The Magic Lands (62 page)

Jack regarded the big man for a
moment or two and then turned to Tom. "We’re learning all the time.
But there’s still a lot that we don't know."

"Such as what exactly?" queried
Tom, perplexed by his friend's statement.

"Do the horrors of a dream have
meaning when we wake?" Jack said in response and Tom had to wonder
at how much his friend had changed. There was something indefinably
older about him now, a maturity that had nothing whatsoever to do
with years, but with experience, an experience that came from the
trials of the heart and mind rather than those of the body.

"They are still frightening,
either way," he answered slowly and Jack gave a simple nod of his
head.

"Yes," he agreed, "but
you know it was never real, only an illusion that
seemed
real. What if everything
terrible, everything we think of as evil, is like that, a way for
us to be taught what we are not capable of understanding on a
conscious level. But for it to have any meaning we can’t know that,
at least not until we reach the end of it all." Jack paused and
there was a faraway look in his eyes. "What if suffering only
exists within our souls, a measurement of our love?"

Tom looked at Jack with a
doubtful frown. “Do you really believe that?”

Jack smiled back at him and put
his hand on his friend's shoulder. “I can think of worse things to
believe in.”

With a thoughtful nod Tom
walked on, Jack’s words turning within his mind. They went on for a
time in silence like this, both knowing all too well that their
hopes of ever reaching home again were fast diminishing. They were
only biding their time until the Wolf decided it was ready for one
last showdown. Beyond that, there was no way of knowing what was
waiting for them. Life or death? Pleasure or pain? Or even if these
choices were theirs to make.

END OF THE LINE

Mo wandered through a beautiful
garden, isolated with his own reflections, memory conspiring to
conjure demons within his soul. The apparition of the child had
faded just as abruptly as it appeared and now he was left with only
a lingering sense of dread and foreboding. How he had come to be in
this place he did not know, but his thoughts were distracted, a
melancholy taking hold of his heart.

He had tried so hard to show
Jack that there were two sides to death. And that though battle
demanded confrontation, leading to loss, judgements of the morality
of such deeds could not be easily made. Yet Mo's knowledge had its
limits, and not without reason, for even he was not exempt from the
trials of existence.

The badger was very confused.
The images which he had been shown were part of a great puzzle, one
in which the pieces seemed to be forever amending their form to fit
an overall picture that was equally capricious. Events appeared to
hurtle by, their meaning impossible to fathom. Eternity. Destiny.
Humanity. And the link that tied them all together sometimes was a
tenuous one, like fine gossamer, a delicate chain of these
events.

Mo's mind was in turmoil,
besieged by doubts both persuasive and beguiling, an aeon's
experiences combining to stagger his beliefs. For so long now he
had carried a burden of guilt, believing that his sins would be
forgiven at the very end of his protracted journey, yet suppressing
the uncertainty that asked a dreadful question.

Did he have the right to kill
in the name of love?

He was so very old, illusive
time eroding away the doctrines he had lived by, creating an irony
that was not lost upon him. He who had preached to Tom and Jack, so
many fine words of hope and courage, he who had appeared to be the
pillar of righteousness, a symbol for the two boys to believe in,
now felt as if he were little better than a hypocrite, for in the
deepest places of his being, Mo's faith was crumbling.

But it was not his faith in
truth that was now so sorely tested, it was his faith in himself.
Was it possible that he had been deluding himself all along, so
eager to wash away the stains of the blood spilt in this holy war?
True enough, it had troubled him that warriors such as Dredger and
he himself whenever he took that form, were so willing to
administer fatal justice.

So how could he justify his
sins? He had argued before that true evil was soulless and
therefore incapable of redemption, but it did not excuse the
barbarity of the act itself. Pausing beside the rushing waters of
the stream amid the purple blooms that covered its bank, Mo peered
into the clear blue and heard a murmuring from within its
depths.

"I see a shadow of myself,"
said the reflection in the water.

The badger rubbed his snout
amongst the flowers, their fragrance sweet.

Who was good? Who was evil?
Black and white, two sides to everything. But so often the two
sides became indistinct, making it difficult to tell them
apart.

"I see a shadow of myself," the
trees seemed to sigh.

Mo pushed away from the stream,
moving further into the green haven of the valley garden, and
almost without thinking he found himself running, wishing only to
escape the doubt that hounded him.

But however fast he ran, he
could not evade the whispers.

"I see a shadow...of
myself."

The fog was less dense now and
Tom was surprised to see one or two buildings that appeared to be
out of place in the Victorian streets, their architecture vaguely
modern, incongruous in the midst of the more ancient
structures.

It was as though eras were
merging, London now a composite city, neither completely in the
past nor in the present.

"Now I am confused," Tom voiced
aloud as they turned a corner and came onto a reasonably well lit
thoroughfare.

"What's wrong?" asked Jack,
glancing at him as they walked.

"Look for yourself," his friend
replied, pointing over to their left, and what Jack saw made him
stop abruptly, an expression of bemusement on his face.

Displayed prominently in an
elongated shop window were a vast array of television sets, each
flickering dully with grainy static.

Tom made his way toward the
display and slowly Jack followed, Dredger too taking an interest in
what he considered to be some strange new phenomena. As all three
came to a halt before the window, he looked down at his companions.
"What are these glowing boxes?"

Tom wasn't really sure how to
answer. "They usually show pictures," he volunteered, and as if in
response, each of the dozen or so television sets simultaneously
began to transmit a picture.

On each screen a man's face
appeared, in extreme close up, but none of the three recognised
him. Very gradually, the camera zoomed out to reveal more of this
individual and it became apparent that he was seated in a padded
armchair, with a small table at his elbow upon which there was a
tasteful lamp and a large black book. The white collar that he wore
about his neck advised them that he was a churchman of some
kind.

"Welcome to you all on this
most special day," the man began, seeming to address the three of
them directly.

"What is this?" Dredger hissed,
but the boys were intent on watching the screen and the warrior was
left to draw his own conclusions.

"I am so very pleased
that you could join me, my dear friends," continued the clergyman.
"I only wish it could have been in happier days, but alas these
are
dark
days, as you know
well enough. So we are gathered here to discuss a subject much on
our minds of late, namely sin, Sin with a capital S. Sin in its
most undiluted form. The sin that we all carry with us in our
hearts. For we all are sinners, my friends, each and every one of
us, from the high and the mighty to the lowest of the low.
I
am a sinner. You are a sinner.
Everyone sins! But do not despair, my good friends, let us not
wallow in the mire of our own shortcomings, for I am here today to
tell you how to deal with your sins. I will teach you how to
wrestle sin right to the ground and grind its ugly face into the
dirt. It's all just a matter of looking sin squarely in the eye and
facing up to the fact that you have been setting your sights far
too high. A body is likely to take a good long fall when standing
tippy-toe way up on that pedestal, am I right!? You bet I am, and
you know it only too well. Accept your sin and then you'll be on
the road to salvation. Reject your sin and you are bound for
eternal perdition! Look at me, friends, I have embraced my sins. I
have cheated. I have lied. I have fornicated. I
am
a sinner! Just like you! Face up to your
weakness, acknowledge your sins. I offer you sustenance in a
starving world. Reject me and reject deliverance. Accept me and you
will be embraced by the strong arms of righteousness! We are all
beasts, my friends, in one form or another, but if we stand
together, we can rise above our bestiality, we can overthrow sin,
master it, make it work for us! If you do not listen to me now, you
will rot! Do you hear me, my brethren? Rot! But not in hell! Oh no!
You will rot in the earth with the worms for company. Heed my
words! Heed them now! I offer you real hope. Throw out false hope
and accept that you are a sinner. Nobody's perfect, we all know
that in our hearts. We are all the same, so join with me and the
new army of a lord who doesn't expect too much of you. Join us now,
time is running out, join before it’s too late, join..."

The man's ranting was drowned
out by a crash of shattered glass, as Dredger's sword exploded the
window into millions of tiny slivers, making Tom and Jack
instinctively cover their faces. "The white dog's sorcery is
worthless," the warrior said vehemently, striding away from the now
mute showroom. The picture of the churchman still remained however,
silent now and appearing to watch them, his expression wry.

Turning away quickly, both boys
scampered after Dredger, perplexed and a little unsettled by this
latest exhibition. Neither really understood what it was supposed
to mean, but each in their own way had been troubled by it and knew
by his reaction that it had affected the warrior in some deep and
unfathomable way too.

Gaining the man's side, they
walked on in silence for several minutes, until Tom drew their
attention to another discovery.

A sign faced them.
UNDERGROUND.

"This way," directed Dredger
and made toward a stairway that descended into a brightly lit
passage.

As they followed the man
without question down the flight of steps, Tom knew that very soon
he and the White Wolf would be meeting again. Maybe somewhere
below, the battleground was even now being prepared.

Were mankind bound on a long
road, whose many branches all led to the same destination? Mo
believed this was the truth. But why had such a journey been
undertaken in the first place?

There had been a time, long
ago, a golden dawn when he had sung sweet melodies of hope and
wonder, but these moments had become dissipated, their poetry
tarnished by the fire of brutal experience.

Each of his kind had vowed to
die before they gave up their dreams, but what dreams did they
cherish now? Childish wishes of innocence? Or foolish nostalgia for
something lost that could never be recaptured?

There was black and there was
white. And Mo knew them both. The serpent had come and led the
children astray, promising them pretty treasures, charming them
with shallow

beauty. Yes, there was a flaw
in the soul of humanity and it was selfishness. A simple emotion,
but undeniably potent.

So what had become of those
first children with bright, wide eyes, who saw magic in the land?
How could they have disappeared with only memories to say that they
had ever been?

The answer was quite
straightforward. Children grow up. And with that change, they lose
so much that was precious, wonders that had been taken for
granted.

The Beast often referred to Mo
as the half-one, a gibe to taunt him, and yet it was near to the
truth. He struggled with a duality that would not be reconciled.
Violence and pacifism. He carried out one, yet believed in the
other. Perhaps he had spent too much time amongst the corrupted and
become diseased. Perhaps Dredger was not the only one who held a
beast within his heart.

I see a shadow of myself the
Wolf had called to him, and Mo could no longer protest. He had run
out of excuses. He had searched his mind and soul for new hope but
found

only an emptiness that
extinguished his faith.

"Please help me," he said very
softly, acutely aware of the silence in the valley, its perfection
mocking him. "Have I fallen so low?" He hung his head, his sorrow
weighing upon him.

After a time, distantly at
first, but growing louder with each moment that passed, soft music
reached him, carried on the cool currents of air, a forlorn melody
that soothed his mind. Soon after, it was joined by a lilting
voice, neither male nor female, that sang to him in an alien
tongue, yet he understood it even so.

"Look to the new day,

look to the secret sky,

look to your gentle heart,

and see the Master from on
high,

dream still, never cease,

dream of everlasting peace,

and all shall be once more

just as it was before."

Mo thought that perhaps he was
dreaming now, but if that were so his dreams were of heavens
messengers, the brothers and sisters he had been parted from for so
very long.