by Glenn Dakin
Suddenly the soil erupted. Chunks of rock flew outwards, cutting into Theo’s shins and bringing him gasping to his knees. Finley covered his eyes as grit hit his face.
Theo staggered up and stumbled forwards. It was hard to make out what was happening in the darkness.
‘No!’ came a pitiful cry. Crane was hanging on to the cracked edge of the tomb for dear life, trying not to be pulled into the darkness.
‘Theo! Do something!’ Chloe shouted.
Theo tore off his gloves; already his fingers were aglow. He grabbed the long feeler that was dragging Crane downwards. It seemed to freeze for a moment, then glowed bright green. An unearthly scream rent the air as the feeler lit up, writhing and crackling, smoke streaming from it.
‘I . . . I’m free!’ shouted Crane. Finley began to pull up his comrade. Suddenly more feelers appeared, bursting from the ground and coiling everywhere, like dark snakes. Theo heard a gasp from Chloe.
By the light of his own hands, he saw her being engulfed in black tendrils. Theo reached out, his hands on fire, but a dark root snared his leg and sent him sprawling to the ground.
‘Chloe!’ cried Sergeant Crane, brandishing his gun.
‘Don’t shoot!’ roared Finley. ‘You might hit her!’
‘Theo!’ Chloe screamed as her body was dragged into the gaping darkness of the tomb.
Suddenly the ground beneath them trembled. There was a dull rumble. The walls of the tomb caved inwards, the gaping hole snapped shut.
Chloe was gone.
Chapter Five
Unlucky
‘It’s no good,’ said Sergeant Crane. ‘We’ve lost her!’
It was past midnight in the Condemned Cemetery. A large crowd of policemen had gathered around the collapsed tomb into which Chole had vanished.
Theo stared helplessly at the ground. He sank to his knees and clawed his hands into the icy dirt. His fingers burnt with impotent green fire. The earth would not respond to his power.
‘What . . . what are we up against?’ muttered Finley, aghast. ‘What would that thing want with her?’
‘See?’ said Sergeant Crane. ‘See now why we need a Candle Man?’
All eyes looked to Theo, but he stalked off, distractedly, into the woods, his eyes scouring the tree roots and hollows as if seeking some other opening – some way to follow Chloe.
‘There’s no way through,’ one of the technicians said, pointing his radar scanner at the tomb. ‘The ground is solid again. Whatever took her has the power to tunnel effortlessly beneath us, then cover all its traces.’
In the nearby woods, Theo stopped suddenly.
A dark shadow blocked his way.
‘There’s no other way, Theo!’ Finley was saying, back at the broken tomb. ‘This city needs its Candle Man – as it did long ago.’
There was a murmur among the officers gathered.
‘I would be down there, too, Theo – if it wasn’t for you,’ added Sergeant Crane, nursing a cut hand.
‘Theo?’
The policemen turned from the tomb and gazed around them. Their torch beams searched here and there, but found only silent trees, slanted gravestones and weathered statues.
Theo had vanished.
* * *
Theo could feel his bones rattling with cold, his eyes stream with tears as he clung on to the stony body of the winged creature that lifted him through the air. It was Tristus the garghoul, his friend.
Over the holly wood, above the ancient yew forest, and beyond the silent mausoleums they passed.
‘Here,’ Tristus said, setting Theo down just outside the back gate of the cemetery. ‘We may still be in time.’
Theo immediately recognised the place where they had landed. Before them, a circular iron hatch, surrounded by frosted weeds, glittered in the starlight. To most people it appeared to be an old sewer maintenance cover. But to Theo it was a way into the place he both loved and dreaded – the network.
‘Chloe –’ Theo began to speak as the garghoul rapped on the hatch’s central plaque, tip-tap-tip, commanding it to open.
There was a hiss of air, and then the pale glow of yellow light from the fungus globes within.
‘Your friend was taken – I know,’ the garghoul replied, darting into the tunnel and looking sharply this way and that. ‘They may not have gone far!’
Just hearing the garghoul’s clear, beautiful voice seemed to fill Theo’s heart with hope and his limbs with renewed energy.
The garghoul led the way, taking Theo into passages he had never trodden before. The mazy ways of the old tunnels were bewildering, but Theo could tell he was being led back under the cemetery.
They soon emerged into an underground chamber lit by a single fungus globe. The dim lamp was one of many located throughout the network, glass balls of bioluminescent plant matter. This one hung awkwardly from a drooping bracket and revealed shattered walls, crazed with great cracks.
‘There!’ Theo shrieked.
The tail end of a black tendril slipped over the edge of a shaft by the far wall. In a flash, the garghoul swooped in pursuit, disappearing after its quarry in a flurry of bat-like wings.
Theo waited in the chamber, his heart pounding.
It’s back, he said to himself. The world of the Candle Man is back.
He could hardly believe that in such a short time he had been taken from his cosy room in Empire Hall and plunged again into this world of peril.
Chloe. Tristus has to rescue Chloe.
Theo started, sensing a movement behind him. He looked around, but saw nothing – only his own shadow against the wall, distorted by the fungus globe.
Where am I? Theo wondered. After surviving his first adventure in the network two months ago, he had studied the map of the underground realm every night. Yet the tunnels still yielded endless surprises. Something on the map that appeared to be a mere slip of the pen could turn out to be a place of lost significance, a splendid ruin or a pitted death trap.
This must have been an important junction once, Theo reflected. He knew that the original Candle Man, Lord Wickland, had fought many battles and solved many mysteries in this great labyrinth beneath London. As he stood there he could almost imagine the ghost of his great ancestor would walk by at any second, his hands aglow, his bright eyes kindled with great purpose, forever stalking mysterious foes.
Theo stood, trembling with cold and anxiety, as his mind sought to contemplate everything – except the loss of his dearest friend.
No!
The garghoul sprang out of the shaft – alone.
‘It escaped me,’ Tristus said. The horned figure looked grim. ‘Truly you do have the eyes of the Candle Man, to have spotted that creature before a garghoul did.’
Theo joined Tristus on the brink of the shaft. ‘What was it?’
‘Something I have never seen before,’ Tristus replied. ‘A mystery,’ he added in a tone of astonishment. ‘I thought I had grown too old for them.’
‘How –’ Theo’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘How did it get away?’
Tristus’s brow darkened. ‘There are cracks and shafts like this running through the entire network now,’ he said. ‘The whole place was damaged by the great explosion that ended your battle with Dr Saint. This thing – these foul creatures – must be using the cracks to come to the surface unseen. Once lost in the shadows they could disappear in countless ways.’
‘But what about Chloe?’ Theo asked. ‘Why would they take her?’
Tristus’s eyes seemed to turn ice-cold, like white fire.
‘I do not know,’ he replied simply.
‘But you –’ Theo began in a pained voice. ‘You seem to know everything.’
Tristus looked away from Theo, as if unable to bear the boy’s gaze.
‘I have been watching over the graveyard,’ Tristus said. ‘It is the way of garghouls to watch – and wait. I was aware that these vile things were on the move – but until now I was happy to consider it none of my busin
ess.’
‘Then what is your business?’
Tristus looked grim. ‘You are. When you appeared in the cemetery tonight, of course I kept my eye on you – but I was too late to prevent the taking of your friend.’
‘What can we do?’
‘“We” can’t do anything,’ Tristus said. ‘I can seek for these creatures best on my own.’
‘You could carry me.’
‘I have done so before. But I carried you from peril – not into it. I will not be responsible for taking a soft, breakable mortal into the depths of this deadly labyrinth. Even one who possesses the rare tripudon energy, as you do. I suggest you return home as swiftly as you can, and gather your strength. But now, every second you argue could endanger your friend.’
Theo glanced at the way he had come. He nodded. He would know the way back. But abandoning the pursuit now was bitter.
‘You once told me,’ Theo said, ‘that I would be very unlucky if I ever needed your friendship again.’
Tristus rose on his beating wings and poised above the shaft.
‘We have been unlucky,’ he said.
Theo watched the garghoul plummet from view, then took a deep breath. He turned around and looked for the tunnel that he had taken on the way there. Then he stopped.
Emerging from the shadows, completely surrounding him, was an army of smoglodytes.
Chapter Six
Rumblings
A distant rumbling sound had put a constant frown on Magnus’s liver-spotted and wrinkled face. From time to time, clanking, knocking and rattling sounds echoed down the tunnels. A faint, smoky aroma hung in the air.
‘The network is not happy,’ Magnus said, peering this way and that with his pale, sunken eyes.
After a long journey down a spiral staircase, the repair party had finally reached the bottom of the Monarch Fields shaft. It should have been a short trip in the rackety old iron lift, but that, like every other device down there, was on the blink.
‘Not happy? How the dickens do you know that?’ asked Freddie Dove. ‘You’re just trying to scare me.’
‘The tunnels speak to me,’ said Magnus, lurching off with sudden energy on his two walking sticks, like some humanoid insect. He scowled at a broken fungus globe. It was quite dead.
‘Oh, the tunnels speak to you, do they?’ Freddie gave a short laugh. ‘Of course they do!’ As Magnus stalked by, Freddie’s face took on an anxious expression. ‘Just my luck to be in the hands of this barmy old fossil,’ he muttered under his breath.
Sam appeared at Freddie’s shoulder. Sam was shorter than the son of Lord Dove, but sturdier and broad, bulky in his dark duffle coat.
‘Hey, that’s my grandad you’re talking about,’ Sam said. For a moment his eyes met Freddie’s. ‘And you’re right – he really is a daft old fossil.’ Sam grinned. ‘But there’s no one who knows the network like him. I wouldn’t like to get lost down here without him.’
Sam gave the indignant Freddie a steady look that made the young lord squirm a little. ‘What’s your claim to fame?’ Sam asked. ‘You look like you wish you’d stayed at home.’
‘Well,’ confessed Freddie, ‘I did think the facilities would be better down here. Isn’t there any central heating?’
Some of the engineers chuckled. ‘It’s always tough on your first time down,’ one of them said.
‘Hmm . . . another shattered fungus globe,’ Magnus remarked from further down the tunnel. ‘Curious.’
‘What’s curious about it?’ asked Freddie. ‘They must have all blown up when the electrics blew a fuse down here. Result of the great battle and all that.’
‘Except,’ said Sam, ‘fungus globes are little ecosystems. They are alive and make their own bioluminescent light. They don’t blow up.’
Some of the engineers had started to mutter and shine their torches around nervously. The darkness and strange noises were unsettling.
‘I suppose a flash flood could have – hurrrgh – caused it.’ Magnus wheezed as his ancient lungs struggled for breath. ‘But there’s no other sign of that having occurred. It’s almost as if someone has been deliberately smashing them.’
‘Oh, dry up!’ said Freddie.
A strange scraping sound – from somewhere not far away – made everyone look around.
‘Tunnels still not happy,’ observed Sam.
‘I’m going to check the control box at the lift shaft,’ said one of the engineers. ‘This way!’
Several of the men headed off down the tunnel. Magnus called them back.
‘I wouldn’t stray too far just yet,’ he called. ‘Keep together, lads!’
The group ignored him and marched off into the blackness.
‘Oh, leave them,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll get the portable generator running. I’ve had enough of this darkness already.’ He turned around, shining his torch this way and that. ‘That’s funny.’
Magnus glanced back at Sam.
‘I’m sure I left the generator over there by the wall,’ Sam said. ‘Now it’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ Freddie gave a hollow laugh. ‘How can it be gone?’
Sam shone his torch high and low. ‘I don’t know – but it is.’
‘This is all your fault!’ one of the engineers grumbled at Freddie. ‘We were a party of twelve before you joined us. Now we’re unlucky thirteen.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snorted Freddie.
Everyone fell silent, listening to the sporadic groans and clanks that resounded through the tunnels.
Suddenly a blood-curdling cry echoed all around them.
‘What was that?’
‘It – it came from up there,’ Sam said. ‘Where those men were heading!’
A black shape, like a jungle creeper, lashed out at the torch in Sam’s hand, dashing it to the ground with a crack. The corridor was plunged into pitch blackness.
‘What in the name of –’
Sam’s words were drowned out in screams and cries from all sides. Cold, prickly tentacles wrapped around him in the darkness.
Chapter Seven
Old Friends
‘You!’
A child-sized figure stood before Theo; its grey skin was mostly see-through, like a plastic bag, with thin bones and pumping body parts visible within. Its head, resembling a wizened turnip, showed a face that looked like a hurriedly made Halloween lantern. It wore a strange, twisted smile.
‘Greetings, Theo,’ said the imp. ‘I am Skun, chief tracker of the Ilk tribe, noblest of the Smoglodyte peoples.’
Theo’s hands crackled with bright green fire that made the smoglodytes leap back, shield their eyes and cringe.
‘Skun!’ Theo cried out. ‘I might have known you would be involved!’
Theo was too angry and upset to be afraid of the strange creatures. He also knew that one touch from him could blow them to smithereens.
‘What’s going on? Where’s Chloe?’ he asked.
Skun, alone of his ragged mob, did not cringe and tremble before Theo’s power. He stood his ground, and to Theo’s amazement, continued to smile.
‘Your friend is one of the lucky ones,’ said Skun. ‘She is still alive.’
‘Alive?’ Theo felt a chill in his heart. ‘What do you mean alive? Why shouldn’t she be? What are you talking about?’
Theo pointed an angry finger at the smoglodyte, and it sprang nervously to the ceiling, where it stayed, like an upside-down spider, to continue the conversation.
‘She has been taken by the terrible unbogoglia,’ Skun said. ‘If they wish to kill an enemy they do it quickly. But they also take humans down . . . below. We saw her pass – alive and struggling. They obviously had other plans for her.’
‘Plans? What do you mean? How do you know?’
Skun remained on the ceiling, where many of the smaller smogs had followed him.
‘We don’t know what they do. But we are forced to hide from the creatures. And when we hide we see them – taking humans.’
On
e of the smaller smogs, Florn, looked out from behind Skun. ‘It’s fun to hear the humans scream,’ she said. ‘But it’s not safe to laugh.’
Theo frowned. Skun flipped himself off the chamber roof and landed in front of Theo again.
‘Perhaps now, you will not destroy us?’ asked Florn, following Skun to the ground. She was little more than a mere smogling and stayed cowering behind him.
Theo eyed the strange figures uneasily. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘Why are you here?’
Skun gave a low, ungainly bow. ‘Most noble Theo Saint, Lord of the Underworld and Entirely Dreaded Candle Hand.’ He paused, peeking up at Theo for signs of approval at this courteous address. He didn’t get any.
‘Many and great,’ began Skun again, ‘are the ties of friendship between us.’
Theo looked puzzled. ‘Friendship? I can remember you hunting me down and attacking my friends.’
‘Ah, yes!’ Skun replied with another bow. ‘Immortal deeds – that will always be remembered.’
‘With horror,’ said Theo.
‘With, err . . . great horror,’ said Skun hurriedly. ‘Indeed. A time of legendary adventures! But alas, things are now not so jolly as they once were.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We are doomed!’ blurted out little Florn from behind Skun.
‘The unbogoglia are wiping us out,’ said Skun, gesturing at the ragged and rather young crew of smogs behind him. ‘They come from out of the walls, the tiniest crack in the floor. We try to hide from them, but they have feelers – and eyes that can see around corners. They strike in darkness. They seek to drive us out of the network and make it their own.’
‘What do you know about them?’ Theo asked. ‘Where do they come from? What does their name mean – unbogoglia?’
Skun drew himself up and steepled his sticklike fingers with an air of great knowledge. ‘Ah – yes. Unbogoglia is an old smog term. It means that we don’t know what they are and we have no idea where they come from.’
Theo’s heart sank. They don’t know where Chloe is, he realised. I’m wasting my time.
