Maddigan's Fantasia (11 page)

‘Closer!’ muttered Garland. ‘They’re closer.’ For the
scrambling
footsteps were indeed catching up on them.

‘Timon!’ cried Garland desperately. ‘Do something magical.’

‘I can’t,’ said Timon. ‘I’m nothing more than a trickster. Eden’s the magician.’

As he said this they burst back into that wide stone hall, scribbled with shining cart rails, only to find two guards running at them from the other side, while a third followed them dragging a furious Lilith along with him.

‘Are you sure you can’t do magic?’ Garland asked. ‘We need it.’

‘No way!’ Timon replied.

And yet at that moment – a remarkable moment among remarkable moments – a ring of fire sprang up around the guard who was wrestling with Lilith. He dropped her and sprang away from her as if she, too, had suddenly become
red-hot
, while Lilith rolled over, staring around her as she rolled. Then, leaping to her feet, she pelted right through the flame towards Garland and Timon.

‘What’s happening?’ Garland cried.

‘Eden! It’s got to be Eden,’ Timon cried back. ‘He must have followed us after all.’

The guards, shrinking back from the fire, now wheeled to face them, took a few threatening steps then hesitated.

‘Leave us alone,’ Timon cried warningly ‘Or you’ll be burned meat.’ The guards stepped back, glancing rather wildly at one another and, as they did so, from beyond the flames, there came the echoing rumble of an approaching cart.

‘You children,’ Timon cried, gesturing to Tarq on one side of him, and then to Lilith on the other. ‘Those flames won’t hurt you. Run quickly – you’ll be all right.’

‘Quickly,’ yelled Garland grabbing Tarq’s upper arm. ‘Do what he says.’

‘Come on,’ Lilith called imperiously to the others. ‘Watch me!’

‘She ran forward with Timon and Garland pulling Tarq close beside her just as a cart suddenly shot along the rails
scattering
the cluster of guards on one side of the fire and sending them sprawling. It was steered by Eden.

‘Pile in! Pile in!’ screamed Garland. For by now the guards, rapidly recovering from their amazement and initial fear, were picking themselves up and closing in on the cart, while the guards on the other side of the cave, overcoming their fear of fire, began running through Eden’s flames themselves.

But the cart was already picking up speed.

‘All right!’ yelled the tallest guard in a savage voice. ‘Let’s see how far you get in the dark …’

And he swung down on a lever just at the mouth of the tunnel.

The lights along the tunnel faded and then went out
altogether
.

In the shadow
of a locked doorway Boomer crouched over the bag he had stolen from Ozul and Maska. He counted the coins out triumphantly.

‘Rich!’ he mumbled, scarcely able to believe in the small piles of silver coins and the even smaller pile of gold ones. He shook the bag and – small and black – a powerbook tumbled out to lie at his feet like a message folded in on itself.

Curiously Boomer picked it up and turned it over and over. After a moment his fingers touched a catch in the side and he clicked it open. It opened like a book, then the right-hand page lifted itself and somehow unfolded then unfolded yet again. Boomer found himself staring into a screen … and a strange screen too, for though it had a shape it seemed to have no
surface
. He was staring into space … a deep endless, seething space. Boomer blinked, and then very hesitantly put out his left hand towards it. But suddenly the space began to spin and glow. It glowed green, and a terrible voice spoke to him out of that greenness.

‘Do you have them?’

Boomer was silent.

‘Do you have them?’ the voice repeated. ‘Speak now!’

‘I – I don’t – I don’t know …’ stammered Boomer.

‘Who is that?’ asked the voice. Then, incredibly and horribly,
a scaly hand thrust out through the green glow and snatched for Boomer’s throat. Boomer dropped the power book and fled as if the book might put out horrible legs, (just as it had put out that horrible hand) so that it could leap after him and run him down.

‘Go!’ Eden was panting and the cart started speeding now … faster and faster along the dark rails. ‘Hey! Watch out for Jewel. She’s on the floor. Don’t step on her.’

Timon scooped up the grizzling baby.

‘I’ve got her. But be careful! Don’t kill yourself!’ he cried to Eden, and as he spoke the rails ahead of them sloped down a little, and Eden relaxed, slumping against the side of the cart.

‘Here! We’re coming up to the lift. Isn’t that the lift door?’ Garland yelled. ‘Yes, there it is. Can you stop the cart, Eden?’

Eden turned, blinked, closed his eyes. Even in the twilight Garland could see the effort it was costing him. Yet the cart slowed obediently and stopped right beside the lift that had carried them down to this fearsome level – was it only twenty minutes earlier? Was it days ago? Time had stopped making any sense at all.

‘Follow me!’ screamed Lilith. ‘I’ll go first and show you the way!’ and she swarmed into the lift.

‘Light’s coming up behind us,’ Garland gasped. ‘Not Eden’s light. Another one. Quickly. Get it going.’

‘I can’t quite work it out,’ said Timon, and as he said this two guards, torches and all, came charging towards them.

‘I – I can’t help you,’ gasped Eden. ‘I’ve used myself up. He flopped against the side of the lift as the guards came up to the open door.

They’re going to get us after all
, thought Garland.

‘Power to the people,’ yelled a voice, and Chena, together with a group of wild children armed with spades and forks,
burst in on them out of the shadows. The battle was short and furious. Within a few minutes the guards had retreated, but not into silence. Somewhere beyond the space in front of the lift there came shrieks of fury, cries of dismay.

‘It’s started! It’s really started!’ Chena shouted. ‘We’re rising up, and this time the people out there are with us. Power to the people. Go on. On. Take Tarq. I’ll follow you.

In yet another queue Ozul and Maska came at last to a desk and presented their forms yet again, only to be told they had filled them out wrongly and must go back and complete them for a third time. And now Maska drew himself up, snorting with fury. His teeth, grating against one another, sounded as if some mad machine was working inside his mouth.

‘No!’ Ozul hissed at him. ‘No. Not yet. The time will come. The time will come I promise you. You will be able to do what you were made to do. You will get your satisfaction. But not yet.’

Maska was not to be subdued. His snarling grew more and more ferocious, making a sound no sentry could ignore. Guards left the gates and began moving cautiously but firmly towards them.

‘Kill them all,’ Maska was muttering through his teeth. ‘Strike them out. Unmake them! We don’t have to take notice of these weak toys. Delete them!’

‘No! No! But the time will come,’ whispered Ozul, watching the guards closing in around them. He sounded desperate. ‘But not now! Maska, I stand for the Nennog so this is an order from the Nennog!’

A strange shuddering relaxation ran through Maska almost as if he might be about to fall into trembling pieces.

In the heart of Gramth the Fantasia was preparing for its evening performance, but Yves was not concentrating. Desperate
about Lilith, he paced around, peering past the tents and vans at the shops around the square. Suddenly he heard a small voice calling. ‘Daddy, Daddy!’

There, like a little scurrying nymph, he saw her scrambling towards the magic circle of the Fantasia. And she did not come alone, for almost immediately other children – a whole crowd of strange children, smudged and filthy – came tumbling behind her, and then, behind everyone else, almost as if they were herding them on, came Garland then Timon supporting Eden. There were sudden cries from around him … from other parents, perhaps, suddenly seeing once more children they had believed were lost. Garland pelted towards Maddie, shouting and pointing. ‘Fuel! There is fuel stored under the town. I saw the tanks.’

‘Tanks? Well, they may have been empty,’ said Yves, but all the same he and Maddie turned and looked sternly towards the Aide.

‘Dad! I rescued all the kids who were made to work in the mine!’ Lilith was yelling. Yves snatched her up, holding her out in front of him and looking at her as if she were a beautiful picture, before he began hugging her.

Maddie grabbed Garland. ‘Where have you been!’ she cried. ‘How did you get so dirty? Why do you always run away?’ And then began hugging her too.

‘We found oil! Lots of oil!’ Lilith screamed. ‘Barrels and barrels and barrels of it.’

Maddie straightened. Then she turned and looked at the Aide once more.

‘We didn’t ask for much,’ she said coldly.

‘It
is
ours, after all,’ said the Aide, though he sounded less certain than he had sounded only a few minutes earlier. There was a murmur in the air – a murmur that did not belong to the Fantasia. ‘Ours to sell at the price we choose,’ he said, looking
around rather wildly. ‘Without argument.’

‘Over the years we’ve been good customers,’ said Maddie. ‘All right! I want to see the big man – I want to see the Mayor himself.’

The Aide suddenly hesitated.

‘No need,’ he said quickly. ‘We’ll sell you what you need. But it isn’t quite so easy to come by these days. Difficult times.’

‘All times are difficult,’ Maddie replied. ‘What’s been going on here? Who are these children? And what’s that sound?’

It was the sound of voices … rising and falling … rising and falling.

‘Our children are our business, not yours,’ the Aide said.

The crowd that had been watching the Fantasia set itself up suddenly began stamping and shouting. It was as if a message were running from person to person … some message that excited and infuriated everyone who heard it

‘Just-ice! JUST-ice! Fair! Fair! Fair! Down – down – down with the Mayor, Mayor, Mayor!’

And now the Aide was suddenly anxious to please them. But though it had been Maddie who had pinned him down, unfairly he was giving his deepest respect to Yves.

The stamping and shouting grew even louder. There was Chena, marching towards them with a crowd of children
skirmishing
around her and an even bigger crowd of adults behind. ‘Power to the people!’ she was yelling.

‘Power to the people!’ echoed the huge chorus behind her.

The Aide looked right and left.

‘I must go,’ he said in a curiously polite voice. He wheeled sharply, walked a few steps, looked over his shoulder, and then began to run.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Maddie.

‘I don’t think they’ll want a show tonight,’ said Garland. ‘I think they’re putting on a show for us. But I think we’ll get a bit
of fuel. Probably as much as we ask for.’

‘That’s right,’ said Timon next to her, ‘I think that Gramth is going to sell you that fuel all right.’

‘Or we might get fuel just
given
to us as a sort of reward,’ said Garland hopefully.

‘Could be,’ agreed Timon. ‘Either way we’ll be able to hit the road again. And you are people who like to be on the move, aren’t you?’ he added a little mockingly.

‘You want to get on too, don’t you?’ Garland replied,
mocking
in reply. Suddenly they were looking into one another’s eyes and laughing.

Something stirred beside her, and Garland turned to find Boomer edging up to her … but this was an unexpectedly
subdued
Boomer … quiet and still when it seemed as if the whole Fantasia should be dancing and rejoicing. After all they had won out again. But Garland realized something had frightened Boomer and was still frightening him.

‘Hello you!’ she said, speaking sideways. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Them!’ hissed Boomer, nodding over at Timon and Eden. He looked past Garland and spoke to Timon.

‘He’s after you.’ He held out the bag he had stolen from Ozul.

‘Who’s after them?’ Garland asked, mystified, but both Boomer and Timon ignored her. Timon seized the bag, looked sharply at Boomer then opened the bag and peered down into it. He seemed to freeze, still staring into the bag as if it held some horror like a human head. Then he reached into it and drew out something Garland did not recognize … a strange little screen tilted up out of an oblong black box. As Timon held it, looking as if he was not quite sure what to do with it, the screen suddenly lit up. It was turned away from her and she could not see anything it might have to show, but a green light
was beating up out of it, dyeing Timon’s face green as well. For one weird moment he looked like some other sort of creature altogether. For that moment he looked terrifying. But then he snapped the screen down and flipped a lid over it, and became himself once more.

‘What is it?’ Garland asked, but Timon did not answer. He simply let the box, with the screen inside it, along with whatever terrible images it might have shown him, drop back into the bag as quickly as if it had suddenly started to burn him.

‘I stole that bag from those two men,’ said Boomer. ‘There was money in it and there was that little screen as well.’ He fell silent and looked at Timon, licking his dry lips. ‘A monster looked out at me,’ Boomer blurted out at last. ‘It wanted you, and it found me. It put out a claw.’

‘Yes! The Nennog!’ said Timon, looking over Boomer’s head and meeting Garland’s eyes. ‘I told you about him. He’s been sending a sort of ghost of himself back through time to tell Maska and Ozul what to do next. And to haunt me, I suppose.’ He looked at Boomer. ‘But don’t worry. It’s just a ghost! Green mist on a screen! He can’t really come after us. His mind is strong … it can twist part of itself backwards through time … but his body is too weak to come with it. He can’t be here in the way that Eden and I are here. No way! It’s his men we’ve got to watch out for.’

Meanwhile, out at the head of the final queue, watched by
suspicious
guards, Ozul and Maska were passing over their new passports and entry paper. ‘Right!’ said the official. ‘Very good! Just fill out this form.’

There was a pause as Ozul studied the man’s face.

‘Enough!’ he said, struggling to control his anger. ‘We’ve changed our minds. We don’t want to go into your wretched town. We will wait outside.’

‘Renouncing fellowship?’ said the official. ‘Very well if you are sure that is what you want to do. Now, if you’ll just fill out this deed of renunciation … and then go over to queue eleven. That’s the one over
there
. If you hurry there will only be a few people ahead of you.’