Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

by Chris Ward

  ‘He’s getting closer,’ David whined, and a flush of heat ran across Benjamin’s back.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Behind us. In front. All over.’

  They emerged in a corridor that faced a wide set of steps, and Benjamin dragged David up to a door at the top then pushed through.

  He stopped, marveling at a quite different type of cavern.

  The Great Hall.

  Across the floor from him stood the door he had entered through with Miranda on his first day in Endinfinium. That way led outside, so he half-pulled, half-carried David with him, down through the rows of chairs.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to hurry—’

  Two dozen doors opened and slammed at once. Lights flickered on in the alcoves, and the Great Hall filled with a silvery moonlight. Beside him, David stopped.

  ‘Child.’

  The voice drifted over from the other end of the hall, from a figure in black standing on the stage. Benjamin felt his feet moving against his will, gliding across the smooth floors to come to a stop in front of the stage, David still held tightly to his side.

  ‘Give him. Join me.’

  Now, the voice seemed to come from everywhere, a great detached resonance that filled the hall, grating like a speaker system feeding back. The Dark Man’s arms rose, spindly white fingers appearing, pointing at Benjamin and David.

  ‘Join. Unite.’

  Benjamin pulled David in front of him. ‘No! Get away from us!’

  His feet began to slide again, and this time he reached out for his power, skin burning as it repelled the Dark Man’s magic. The figure on the stage started, appearing surprised.

  ‘We don’t belong to you!’

  ‘Is that so?’ incanted the booming, omnipresent voice. ‘Shall we reveal that truth for you?’

  In his arms, David whimpered. Benjamin looked down at the ephemeral, glowing form of his brother, tears springing to his eyes. He felt like he was trying to hold on to something that was rightfully dead, that should rightfully be let go.

  ‘He’s not yours,’ Benjamin said again through gritted teeth, preparing to reach for his power. He glared at the Dark Man, ready to throw everything at this threat, to repel it from his brother and from the school, even if it meant his own death.

  The Dark Man lifted his hands, threw back his hood, and Benjamin staggered. Pearl white hair that fell to shoulders framed an ancient visage. Heartless grey eyes stared out of an eerily familiar face.

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘No!’

  Benjamin toppled to the ground, pulling David with him. Clutching the shifting, unstable shape of his brother, he tried to look at the Dark Man’s face, but he couldn’t.

  There’s nothing I can do. He will destroy me, and then he will destroy everything. All of Endinfinium will end, and it’s my fault for bringing him here.

  No.

  The second voice was unfamiliar. Benjamin squeezed his eyes shut, holding his brother tight.

  David. You can send him back. Destroy him here, and restore him to his own world. He is power. He is strength. Use him. Banish the Dark Man.

  Benjamin opened his eyes. Above him, the Dark Man was a blur on the stage, but now he appeared to be growing in size, rising over them like a terrible, demonic cloud. Benjamin felt for his brother, felt his brother’s touch, and suddenly understood.

  Like Wilhelm, David was a weaver. And without a physical form, he was pure energy, pure power.

  Pure strength.

  ‘Leave … here,’ Benjamin gasped, drawing on everything he felt inside him and projecting it outward in one immense, unending stream.

  The Great Hall filled with light, and the screams of a million souls dying and those yet to die howled at him, while Benjamin’s grip on consciousness began to fade. In his arms, he felt his brother shrinking, fading away to nothing.

  ‘I love you, Bennie,’ a quiet voice whispered, then everything went black.

  ‘Benjamin. Hear me, and awaken.’

  The voice was soft and soothing—the sound of a thousand fathers—and Benjamin opened his eyes. At first, all he saw was blackness, before he realised he was looking at a great circle of blackened wood surrounding him.

  He was still in the Great Hall of Endinfinium, but now the stage was empty, the Dark Man gone. His arms were also empty, his brother gone, too.

  ‘Well done, Benjamin Forrest,’ came a warm, soothing voice from behind. He sat up, less stiff than what he had become accustomed to, and turned to see a tall, stately man dressed in a long robe. He could have been a storybook wizard, were it not for the translucency of his face, a shimmering that blurred his features and a way of speaking that reminded Benjamin both of a dream world and water bubbling over rocks.

  ‘Grand Lord Bastien,’ he said.

  ‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance at last, Master Forrest. I thank you from the bottom of my soul for what you’ve done today. For your strength and your resilience, and the sacrifices you’ve made.’

  ‘Is the battle over?’

  Grand Lord Bastien nodded. ‘Nearly. The Dark Man’s forces are in retreat. When you broke your brother free, you took the Dark Man’s focus away from me and allowed the other teachers to break me out. Without their power source, his machines were easy to overrun … thanks, too, to a number of friends you appear to have made.’

  ‘What happened to my brother?’

  ‘He is gone. You used all of him to banish the Dark Man back to the High Mountains. David no longer exists in this place, although you took a little of his soul for yourself.’

  Benjamin didn’t need to ask what the Grand Lord meant. He lifted up his trouser leg. The burn on his left calf muscle was already beginning to heal. The burns on his face were also healing, the skin prickling as it knitted itself back together.

  ‘Back in England … did I save him?’

  ‘In time, you’ll find out, I’m sure.’ Grand Lord Bastien smiled. ‘Now, I think it’s time to reunite you with your friends.’

  48

  ROUT

  With each step he took, Benjamin felt stronger and more agile, as if David’s residual power was slowly working its way through him. By the time they had reached the battlements overlooking the field, he had a spring in his step he didn’t think he’d ever felt before. Grand Lord Bastien had gone to help the other teachers who stood farther along the battlements—Captain Roche and Professor Loane, beyond them Ms. Ito … and Professor Eaves. Benjamin lifted a hand to point and call out Dusty as a traitor, when the professor lifted his own hands and brought them down over his head, summoning a swarm of haulocks over the battlements, sweeping up floundering ghouls in their wings and carrying them away toward the distant river. As Benjamin stared in disbelief, Wilhelm came running along the battlements toward him.

  ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were captured.’

  Wilhelm shrugged. ‘Professor Eaves was asking about you. He thought we were trapped down there, so he got the haulocks to come after us. He’s part haulock, apparently. He used them to ferry the rest of the pupils to safety at that study camp.’

  Benjamin gave Wilhelm a hug, then, as he pulled away, he narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you really believe that?’

  Wilhelm grinned. ‘Not for a second. I think he got busted trying to drop us into the sea or something, and changed his plans. Nothing we can do about it right now, but I’ll be keeping it on file for future investigation. Where’s Miranda?’

  ‘She gave herself up for me. I’m afraid she died.’

  Wilhelm shook his head. ‘No she didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean? I saw the cavern collapse down on her.’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s still alive. I can feel her.’

  ‘What, like Edgar said?’

  ‘Edgar? He’s alive?’

  Benjamin grinned. ‘Seems like it’s pretty hard to die here. That must be something the Dark Man was trying to rectify, but I don’t think we have to worry about him for a while.�
��

  ‘Come on, let’s go find Miranda. If she’s trapped in the caves, we need to get her out quickly before they get flooded any further.’

  ‘How can we get to her?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I have an idea. But we need to take a bit of a detour. How tired are you? We might need to run.’

  Benjamin shook his head. ‘I think I might be able to help there. I have a friend I can ask.’

  Half an hour later, they were clutching each other atop Moto’s back as the reanimated motorbike sped them quickly toward the ruins of Fallenwood. While Moto still refused to pick sides, Benjamin convinced him that a simple ride out into the countryside could be considered a neutral action, and after some deliberation, the motorbike deemed the conclusion satisfactory.

  In the entrance to the old observatory, they were met by Fallenwood himself, and after a few minutes of discussion confirmed he could indeed be of help. Another half an hour later, Moto sped along toward the entrance to the caves, a massive wheel of sticks rolling along behind him. Moto let them off on top of a rise overlooking the river, bade them good luck, then headed back to the school. From where they stood, the cruise-shark was visible lying on its side, half-in and half-out of the water.

  ‘First thing we have to do is restore the river’s original course,’ Wilhelm said, and the Fallenwoodsmen assembled into a giant wedge, pressed in beneath the toppled cruise-shark, and slowly lifted it up. The monstrous creature snapped and wriggled, but as soon as the water began to flow back underneath it, the ground became slick enough for it to slide back into the river. With a tremendous roar, the diverted river righted itself, and took the cruise-shark away in the sudden torrent. As the current dragged it into deeper waters, it made a lazy arc, then, with a gurgle of displaced water, it dived out of sight.

  ‘The rock under the school is like a giant sponge,’ Wilhelm said, ‘so the water will run away to the sea eventually. What we have to deal with are the collapsed tunnels.’

  The Fallenwoodsmen immediately knitted together into a complex system of scaffolds, rigging, and pulley equipment. Benjamin stared in amazement as they squeezed into the nearest cave entrance to engineer a wooden stairway through the rubbish. Wilhelm led the way as it descended into the depths of the tunnels, knitting in front of them and breaking up behind them piece by piece as the rubbish fell back into place.

  They were some way underground when Wilhelm stopped. ‘She’s near here,’ he said and, grabbing Benjamin’s arm, screamed, ‘Miranda!’

  Benjamin joined in, and for a few seconds, they hollered into space. Then, after falling silent, they heard a faint ‘Over here!’ above the dripping of water and the creaking of thousands of sticks.

  She had managed to climb up on to a ledge to avoid the torrent, but the cavern in which the second Bagger was trapped had been packed tight with rubbish from the diverted river, and the tunnels above had become impassible. As the Fallenwoodsmen created a wooden tunnel through the rubbish, Miranda hugged Benjamin and Wilhelm tightly.

  None were sure what to say. Benjamin felt ashamed for giving up on her, while Miranda just gave them both a big hug, before patting the nearest latticework of interwoven twigs as if to thank Fallenwood, as well.

  Slowly but surely, the Fallenwoodsmen retraced their steps to the ground above, and Miranda looked delighted to see the twin suns again. Even Benjamin felt happy to be outside with both of his shadows for company. After the Fallenwoodsmen had knitted themselves into a rather beautiful wicker carriage, they all headed back to the school.

  The battle was as good as over. The remaining ghouls and wraith-hounds had dissolved back into the ground, and the huge Bagger stood silent, its massive chainsaw towering as high as the school walls.

  As they bid goodbye to the Fallenwoodsmen, Captain Roche met them out on the field. ‘I won’t ask what that was about,’ he muttered, giving a suspicious glance to the circle of twigs now rolling away toward the forest. ‘I’m pleased to see the three of you are okay, and thanks to you the school has been saved. However…’

  ‘However?’ Wilhelm echoed.

  ‘You disobeyed a direct order to go with Professor Eaves. You kidnapped another boy, and you entered a restricted area without permission. You stole a boat from the Beach Folk, after, of course, stealing a toboggan from the school garages. On multiple occasions you used … certain skills … without permission—’

  Benjamin put up a hand. ‘Is there anything we didn’t do?’

  Captain Roche glared at him. ‘You didn’t do as you were told.’

  ‘And our punishment?’

  ‘Each rule you broke carries a minimum of one thousand cleans. It has been put to the teachers’ union to allow you to take meals in the Locker Room and sleep there in a makeshift dormitory with the sin keeper to keep watch over you.’

  Wilhelm shook his head. ‘But we saved the school!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, doesn’t that mean we can get a bit of leniency?’

  Captain Roche smiled a grin wider than any of their faces. ‘Oh, you have,’ he said. ‘For each broken rule, you’ve been allocated a thousand cleans among you. It would usually be a thousand cleans each.’

  And with a sigh that suggested he was tired of dealing with them, Captain Roche turned and headed back to the school, leaving them standing alone on the grass with the school’s towering walls in front of them, and the beaming face of the yellow sun as it arced its way slowly across the sky.

  49

  MEETING

  Life in and around the school had settled back to normal. At least, as normal as life could be in a school where everything—right down to the pots and pans, and the sinks in the bathroom, trying to vibrate off the walls—was constantly trying to come alive.

  Godfrey’s continued absence remained a mystery. After rushing off to join the Dark Man’s army with the proclamation that he was a great summoner, he had vanished. The teachers encouraged the rumour that he had been expelled, but no one really believed it; after all, expulsion meant little when no other schools existed. They just weren’t ready to believe he had turned to the Dark Man.

  In fact, most of the other pupils had no idea about anything. As promised, Professor Eaves had shipped them all off to the study camp, and by the time they had returned, the second huge Bagger had reanimated itself enough to trundle off the edge of the nearest cliff, fall into the sea, and drift toward the edge of the world, no doubt with a cruise-shark in hot pursuit.

  Within weeks, the pupils continued the drudgery of classes with expressions no more or less glum than those of a regular, real-world school.

  It was after a particularly boring lesson on wildflower ecosystems that Gubbledon Longface handed Benjamin a message.

  Dear Benjamin, it read. Could you do me the honour of meeting with me in my private apartments in the teachers’ tower? Yours with gratitude, Grand Lord Sebastien Aren.

  Since the day of the battle, Benjamin had neither seen nor heard anything of the Grand Lord, and he had begun to wonder if he hadn’t disappeared like David had. When he reached the teachers’ tower and knocked on the door, however, it swung open to reveal the Grand Lord himself, his pale, ephemeral face wrapped in long ropes and almost hidden by a hood. He leaned on a long, metal pole hooked at the end like a shepherd’s crook, and his clothes rippled and shook as if his trapped body were trying to escape.

  ‘Welcome, Benjamin,’ the Grand Lord said. ‘Come in. Take a seat. We never did have that promised orientation.’

  The room was a hive of organised clutter; every wall was covered by shelves loaded with all manner of unusual items—in between rows of books sat the skeleton of a birdlike creature seemingly with four wings, the disembodied head of a stuffed toy bear, a featureless block of something smooth and green, and a dozen other things Benjamin imagined had been picked out of the river or the sea, but why remained a mystery.

  ‘I imagine you have more questions than ever.’ The Grand Lord went to the window and pulled back a curtai
n to reveal a twilight view of the hills, with the river’s dark flow beyond. Backing down onto it was the grey expanse of the Haunted Forest.

  Benjamin shrugged. ‘I guess that, over time, I’ve answered many of them for myself.’

  The Grand Lord nodded. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘But not all.’

  ‘Of course not. Endinfinium is an unusual place,’ the Grand Lord mused. ‘A world at the confluence of other worlds; a world that is constantly building itself from what other worlds give away; a world that is timeless yet finite.’ He shrugged. ‘A world where nothing truly dies.’ He turned back suddenly, his face pulsing with a white glow. ‘Such a place many might call Heaven, wouldn’t they?’

  Benjamin shrugged again. ‘More like Hell. Full of rubbish and ghouls. It’s not really what people want from eternity, is it?’

  Again the Grand Lord nodded. ‘A good job that it’s neither. It is only what it is. Tell me, Benjamin, are you happy here?’

  A few weeks ago, Benjamin would have given an automatic, vehement shake of his head. Now he just frowned. ‘I guess it is what it is.’

  The Grand Lord smiled. ‘That’s a good answer. But … never stop looking for a way back. One day you might find one. Do you ever wonder what’s over the edge of the world, or what’s beyond the High Mountains where the Dark Man lives?’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘That’s good. Never stop. Too many have. Acceptance is not a way to survive in this place, but the only way to truly die. There might not be a way back to whatever place you call home, but giving up on the chance that there is … you might as well just get into a boat and sail over the edge of the world.’