Web of Fire Bind-up

by Steve Voake

  Hekken paused to flick some dust off his sleeve. ‘I see,’ he said. He smiled. ‘It’s Sam, isn’t it?’

  Sam stared at Hekken and saw something beyond the smile, something dangerous which told him that this man could not be trusted. As he lowered his gaze and looked away into the corner of his cell, he noticed the tiny piece of paper lying in the shadows.

  He swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  Hekken smiled again, but his eyes were cold; dead as a fish on a slab.

  The punch, when it came, was so hard that it sent Sam sprawling against the wall and left him clutching his stomach in agony. Hekken grabbed him by the front of his prison uniform and pulled him to his feet again.

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ he hissed, his voice full of venom. ‘I own you, do you hear me? You belong to me now. Understand?’

  He threw Sam back into the corner with such force that all the wind was knocked out of him and he collapsed in a heap on the wet floor.

  ‘I’ll give you a few hours to think about it,’ he said, turning back to look at Sam from the doorway. ‘If you can’t come up with something better, then I’m afraid I will have to arrange another meeting with your friends from the train.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘They mean well, of course, but between you and me…’ Here he paused, then whispered in a conspiratorial voice, ‘They can be awfully unpleasant. Just something for you to think about, that’s all. I look forward to discussing it with you later.’

  The door slammed shut.

  Sam heard the key turn in the lock and footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

  Then there was silence; nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the desperate beating of his heart.

  Sam sat in the corner where he had fallen and drew his knees up to his chin. Then he covered his head with his arms and wept.

  It was after the last of his sobs had subsided that he heard the sound.

  At first he thought that he was mistaken, that it was merely his own breath or his imagination playing tricks on him.

  But no – there it was again.

  What was it? It seemed to be coming from the small hole at the base of the wall.

  He crawled carefully from the shadows and put his ear next to it, listening intently.

  He waited and held his breath.

  And there it was.

  The faint but unmistakable sound of someone calling his name.

  Seven

  ‘Sam,’ the voice whispered. ‘Sam, can you hear me?’

  Sam could hardly believe it. It was a young girl’s voice; she sounded about his age.

  ‘Yes, I can hear you,’ he whispered excitedly back into the hole. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the cell next to yours,’ the voice replied. ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Sam.’

  Sam thought about this for a moment. What did she mean, she’d been waiting for him? How could anyone have possibly known he was coming?

  ‘I think you must have got me mixed up with someone else,’ he told her. ‘My name’s Sam Palmer, and there’s been a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t really be here.’

  ‘Oh, I know who you are,’ said the girl. ‘And that’s why I’m here. I’ve come to help you.’

  Sam frowned. None of this was making any sense.

  ‘But what am I doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Long story,’ she replied. ‘Long and complicated. But don’t worry – I’ll explain later.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Skipper,’ she answered. ‘Glad you got my note. How are things in there? Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Sam, rubbing his injured shoulder. ‘Everyone’s so friendly.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I heard your little meeting with the staff. They do so enjoy their work.’

  Sam winced at the memory. ‘Who are those people anyway?’

  ‘That was Hekken and his henchmen. They work for Odoursin, the Emperor of Vermia. Hekken’s bad news, Sam. I’d stay out of his way if I were you.’

  Sam gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘That could be a bit tricky, don’t you think? I mean, I don’t know what your cell’s like, but mine’s a bit short on hiding places. And it doesn’t sound as though I’m going anywhere any time soon.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Skipper.

  There was a pause while Sam considered this strange reply. Who was this girl with her quiet confidence? There was something about her that made him feel hopeful again, but he would have to tread carefully. It could be a trick.

  ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ he asked, remembering what she’d said about coming to help him. ‘Did they take you away too?’

  ‘Not exactly. Let’s just say I got caught.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Oh – it’s a bit involved. But listen, we haven’t got much time. The important thing is, they mustn’t find out who you really are. When they come for you – which they will – they’ll do all kinds of things to try and make you admit it, but you mustn’t tell them.’

  Sam was puzzled. ‘But they already know who I am,’ he said. ‘That man – Hekken. He called me Sam just now. You must have heard him.’

  ‘I know, but the thing is they’re not sure. They think that you’re Sam, they really want you to be Sam, but something’s happened to make them think they’ve made a mistake. It’s up to you to convince them that they have.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean something’s happened?’

  There was another pause.

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think one of the Olumnus must have given you a helping hand on your way down here. Changed the way you look for a while.’

  ‘The Olumnus?’ Sam was becoming more confused by the second. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Look, I can’t tell you too much right now, but if you can convince these people that you’re not who they think you are, they’ll lose interest and drop their guard. And that’s when we make our escape.’

  Sam glanced at the stone walls surrounding him.

  ‘Well, that’s simple then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Skipper, ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘Look,’ said Sam, ‘I don’t want to sound negative here or anything, but the way I see it, we’re locked into stone cells a couple of hundred feet up and the place is swarming with guards, one of whom is threatening to turn me over to a bunch of wild dogs. Put yourself in my shoes. Escape doesn’t sound too realistic, does it?’

  ‘I know this is hard, Sam, but just think for a minute. If someone had told you a few days ago that you’d be snatched away from home and thrown into a prison cell, would it have sounded realistic?’

  ‘No, I suppose not, but –’

  ‘Nothing’s ever certain, Sam. There are no guarantees about anything. Which is actually quite good news for us, as it happens.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think about it,’ replied Skipper. ‘If nothing is certain, then anything is possible. I agree that escape sounds unlikely. But the fact of you being here at all is even more unlikely. And yet here you are. So all things considered, the chances of escaping are, in fact, quite good.’

  Sam heard Skipper chuckling happily to herself on the other side of the wall and in spite of everything his spirits began to lift.

  ‘But where am I?’ he asked.

  ‘In deep trouble,’ replied Skipper. ‘Smack bang in the middle of it, to be precise. But don’t worry. I’m here to fix that.’

  ‘Tell me something,’ said Sam, changing tack. ‘How do I know that I can trust you?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Skipper answered. ‘But then if you knew you could trust me, it wouldn’t be trust, would it?’

  ‘But you could be working for them,’ said Sam. The fear he had felt earlier was creeping back again. He was beginning to think about what Hekken had said, how he would turn him over to those vicious creatures from the train. ‘Why should I believe you?’

  There was a long sil
ence. At last, Skipper spoke. ‘Because you don’t have a choice,’ she said simply.

  At that moment there was the sound of boots on the stairway again, and the clanging of keys opening doors along the passageway.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Sam in alarm.

  ‘They’re taking us down to work in the tanks,’ said Skipper hurriedly. ‘They’ll probably come for you later, when the rest of us have gone. Look, just tell them someone attacked you and stole your clothes, OK? Tell them you got on the train to shelter from the storm. That should buy us a bit more time. Be strong, Sam. It’ll be all right. Believe me.’

  Sam held his breath as he heard Skipper’s door being unlocked.

  ‘Come on. Out!’ a guard shouted into Skipper’s cell, and he heard the sound of light footsteps padding across the stone floor.

  ‘Patience is a virtue, you know.’

  Skipper’s voice was small, clear and confident: a light in the darkness. But then came the sound of a stinging slap and a little cry.

  ‘You wanna watch that mouth of yours, kid. Now move out!’

  Sam’s stomach flipped at the sound of this rough treatment and, running to the door, he heard Skipper’s voice call softly as she went past, ‘Don’t worry about me – just look at the sky!’

  There was a grunt and a kick, then more shouting and the sound of a hundred footsteps fading away down the long, echoing stairway.

  Sam was alone.

  Look at the sky. What had she meant?

  He scrambled to his feet, leant back against the steel door and then ran at the wall, jumping towards the window as he had done before and hauling himself up by the bars.

  He looked up at the sky, but there were only dark clouds casting deep shadows across the landscape. Down below he could see the prisoners being led in a long line across the courtyard towards the gates. Some were viciously punched and kicked for not moving quickly enough.

  Sam realised that there was no one to look after him, no rules to protect him in this terrible place. He began to feel very frightened indeed. What would happen next?

  He let go of the bars and dropped to the floor. Suddenly he felt very cold, hungry and tired. Shivering, he curled himself up in the corner and within a few minutes he had fallen into an exhausted and fitful sleep.

  Later, when he awoke, the cell was much darker and Sam realised that it must be night-time. He had been asleep for a long time. Although the room was in shadow, a bluish glow shone through the window, which Sam presumed was the light from the moon.

  He remembered what Skipper had said to him before she was taken away.

  Look at the sky.

  Sam ran to the door, pushed himself off from it and leapt up at the window. Wrapping his arms around the bars, he rested his chin on the window ledge and looked out towards the far horizon.

  Through a break in the clouds Sam could see that the sky was a deep violet and bright stars sparkled across the heavens. It was a breathtaking, beautiful night.

  But what made Sam’s heart leap – what shook him, scared him and filled him with exquisite feelings of danger and excitement – was his first glimpse of the source of the light that had filtered through his window.

  Hanging low in the sky just above the horizon were two moons, one red and one green. A third moon, pale blue in colour, was just beginning to rise above the tree-tops. Sam’s mouth dropped open in amazement and wonder. It was the strangest, most wonderful sight he had ever seen.

  A different world.

  He remembered the other thing that Skipper had said to him: Anything is possible.

  He rested his forehead against the cold metal bars and breathed in the cool night air. Then he heard the sound of footsteps echoing down the corridor, and his stomach turned over.

  They were coming for him.

  Eight

  Sally Palmer drew back the curtains and winced as bright sunshine flooded the room. Outside, the sky was blue and the birds were singing. It really was the most beautiful summer’s day.

  She shut her eyes tightly and felt hot tears spring up under her eyelashes. There had to be some mistake. How could it possibly be such a lovely day? Why wasn’t the sky dark? Why wasn’t it raining? Why weren’t thunder clouds pounding the pavements in anger and sorrow at the terrible tragedy that had occurred?

  She sat on the bed and put her face in her hands. It had been two days now. Two days since Sam’s accident. But in spite of the fact that her world had changed completely, the world outside remained just the same. The sun still shone brightly from a clear blue sky. People still laughed and enjoyed themselves. They still watched television, ate ice creams and went for walks in the park.

  Of course they did. How could they know?

  They couldn’t see the dark storms that raged inside her. They couldn’t feel the chill of the bleak, desolate ocean that surrounded her or the currents that tried to drag her under. She was drowning in her own sadness and nobody knew it. There was nothing left to reach out for, no lifeline that would carry her to the shore.

  Her husband, Jack, tried to comfort her, but he was suffering as much as she was. What words of comfort are to be found when your only child has been taken from you?

  Your only child. Sally wiped her eyes and laid a hand softly on the swelling beneath her nightdress.

  No, not her only child.

  She stared out through the window at the fields of ripening corn and thought about how she had wanted this second child so badly. Something stirred in her memory and she began to remember last summer. That business on the beach…

  It had been Jack’s idea to spend a day at the seaside, and Sam was having a wonderful time in spite of the rain. But Sally had suddenly been overcome by a wave of sadness and, feeling the need to be alone for a while, she had left Jack and Sam at the penny arcade and wandered slowly back along the pier to the stone steps which led down onto the beach.

  Walking along the stony shore, she had listened to the pebbles rattle beneath the shallow rim of the ocean and wondered if the emptiness inside her would ever be filled.

  A sudden voice carried on the wind had made her turn towards the sea wall. She saw a man dressed in a shabby suit standing all alone, with his arms outstretched and a mane of long, dark hair blowing around his face. Next to him was a large board upon which a sheet of paper had been taped and it fluttered wildly against its fixings. Spelled out on the sheet in red felt pen were the words ‘Behold he cometh: for the time is at hand’, but the rain had made the ink run and it trickled down the paper in bloody streams.

  ‘The truth is Alpha and Omega,’ he shouted into the wind, ‘the beginning and the end, which is, and which was, and which is to come…’

  Sally had put her head down as she hurried past, hoping that the man wouldn’t notice her, but she heard the crunch of boots across the stones and then he was standing in front of her.

  ‘Are you saved, sister?’

  Sally had stared into those wild eyes filled with madness and wanted only to run away as fast as she could, back to the pier and the lights of the arcade.

  But she didn’t run. She just stood and looked down at her small, scuffed shoes, listening to the crash and thunder of the waves behind her. And then, as she raised her head and looked into the man’s eyes once more, she saw in a moment how all the madness had suddenly disappeared, evaporating like a wraith into the stormy air. He stood there blinking, staring at her as though seeing her for the very first time.

  ‘I know what you are looking for,’ he said, and took her hand between his. Her eyes were drawn momentarily to the blue sparkle of a tiny sapphire set into his earlobe, an unexpected fleck of colour in a grey and ordinary world. She stared at it and remembered all the years of trying for another baby, of seeing endless specialists and waiting in draughty hospital corridors. Suddenly she could bear it no longer; her lower lip quivered and the tears streamed down her face.

  The man continued to hold her hand but made no other effort to comfort her.

&n
bsp; ‘You know,’ he said quietly as the wind howled between them, ‘sometimes the things we want most are the hardest of all to get.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sally softly, ‘I know it.’ Her face was wet and crumpled.

  ‘But perhaps,’ the man went on, ‘when we want a thing so badly, that thing will try and find us too.’

  Sally wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

  The man ignored her question and squeezed her hand. ‘Look in your dreams,’ he said, ‘and I think you may find what you are searching for.’

  Walking quickly back along the windswept pier, Sally had thought about the man’s words, turning them over in her mind and trying to make some sense of them. Stopping and leaning over the balustrade, she had looked down at the beach again, hoping to catch sight of the stranger who had so unexpectedly touched her heart.

  But there was no one; only the endless pebbles and an empty sea wall stretching away into the distance.

  The beach was deserted.

  Some days Sally had wondered if she was really losing it.

  But soon after that, the dreams had started.

  Now, as she stood at the bedroom window and watched a pair of swallows twist effortlessly through the blue, cloudless sky, Sally made a solemn promise. ‘I will find you,’ she whispered as the tears ran down her face. ‘Wherever you are, I will find you and bring you home.’

  Nine

  Sam sat in the back of the car, wedged between two massive prison guards. Both had shaved heads and were wheezing loudly from the effort of bundling him into the back seat. With each wheeze, he was treated to a face full of stale, garlic-ridden breath so disgusting that he thought he might be sick.

  He was handcuffed to the fatter one of the two, who seemed to have been stuffed into a uniform that was several sizes too small for him. The material was stretched tightly across his enormous stomach and the five buttons appeared to be under such strain that Sam thought it must be only a matter of time before they went pinging off in all directions.