Maddigan's Fantasia (30 page)

‘The child is mistaken … is lying herself,’ he said, sounding rather less friendly. Ferdy looked up at him.

‘That’s my daughter there,’ he said. ‘She might make a mistake or two, but she doesn’t lie.’ He looked over at Timon and Eden. ‘Well, you kids. Do you want to go with these – these gentlemen?’

‘No,’ said Timon.

‘No way!’ agreed Eden. ‘They’re our enemies. They do want to kill us.’

Ferdy turned back to Ozul and Maska.

‘That’s that then,’ he said. ‘Simple! On your way.’

Ozul smiled again.

‘I should mention that there is a reward,’ he said. ‘A large reward …’ and he took out the bag, that very bag which Boomer had stolen from him at the booth outside Gramth. But that was in that other time. It had not happened yet. It might never happen now.

‘Clear off!’ Ferdy said. ‘It wouldn’t be much more work for us to have another funeral right now. We’re geared up for it.’

Ozul and Maska looked around and saw the Fantasia rippling a little, filled with excitement because, after all, Timon and Eden had warned them of the Road Rats. Thanks to that warning they had beaten the Road Rats, and were still feeling
they could take on any enemies. They edged in towards Ozul and Maska, preparing to defend the children.

‘You will regret this,’ said Maska in his metallic voice. ‘You will be sorry.’ But having promised this, those two servants of the Nennog turned and rode away.

‘Dad, you were wonderful!’ cried Garland. ‘You believed us.’ Of course she meant it, and yet at the same time she found herself wishing she could really believe in this altered time. Somehow there was no room in her head for the things that were now happening around her, for her head was already filled with that other version of things. Ferdy was looking rather sternly at Timon and Eden. ‘But you boys, you
do
have a story to tell, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘No time to listen to it now, but later on I’ll want to hear every little bit of it.’

And later on, after Goneril had taken over Jewel, after the Fantasia had packed up and travelled on down the road and then camped in the Horseshoe yet again, the boys did tell their story – or part of it, how they’d come from the future, that they knew about the Fantasia’s quest for the converter and how they wanted to help. Eden juggled, whirled and turned the flames of the fire into animal shapes, making them dance around the Fantasia. But they did not mention to Ferdy that in an alternative time in which they had also lived and danced, Ferdy had died, and that the Fantasia had gone on without him … had gone on without him and had done well.

Garland watched in silence as Goneril cuddled Jewel, complaining about her, but holding her tight. Goneril said the same things that Garland remembered her saying, wearing the same expression on her face as she said them, and yet Garland did not really believe in what she was seeing. Of course Yves was there, being a background man, a second-in-command, just as he had always been. Maddie was there too, but quieter in this time, letting Ferdy talk for her as well as for himself. Ferdy was
just as he had always been … out there in the front of things, setting the Fantasia’s world in order. Garland joked with him and hugged him tightly. And yet – and yet, even when she had her arms around him, and was able to feel his muscles and bones under his red jacket, she could not, she just
could
not, believe in him.

Then … WHOOSH
. They all jumped up. Only inches away from them, a flaming arrow quivered in the ground. WHOOSH! There was a second one. Suddenly the air seemed full of them. Yves came running towards them shouting, ‘We’re under attack! We’re under attack!’ although they could all tell that already.

‘Dad!’ Lilith was screaming from somewhere.

‘To the vans!’ Ferdy shouted, leaping up. ‘Move it up! Let’s go!’

Everyone was already heading for his or her van. ‘You boys, take your sister and cram into the van with Goneril! Ferdy cried over his shoulder. ‘Go! Go! Go!’

And within minutes it seemed the Fantasia was bumping along the narrow track, pursued by Road Rats on their curious motorbikes and other more fantastic machines, put together from thousands of pieces of junk. Garland rode in the family van (Maddie at the wheel saying ‘Don’t worry! We’ve got through worse than this.’), while Ferdy kneeled on the roof of the van, his own bow in his hand.
But this can’t be true … it just can’t
she was thinking.
This is me, but those people out there can’t be the real Maddie, can’t be Ferdy. These vans can’t be the vans of the true Fantasia
.

Goneril’s van rattled along with the rest. Eden kneeled at
one window, Timon at another, watching a strange version of a motorbike drawing alongside them. The rider clapped a weapon to his shoulder. A ball of fire came spinning towards the van then shot across its roof, narrowly missing them.

‘A gun! He’s got a gun,’ said Timon, turning towards Eden. ‘A sort of cannon. Do something!’

‘I’m trying,’ said Eden, ‘but it’s hard to focus like this.’

They hit yet another bump and bounced up in the air. Jewel began to cry.

Another fireball shot towards them. Eden closed his eyes. The fireball swung around, curving like a burning boomerang and headed straight for the fantastic motorbike. The driver and the man behind him shouted and threw themselves off, one to the right one to the left. The fireball struck the machine and exploded. Behind them the other Road Rats set up a cry of ‘Utu! Utu!’

‘Garland!’ Ferdy shouted, hanging over the edge of the van and shouting in through the window ‘You’re quick on your feet. Can you slide back to the van behind us and tell Yves we’re going to climb that ridge on ahead, and make a stand there. Run along on the far side of the vans. There’s good cover there.’

Garland grabbed up her bow and her quiver of arrows and slotted an arrow onto the string.

‘Now!’ Ferdy cried. ‘Quickly, while there’s a bit of a gap.’

‘Quickly! Quickly, darling!’ screamed Maddie.

Garland kicked the far door open and was outside, being splashed with mud as the van rattled on by.

‘Quickly!’ yelled Ferdy yet again, and Garland began to run, bow at the ready.

As Ferdy shouted yet another Road Rat came swerving in at them. ‘Utu!’ Utu!’ he was yelling, and threw an axe that narrowly missed Garland and buried itself in the side of the van.
Garland wondered why she was not terrified, then realized yet again, that she just did not believe this was really happening. And, thinking this, she spun around and fired the arrow from her bow which struck the Road Rat in the leg. He let out a howl as his bike veered away to the side.

‘Run!’ yelled Ferdy yet again from somewhere behind her. ‘Run!’ And Garland did what he told her to do, thinking as she galloped on ahead, how strange it was to be following the orders of a father she loved, but could not quite believe in, and thinking, too, that the Ferdy of her own time would not have asked her to do anything quite as dangerous as this.

He’s Ferdy but he’s not quite my Ferdy. I’m in this other time and I asked to be here.

Horses were being driven past, but the Road Rats would not fire at the horses. They were hoping to take the horses over as part of their loot.

Where was Yves’s van? Where was it? There! There was his van! A moment later Garland was shouting Ferdy’s message in at the van window. She had lived through dangerous moments. She had done what Ferdy had told her to do. Yet none of it was real. Her truth lay in another version of this time, and there seemed to be nothing she could do to make this time believable.

Only a little later, they had managed to ride up successfully onto the rise, to spin the vans into a wide circle and to entrench themselves almost safely, and, while Tane and Bannister peered over the rocks, watching the Road Rats below them, Ferdy and Maddie were holding a Fantasia parley, working out what to do next. Garland, Boomer, Timon and Eden stared out between the vans and down over the rocky sides of the rise, watching the Road Rats circling and shouting. There were so many of them … many many more than there had been during the first attack. They were a Road Rat army.

‘Wrong! It’s all wrong!’ said Garland suddenly.

‘What?’ said Eden.

‘It’s wrong,’ she repeated. ‘In that old diary – the one that you brought back from your time – there was an ending when we didn’t make it. We were trapped with the Road Rats, picking us off one by one.’

‘Like this, you mean?’ asked Eden.

Timon said, ‘Ferdy might still find a way.’

Their heads turned in the direction of the adults.

‘Bailey gone! Shell gone!’ Goneril was saying in the voice of a sad witch. Other voices joined in saying other names.

‘We’ll never outrun them,’ said Ferdy. ‘Where did they all come from?’

‘We’ll fight them off,’ said another confident voice … Byrna perhaps.

‘We can’t fight them all,’ Yves declared. ‘This time there are far too many of them. What do we do?’

Maddie spoke.

‘Surely they can’t think we’re worth the trouble. Look at them out there. They’ve got our food van … they’ve got our fuel …’

‘But it’s more than that this time,’ said Ferdy. ‘It’s “Utu”.’

‘Tane,’ said Garland. ‘I don’t understand that. What’s “Utu”?’

‘It comes from an old tongue,’ Tane told her. ‘It means “Revenge!” An eye for an eye.’

‘An eye for an eye!’ Ferdy was saying slowly. ‘A king for a king.’

‘Oh, Ferdy,’ cried Maddie. ‘Don’t even think of it.’ She seized his arm.

‘You didn’t have to kill him,’ Yves said.

‘I didn’t have to, but I did,’ said Ferdy.

Maddie suddenly burst in with a little flood of words.

‘But listen! Listen! Who knows how many of us would’ve been hurt back there – hurt or killed – if Ferdy hadn’t done what he did.’

‘Right,’ agreed Yves. ‘I was just saying …’

‘Road Rats are unpredictable,’ said Ferdy. ‘If we hold them off long enough, most likely they’ll get bored or discouraged and go off, looking for easier pickings. So! Let’s get organized. What we must have is rest – good rest if possible. So! First watch – Tane and Bannister. Four hours, right? Then me, with – say with Garland to keep me awake! After that Nye and Byrna. How does that sound?’

Nobody argued.

‘Right then!’ said Ferdy ‘Off you go. Sleep! Those are my order to everyone – except you and Bannister, Tane. And Bannister – no candles! No reading! You’re a watchman this time round, not a reader.’

Garland felt so screwed up with the strangeness of everything that she was sure she would not sleep, and yet, when she looked back, she could not remember when it was she had last slept so soundly. It was just that, lying there in the dark (puzzling, puzzling, puzzling), quite suddenly she just somehow
was
asleep. Afterwards it seemed that all the time she slept she was also hovering somewhere up in the air watching herself sleep and thinking
Yes! That’s me, but it’s not really me. The real me is up here watching everything as if I were reading an invented story
. All the same she did not stir, until somewhere in the night a hand fell on her shoulder. Blinking awake, she stared up into Ferdy’s face. He patted her shoulder again.

‘We’re on, kid,’ he said. ‘Our turn.’

They began to move quietly out of the van. Ferdy paused by Maddie’s bunk. He smiled at Garland then leaned towards Maddie.

‘My love!’ he murmured and kissed her. Maddie did not wake, but in her sleep she smiled and turned her face towards Ferdy, who looked down at her, smiling back, rather sadly, Garland thought. Together they slid out of the van, silent but
somehow watchful. An old moon was hanging like some sort of pendant against the dark skin of night.

‘A talisman!’ said Garland pointing.

‘What?’ asked Ferdy on ahead of her. ‘There they are, thank goodness. Both awake.’

Bannister was sitting by the campfire, legs stretched out in front of him. He drew up those long legs and stood as they approached.
But of course he’s not here – not really here,
Garland was thinking.
He’s back with Gabrielle, saving books, and reading, reading, reading
.

‘All quiet!’ Bannister said, sounding real enough to be believed in as he gestured down the hillside. There, smouldering in the darkness below them they could see a Road Rat fire and Road Rat shadows moving around it. Tane yawned as he stood too. ‘I can do another shift if you like,’ Bannister offered.

‘Heavy day tomorrow,’ Ferdy said. ‘Goodness knows what’s going to happen, but it won’t be easy. I didn’t know there were so many Road Rats in the whole world. Off you go. Get what sleep you can. And, Bannister – sleep! Don’t read!’

‘Right!’ said Bannister, grinning in the dark.

Ferdy slowly sank down with his back to a rock and Garland sat down beside him. The heat of the fire came out to somehow polish them with its heat. Garland could feel her skin beginning to shine. In the darkness Ferdy sighed.

‘Funny how things go,’ he said. ‘I mean, men struggle and God laughs.’

‘What?’ Garland felt her forehead wrinkling.

‘The solar converter,’ Ferdy said. ‘This is not just an ordinary Fantasia adventure. We have to win through to Newton.’

He was talking to her, but somehow he was talking to himself even more. Garland longed to tell him that they had been through all that … that they had won the converter … that the lights of Solis were glowing up into the night air and that they
would soon be marching triumphantly into the city, but she kept her silence. None of that was true here.

‘When I say we’ve got to win through to Newton I mean the Fantasia has to win through,’ Ferdy went on, ‘and those Road Rats down there … well, I did kill their king. They won’t let up. They haven’t many rules, but I’ve heard that revenging a king is one of them. So it’s up to me to put things straight.’

‘How will you fix things?’ Garland asked, somehow not believing in him, though he was sitting there beside her, looking down at the fires and shadows below them.

‘Well, here we are … besieged,’ he said. ‘We’ve got better weapons than they have, but they outnumber us. There’s just – just too many of them. Too too many! I think we have to offer a sacrifice. Buy them off. I’m telling you this because I have to tell someone, and you’re a Maddigan.’

For a dreadful moment Garland wondered if Ferdy was planning to offer her to the Road Rats as payment for their dead king, and then almost at once truly understood what he was telling her. Ferdy was planning to sacrifice himself. How could it matter? He was already dead. Dead – but dead in another time. Garland turned in the dark. She seized him frantically.

‘No!’ she whispered.

His hands closed gently but very firmly on hers.

‘But that’s what being the boss is all about,’ he said. ‘From Gabrielle on we’ve learned that lesson. In the end, and in a lot of different ways, the boss is always the sacrifice. And when in a few years you’re the boss of the Fantasia …’

‘I don’t want to lose you all over again,’ Garland cried.

‘Again?’ said Ferdy. Garland fell silent. She knew that if she began to tell her story she would not be believed. It would all be treated as something she had dreamed up half an hour ago.

‘Come sunrise,’ said Ferdy, ‘they’ll be in on us. I know that,
because it’s what I’d do if I were their leader. And there are just too many of them out there. Too many! We might put up a good fight but we’ll be wiped away … the whole Fantasia gone, the whole mission to Newton failing and Solis threatened unless I give them what they want. It’s too much. Garland, let me go,’ he said for she was clinging to him desperately. ‘Listen! You’re the last Maddigan. It’s up to you from now on. Make your mother strong. See that you all get through to Newton and back to Solis again. Maddie will try, but you’ll need to help her. Be like Gabrielle. Be like me! Be strong.’ He stood up. ‘
Become
the Fantasia!’ he said, then released her.

But none of this is true. You’re not the real Ferdy,’
Garland thought to herself, though suddenly he was. He was Ferdy, that old Ferdy she remembered, stalking off into the night ready to die for the Fantasia like a true Maddigan. Garland sat stunned and then, very cautiously, she picked herself up and began to follow him, creeping down the slope, down, down, then down again, moving from rock to rock. As she came towards the bottom of the hill she could see the Road Rat camp … tall figures on guard … their strange machines standing silently, waiting for the morning attack. Suddenly there was movement. Voices hissed and echoed. ‘Who’s there? What’s that? Stand where you are!’ The dark figures of the sentries moved towards the dark figure of Ferdy, King of the Fantasia, and Garland heard his voice then other voices, something almost like ordinary conversation, though she couldn’t hear the words. Then she heard a sudden cry, punctuated by thumps and blows. What she did see was her father’s dark figure, bending first to his knees then pitching forward, exactly as he had fallen in that other time, even though in that other time it had been an arrow in his chest that had made him tumble. What she did hear was the distant soft thump as he hit the ground.

And at last this other time seemed real … real all over again. Garland clapped her hands over her own mouth to stifle the cries she felt rising up within her. But she was a Maddigan, and sometimes silence was a form of strength. Turning there in that terrible sad darkness she began to climb back up the hillside – back to the Fantasia which, regardless of time, was her home and her responsibility too.