said.

  31

  THE BAGGERS

  Only from a distance did Benjamin realise how Lawrence had camouflaged himself. Looking back up the hill toward the rocky crest, he told himself over and over that the grey-red protrusion was their mode of transport and not a granite tor sticking out of the earth, and only when he squinted could he see the occasional movement as Lawrence’s great bulk shifted, detect how the chameleon-like snake-train altered his colour to blend in with his surroundings.

  Miranda punched him on the arm. ‘Stop slacking. We’re going forward, not back.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Me, too. Come on.’

  She broke into a run down the slope, dodging boulders and shrubs like a dancing deer. Benjamin, more of a lumbering bear in contrast, picked his way carefully through the strewn obstacles while trying to keep her in sight.

  Their target was an area a couple of miles ahead where undulating foothills rose and then split apart to form a mountain pass. Sparks of light and rumbles in the earth seemed to be coming from there, so it was a suitable place to look for the Dark Man’s lair, yet close enough for them to return to Edgar before the cloaking spell wore off.

  It had been an interesting sight: watching Edgar sitting cross-legged on the ground, humming in a trance-like state with one hand on Wilhelm’s shoulder; the small boy also with his eyes closed, brow furrowed in deep concentration. When Edgar at last opened his eyes long enough to tell them to hurry, Benjamin at first felt like nothing had happened, until he looked at Miranda and saw how her hair had taken on an orange tint as though she had been wrapped in a plastic sheet. And from the way she looked at him, he knew he appeared the same.

  Up ahead, a spiny forest closed in, with leafless trees that bent low to the ground as if battered by a raging wind long ago. Miranda plowed straight in among them, ducking and dodging through the thickets. If not for her ragged breathing just ahead, Benjamin would have lost her, and she had been out of sight for several minutes before he ducked under a gnarled branch to come up right behind her, so close that he slipped and fell on his bum to avoid a collision.

  ‘Shh!’ she hissed, grabbing his arms and pulling him close.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She didn’t need to answer. They had come out of the trees by the edge of a gentle forest stream with bubbling water that looked fresh and drinkable, though the creatures standing in its shallows made Benjamin want to turn and run.

  ‘Wraith-hounds,’ Miranda breathed, voice filled with both horror and wonder. ‘I read about them in a storybook. I didn’t think they were real.’

  The creatures—nine of them, all standing in the river—were the size and shape of big dogs with something definitely doglike in their physical makeup: a patch of fur here, a paw or an ear there. The remainder of each hound, however, was a homage to a school art room’s display window: bodies and heads and tails and teeth and legs all made from what humanity had tossed away—cans and bottles, cups and plates, broken glass—and everything was covered with a fine layer of recycled paper slicked against the bodies of each wet hound as they drank from the water swirling around their feet.

  ‘Are they dangerous?’ Benjamin whispered.

  ‘Deadly,’ she answered. ‘We go around before they figure out Edgar’s trick.’

  They gave the wraith-hounds a wide berth, moving upriver until they could cross in safety. From time to time, though, wraith-hounds were visible moving through the trees, and once, Benjamin saw a pack of ten or twenty running at full pelt, thankfully heading westward, away from them.

  Other creatures began to appear, too. Orange-eyed, part human, part metallic, sometimes lying inert beneath the trees, some only half out of the ground, arms or tentacles or other protrusions waving about in the breeze or lying uselessly on the mossy soil.

  ‘Ghouls,’ Miranda said as they passed a cluster that looked near humanoid. ‘I’d guess they’re either sleeping, or they didn’t reanimate properly.’

  ‘Let’s hope they stay that way.’

  Soon, the trees began to thin out, the ground to rise, and both Benjamin and Miranda became desperate for a rest and some of the food Edgar had given them. Miranda pointed to the hilltop and suggested they stop there.

  They were both puffing when they reached it, but a flat rock offered a view into the following valley, and the prospect of a short rest had gotten Benjamin excited. At the flat rock, they witnessed the sight below for the first time, and it removed all thought of food.

  ‘Oh, my,’ Miranda gasped, gripping Benjamin’s arm.

  The hill overlooked a vast strip mine that had been dug into the floodplain. From where Lawrence had stopped it had been invisible, hidden by the ridge of foothills. The strip mine was at least the size of two football grounds set end to end. At the end nearest, hundreds of tiny shapes rushed back and forth, climbing scaffolding, working pulleys and cranes, fanning fires, smelting steel. At the other gathered what could only be a war host: dozens of machines lined up in rows, some of which Benjamin recognised—cars and buses, trucks, even a couple of airplanes—and some he didn’t—bubble shapes and elongated things like mobile spears.

  Alone, the war host would have been fearsome, terrifying even. But compared to the two monstrosities that sat in the middle like captured grubs in the midst of an ant colony, it was an insignificant nothing.

  ‘What are they?’ Miranda said.

  The immense vehicles were the size of ocean liners. Running on massive caterpillar treads—each wheel the size of a suburban house—at one end hung a huge, weighted mechanism to balance out the massive excavator wheel at the other, sticking out like the head of Goliath’s chainsaw. Teeth the size of cars glistened in the
fires’ glow and the volcanic eruptions lighting up the sky.

  Benjamin had always loved construction vehicles. As a little kid, he had collected them: dump trucks and bulldozers, cranes and JCBs. Even in secondary school he had sometimes slid the plastic box of them out from under his bed and relived the games of his childhood with his favourite toys.

  There were some great ones, like the giant, Saudi Arabian dump trucks each the size of a house, or the massive cranes used to build the skyscrapers of New York. All, however, paled in comparison to the undisputed king of all construction vehicles, the don, the boss, the main event.

  ‘They’re Bagger 300s,’ Benjamin said. ‘A Bagger 300 is the largest self-mobile machine ever built. It’s a mining excavator, but it looks like there have been some … modifications.’

  ‘What are they going to use them for?’

  Benjamin gulped. Where car-sized excavator buckets should have been, shone the shiny teeth of two dozen cutting saws.

  ‘Judging by the size of those saws, I’d say to smash something up pretty bad.’

  ‘The school?’

  Benjamin shook his head. ‘No way. While a Bagger 300 can technically move on its own, they’re really slow, like a few metres per hour. They weigh hundreds of tons. You can’t just drive one like a car—’

  Almost as if they had heard him, one of the excavators lurched forward, and its chainsaw head swung around to carve a huge gash into the hillside. As lumps of solid rock the size of cars and trucks bounced down, only one thought came to Benjamin’s mind.

  ‘We have to stop them,’ he said.

  32

  CAPSULES

  Benjamin wanted a closer look, so they followed the ridgeline until they were right above the excavators, where they could see that one end of the strip mine had a long, upward-leading slope. Maneuvering like two castles trying to joust, one Bagger succeeded in turning around and began to roll up the ramp, while hundreds of cheering ghouls swarmed around it like ants.