by Garth Nix
Nick couldn’t let it do that.
He reached the rearmost car and vaulted into the driver’s seat, deaf to the roar of the fire, the thud of the pumps, and the contained shriek of the high-pressure hoses. Even when Nick pressed the starter button, none of the firemen looked around, the sound of the little two-seater’s engine lost amid all the noise and action.
The car was a Branston Four convertible, very similar to the Branston roadster Nick used to rent occasionally when he was at Sunbere. He slapped the gear lever into reverse with the necessary double tap and gently pulled the hand throttle. The little car rolled back onto the lawn. Nick tapped the lever into the first of the two forward gears and nudged forward.
The firemen still hadn’t noticed, but as Nick opened up the hand throttle, the car backfired, hopped forward, and stalled. Someone, presumably the owner of the car, shouted. Nick saw a bronze-helmeted head approaching in the side-view mirror. To his left, Ripton and Llew charged up out of the ha-ha.
He depressed the clutch, hit the starter again, and hoped he had the throttle position right. The car backfired once more and leapt six feet forward, and then the engine suddenly hit a sweet, drumming note. The speedometer stopped hiccuping up and down and started to slowly climb toward the top speed of thirty-five miles per hour. A breeze ruffled Nick’s hair, undiminished by the tiny windscreen.
The bronze helmet disappeared from the mirror as the car accelerated along the drive. Ripton and Llew got almost close enough to lay a hand on the rear bumper before they, too, were left behind. Ripton shouted something, and a second later, Nick felt something rebound off his shoulder and land on the seat next to him. He glanced down and saw a chain of yellow daisies, punctuated every ten blooms or so with a red poppy.
Nick didn’t bother switching on the car’s headlights. The moon was so bright that he could even read the dashboard dials and see the drive clearly. What he couldn’t see was the creature and Dorrance, but he had to presume they were heading for the front gate. The wall around the estate was probably no great barrier for the creature, but if it didn’t need to climb it, he hoped, it wouldn’t.
His guess was rewarded as he turned out of the gate and stopped to look in both directions, up and down the lane. It was darker here, the road shadowed by the trees on either side. But on a slight rise, several hundred yards distant, Nick caught sight of the odd silhouette of the creature, with Dorrance still riding on its back. It disappeared over the crest, running very fast and keeping to the road.
Nick sped after it, the little car vibrating as he wrenched the hand throttle out as far as it would go. The speedometer went past the curlicued 3 5 that indicated the car’s top speed and got stuck against the raised letter n that completed the word B r a n s t o n on the dial. But even at that speed, by the time he got to the top of the rise, the creature and Dorrance were gone. The lane kept on, with a very gentle curve to the left, so if Nick’s quarry was anywhere within a mile, he should have been able to see them in the clear, cool light of the vast moon overhead.
Various possibilities whisked through Nick’s mind. The most disturbing was the thought that they had seen him and were hiding off the road, the creature ready to spring on him as he passed. But the most likely possibility quickly replaced that fear. He hadn’t seen it at first, because of the trees, but another road joined the lane just before it started to curve away. The creature must have gone that way.
Nick took the corner a little too fast, and the car slid off the paved road and onto the shoulder, sending up a spray of clods and loose asphalt. For a moment he felt the back end start to slide out, and the steering wheel was loose in his hands, as if it were no longer connected to anything. Then the tires bit again, and he overcorrected and fishtailed furiously for thirty yards before getting fully under control.
When he could properly look ahead, Nick couldn’t see the creature and Dorrance. But this road only continued for another two hundred yards, ending at a small railway station. It was not much more than a signal box, a rudimentary waiting room, a platform, and the stationmaster’s house set some distance away. A single line of track looped in from the south-west, ran along the platform, then looped back out again, to join the main line that ran straight and true a few minutes’ walk away.
It had to be Dorrance Halt, the private railway station for Dorrance Hall. There was a train waiting at the platform, gray-white smoke busily puffing out of the locomotive and steam wafting around its wheels. It was a strangely configured train, in that there were six empty flatcars behind the engine, then a private car. Dorrance’s private car, with his crest upon the doors.
Nick suddenly realized the significance of the blazon of the silver chain. Dorrance’s several-times-great-grandfather must have been the Captain-Inquirer who found the creature, and the money gained from the sale of a silver chain was part of the current Dorrance’s inheritance.
The significance of the empty flatcars was also apparent to Nick. They were there to separate the locomotive from any Free Magic interference caused by the creature. Dorrance had thought out this mode of transport very carefully. Perhaps he had always planned to take the creature away by train. The thing’s long-term goal must always have been to return to the Old Kingdom.
Even as Nick pushed the little Branston to its utmost, the locomotive whistled and began to pull out of the station. As the rearmost carriage passed the waiting room, the electric lights outside fizzed and exploded. The train slowly picked up speed, the gouts of smoke from its funnel coming faster as it rolled away.
Nick wrenched the throttle completely out of its housing, drove off the road, raced through the station garden in a cloud of broken stakes and tomato plants, and drove onto the platform in a desperate effort to crash into the train and stop the creature’s escape.
But he was too late. All he could do was lock his knee and try to push his foot and the brake pedal through the floor, as the Branston squealed and slid down the platform, prevented from sliding off the end only by a slow-speed impact with a long and very sturdy line of flowerpots.
Nick stood up and watched the train rattle onto the main line. For a moment, he thought he saw the glow of the creature’s violet eyes looking back at him through the rear window of the carriage. But, he told himself as he put the flower chain around his neck and then jumped out of the badly dented Branston, it was probably just a reflection from the moon.
A sound from the waiting room made Nick jump and draw his dagger, but he sheathed it again straightaway. A man wearing a railway-uniform coat over blue-striped pajamas was standing in the doorway, staring, as Nick had just done, at the departing train.
“Where’s that train going?” Nick demanded. “When’s the next train coming here?”
“I…I…saw a real monster!” said the man. His eyes were wide with what Nick at first thought was shock but slowly realized was actually delight. “I saw a monster!”
“You’re lucky it left you alive to remember it,” said Nick.
“Now answer my questions! You’re the stationmaster, aren’t you? Get a grip on yourself!”
The man nodded but didn’t look at Nick. He kept staring after the train, even as it disappeared from sight.
“Where’s that train going?”
“I…I don’t know. It’s Mr. Dorrance’s private train. It’s been waiting for days, the crew sleeping over at the house…then the call to be ready came only an hour ago. It got a slot going north, that’s all I know, direct from Central at Corvere. I guess it’d be going to Bain. You know, I never thought I’d see something like that, with those huge eyes, and those spiked hands. Not here, not—”
“When’s the next train north?”
“The Bain Flyer,” the man replied automatically. “But she’s an express. She doesn’t stop anywhere, least of all here.”
“When is it due to go past?”
“Ten-oh-five.”
Nick looked at the clock above the waiting room, but it was electric and so had ceased to f
unction. There was a watch chain hanging from the stationmaster’s pocket, so he snagged that and drew out a regulation railway watch. Mechanical clockwork did not suffer so much from Free Magic, and its second hand was cheerfully moving round. According to the watch, it was three minutes to ten.
“What’s the signal for an obstruction on the line?” snapped Nick.
“Three flares: two outside, one on the track,” the man said. He suddenly looked at Nick, his attention returned to the here and now. “But you’re not—”
“Where are the flares?”
The stationmaster shook his head, but he couldn’t hide an instinctive glance toward a large red box on the wall to the left of the ticket window.
“Don’t try to stop me,” said Nick very forcefully. “Go back to your house and, if your phone’s working, call the police. Tell them…Oh, there’s no time! Tell them whatever you like.”
The flares were ancient, foot-long things like batons, which came in two parts that had to be screwed together to mix the chemicals that in turn ignited the magnesium core. Nick grabbed a handful and rushed over the branch line to the main track. Or what he hoped was the main track. There were four railway lines next to each other, and he couldn’t be absolutely sure which one Dorrance’s train had taken heading north.
Even if he got it wrong, he told himself, any engineer seeing three red flares together would almost certainly stop. He screwed the first flare together and dropped it on the track, then the other two followed quickly, one to either side.
With the flares gushing bright-blue magnesium and red iron flames, Nick decided he couldn’t afford explanations, so he crossed the tracks and crouched down behind a tree to wait.
He didn’t have to wait long. He had barely looked over his shoulder at the expanding pall of smoke from Dorrance Hall, which now covered a good quarter of the sky, before he heard the distant sound of a big, fast-moving train. Then, only seconds after the noise, he saw the triple headlights of the engine as it raced down the track toward him. A moment later there was the shriek of the whistle, and then the awful screech of metal on metal as the driver applied the brakes, a screech that intensified every few seconds as the emergency brakes in each of the following carriages came on hard as well.
Nick, on hearing the horrid scream of emergency braking and seeing the sheer speed of the approaching lights, suddenly remembered the boast of the North by Northwest Railway, that its trains averaged 110 miles per hour, and for a fearful moment he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. It was one thing to risk his life pursuing the creature, but quite another if he was responsible for derailing the Bain Flyer and killing all the passengers on board.
But despite the noise and speed, the train was slowing under total control, on a long straight path. It came to a shrieking, sparking halt just short of the flares.
Even before it completely stopped, the engineer jumped down from the engine and conductors leapt from almost every one of the fifteen carriages. No one got out on the far side, so it was relatively easy for Nick to run from his tree, climb the steps of a second-class carriage, and go inside without being observed—or so he hoped.
The carriage was split into compartments, with a passage-way running down the side. Nick quickly glanced into the first compartment. It had six passengers in it, almost the full complement of eight. Most of them were squashed together trying to look out the window, though one was asleep and another reading the paper with studied detachment. For a brief second, Nick thought of going in, but he dismissed the notion immediately. The passengers would have been together for hours, and the appearance of a bloodied, blackened young man with burnt eyebrows could not go unnoticed or unremarked. Somehow, Nick doubted that any explanation he could provide would satisfy the passengers, let alone the conductor.
Instead, Nick looked up at the luggage rack that ran the length of the carriage. It was pretty full, but he saw a less-populated section. Even as he hoisted himself up and discovered that his chosen resting place was on top of a set of golf clubs and an umbrella, the engine whistled twice, followed by the sound of doors slamming and then the appearance of a conductor and two large, annoyed male passengers, who had just come back aboard.
“I don’t know what the railway’s coming to.”
“Wrack and ruin, that’s what.”
“Now, now, gentlemen, no harm’s done. We’ll make up our time, you’ll see. We’re expected in at twenty-five minutes after midnight, and the Bain Flyer is never late. The railway will buy you a drink or two at the station hotel, and all will be right with the world.”
If only, thought Nicholas Sayre. He waited for the men to move along, then wriggled into a slightly less uncomfortable position and rearranged the flower chain across his chest so it would not get crumpled. He lay there, thinking about what had happened and what could happen, and built up plan after plan the way he used to build matchstick towers as a boy, only to have them suffer the same fate. At some point, they always fell over.
Finally, it hit him. Dorrance and the creature had gotten away. At least, they’d gotten away from him. His part in the whole sorry disaster was over. Even if Dorrance’s special train was going to Bain, they would arrive at least fifteen minutes ahead of Nick. And there was a good chance that Ripton would have made it to a phone, so the authorities would be alerted. The police in Bain had some experience with things crossing the Wall from the Old Kingdom. They’d get help—Charter Mages from the Crossing Point Scouts. There would be lots of people much more qualified than Nick to deal with the creature.
At least I tried, Nick thought. When I see Lirael…and Sam…and the Abhorsen—though I hope I don’t have to explain it to her—then I can honestly say I really did my best. I mean, even if I had managed to catch up with them, I don’t know if I’d have been able to do anything. Maybe my Charterspelled dagger would have worked…maybe I could have tried something else….
Nick suddenly felt very tired, and sore, the weariness more urgent than the pain. Even his feet hurt, and for the first time he realized he was still wearing carpet slippers. He was sure his shoes had been wonderfully shined, but by now they would be ash in the ruins of Dorrance Hall.
Nick shook his head at the thought, pushed back on the golf bag, and, without meaning to, fell instantly asleep.
He woke to find something gripping his elbow. Instantly he lashed out with his fist, connecting with something fleshy rather than the scaly, hard surface his dreaming mind had suggested might be the case.
“Ow!”
A young man dressed in ludicrously bright golfing tweeds looked up at Nick, his hand covering his nose. Other passengers were already in the corridor, most of them with their bags in hand. The train had arrived in Bain.
“You’ve broken my nose!”
“Sorry!” Nick said as he vaulted down. “I’m very sorry! Mistaken identity. Thought you were a monster.”
“I say!” called out the man. “Wait a moment. You can’t just hit a man and run away!”
“Urgent business!” Nick replied as he ran to the door, weaving past several other passengers, who quickly stood aside. “Nicholas Sayre’s the name. Many apologies!”
He jumped out onto the platform, half expecting to see it swarming with police, soldiers, and ambulance attendants. He would be able to report to someone in authority and then check into the hotel for a proper rest.
But there was only the usual bustle of a big country station in the middle of the night, with the last important train finally in. Passengers were disembarking. Porters were gathering cases. A newspaper vendor was hawking a late edition of the Times, shouting, “Flood kills five men, three horses. Getcher paper! Flood kills three—”
There’d be a different headline in the next edition, Nick thought, though it almost certainly wouldn’t be the real story. “Fire at Country House’ would be most likely, with the survivors paid or pressured to shut up. He would probably get to read it over breakfast, which reminded him that he was extremely hungry a
nd needed to have a very late, much-delayed dinner. Of course, in order to eat, he’d need to get some money, and that meant…
“Excuse me, sir, could I see your ticket, please?”
Nick’s train of thought derailed spectacularly. A railway inspector was standing too close to him, looking sternly at the disheveled, blackened, eyebrowless young man in ruined evening wear with a chain of braided daisies around his neck and carpet slippers on his feet.
“Ah, good evening,” replied Nick. He patted his sides and tried to look somewhat tipsy and confused, which was not hard. “I’m afraid I seem to have lost my ticket. And my coat. And for that matter my tie. But if I could make a telephone call, I’m sure everything can be put right.”
“Undergraduate, are you, sir?” asked the inspector. “Put on the train by your friends?”
“Something like that,” admitted Nick.
“I’ll have your name and college to start with,” said the inspector stolidly. “Then we can see about a telephone call.”
“Nicholas Sayre,” replied Nick. “Sunbere. Though technically I’m not up this term.”
“Sayre?” asked the inspector. “Would you be…”
“My uncle, I’m afraid,” said Nick. “That’s whom I need to call. At the Golden Sheaf Hotel, near Applethwick. I’m sure that if there is a fine to pay, I’ll be able to sort something out.”
“You’ll just have to purchase a ticket before you leave the station,” said the inspector. “As for the phone call, follow me and you can—”
He stopped talking as Nick suddenly turned away from him and stared up at the pedestrian bridge that crossed the railway tracks. To the right, in the direction of the station hotel and most of the town, everything was normal, the bridge crowded with passengers off the Flyer eager to get to the hotel or home. But to the lonely left, the electric lights on the wrought-iron lampposts were flickering and going out. One after the other, each one died just as two porters passed by, wheeling a very long, tall box.