Ned saw then, in his dark and brooding eyes, that maybe, just maybe, it was the wyvern and the men in grey that needed to be scared.
George looked for a moment at the approaching headlights, his nostrils steaming and flared, then Ned’s nine-fingered friend broke into a gallop … and roared.
True Potential
art running and part stumbling, a panting Ned and Lucy dragged Jonny Magik away from the road and into the pitch-black wood. A short way in, Whiskers found them a small clearing, and what was left of the Circus of Marvels gathered on the ground. Further down the road they heard more of the gorilla’s roars as he finally connected with the pursuing wyvern and van.
“We’re out o’ time,” said Jonny Magik weakly. “If we’re going to do this, we had better do it now.”
Through the web of black trunks they saw a lick of orange flames and George’s roaring stopped.
“Oh no,” said Lucy.
A tear rolled down Ned’s cheek.
George, he thought. Just the name. Over and over.
But there was no time.
Seconds later the two harsh beams of headlights appeared again, drawing closer, engine revving wildly.
“Jonny, I think you should leave us to it,” said Lucy.
“You’re entitled to think whatever you like, child,” the sin-eater smiled back. “If I help you, girl, I can take away some o’ that darkness that’s been troublin’ you both.”
“You’ve done enough already, Jonny, you can’t take any more of this,” urged Ned.
“Really? And how long you been an Engineer, child?”
“Year and a half.”
“I’ve been a sin-eater since the day I could walk. I’ll be judgin’ what I can and can’t take. If you try this without me and you don’t make it, then George, Bene, the lot of them, would have done it all for nothing.”
The sin-eater was right. He had to help them just as surely as Ned had to try to reach the weapon. Ned was about to do the one thing that his dad had warned him against. To work outside the Engineer’s Manual. Of all the reasons – stopping Barbarossa and the Darkening King, trying to help the Hidden despite them turning against him – the one reason, the only reason that really mattered, was family.
The family now fighting the men in suits – both grey and striped – and the family that were his mum and dad.
“Thank you, Jonny,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“There’s one more thing: George says he’s sorry and that you’re a good egg.”
The sin-eater managed a smile.
“Good egg, is it? Now that’s a first.”
Whiskers gave Ned a heartfelt squeak, or at least as much as he could manage, being that his heart was made of metal. Even Gorrn managed an earnest “Arr” that ended somewhere in an “Unt”. Ned felt quite sure that his lazy and infrequently brave familiar had meant “be careful”, but as was the case so often with Gorrn, there was no way of really knowing.
“Remember, Ned, you’re meant to do this. Just stay focused on what you want and I’ll help you find it,” whispered Lucy.
And Ned did. He placed Abi’s earrings firmly in his palm and thought of Terrence and Olivia Armstrong, he thought of Christmas and home, he thought – he hoped – that somehow, in some way, he might actually get it all back.
“Look to the light and not the darkness,” breathed Jonny Magik, pain twisting his face.
Ned tried; he thought of how proud his father would be. Terrence Armstrong had trained him to be an Engineer and it was that very skill, that very gift, that would bring him back from his captors and end their weapon before it could summon the worst Demon the world had ever faced.
“I’m coming for you, Dad,” he whispered. And I’m going to make Carrion pay.
Meanwhile, Lucy’s ring buzzed, as she used her gift of sight to try and find his parents. The three of them joined hands and, as they did so, voices from everywhere and nowhere started to flow through their minds.
“Two pints of milk, please.”
“I wish I had a new football.”
“This film is rubbish!”
“Orders are orders. If Mr Fox wants them found, then find them we must.”
“Lucy, Jonny, did you hear that?”
“Not’ing to worry about. They can’t hear you, remember?”
From somewhere on a motorway a father spoke to his daughter.
“Why don’t we play the counting game? Who can spot the most red cars.”
“Coz it’s night-time and the counting game’s boring.”
“If I ever get my hands on one of them grey-suits, it’s gonna be murder.”
It was like listening to a radio being tuned, flitting from channel to channel.
“There’s too much noise,” muttered Ned.
But suddenly it stopped. There was an audible gurgle from the sin-eater.
“What’s happened?” breathed Ned.
“Something … something is shutting out the voices,” said Lucy. “It’s him … I think … the Darkening King. We have to move quickly. Your parents aren’t far now – I can feel your dad, feel his power, he’s waiting for you.”
“ComMe.”
That did not sound remotely like Ned’s dad.
“Lucy! It’s there! The voice.”
“I know, but your dad’s in amongst it – look for him!”
In his mind’s eye Ned saw the void, deep and black, but not empty. Within its swirls of folding nothing a pinprick of light, pure and bright, called out to him.
“Ned?”
It was his father.
“Lucy, I—”
“YessS. Come.”
And one voice became a sea of many. Happiness, sadness, anger and fear – Lucy’s sight dragged Ned through them all. From everywhere and nowhere voices blended and sentences merged.
“WAit! – oh, please nO – stop that rigHt now – a fooTball – I lovE tHis plAce – I HATE yOu – leaVe me alone – what’s for suPper? – yESs.”
There was more gurgling and Jonny’s now-clammy hand gripped tightly round Ned’s.
“Focus, child,” pleaded the sin-eater, and Ned miraculously heard him through the darkening mire.
He opened his eyes briefly enough to see Jonny Magik drenched in sweat and a thin stream of blood pouring from his nose.
“Now, Ned! You have to do it now!” yelled Lucy.
Through Lucy’s eyes, Ned saw a crater surrounded by miles of desert. Every ounce of adoration he’d ever felt for his parents, every minute of panicked worry that he might never see them again, started to flow through his body and ring.
But Benissimo’s words rang out through the others: “focus on the goal”, and with it his father’s constant instruction: “breathe”.
The power was Ned’s to use and his alone, he would not be controlled either by the voice or by his own feelings.
The wood filled with static, the hairs on Ned’s head rising upwards in the flow. Leaves, mud, cobwebs and branches began spiralling around them in a vortex of power, till every nerve ending in his body screamed.
He was about to open his eyes, about to yell “Stop!”, to let go of Jonny and Lucy’s hands when – quite suddenly and without a sound – Ned Armstrong simply stopped existing.
All Wrong
ucy and the sin-eater shook violently in Ned’s wake before falling to the floor.
It had taken all of her considerable powers, and all of Jonny’s help, to guide Ned to his father, and the Medic dipped into unconsciousness.
Jonny Magik, however, was quite dead before his body hit the ground.
At the edge of the wood, the pursuit van came to a halt, followed by the rush of pounding feet.
Lucy stirred slightly, slowly. Her head was a mess of noise and half-remembered pain. Her memory came flooding back and her lips trembled.
“Oh no. Oh, please no!” she gasped.
And still the rushing feet pounded closer.
“Squeak?” asked a
hopeful Whiskers.
Lucy opened her eyes and immediately burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Whiskers. I was wrong, so wrong! About everything. I didn’t understand what the voice wanted. But now I do and it’s too late. It’s all too late.”
“Unnnt,” wailed Gorrn.
And as he groaned it, the feet that had been searching stopped by Lucy’s side.
Benissimo had joined the chase as soon as he’d spotted the BBB’s men going after Ned and his van. He’d raced his stolen van as quickly as he could and beaten the wyvern with George’s help. The Ringmaster, as always, would do anything to see the mission through, and it had worked.
Ned was gone.
Old Friends, New Nightmares
ntil the precise moment that Ned’s body left the wood, he had not known the true meaning of fear, not really.
For an instant, he was neither on the frost-flecked ground or anywhere else, but somewhere in between. Ned saw a void, a place that had no beginning and no end, a nothing.
And from nowhere and everywhere there came a voice so loud, so all-consuming that it burned in his ears.
“NeEdD!”
He could feel the Darkening King, could sense a hunger and evil that knew no bounds. But there was something else about it, a longing for escape.
Whatever the creature was, it was trapped.
In less time than it took for the fear to reach his brain, Ned came to his senses again, in a narrow metal corridor. Every pore of his skin cried out as his body re-formed, a sweating mess of vomiting and pain.
How long he’d lain there he couldn’t tell. Ned was in his nightmare but completely awake. His finger was burnt where it touched the ring. He tried to raise himself up, but his limbs were suddenly weakened, like a newborn lamb’s. He stumbled, the corridor spun and his eyes filled with stars.
The horror of his new surroundings numbed him to the core, numbed him because they were so completely familiar. Lucy had somehow sent him to the past, to a nightmare he’d tried to forget. The hot metal walls. The sense of being caged.
He’d wake up – any minute now, he’d be back in the wood with the Circus, but not, he sensed, until he’d walked to the end of the hot metal corridor. Though his limbs were weak, he somehow managed to pull himself up from the floor.
Sweating, staggering and half limping, half sliding, he dragged his enfeebled body forward.
Escape, exit, leave – there was always a way in a nightmare, a way to wake up. Every step faltered as much from his tenuous grip on the polished walls as from the confusion in his mind. One corridor, then the next, just as it had been etched into his memories.
Then: a hatch, a gust of air, and Ned stepped outside, where the impossible was made real.
He must have been out for hours – the sun was up and in front of him was a rank of wyverns, massed and ready for war.
But it wasn’t the Darklings that made Ned’s stomach knot. It was the dark and angular airship, stretching ahead of him, on which they all stood.
Ned was on the deck of the Daedalus, Barbarossa’s fearsome ship, while far below a sandy desert stretched out to the horizon.
It was more menacing than he’d remembered. A floating mass of metal held up by some unseen power, and belching above his head a constant sooty mess of sky-darkening smoke. Every inch of its angular mass was designed for war and it loomed all around him – a death machine, a slab of reanimated hatred.
His legs trembled, his hand slipped and Ned was face-down on the deck.
“Dad, Mum?” he managed to murmur.
Beside the wyverns, an army of black-clad mercenaries and cut-throats lined the warship’s deck. Where were they going? Who were they attacking? What kind of a nightmare was this?
Ned raised himself to his feet and, like a moth to a flame, staggered on, feeling himself drawn by something within the ship. The crew parted before him in silence. The sin-eater had been right. Once you’d seen a horror – any kind of magic, even a year and a half at home could never truly make you forget.
“Wake up,” he breathed to himself.
But the nightmare held and Ned pushed on. Another hatch, one final corridor and the sound of voices, plotting and planning. One was stronger than the others, a great dark weight that was drawing Ned to his past. He opened the door and there he sat, calmly picking fruit from a bowl at his table.
Barbarossa.
To his left stood Carrion Slight and behind him Sar-adin the demon-butler, now in his human form. The very same Sar-adin who had struck Kitty down and caused her eventual death.
Ned’s stomach twisted yet again and a shot of hot bile hit the back of his throat. Now he understood the root of his nightmares: the end of the world was coming and Barbarossa aimed to bring it.
“Gentlemen, our guest has arrived,” said Barba.
Ned had just teleported hundreds of miles into Barbarossa’s floating lair. Why was the man so calm?
“Where are they?!” Ned demanded. He clenched his fists, his ring vibrated, and to his left and right, the glass in two portholes shattered.
The pirate-butcher’s grin did not falter. He pushed aside the maps on his table and leant forward to give Ned the full weight of his attention.
“You’re not going to hurt me, Ned. I think I’ve proved by now that I’m as hard to kill as Sar-adin here. But that’s not the point, is it? I’ve got something you want and you’re going to have to be a good boy to get it.”
“I want to see them.”
“All in good time. I want you to see them too, Ned, I want you to see them very much, and dear old Mum and Dad are simply dying to see you.”
Ned said nothing.
Still the butcher smiled.
“I cannot begin to tell you how long it took for me to heal – so many falling rocks, so heavy and sharp. And for all that time, the one thing on my mind, the one thing I wanted to see again more than anything – was you. And here you are, all alone, no friends, no allies, not even your mouse. I’m told that’s the thing about love; in fact, I rather banked on it. It will make people travel enormous distances, fight in terrible wars and all for what? So you can see your dear mummy and daddy.”
A cold wind blew in Ned’s mind. Barbarossa had wanted him to come, had known he would.
But why, why did he want him?
“You were expecting me?”
“Carrion is quite the trickster. Ridding you of my brother and his allies was a knotty problem but I think he did rather well. You see, I wanted you to use your ring to come here, to believe that you could save your parents. It is only when beliefs are broken that true rage can run its course. You are now completely and truly alone, Ned, and nothing can save you or your family. Nothing.”
A powerless shiver went through Ned. Whatever else the butcher was, he was right.
The smug-faced thief beside him leant in to Barbarossa’s ear. “I’m so glad I have pleased you,” Carrion said. “There is still the small matter of my payment before I leave?”
“Leave? You do know that it is your usefulness that has kept you alive? My robot wanted to kill you but I insisted that we still needed your skills. You’re quite sure that there is nothing left for you to do?”
Carrion’s face turned red.
“When I pay for service, I do more than buy time, Carrion. I expect loyalty, I expect a certain amount of ownership. Do you not enjoy my company? Has Mr Sar-adin offended you?”
Carrion Slight looked at Ned. His eyes said that he knew he had met his end. Ned had to hand it to him, though, the thief remained quite calm.
“Well, Sar-adin, our friend would like to depart. I can’t say that I shall miss him. Pay him in full, would you?”
Without even moving, the Demon’s eyes glowed a fiery red and Carrion screamed in pain.
“ARGH! PLEASE, BARBA, PLEASE, I DIDN’T MEAN TO OFFEND YOU!”
Smoke started to pour from his mouth and ears and Carrion suddenly looked deeply afraid, a man in his last moments. And just like that, he fell to
the ground in a charred, smoking mess. Ned could only stare in dumbstruck awe. Even in his state, he realised that revenge is never sweet, only bitter and burnt.
“The thief’s dog, Masssster?”
“Throw him overboard.”
Ned watched, and as he did so he learnt something new about bargeists. They do not only become visible when they frighten you, but also when they are frightened. The alpha had grown in size at Ned’s home, but as the now-visible and yelping beast was carried away, he’d shrunk to the size of a puppy.
Barbarossa had not even glanced at his one-time employee’s demise. He had quietly and carefully cut himself a slice of apple before swallowing it whole.
“Now, where was I? Ah yes, I told you once that I had plans for you. The Darkening King will rise, boy, and you will help me bring him.”
“You’re mad, he’ll destroy us all!”
“All? I don’t think so. Demons are a funny bunch: they are bound, truly bound by magic to their word. Take Sar-adin, for instance, a djinn. His kind grant three wishes when freed from a bottle; imagine that. A trifling rub on the side of a lantern and they are bound to your every whim. Or three of them anyway. I know you’ve heard it – the voice. I have too. I’ve made a little deal with it and it simply has to give me what I want. Poor Bene doesn’t know that it was the same creature that gave us the curse of immortality. Imagine that? All these years he’s fought and it was the Darkening King that made him strong. We two brothers have always been part of its plan. The Veil will fall, Ned, and the Demon armies will be mine to control.”
Ned couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could it be – Benissimo, the most brave and selfless man he’d ever met, had been given his gift by the Darkening King himself? The very same creature that Barbarossa now hoped to control!
“I’ll never help you, not in a million years!”
Barbarossa picked up another apple and started to work his knife.
“I think it must run in the family. That’s just what your father said when I threatened your mummy. Such a fine woman and such a terrible shame.”
The Gold Thief Page 25
