The Magic Lands (32 page)

The boy had smiled, stroking a
lamb who grazed nearby. "No, sir. They intend no harm."

The warrior nodded and smiled
but said no more, instead going to stand amongst the blackened,
exposed roots. As the shepherd looked on, the man knelt upon ash
and cinder and bowed his head, speaking in low tones that the boy
struggled to hear.

"Forgive them," murmured the
warrior, completing what the young shepherd took to be a prayer and
drawing nearer, he could not help himself but ask the question
playing upon his mind aloud. "Who are you praying for?"

The stranger turned and there
were tears in his eyes. "For all those who have suffered here. But
now that is over." As he spoke a miraculous thing began to occur.
Before them, the Black Tree, branches brittle, its dead trunk
scarred, began to change, bark stirring, texture and colour
appearing to slowly alter. The transformation was incredibly rapid,
life blooming within the charred wood in seconds and when it was
done, the shepherd saw that the tree had been made whole again,
healthy, renewed, its lithe branches seeming to caress the night.
"How can this be?" he had asked, awed by this wonder.

The warrior spoke without
taking his eyes from the resurrected tree, its vitality almost
tangible. "The power of forgiveness is far, far greater than the
power of destruction, and only through redemption can that which is
ruined be restored."

Now in the present, in the time
of the Beast, Tom ran breathlessly through the undergrowth, the
lesson of the Black Tree as yet unknown to him. As he followed
Elrin Jinn, weaving through trees, hurdling rocks, he wondered once
more whether he would ever find his way home again, his fears and
doubts growing with every moment spent in this foreign landscape.
Somewhere deep inside he still clung onto childhood, desperate to
retain the innocent security it bestowed and yet within him, there
was a new understanding that he had lost at least a part of his old
self. There was no-one he could rely upon to look after him now. He
had to stand alone or fail.

Pain began to tear at his side
and as they splashed through a small stream, he managed to gasp,
"when can we rest?"

But Elrin Jinn seemed to merely
take this as a sign to step up his pace, calling over his shoulder
harshly, "feeble boys will be meat for the hounds. Stop if you want
to die, but if not, run on, for the redcoats are not far
behind."

Tom's pulse beat at a ferocious
rate and he was sure that his lungs were on fire, but he also knew
that he had no choice but to keep going, to keep chasing the
strange man even as the hunt chased him. Somewhere in the forest,
closer than he would have believed possible, he could hear the
growling and barking of many dogs, and they sounded very much to
him as if they were drawing nearer with every beat of his raging
heart.

The hounds surged forward,
frenzied in pursuit of their prey. At their head, Jagaren ran with
graceful ease, the knowledge that they had the scent now spurring
him on, while further behind, the hunters came upon their foaming
horses, hoofs crashing, necks straining, whips licking at the
animal's flanks. It was a good chase, for death ran with them.

Jagaren smiled as he
darted through a shadowed grove, ducking his head beneath low
hanging branches.
I come for you, young
one. Soon you will be mine.

He increased his speed and
before too long even the powerful legs of the dogs could not match
his pace. On he came, like some dark storm and there was no place
to hide from him, nowhere to escape his deadly purpose.

A hunter born, dedicated to one
pursuit and that alone. Stalk and kill.

THE UNDERLAND

"This way," cried Jinn, as they
passed swiftly beneath a wooded thicket, dense and unyielding
against a sunless sky. Tom stared ahead, half-dazed, not really
knowing what to expect, the only thing clear in his mind the
appalling baying of the bloodhounds that stalked him so
relentlessly. The man who led him pointed a long finger toward a
small hole in the dank earth, situated at the base of a long,
grassy bank.

"What!?" Tom muttered, panting,
his throat burning and dry.

"No time to squander," voiced
Elrin Jinn with irritation, but Tom simply came to a halt and
stared at the man utterly despondent and mystified.

"There's nowhere to run," he
stated, beginning to lose the will to go on.

His new companion smiled
gamely. "We shall see."

Quite suddenly the world
changed for Tom, above and all around him monstrous green creatures
swayed overhead, bending down as if to smother him. He almost
screamed but stopped himself as he saw the face of Elrin Jinn loom
before him, appearing from nowhere and blotting out all else.

"Come master," the man
commanded, taking hold of Tom's arm roughly and as he was herded
toward the deep, black entrance of what he presumed to be a cave,
Tom just had time to glance about him, to see that there was no
longer any evidence of sky above, only a vast roof of green, alive
and ever-moving.

This will be
the first place they'll look,
he thought as they were
swallowed up by darkness.

"All goes well?" he asked,
assured that it did, a contented smile playing upon his fleshy
lips.

The woman looked down upon the
small man for a second, her eyes narrowed, then nodded. "All goes
well," she confirmed in a melodic voice that he found quite
enchanting.

"And is there word of the
others?" he enquired, his confidence growing.

The woman in white raised one
eyebrow enigmatically. "I know where they are," she said simply and
he rubbed his fat hands together with enthusiasm.

"Is there anything further you
wish of me?" the man ventured, boldly stepping forward. "You know
it is my pleasure to be of any small service to one so fair."

The woman smiled at this, an
appealing, coy aspect in her expression that revealed the face of a
young girl. "Yes," she sighed, "there is something. Just a little
thing." She paused as if in thought, a faraway look in her dark
eyes while the man hung upon her every word. "An errand!" she
exclaimed, now looking at him intently. "It seems I have left
something behind. Would you fetch it for me?" He nodded, anxious to
do his mistress' bidding. "It is inside the house," she directed,
"in the generator room." The woman smiled at this briefly, as if
privy to some private joke, her sharp teeth glinting like
steel.

The small man's brow furrowed,
unsure. "What is it that you wish me to bring?" he questioned,
fearful of her wrath, but the smile remained.

"You will know it when you see
it," she assured him gently, her voice no more than a whisper and
he bowed, knowing that his lady's word was final. The task, after
all, was not a difficult one and yet he felt strangely
apprehensive, a dull, distant throbbing beginning inside his head,
the first faint pulse of something akin to fear. But all the same
he went. And the woman in white watched him go.

She had made him responsible
for the house since their arrival and yet, despite her trust, he
had been careless. But she could not really blame him for that, for
in truth, he had only been guilty of his own limitations. He was
just like all of the others in her service, no more or less than a
device, an instrument, to be used and then discarded when it had
served its purpose.

Now though, she wanted blood,
the smell of it, the taste of it, the divine gluttony of the kill
and her hunger had to be satisfied. Even as her huntsmen tracked
the interlopers, she would have her hors-d'oeuvre, a tasty morsel
before the feast.

Death, her consort, was an
insatiable lover and to appease that constant lust, she had sent
her servant down into the bowels of the house, down deep into its
writhing gut, where a force almost as wild and powerful as herself
was about to burst free of its long confinement.

These things she knew and much
more besides, and so with gentle laughter she made her way back
toward the great house, intent on having the best possible view
when the show began.

Jack rested against the sturdy
timber of an old tree. He felt relaxed and peaceful.

Beside him, the badger lay
sprawled out, its breathing regular, the gentle rise and fall of
the animal's chest somehow reassuring to him.

"What are you doing, Mo?" he
said softly, laughing a little. "Sun-bathing!?"

But there was no sun, he knew,
the realisation sobering him at once, although he noticed that
something high above them did gleam, a radiant sphere in the
heavens. Jack peered up at it and wondered what it could be.

Maybe it's an
imitation sun
he speculated, his thoughts forming very
slowly, his faculties languid and hazy.

It occurred to him that
if there was indeed no true sun, then they should not be able to
see anything at all and this led him at length to a conclusion that
was difficult to accept but nonetheless undeniable.
There has to be another source.

He stared up at the
bright orb and watched it as it seemed to move almost imperceptibly
across the cerulean domain above him. Becoming bored, Jack turned
his attention to a blade of grass he had plucked from the mass
around the base of the tree and proceeded to chew on it
absently.
This is a great holiday. I'm
having a wonderful time.
He thought this in a flat,
impassive way, not really understanding his own
feelings.

Memories stirred, pressing to
be set free, but Jack shut them away, locked in the vault of his
confused mind.

I'm fine as I am. No need to
dig up the past. Let it rest in peace.

He spat out the grass and
stared dumbly at his hands. They seemed almost alien to him and he
turned them over, eyeing them as if they had no business being
attached to his body.

Mo turned his head and looked
solemnly at the boy, blinking his large eyes and Jack smiled at his
friend. "Hello."

The badger regarded him
thoughtfully for a few seconds and then shook his body. "How do you
feel?" the animal asked.

"Fine," Jack replied, his head
clearing, his thoughts becoming more focused. "I feel fine."

Mo continued to stare fixedly
at him and Jack felt a little uneasy under the badger's scrutiny.
"That’s good."

"Did you have a nice rest?"
Jack enquired in a good-natured way, but Mo did not answer, turning
his head to stare into the thick woods that surrounded them.

"We can’t stay here," he stated
at length, "this place is not safe."

"Let's get going then."

The badger returned his gaze to
the boy. "There is something, it would seem, that you have
forgotten."

Pursing his lips slightly, Jack
tried to think what Mo could be talking about. Had he forgotten
something? He didn't think that he had. "I can't think of
anything," he said with

a small shrug, as if to dismiss
the matter.

"Yes, that may well be,"
returned the animal, grim-voiced, "and in some ways, at least for
the present, that is for the best, but surely, Jack, you cannot
have forgotten about Tom?"

Jack bit his lip hard and
frowned.
Tom! Where was Tom?

Before he could voice this
question, the howling of a dog, or at least that was what Jack
thought it must be, disturbed his thoughts.

"The hunters are abroad,"
called Mo, hurriedly moving to the boy's side.

"Hunters?" questioned Jack,
failing to see what it had to do with them.

"Indeed!" the badger answered,
"and they come for us."

An expression of anxiety
replaced the vaguely perplexed look Jack had worn moments before
and he felt a chill run through his body. "But what about Tom?"

"They hunt him too," said Mo
with simple force. "But for now, you and I will have to look out
for ourselves and pray that Tom can do the same. If we can elude
our pursuers, then perhaps we can set about finding Tom. Remember
Jack, hope is always with us, if we care to look for it."

Jack's mind was still a blur of
unresolved questions and mysteries, the circumstances leading up to
this moment difficult to discern, a fog clouding his recollections.
What had happened to him in the great house? He couldn't say. A
mental veil now masked these events and only vague images, like
ghosts haunting his mind, drifted into his awareness.

They began to move away swiftly
cutting through some undergrowth, following the line

of a low bank, the bulky figure
of the badger leading with Jack in close pursuit, his concentration
now solely on not falling behind.

Down, down, into the deep he
went. Tom felt as if he were becoming smaller and smaller as he
followed Jinn. Like a speck of dust whirling through infinity, it
was as though he had lost all sense of his physical being, or at
least in the way he had always known it.

Was this escape or capture?

"Where are you taking me?" Tom
breathed, his voice reverberating from the tunnel walls.

"Into the deep, and beyond.
Worlds within worlds, dreams within dreams." With a suddenness that
caught Tom by complete surprise, Elrin Jinn came to a halt, the boy
barely managing to avoid crashing into him and trying to adjust his
eyes to the darkness, Tom waited for the man to speak again.
"Listen," Jinn said after several long moments.

Tom did as he was told and
above them, far away it seemed, there came a thunderous boom,
echoing through the ground. For one awful moment he was convinced
that there would be a cave-in and dreadful visions of earth choking
him filled his head, but the sound soon died away and he knew then
that it must have been something distant from them.