The Magic Lands (58 page)

Eventually, they neared the
summit of the lighthouse, their ascent achieved without incident.
Above them, through a hatch, an emerald glow illuminated the tower
and as he stepped beneath it, Dredger felt a strong premonition
that arcane forces were at work, that power, ancient and strong,
was all around them.

Manoeuvring himself cautiously
through the hatchway, Dredger surveyed the great lantern. It
consisted of perhaps eight lenses held by a light metallic frame,
and was set in a revolving carriage, moved, the warrior noted, by a
clockwork mechanism, so as to show a regular series of flashes to
any vessel at sea. A narrow walkway went completely around it, no
doubt for maintenance purposes and moving cautiously onto this, his
boots ringing on the metal, Dredger made a slow circuit. He
shielded his eyes from the huge lantern as he went, yet watchful
for anything that was strange or out of place. He saw nothing
however. The place was empty and he frowned, wondering if his
senses might have betrayed him. Outside, a heavy rain had begun to
beat down, drumming against the glass and listening to it,
amplified in the stillness that settled about him, bathed in the
green radiance of the warning lamp, his uneasiness returned, the
nagging conviction that there was something wrong.

"Something is amiss here..." he
began, turning to where he fully expected to find Mo. But instead,
he found only space and silence. Mo had vanished.

Rushing to the hatch, Dredger
leant through, peering down the staircase for any sign of the other
man, but to no avail. "Mo!" he called, but no answer came. Even if
his companion had chosen to descend for some reason, he would have
signalled first, the warrior was certain of it. No, this was more
of the Beast's wiles. Foul magic was at the heart of it. "So you
test us further," he said aloud. "Well that is as it should be. But
I promise this. When you come for me, you shall not find me such
easy prey."

Defiant and yet disturbed that
Mo could have been taken so easily, leaving no trace that he had
ever been there at all, the warrior stood alone as the weather
raged on, and for some time he remained there, listening to the
howling of the wind.

As Mo had made to pass through
the hatchway behind Dredger, he was assaulted by an all
encompassing darkness, blinding him momentarily. But it was not
only his eyes that were affected. His very consciousness was
indefinably subdued and he reeled under its influence, falling to
his knees, too overcome even to cry out.

Summoning all of his strength
of will, he concentrated on restoring his faculties, but the power
which bound him was incredibly resilient and he found himself
helplessly drifting, arrant energy pulsing within him, seeming to
pass through his mind and then on into his deep subconscious. It
numbed him and caressed him, stroking the root of his being. He was
besieged by it and it would not be denied.

But still, Mo fought back. He
resisted the consoling agency that worked to capture his resolve.
He would not bow down to the artful ministry of the Beast.
Rejecting the dark serenity that danced within his soul, defying it
in the name of everything he held dear, Mo forced it from him. But
even though it subsided, it did not leave him immediately, instead
crawling from him slowly, an agony of loss, and he knew that one
moment of weakness would call it instantly back to him.

But he was not weak. Holding
fast to his beliefs, he expelled the last remnant of its sweet
decay and very gradually as if his mind had been lost in a fever
that had suddenly been broken, his senses returned to him. The
darkness lifted and he was able to focus his eyes upon his
surroundings.

He stood in a long hallway that
stretched indefinitely before him and turning, he faced a solid
wall of white brick, with no visible sign of any exit or entrance.
Briefly he examined it, but was not surprised when he failed to
discover anything of significance. The rest of the corridor walls
also appeared to be constructed of the same white brickwork, and
yet it was not a true white he observed, and for reasons Mo did not
quite understand, he found it disquieting. Underfoot lay a
dark-coloured carpet, thick and luxuriant, but none-the-less
vaguely perturbing, its texture somehow unpleasant, but he ignored
these feelings of unease, attributing them to what he had just been
through and applied himself to the situation at hand.

Naturally, the Wolf was testing
him, but there was more to it than that. It had suited the Beast
very well to separate he and Dredger, but Mo knew that he had been
brought to this location for a specific purpose. His enemy had
waged a spiritual attack upon him and he had repelled it, barely.
Now he would have to walk the long passageway before him, until he
reached the goal that had been set for him by his adversary, and
having no choice, he would do just that, although not perhaps in
the way the Beast expected.

The White Wolf believed itself
to be the overmaster of all worlds, an office ordained, and yet Mo
understood much that was otherwise forgotten, had learnt many
truths that had been thought lost through the course of time.

He started along the corridor
and what had appeared to be a man began to shimmer, swiftly losing
shape and form. Where two feet had trod, four now went, softly
padding, lithe and supple; where a man's muscle had once been, now
the sinuous tendons of a beast rippled, unbridled strength and
power in every stride. Around the great head a golden mane flowed,
and dark, wise eyes gazed keenly from a noble face.

Tom realised that although the
man was pretending otherwise, his injury was serious. Dr. Watson
had managed to slow the loss of blood, but the wound was obviously
deep and it was becoming more and more apparent that he wouldn’t be
able to go on much further.

"I think, my friends, that I
will have to stop and rest awhile," he said shortly, his head
bowed. Nodding, Tom glanced at Jack and saw in his friend's eyes a
mirror of his own concern and fear.

Coming upon the entrance to a
dingy building, its high stone walls grey and cheerless, the two
boys guided the man toward it, thinking it would serve as a
temporary shelter.

Easing the doctor carefully to
the ground, he was able to lean his back against a wall. They made
him as comfortable as they could but Tom knew that they would soon
have to decide upon a course of action that would bring some aid to
the injured man.

"There is an irony here" said
Dr. Watson softly, finding it difficult to speak now, "with myself
being a doctor, and yet there is so little I can do. The wound is
very deep and I am losing too much blood."

Jack looked at him
despairingly. "There must be something we can do?"

"Yes," the man agreed, trying
to seem optimistic, though he grimaced with pain. "But if it is to
be done, it must be done quickly."

"I'll go and get help," Tom
declared with firm conviction, although it was the last thing in
the world he wanted to do. After being apart from his friends for
so long, he did not want to go off on his own again when there was
every chance that the White Wolf was merely playing games with
them, using this situation to tear them away from each other, to
separate them once more. But even if that were so, it did not alter
the fact that a man was dying right before his eyes. How could he
just stand by and watch? And yet maybe it was all just another
test, his mind argued, uncertain. Maybe the Wolf had set another
little quandary in motion for the express purpose of assessing
their characters? But why should the Wolf care about that one way
or the other? What difference could it possibly make to such a
creature? Tom recalled how Mo had told them that the Beast's most
cherished wish was to destroy their spirit, to break them down
until all hope was lost. And the tool the enemy favoured to achieve
this end, Tom knew, was subversion. Who could say what was truly
real in this counterfeit kingdom? And who could say that the
denizens of dreams could not be made to suffer, if the hand that
weaves the fabric of their existence saw fit to punish them?

"It's all right," Jack said
quietly, eyes downcast, breaking the difficult silence. "I'll stay
here with Dr. Watson, but be as quick as you can, okay? Just don't
get lost!"

With a small smile, Tom nodded
to his friend. They both understood that there was no choice.
Peering up at the wall opposite them, he could just make out a sign
which read: Bilk St.

At least I know where we
are.

"It’ll be all right," he
promised as Jack looked up at him. "Let's hope there's someone
nearby." With that, he turned and left them, moving quickly through
the fog.

He had to find someone, but who
could be trusted? The mist clung to him, making it impossible to
see anything clearly until he was almost upon it, the occasional
sounds he heard difficult to identify or pin-point from which
direction they came.

After what seemed to him to be
a very long time, Tom began to suspect he might very well be going
around in circles as there was no reliable way of distinguishing
one dark street from another. When he had first set out, he had
believed it would be relatively simple to navigate his way through
the city, thinking he would use the street-signs to aid him, but he
had soon discovered, to his dismay, that the White Wolf had other
plans for him.

He had seen many plaques where
street names should have been, but every one of them had been
blank, and it did not take very long for the simple truth to occur
to him, that he could not now get back to the place where Jack and
the doctor were waiting no matter how much he wanted to. He was
angry and disappointed with himself for having been so foolish. But
he had to think positively. He couldn't just accept defeat because
he had made a mistake. He knew the name of the place where he had
left his companions, so maybe whoever he found to help them would
know the way back there.

I must have
faith.
Without it, he would be utterly
forsaken.

Pressing on into the poorly lit
back-streets and lanes, he prayed that he would soon come across
someone who would be willing to help him. The problem was however,
that the area he had wandered into seemed entirely uninhabited, the
buildings either derelict or apparently abandoned. There were no
lights shining in any of the windows, many of which were broken,
the empty frames dark, no sign of life anywhere.

He knocked loudly on the door
of any house that he thought had even the remotest chance of having
a tenant, but no-one had responded after several attempts and this
only served to intensify his uneasiness.

Turning into another dreary
alley he caught sight of a figure lolling against a doorway and as
he was on the verge of desperation, he ran toward them without a
second thought. As he drew near the person he saw that it was a
woman, a shawl draped around her shoulders, her greying hair
concealed for the most part by a scruffy hat. He approached her,
apprehensive but relieved that he had found finally someone.
"Excuse me," he started, trying to be as polite as circumstances
allowed.

The woman eyed him with
interest and smiled, the teeth she still had blackened and uneven.
"Ello, lovey," she said, her voice hoarse, "lookin' for company?"
Her face was painted with rouge and dark eye-shadow and Tom was
reminded obscurely of a clown.

"I need help," he explained,
"my friend is hurt."

The woman continued to smile, a
strangeness in her eyes that Tom found disturbing. "Dearee me. Why
don't I take you 'ome, then you can tell me all about it."

"No, you don't understand," Tom
said loudly, but the woman only laughed at him, licking her lips in
an exaggerated manner.

"What's the matter, not up to
it? Can't handle a real woman, aye? Per'aps you're only fit to
fumble with little girls. I could show you things that would open
your eyes. I could make you feel things that you’ve never even
dreamed of."

Tom looked at her with both
horror and fury. He felt sick inside. Turning away quickly he ran
back along the alley, with no thought other than to escape her
disgusting leer. After a while, he slowed to a trot before finally
coming to a complete halt beneath a single streetlight that burned
dimly above him.

What should I do now? What can
I do?

From somewhere close by there
came the sound of footsteps and starting, alarmed by the sudden
echo that came to him through the quiet, deserted streets, Tom
listened trying to determine from which direction the person
came.

"Hello!" he shouted out, hoping
to attract their attention, "I need help!" But no answer came back,
the fog heavy around him.

The footsteps had ceased the
moment he called out and Tom was beginning to feel decidedly
ill-at-ease, uncertain as to what he should do; whoever had been
walking there had stopped at the sound of his voice, yet for some
unknown reason refused to answer him. Who was it there in the
darkness?

As he wondered, a stony
coldness eased through him as if he had sensed something malign was
close by. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he began
to sweat, his body shivering at the first touch of fear. "Who's
there?" he called, a tremor in his tone, his voice almost failing
him, but even as he spoke, a figure appeared out of the mist, only
a few yards away.

"I have looked high and low for
you," the man whispered, the words like shards of ice, aimed at
Tom's heart.

To Tom, it felt as if he had
become rooted to the ground, his body unable to react, though his
mind screamed at him to run, and he watched in silent fascination
as Jack the Ripper