The Magic Lands Page 11

THE WAY THROUGH

  Overhead in a hazy sky a white dove flew and Dredger wondered how the creature could survive in such a climate.

  "I see you have noticed the messenger," Geheimnis said as they walked methodically across the dunes, sand sucking at their boots. The oasis now lay many miles behind them.

  "Messenger?" queried Dredger.

  The masked man let his gaze find the sky and stared upward at the circling bird. "The Wolf has eyes even here."

  The warrior had to confess, at least to himself, that the idea had not even occurred to him, although he realised now how out of place the dove really was up there above a barren desert. "Perhaps you are right," he begrudgingly conceded.

  Geheimnis' mask smiled back at him. "Sly Wolf," he sang, "but perhaps not sly enough."

  Dredger found the man's manner increasingly irritating, the longer they travelled together the more the masked man grated on him. But he could tolerate much when it suited him and for the moment he thought it advisable to humour his companion.

  "You have sharp eyes," he allowed. Geheimnis bowed slightly and they continued on, the sand simmering with the heat.

  Dredger began to brood over the task ahead, his confidence very gradually dwindling,

  as if sapped by the desert itself. He became aware, the knowledge shocking him with

  its intensity, that he might not be equipped either physically or mentally for the ordeal that he had undertaken so lightly. When he had first had the vision of the Second Beast, he had felt strong and self-assured but now, trekking relentlessly through this bleached, forgotten land, he was not so certain. Perhaps the hooded foe was too powerful, as the Wolf had been before. Dredger licked his cracked lips and considered taking a mouthful of water from his provisions, but he knew it would be better to conserve as much as possible. There was no way of knowing how much further they would have to journey. He had lost all sense of direction and time meant less than ever in this endless sea of sand. When he had parted from Mo and the two boys he recalled it had been with the belief that it would take him a relatively short time to reach his goal, but now he had doubts, very real doubts that weighed upon his mind. Had he underestimated the distance? And for that matter, could distance be judged in a place such as this? He only had Geheimnis' word that they were even heading in the right direction. Was this just one more mistake to add to those he had already made? His head felt hot and his brain was weary, his thoughts erratic.

  I must not fail. The warrior concentrated on this vow. But when would the desert end? He glanced at his companion, but of course the man's mask revealed nothing. It still held that same taunting smile that he had come to hate so much. I must not fail! he told himself again but with every step that he took, so his fortitude seemed to crumble along with the disintegrating sand. This truly was a lonely, forsaken place, a place where he could conceivably die. But what of those who depended on him?

  Dredger gritted his teeth, balling his hands into fists and laboured on across the Sea of Tears.

  "I'm really tired," Jack complained, slowing his pace. Not far ahead the passage separated, branching into three smaller tunnels. As far as they could tell, the middle way went straight on but those to either side turned away almost immediately, disappearing into darkness. Pausing, Mo contemplated the choice of paths and sniffed the air. "Which way now?" Jack said in a subdued voice.

  The badger wrinkled his nose. "One of these three, I imagine." Jack shook his head with frustration but before he could speak Mo added, "what do you think, Tom?"

  Tom scratched his head and considered each path in turn. "Don't you know?"

  The animal gave an arch look. "I think it is for you to decide."

  "Let's keep to the central passage then," Tom replied, "I don't really like the look of the other two."

  "Good enough," Mo grunted and stepped forward into the gloomy corridor. Grey rock enshrouded them now, crowding in upon them, the cave walls hard granite, uneven and jagged. The strange light that illuminated the tunnels gave the entire place an eerie, ethereal appearance.

  "Is there likely to be anything else down here?" asked Tom, imagining a pair of bright eyes peering at him from the shadows.

  "I would think it doubtful," returned Mo, snuffling along in front of the boys. "By

  nature this is a place of magic and only those with great need or purpose would venture here. I think we shall encounter but one creature within these caves."

  "I have to admit," Tom began reluctantly, "I'm getting pretty scared."

  "And what is fear?" the badger said, moving closer to the boy, "just your heart and soul telling you that they are there within you. Only the damned are not afraid, for they have become one with the darkness."

  "Can we rest soon?" asked Jack, trying hard not to whine.

  Mo did not answer him, instead addressing his words to Tom. "Do you want to rest?"

  After a few moments of consideration, the boy shook his head. "I think we should go on. Can you manage a bit further, Jack?"

  "I'll try," Jack said with a grim nod.

  The tunnel meandered ever deeper, far into the earth and shadows merged and moved on the walls like dancing ghosts.

  "A game, a puzzle, a test," Mo intoned, leading them on. "All part, part of the whole."

  "Riddles again," Jack muttered, his fists now clenched tight, nails digging into his skin.

  The badger showed his teeth and gave a low, sonorous chuckle.

  Geheimnis was humming, a high fragmented tune that broke the silence of the desert land.

  With obvious exasperation, Dredger glared at him. "Do you have to do that?"

  "Why do you ask?" the masked man responded casually.

  "Because," Dredger said loudly, "I do not like it!"

  "Oh I see," nodded the other man, "you do not like it."

  Dredger was fast becoming infuriated. "That is my meaning, so stop making that infernal sound."

  Geheimnis' mask smiled back at him and immediately the melody began once more.

  His temples aching, Dredger was quite certain that he would not be able to put up with the fool's galling behaviour for much longer. He realised dismally that the high temperature and the way the sand just stretched on and on, was having an increasingly adverse effect on him. His body complained of fatigue and his mind seemed to boil under the administration of the relentless heat.

  "Perhaps you are just not fit for such a journey," Geheimnis chuckled between humming, his words biting hard at the warrior's heart.

  "Perhaps," retorted Dredger, hot temper rising and surging through his brain, "your masked face would sing a better song if it was accompanied by my fist!" No response was made and Dredger was pleased to think that the threat had served its purpose. But just when he was satisfied that his remarks had put an end to it, the humming began again. "I think," he growled, "that before I destroy the Second Beast, you too shall feel my blade."

  A grinning countenance was turned toward him. "The Second Beast?" the masked man repeated. "And what might this Second Beast be?"

  Dredger hesitated. It had been foolish of him to utter the name in his anger. "You do not know?" he questioned coolly.

  "There is but one Beast," Geheimnis crooned.

  "So it seems that you do not know so much after all," Dredger said, content that at last his superior companion was seen to be fallible.

  The other man bowed. "Perhaps it is you, my friend, who does not know all there is to know," he breathed.

  With suppressed anger, Dredger turned away. "I tire of your empty words. I know what I must do and you will not stand in my way."

  "Quite so," Geheimnis trilled. "You must walk your own road and find what you will."

  They trod down on the yellow sand, their boots sending the tiny grains running a billion different ways. The Sea of Tears ran deep and long and travellers who came there found their hearts crushed beneath its eternal power of melancholy and futility. So many who had ventured there in past times had lost their minds and
perhaps even their souls beneath its deadly influence. Now it was Dredger who faced the insidious way of the desert dunes.

  He brushed away the sweat from his forehead and took his last mouthful of water, the flask finally empty. If they did not reach the end of this wasteland soon, he realised with a numb sense of dread, he too would become another victim of the sand.

  And still Geheimnis hummed.

  "We are now within the deepest regions of this place," Mo alerted them, slowing his pace. His large paws padded gently against the rock and the sound echoed from the walls.

  In the faint light Jack peered ahead but couldn't see anything except darkness. "What should we do?" he said apprehensively, not really wanting to go any further.

  "I am afraid we must discover whether She sleeps or wakes. There is no other choice."

  Jack frowned and shook his head reluctantly. "You don't really expect us to just march right in and look, do you?"

  "As I’ve said. There is no other choice."

  Beside them Tom fidgeted, his thoughts troubled, urging him toward an unwelcome decision. "I think," he said quietly, "that it's for me to go alone."

  The Badger stopped walking and faced the boy, an unreadable expression on his face. "Do you think so?"

  Tom nodded. "It has to be me, doesn't it?"

  Mo smiled in the gloom. "I’m glad that I did not have to ask you."

  Tugging at Tom's arm, Jack faced his friend. "Now hold on a minute. We need to stick together. Why do you need to go off on your own? That’s stupid!"

  As Tom looked into the other boys eyes, he knew for certain that this truly was the old Jack, who had so nearly been lost to him. "No Jack, it’s not," he stated firmly, although he regretted what he had to say. "I have to go alone." He squeezed the boy's arm affectionately. "But don't worry, you won't get rid of me so easily."

  Something in the way his friend spoke and the look on his face told Jack that there was no point in arguing. "You had better make that a promise," he mumbled.

  "Listen to me, Tom," voiced Mo, coming close beside the boy, "if you find her awake, do not linger. Return to us immediately. Don’t hesitate, just run. But if she sleeps, then you must ask her the way to find Pandora's Box. Only she can lead us there."

  Tom nodded quickly. "I understand."

  The badger took a step back and sniffed the tepid air of the tunnel. "Now go quickly. We will wait for you here."

  With one final glance at his two companions, Tom began to move further along the passageway, phantom fears huddling within his mind, threatening to suffocate him. The darkness seemed to become denser with every step he took deeper into the labyrinth and when after only a few minutes, he looked back the way he had came, he could only see blackness, his isolation absolute. All light was fading rapidly now, slipping away into the shadows, but he stumbled on, walking for a great distance, several times having to choose between divergent corridors.

  A presence, cloying and guileful had begun to work within his subconscious, growing steadily stronger. Up ahead, Tom dimly made out what appeared to be an archway, the craggy rock walls blushed with a soft, flickering incandescence. And beyond this ingress, he could see a brighter light that threw shadows on the rock-face, inventing freakish, moving spectres which danced like twisted marionettes.

  She's in there.

  As he thought this, the aura that suffused his mind became even more powerful.

  With his heart drumming absurdly fast, Tom inched very slowly toward the archway cut in the stone.

  Please be asleep. Please don't be waiting for me.

  Beneath the arch he went, his eyes stung by the brightness of a vibrant light within a large chamber. Tom scanned the room for the hideous creature he knew rested there, not knowing what to expect but visualising the most horrible thing his imagination could contrive. And yet he saw what he least expected.

  Reclining upon a lavish four poster bed, rich silk sheets spread about her, lay a strikingly beautiful woman, her long, dark hair fanned out around her head like a burnished halo. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath as she slept and Tom marvelled at the thin, apparently transparent gown that she wore, crimson, almost sanguine in colour.

  As he watched, she turned briefly in her sleep and Tom started, ready to run, but her breathing remained even, its sound the only intrusion upon the silence of the chamber. Could this truly be the monstrous Rith-ran-ro-en that Mo had warned him of? And yet he had said she had been beautiful and it was certainly no exaggeration. For a minute or so, Tom could only stare at her, the scene before him like some master's painting, the stillness of it reinforcing the impression. But then he remembered why he had come there.

  He felt very foolish standing there, the idea of speaking to a sleeping woman ridiculous and he was overcome by a powerful urge to wake her. But with some effort, he resisted this impulse, instead stepping closer to the bed, his eyes riveted to her tranquil features and spoke aloud his question.

  "Please tell me the way to go to find Pandora's Box?"

  The words echoed around the cavern, reverberating within its pallid walls. There was no movement, all remained still and Tom became certain that he must not have asked in the correct manner.

  Then she opened her eyes and looked directly at him. Tom stepped backward, his instincts screaming at him to run, but the woman did not rise from the bed, her eyes appearing blank and unaware. She seemed to look right through him, her expression distant.

  And then she spoke.

  "Take just seven steps

  to find your heart’s desire,

  a promise of regret

  to lay within the fire.

  On to the very edge

  and claim a blighted kiss,

  there to meet your match

  beyond the dark abyss."

  Her voice was musical, infiltrating his mind and Tom's vision blurred, his head aching. The ground began to revolve as if he were on a merry-go-round, faster and faster, spinning, turning until he reeled with the sensation. The world became nothing more than dim colours, encircling him.

  Through it all, he could see her face, her eyes fixed on him and Tom knew without question that she could really see him now. Her mouth moved, a long tongue licking at shining lips.

  Let me be with you, Tom thought dreamily. Forever.

  Getting gracefully up from the bed, her red gown clinging to her body, she came for him, but something tugged at his hand, pulling him away from her, forcing him to move backward.

  He resisted. No, I want to stay here. I want to stay with her. But he was wrenched violently away from the woman's outstretched hand, her eyes pleading with him to come to her embrace.

  As he was drawn toward the archway, he saw that the woman's face had begun to alter, her ruby lips contorting and enlarging, her beautiful eyes becoming salacious and cruel, a desperate fire seething within. Her soft ivory skin darkened and decayed as if diseased with some terrible plague, and as Tom witnessed this his mind became his own again, a demonic shriek piercing his head as the woman realised he would escape. Once through the archway, staggering along through the gloom, Tom rubbed at his eyes, trying to focus them in the blackness and nearly lost his footing when he saw that beside him stood a golden-haired girl.

  "Lisa," he whispered and she smiled as she led him swiftly along the corridor.

  "Stay close, Tom," she said urgently, "I'll show you the way out."

  He could make no reply, everything seeming unreal and it suddenly occurred to him that he must be dreaming this after all. Absently he pinched himself and immediately winced at the pain.

  "Hurry," Lisa said
and looking into the dark pools of her eyes, he knew that he would go wherever she led.

  His hope withered under the incessant desert heat, doubt germinating within him. Dredger, his eyelids heavy with sand and sweat, a physical drain inundating his entire body, was preoccupied by a nagging question. Could he endure this hellish journey? If he had been a child he would have surely wept, his stinging tears falling to shrivel upon the smouldering sand. But he was a man, a warrior and he would not weep. He would not succumb to the terrible force that weighed him down, pressing upon him until he felt certain that he must sink into the golden tomb below. His feet were pieces of meat, simmering in the oven of his boots.

  Geheimnis, however, seemed unaffected. He marched on without any apparent difficulty and Dredger barely managed to keep pace with him.

  "How do you feel?" the masked man enquired, his tone genuine enough, though the warrior doubted his motives.

  "Is it much further?" he answered, trying very hard not to betray the desperation that he felt.

  Geheimnis took a flask from his pack and drank several long mouthfuls and Dredger watched jealously, licking his cracked lips. His own water supply had long since been exhausted and he just could not understand how his companion had managed to conserve so much of his provision.

  "I am sure we are very near," the masked man said belatedly after another drink from his flask.

  Dredger looked ahead and saw that they were approaching a very high dune, its slopes so steep that he had to question his own ability to scale it in his present condition. His mind complained wearily, a fog clouding his thoughts, his will-power drained.

  Geheimnis began to leave him behind, pressing on easily across the rising sand.

  Keep moving, Dredger commanded himself angrily. Are you so weak? Look, the faceless fool manages quite well. Is that freak a better man than you? Will you let him see you beaten?

  Finding some untapped reserve, the warrior doubled his efforts and came up close behind the other man, his legs threatening to give way as his boots sank into the desert, the sand reluctant to relinquish its hold on them. With his eyes fixed on Geheimnis' back, Dredger hauled himself up toward the summit of the great dune.

  As they finally reached the top Geheimnis paused, Dredger gaining his side and he looked down upon a very different land, one which was green and alive. Fighting to hold himself straight, relief washing over him, he sighed. "At last."

  Geheimnis' mask turned a little toward him and held a familiar smile. "We can find water and perhaps fruit here," he said, "but it is only a much larger form of oasis in a desert of another kind."

  Dredger listened to the man's words and nodded. "The Land of Scars lays beyond."

  "Indeed," the other man replied. "Our journey is far from ended, so I suggest that we rest awhile and replenish our supplies before we begin again."

  With a feeling of subdued triumph Dredger made his way down the other side of the sand-dune and into the grassy slopes that lay beneath it, his tired legs causing him to stumble but he no longer cared. He had prevailed. Now he would rest and renew his strength. Then to reach Hydan where his foe awaited him.

  Bending to touch the rich vegetation, savouring its coarse texture, Dredger said a silent prayer.

  Tom followed Lisa along the passageway, but she glided over the rocky surface of the tunnel with such ease that he found it difficult to keep up with her. Noticing this, she slowed a little and held out her hand. "Take it," she instructed.

  Tom touched her fingers, a mixture of emotions flooding through him and she gripped his hand tightly leading him on through the shadowy labyrinth. He had no idea where she was taking him and the truth was that he didn't really care, just so long as he was with her.

  How could anyone be so lovely?

  All of a sudden she stopped and came close to his ear. In a whisper, Tom aware of her breath against his cheek, she spoke to him. "Just there," she said, pointing into the darkness, "there’s a door, the way through. Your friends are waiting for you just a little further along this passage. You’ll be safe once you’re outside, at least for a while." She looked deep into his eyes and he knew what it must be like to be mesmerised. "I have to go now," she murmured, her lips just a little way from his. Tom wondered if she wanted him to kiss her, but then she was moving away, back in the direction they had come, her golden hair gleaming like a light itself.

  Without thinking, he started after her. "Wait!" he called but she had already disappeared into the blackness. He stood alone, abandoned and frustrated. "I don't want you to go," he breathed. Then he remembered what she had said and knew that he had to find the others. For all he knew, Rith-ran-ro-en might still be stalking him, close by, slithering through the tunnels seeking her prey.

  But Lisa went back the way we came. Where could she have been going?

  Indecisive now, Tom looked around and his eyes rested upon a small wooden door in the rock. He had to believe Lisa knew what she was doing, so without any more deliberation, he continued along the tunnel. He broke into a jog, praying that his friends were really not too far away.

  Within a few minutes, he heard a sound ahead and stopping to listen, Tom could make out a low voice.

  "Well, I think that we should go and look for him. We’ve waited long enough.," it hissed with exasperation. Hurrying forward, Tom rushed around a bend in the passage and almost fell over the badger. "Tom!" cried Jack with unmistakable relief.

  "It's me," the boy signalled with a grin, leaning back against the wall.

  "Are you safe and sound?" Mo questioned, inspecting him closely and then sniffing at his clothing.

  Tom nodded. "I'm okay, but we need to get out of here. It isn't safe."

  "Let's go then," Jack said with eagerness.

  "Follow me," directed Tom and started off along the tunnel.

  "Are you sure this is the way out?" Jack called from behind.

  "Trust me," his friend replied and moved quickly forward.

  Tom searched the darkness for the doorway, fearful that he might miss it in the murky shadows but after only a short distance, there it was, a bizarre but welcome exit, or at least that was what he hoped. Without any discussion he grasped the handle, pulling it open to reveal a dazzling world of brightness that momentarily blinded them, their eyes accustomed to darkness now. Shielding their eyes, the three stepped out into a clearing in the midst of a wooded area, Tom slamming the door shut behind them.

  "Fresh air at last!" Jack exclaimed, taking deep breaths.

  His eyes adjusting, Tom glanced around. "I don't suppose you know where we are?" he said to the badger.

  The animal shook his head. "Another path," Mo said amiably, "but there will be time enough for such concerns later. For now, I think it best if you tell us of your meeting with Rith-ran-ro-en."

  "Are you sure it's safe here?" Tom said, looking over at the strange door built into the rock of the mountain, imagining it bursting open, the mouldering, diseased features of Rith-ran-ro-en leering at him as she came to claim her prize.

  "Quite safe," Mo assured him. They walked over toward a small mound, thin trees forming an enclosure around it and at the badger's direction, settled themselves down on the grass. "Tell us all that you know," Mo said.

  In the clear sky a white dove flew, its diminutive form the only thing in the great, all encompassing domain above. Unseen, the bird circled around the group of tiny figures below, once, twice, three times and then with a graceful movement of its snow feathered wings, it made off toward the distant horizon.