The Society of Dread

by Glenn Dakin

  No.

  Theo dug deep within himself, beneath the fear, the loathing and the despair. Underneath all that, there was a spark in him – a flame of life that refused to be snuffed out.

  It’s not your time, he told the crelp, as if addressing it face to face. This is not your world.

  To his astonishment, the crelp answered him back – its thoughts inside his head.

  ‘You are like us now,’ it said in a huge, yet soft, voice, like the sighing of a great ocean. ‘There is only the crelp now – only I – we – us – but there is no Theo.’

  Theo twisted his neck to see the face of Rakhim staring back at him, wide-eyed, mouth helplessly open, preserved like a fly in amber, trapped in the swollen green body of the giant crelp. The slime was slipping over Theo’s chin now. He could feel it seeping into his nostrils.

  Theo closed his eyes.

  Life! he called to himself, to the depths of his soul. Give me life, not death. Give me life.

  And then he looked at the world around him, filled with awe. He was now inside the crelp, swallowed, trapped, swimming in a world of glistening green.

  But he was alive – unhurt – his body completely aglow.

  I’ve become the flame, he realised suddenly. He had surrendered himself to the tripudon energy, the power he usually held in check. Now it filled his body.

  ‘There will be no Theo,’ the soft crelp voice said. ‘There will be no humankind at all!’

  ‘Why?’ Theo asked, the question forming in his mind. ‘What do you want? Why do you serve Dr Pyre?’

  The crelp shuddered and shimmered around Theo, as if trying to find a new way to crush him. A strange feeling possessed Theo. He felt free – in a way he had never felt before in his life. He was free of his weak human body. Free of pain, free of fear. Now he was only . . . flame.

  ‘We do not serve Dr Pyre,’ the crelp replied. ‘We use him. We deceive . . . deceiving him. The human Pyre frees us from the Chasm so that we can serve him. He thinks we are stupid crawlers in the dark – scared of the light. He uses us to guard the tunnels, keep his foes at bay. He did not – does not know we can build skeletons – make armour – rise up to walk and claw and take the surface world for our own.

  ‘We defend Dr Pyre now, so he can release more of our kind. But soon we will need him no longer. With every human we absorb, we knowing – know more. Soon we will take him too, and then free all the crelp.

  ‘Goodbye, human Theo,’ the crelp sighed. ‘You will soon be gone – and your bright world will be ours.’

  The crelp flexed its massive, gelatinous form to squeeze Theo out of existence. But, in his state of pure tripudon energy, Theo had no body to be crushed.

  Goodbye, Theo replied to the crelp. You’ve made my decision for me.

  A strange pang of wonder and fear shivered through the enormous crelp as it found it could not harm the little life it had absorbed. In fact, that life was growing stronger, brighter, more terrible.

  From their hiding place in the cracks and crevices of the chamber floor, lurking in smoky pits and behind fallen debris, Chloe, Lady Blessing, the Orpheus officers and frightened smoglodytes peered out.

  The towering monster before them began to glow. Dazzling, emerald green light spread outwards from a point in its centre to the fronded tip of every tentacle, to the glinting iris of every globular eye.

  What’s happening? Theo was lost in a mixture of wonder and bewilderment . . . losing his grip on the world, as his own mind seemed to disappear. He couldn’t hang on to his own thoughts any more.

  Who am I? What am I doing?

  Where has all this light come from?

  Then came the explosion.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Wonders

  ‘We’re through!’

  Slumped on his knees, Theo became dimly aware that people were shouting all around him. He felt like he had awakened from a dream. Chloe was standing over him, a mixture of fear and relief on her face. Black, searing slime was raining down from above.

  ‘I – I was happy,’ Theo babbled, ‘in a faraway place . . .’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ Chloe said, grinning. ‘You were here – destroying the crelp all at once!’

  She helped him to his feet.

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Chloe asked. ‘They merged together into one giant crelp, in order to beat us – but your power was too much for them.’

  Chloe sounded excited but there was a strange expression in her eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Theo asked. Chloe seemed slightly pale under her coating of fungus dust.

  ‘You – you haven’t quite come back to, err, normal,’ she replied.

  Theo felt a little dizzy. He looked down at his hands and saw them suddenly as shapes of pure green light. He blinked and they reverted back to normal again.

  Chloe gulped. ‘The – the same thing keeps happening to your face,’ she said. ‘You’re phasing in and out.’

  Theo felt a pang of fear shoot through him.

  The power took me over, he thought. It’s out of control. He tried to mask his panic. He had beaten the crelp – that was all that mattered. He looked around and saw the beasts, including the Caspian Tiger, staggering back to life, shaking off globs of slime.

  ‘Rakhim!’ Theo cried out, delighted. The tiger roared back approvingly. ‘Where’s the Dodo?’ Theo asked.

  Rakhim let out a low rumbling growl and nodded his enormous head towards a dark pit nearby. Black smoke and white-hot sparks flowed from the crack into which the Dodo had been hurled. Agitated creatures circled the pit wailing piteously.

  ‘He – he’s lost,’ Chloe said. ‘No one could survive down there.’

  Lady Blessing stood on the brink of the pit, in conference with two of the keepers. She glanced over at Chloe.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she commented, her eyes lowered. ‘But we have to do what we can. He – he’s still our pack leader. I’ll send the salamanders down to look for . . . what’s left of him.’

  At that moment, Colonel Fairchild appeared, blood trickling from his brow, followed by a troop of ash-covered Orpheus survivors.

  ‘All this,’ he growled, ‘will have been pointless if we don’t stop Dr Pyre.’ He was trying to sound tough but he looked shaken to the core. ‘We have to press on to find these – these Wonderful Machines!’ He spat out the last words bitterly.

  Theo watched as the Orpheus squad stepped into the crater and headed down its stone stairway. He noticed that the men gave him a wide berth, some casting him anxious glances as his body glowed erratically.

  ‘We did it,’ said Skun, scampering by, and beckoning his smog army to follow him. ‘I knew we would beat the crelp together, Theo.’

  ‘But what about the Dodo?’ Theo asked.

  ‘He’s a tough old bird,’ Skun remarked. ‘We will see!’

  Theo became aware that the men who had raced so eagerly ahead had all stopped. There was no way forwards. They had reached the Great Furnace, only to be held back by a wall of flame.

  ‘It seems Dr Pyre wasn’t relying on the crelp alone to protect him,’ Chloe groaned.

  The great power of the furnaces had been harnessed to create a final line of defence. Rising from fissures in the ground, a barrier of fire over fifteen feet high blocked their way. Chloe covered her eyes against the glare.

  ‘To come all this way,’ Colonel Fairchild cursed. ‘And now this!’

  A murmur of dismay rippled through the ragged army of injured smogs and wounded Orpheus officers. The men looked to their leaders.

  ‘Now we do need the Society of Dread,’ said Fairchild, turning to Theo and Chloe. There was desperation in his voice, and one of his eyes had taken to wandering slightly, unable to fix itself on anything. ‘My men can’t get through there,’ he added.

  A quiet voice spoke up.

  ‘I can.’

  Theo stepped forwards. He had been standing nearer to the flames than ev
eryone else and now he strode closer, his hands outstretched.

  ‘Theo, no!’ Chloe cried out.

  ‘I – I can’t feel the fire,’ Theo said in a tone of wonder.

  ‘What?’ Chloe went to grab hold of Theo, but the heat from the blaze drove her back.

  He reached out and held his fingers in the licking tongues of fire. ‘I can’t feel them – well, just a slight tickle,’ he said. For a split second he glowed bright green, then became normal again. Chloe bit her lip, scowling anxiously into the wall of heat.

  ‘What’s happened to me?’ Theo blurted out.

  Chloe shook her head. ‘You’ve been flashing on and off like a dodgy lightbulb ever since you beat the giant crelp,’ she said. ‘Magnus might know about such things,’ she ventured, ‘but I don’t. It looks as if the tripudon energy has taken over your body. You aren’t – you aren’t just flesh and blood any more.’

  Theo nodded, his face pale, yet luminous. He looked scared.

  ‘W-will I stay like this forever?’

  ‘No!’ Chloe said quickly.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ Theo probed.

  For once, Chloe had no reply.

  ‘Very well, Wickland, go ahead,’ said Colonel Fairchild. ‘I believe Lord Gold anticipated a moment such as this. You must proceed alone.’ The pale officer seemed strangely relieved. One or two of the men looked at Theo with awe.

  Skun bobbed up and down behind Fairchild, with a lop-sided grin.

  ‘The smogs will be behind you, great Candle Hand,’ he said. ‘There might be another way through. Maybe we can squeeze through cracks in the ground like the hideous crelp,’ he muttered.

  As the smogs slipped away, Skun glanced back at Colonel Fairchild.

  ‘Humans useless – as usual!’

  Theo gave Chloe a hopeless look. The wall of flame crackled before him.

  ‘Well, I’m not human any more,’ he said bleakly. ‘I’m going in.’

  ‘Theo!’ Chloe cried out. But he was gone.

  Theo had stepped forwards, and was now lost in the dazzle of the firelight. He felt half afraid, yet half thrilled by a strange feeling of freedom, of release from his human worries.

  Suddenly he was through. His bright green form slipped between the flames like a phantom. He had made it on to a shining metal pathway that led down into the pit containing the Wonderful Machines.

  For the first time he had a clear view of the fabled machinery that Dr Pyre had unearthed. The vault was shaped like a great bowl. A ring of dark spires guarded the outer walkway. As the metal road curled downwards it passed through several levels. Many dark cables, snaking pipes and spidery webs of wire all converged on an enormous black dome at the bottom. Lights glimmering through slit windows suggested this was the centre of operations.

  Theo walked on without fear. He seemed to have passed beyond it. Any danger that lay before him now held no terror.

  After all, what could be more terrible than me? he wondered.

  Is this the destiny of the Candle Man? Is this what Lord Gold knew about me . . . that I would become a kind of living ghost? Is that why he thought Dr Pyre couldn’t beat me?

  Theo had now passed under the dark web of wires. It was gloomier here. Energy crackled and spat around him; gleaming liquids bubbled in crystal tubes; a fine mist drifted about the iron columns and arches that supported the wheels and spires of the ancient machinery.

  Suddenly, among the gloomy vapours, a strange sight met his gaze. There, in an alcove under the rock wall, stood an elegant golden cage.

  And inside the cage was a hunched figure. As he moved closer, Theo could see inside more clearly. Holding on to the bars, stooped and sullen, wings folded, was his friend Tristus.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Unseen

  ‘Tristus! You’re all right!’ Theo cried. ‘I knew you would be!’

  Standing before his friend, Theo studied the face of the stony creature, slightly puzzled. Something seemed wrong, but he couldn’t place what.

  ‘Theo,’ the garghoul said, without a hint of surprise. His slate-grey hands clutched the golden bars.

  ‘Oronium,’ Tristus explained. ‘The great secret of the alchemists. Mere strength cannot break it.’

  Theo raised a hand to touch the gleaming metal. To his surprise it seemed to tremble – to come to life under his touch.

  ‘Forged by alchemy in ages past,’ Tristus said. ‘I am its prisoner, but the fire of your touch could unmake it.’

  Theo watched as the metal began to dissolve into the air.

  ‘It – it’s time,’ said Theo. ‘It’s time to face Dr Pyre.’

  ‘Beware, Theo,’ the garghoul said softly. ‘I do not know if you are ready yet – ready to encounter him.’

  ‘Some have said that he is too strong for me,’ Theo replied. ‘I hoped you would be different.’

  ‘I do not speak of battle,’ the garghoul answered. For a moment it appeared that Tristus would say more, but his face darkened with doubt.

  ‘Come on,’ Theo urged. He was surprised that Tristus remained in the cage, now it was melting away. ‘You can help me! We can beat Dr Pyre together, can’t we?’

  The garghoul did not reply. Tristus’s face seemed somehow empty, like the stone statue he sometimes pretended to be.

  Theo suddenly felt anxious. ‘I know that he beat you before, but he – he took you by surprise then, didn’t he?’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘You had better seek your destiny alone, Theo,’ Tristus said, his voice hollow.

  ‘What do you mean, alone?’ Theo asked the garghoul. ‘Why won’t you come with me? What’s wrong?’

  Tristus stood motionless, still clutching the golden bars that were melting like ice all around him.

  ‘I cannot help with this, Theo,’ he said softly. ‘For now . . . I am blind.’

  Blind? Theo gazed at his friend, stunned.

  ‘The blast,’ Tristus explained, ‘from Dr Pyre. His power went straight into my head . . .’

  Theo didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Come with me –’ he began awkwardly.

  ‘No,’ Tristus said. ‘You must go where you are needed. But please fear nothing on my account. My war is over, perhaps. I hear the stone calling me.’

  Theo looked helplessly at his friend. Suddenly a terrible scream echoed from somewhere beneath them.

  ‘Go, Theo!’ Tristus urged. ‘Dr Pyre is at work in the chamber below. Matters race to their end. The Candle Man is needed, as ever, on the very brink of disaster.’

  * * *

  Theo headed downwards in the direction of the horrible cry. He had now reached the ominous command dome itself. Pale fumes hung around the arched entrance, but there was no sign of any movement.

  Why aren’t there any guards?

  Then Theo saw him, just beyond the archway: the unmistakable form of Hollister, the nastiest of all the Sewer Rats. The enormous figure stood, an unmoving sentinel.

  Hollister had not seen him. Theo drew closer and realised that Hollister would not be seeing anything ever again. The Sewer Rat was standing still because his body had been incinerated, fused into a pile of smoking ashes.

  Theo raised his hand curiously to touch the figure. Before his eyes the ashen form trembled, then cascaded to the ground in an avalanche of grey dust.

  Stepping over the remains, Theo entered the dome. He was in some kind of control room, but the Sewer Rats were no longer in control. Eerie, pale forms could be glimpsed, sprawled among the drifting vapours. Some, like Hollister, were pillars of smoking ashes. Others were little more than a streak of soot, stretched out in despairing attitudes.

  The Sewer Rats were dead.

  Why had Dr Pyre turned against his followers?

  Hearing voices from an inner chamber, Theo went to investigate. He peered through a final doorway. Now he had reached the very centre of the vault, the heart of the Wonderful Machines.

  A circular inner sanctum, a hundred feet across, met Theo’s gaze.
Sunk into the floor of this chamber was a central well, pulsing with pale light. Standing at a barrier before this well was Dr Pyre, facing his last remaining underling, the wretched, one-eyed Queasley.

  ‘But, my Lord!’ Queasley cried. ‘It – it was all agreed!’ The quivering Sewer Rat pointed a trembling finger downwards, into the well of light. ‘We helped you rig up the alchemical bomb! We were going to strike at the world above . . . at the Surfacers!’

  Dr Pyre’s cracked hands played over the surface of the control panel. He spoke with a calm detachment.

  ‘Moments ago,’ the faceless man croaked, ‘I revealed my true purpose to you all and gave you the chance to flee. Instead, you all chose to attack me. Your fate is now sealed.’

  As Theo edged nearer, concealed by banks of machinery, he could see the bomb that Queasley was referring to. About twenty feet down, suspended in that shaft like a fallen star, was a shimmering ball of crystal and light.

  ‘This was always my intention,’ Dr Pyre continued in a dry whisper. ‘To harness the power here to create an alchemical bomb. To use the ill-named Wonderful Machines to destroy themselves, to destroy the furnaces, the fortresses, the wisdom of the alchemists. I intend to destroy all.’

  ‘That isn’t what we agreed!’ Queasley screeched. ‘You – you can’t!’

  A cold fire burnt in the eyes of the faceless man.

  ‘I am Dr Pyre,’ he whispered. ‘Destruction is the one gift I have left.’

  He pointed a single, gnarled finger at Queasley.

  ‘No!’

  The Sewer Rat’s cry was cut short as his body was engulfed in a ball of flame. For one moment, black, twisted arms seemed to rise up in defiance, then Queasley’s tortured frame caved in upon itself and crumpled into white-hot dust.

  Silently, Dr Pyre turned back to his work. Then he stared, astounded.

  Theo stood before him. Unnoticed, he had slipped from the shadows to within reach of his enemy.

  ‘There will be no more destruction,’ Theo said quietly.

  Dr Pyre froze, as if he were seeing a ghost.

  ‘Is it . . . can it be, my Fool?’ Dr Pyre gasped. He seemed uncertain.