by Steve Voake
‘Please,’ said Skipper, ‘be my guest.’
‘What do you say we turn around and fly very fast in the opposite direction. With any luck they won’t see us. Then – who knows – we may not die.’
‘You really are a worrier, aren’t you?’ said Skipper.
‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘In this case, I am.’
‘Well, there’s no need,’ said Skipper in a voice that was meant to sound reassuring. ‘I can outmanoeuvre a few wasps, no problem. By the time they’ve caught up with us we’ll be sitting down having a nice cup of tea with the Commander. Just you wait and see. I’ll look after you.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Sam.
Skipper smiled. She flicked the joystick slightly and they banked around to the right. The wings tipped back to the horizontal and Sam saw that they were now skimming over the surface of a river.
‘Look, there it is,’ said Skipper, pointing up ahead. In the distance to the left of the river Sam could just make out a group of buildings in the middle of a huge expanse of concrete and tarmac, surrounded by tall fencing. It reminded him of the airfield that they had escaped from the day before and he shivered.
Skipper pulled back on the throttle and Sam felt himself pushed back into his seat as they accelerated hard. The surface of the water beneath them blurred to a silver-grey strip and Sam gripped the armrests to steady himself as the fly banked sharply round again.
They left the river and flew low, hugging the ground. Sam could see the dust blowing up beneath their wings and watched the tiny particles swirl into random patterns, catch in the slipstream and then twist and blur out of sight.
‘Hold on, Sam!’ Skipper shouted suddenly. ‘Here they come!’
Sam looked up to find that they were approaching the perimeter fence at incredible speed. Beyond it was the unmistakable, horrifying sight of twenty or thirty enormous wasps taking off from the airfield. He saw the thin-waisted, yellow and black shapes so familiar from summer picnics, watched as the sun glinted on the tips of the silver stings that protruded from their pointed abdomens and just had time to register the inscrutable menace of the black and yellow painted faces before Skipper pulled back hard on the joystick and the scene blurred into clear blue sky.
The g-forces were so strong that it felt to Sam as though invisible hands were grabbing him and pulling him back through the fabric of his seat. His cheeks were dragged backwards and his eyes felt as though they were burrowing down into their sockets.
‘Yeeeeeehaw!’ shouted Skipper as they levelled out again and Sam’s mind gradually emerged from a mist of confusion, trying to work out what had become of his body and whether there were any bits of it left worth worrying about.
Looking down, he realised they must have gained height rapidly, because the airbase looked much smaller and the wasps appeared as black dots far below. But the dots were quickly getting bigger and Sam knew that the wasps had seen them.
‘Skipper,’ he said, unable to keep the nervousness out of his voice, ‘they’re getting nearer.’
Skipper leant forward to get a better view. ‘So they are,’ she said. ‘Well, this should be fun.’
‘Fun?’ retorted Sam. ‘Skipper, they’re going to kill us!’
‘Relax,’ Skipper replied with a nonchalant air that suggested they were setting out for a Sunday afternoon drive. ‘They’re not going to kill us. They’re going to try and kill us. And that,’ she added, reaching over to flick a couple of switches, ‘is a very different thing.’
‘But there are hundreds of them!’ protested Sam. ‘We haven’t got a chance!’
‘Twenty-five to be precise,’ Skipper corrected him, ‘and I know for a fact that it’s B Squadron, who have only just finished their basic training. They might scare Odoursin’s lot, but they’re no match for us. Watch this.’
She thrust the joystick forward and the horsefly dropped like a stone. Sam’s stomach flipped over again and felt as though it was disappearing off through the top of his head. The formation of wasps was now directly ahead of them, climbing steadily through the sky, and Sam watched in horror as the lead wasp loomed up large, filling the screen as they hurtled towards it. For a split second it seemed certain that they would collide, but in the final moments the pilot must have panicked, because it veered off suddenly to the left, leaving the rest of the formation to be split in half as Sam and Skipper scorched through the centre, sending several wasps tumbling away into the distance. But one wasp at the very end of the formation held steady and Sam could feel the insect’s eyes fixed directly on his own as they bore down upon it.
He shot a sideways glance at Skipper and saw that her face was drained of colour. Her hands gripped the controls tightly and she seemed transfixed by the wasp that was rushing headlong toward them.
‘We’re going to crash!’ yelled Sam. ‘Get out of the way, Skipper! We’re going to die!’
‘Not yet!’ shouted Skipper with grim determination. ‘Not yet!’
‘Skipper, no!’ Sam screamed. He shut his eyes and covered his face as the inscrutable features of the wasp appeared close up on the monitor, its jaws open to reveal a terrible blackness inside. There was a tremendous thump, followed by a tearing sound, and Sam was thrown hard against the restraints of his seat belt as the whole world turned upside down.
Opening his eyes, he saw Skipper hanging from her straps and desperately struggling with the controls. Her face was pale and she looked very frightened. The fly slowed, shook violently for a few seconds and then went into a sickening spin.
‘What’s happening?’ he shouted. ‘Skipper, what’s the matter?’
‘The wing,’ gasped Skipper. ‘He ripped one of our wings off.’
Sam felt the safety restraints begin to cut into his shoulders as they plummeted towards the ground. He watched helplessly through the screen as the view flipped sickeningly from sky to ground and back to sky again, all the blues and the browns mixing and merging together as the fly spun out of control.
A sudden memory was triggered in Sam’s mind. He was on a bike, riding through a country lane in summer, the scent of wild garlic rising from the hedgerows and the sound of a car somewhere in the distance. There was a pain, a splintering sound, and then all the colours were spinning and screaming and everything was falling away like a stone thrown into the deepest ocean. In a split second Sam thought, I have been here before and this is what it feels like to die because… because I remember it all and now everything will be lost –
‘Hold on!’ screamed Skipper. There was a noise so loud that it seemed to rip through the whole world, followed by a scraping, squealing and grinding, a violent juddering and an incredibly loud bang. Then silence.
Sam had just worked out from the thumping of his heart that he was still alive when there was the sound of a metal catch being released, a loud clunk from somewhere below him and an even louder ‘Ow!’
He opened his eyes to find he was hanging upside down in his straps. Below him, Skipper was crawling around, scowling and rubbing the top of her head.
She looked up and gave him a cheery wave. ‘Hi, Sam. Stay there and I’ll come and get you out.’ She clambered up underneath him and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘I’ve got you,’ she reassured him. ‘Release your safety catch and I’ll help you down.’
Sam did as he had been instructed and they were soon crouched together looking up at the seats and the control panel, which were fixed incongruously to what was now the ceiling.
Sam whistled. ‘I thought we were goners that time,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ agreed Skipper. ‘Those guys were sharper than I thought. Basic training has obviously moved on since my day.’
Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘Since your day? You sound as though you’re about to retire.’
‘Yeah, well, after today I might just do that. I tell you, it’s the first time I’ve ever used a single wing as a rudder and a brake. Hope it’s the last too. I thought it was going to snap off.’
Sam nodded through the splintered screen towards the smoking remains of what was once a wing, now bent and twisted on the ground outside.
‘It did snap off,’ he pointed out.
‘Not before we landed though,’ said Skipper. ‘If it hadn’t been for that wing, we wouldn’t be here.’
‘Correction,’ said Sam, ‘if it hadn’t been for you we wouldn’t be here. That was an amazing piece of flying.’
Skipper almost blushed. ‘Well, my crashes are becoming more stylish at any rate.’ She fished the CRB out of her hip pocket, pointed it in front of her and the side of the fly dissolved in a flash of blue light.
The first thing Sam noticed as he crawled blinking into the bright sunlight was that they appeared to have landed on some sort of roof. The second was that a pair of light blue, perfectly pressed trousers with a crease as sharp as a razor was standing right in front of him, blocking his way. Squinting, he looked up to discover that their owner was a lean, powerfully built man in his late forties or early fifties. He wore a tunic and cap made of the same light blue material as the trousers, and circles of gold braid were embroidered around the sleeves. A column of highly polished brass buttons glinted in the sunlight and a row of golden pips shone from the top of each shoulder. His skin was the colour of old pine and he had the weathered look of someone who had spent a good deal of his time outside facing the elements.
He studied Sam for a few seconds and then shifted his gaze towards the wreckage. He watched as Skipper crawled out onto the roof and then raised one eyebrow as if only mildly surprised that an enormous horsefly should have crash-landed on his control tower.
‘Ah, Skipper,’ he said. ‘Rather thought it might be you.’
Skipper tried somewhat shakily to get to her feet, then decided against it and sat down again. The man paused and looked around wistfully, as though taking in the amount of damage for the first time. In the distance, Sam could see the squadron of wasps returning to base and, beyond the perimeter fence, the wreckage of five or six insects that had crashed following Skipper’s unorthodox manoeuvres.
‘I suppose we should be grateful that you’re on our side,’ he added dryly. ‘One can only imagine the kind of damage you’d do if you were actually fighting against us.’
‘I know,’ said Skipper ruefully. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘And without wishing to sound petty or indeed state the obvious, most pilots tend to avail themselves of the airfield’s extensive touchdown area when coming in to land. You, however, have to use the roof.’
Not for the first time today, Sam was worried. This man was obviously extremely important and they had just smashed up his nice building and several of his aircraft.
‘I therefore have only one thing to say to you,’ the man continued.
Now we’re in for it, Sam thought. Expecting trouble, he turned his face back to look up at the man and was amazed to see that he was smiling broadly. The man reached out a large hand and helped Skipper to her feet.
‘And what might that be, Commander?’ asked Skipper with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Welcome home,’ said Commander Firebrand. ‘It’s good to have you back.’
Twenty-one
‘It sounds as though we were lucky to get you here in one piece,’ said Firebrand after listening to Sam and Skipper recount the events of the past few days. Sam nodded and looked around the large study with its richly patterned carpet, dark wooden bookcases and button-backed comfortable chairs. There was a timeless feel to it, as though its quiet atmosphere of dust and old leather provided an invisible barrier against the outside world. Skipper sat opposite him on a battered old sofa with her legs tucked underneath her, sipping from a mug of hot, sweet tea and tucking in to a thick slice of bread and butter. Sam took a swig from his own mug, leant back in the armchair and listened to a clock ticking somewhere behind him. This could be England, he thought.
Firebrand drew deeply on his cigar and the end glowed a deep red. He held it between his finger and thumb and watched the smoke drift up from the tip in thick, aromatic wisps.
‘Odoursin wants to get his hands on you pretty badly, Sam.’ He tapped the end of the cigar so that the ash fell into the silver ashtray on his desk. ‘So right now, you’re in the best place. Believe me.’
‘I don’t wish to be rude,’ Sam ventured uncertainly, ‘but why am I here?’
Firebrand narrowed his eyes and stared at Sam through the smoke that curled from the end of his cigar. ‘You’re here because of the prophecy,’ he explained. ‘Odoursin believed that bringing you to Aurobon was crucial to his future success.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Sam.
‘After their attack failed at the start of the war, Odoursin’s army retreated into the mountains and vented their anger on our ancestors – the Olumnus – virtually wiping them out. And when they took over their caves, they found the Book of Incantations.’
‘The Book of what?’
‘Incantations,’ repeated Firebrand. He got up from his desk and walked across to the window overlooking the airfield. ‘It was previously thought of as a legend, a magical book containing prophecies which accurately foretold the future. Its discovery was of enormous significance to us all, and strengthened Odoursin’s belief that his destiny was to rescue Earth from what he saw as its human parasites. He began to believe that his defeat in battle was fate’s way of bringing him to the book in order to prepare him for future victory. After having the book translated, he was convinced of it.’
‘But what does it say?’ asked Sam.
‘Well, there’s a lot of pretty general stuff about the fall of kings and empires and the conjunction of planets and constellations and suchlike. But take a look at this.’
Skipper flipped off the lights as Firebrand pulled a cord to draw the curtains. He picked up a small handset from his desk and a screen lit up on the end wall.
Sam peered through the darkness as words appeared on the screen. He read:
… and so it is written that there shall be seven states of darkness; the decay of religion, revolution, famine, earthquakes, war, the poisoning of the Earth and plagues and diseases. When these prevail, the Great One shall come from the sky and Earth shall be saved.
‘Now, if you think about it,’ said Firebrand, ‘that just about sums up the state of the Earth at the moment. The planet’s been polluted to such an extent that it’s become a huge rubbish tip. People are either turning their backs on religion or using it as an excuse to persecute others – you don’t have to look very far to find people fighting each other. Add earthquakes into the equation, and the fact that there are millions dying because they haven’t got enough food to eat, and you’re nearly there. Just toss in a plague or two and everything’s in place for the Great One to arrive. Simple really.’
‘The Great One being Odoursin,’ said Skipper.
‘Well, that’s what he believes himself to be.’
‘Don’t you?’ asked Sam.
‘I have to admit, I was sceptical,’ Firebrand replied. ‘Most of the prophecies in the book are so general that you could use them to predict almost anything. But then something happened which changed my view completely.’
Firebrand glanced around and lowered his voice, despite the fact that there were only the three of them in the room. ‘One night we were secretly observing some of Odoursin’s men on patrol in the forests when we saw a young woman wandering alone and barefoot through the trees. She was distressed and appeared to be searching for something. The patrol followed her for several minutes until she reached the edge of the forest and watched as she climbed over a ditch and into an open field. Here she walked a little way and then stopped as if unsure what to do next. Odoursin’s soldiers shouted to her to stay, but she gave no indication of having heard them. The patrol then entered the field and walked towards her, at which point, much to everyone’s surprise, she simply disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’ Sam echoed.
‘Vanished into thin air. But
after that she began to appear at irregular intervals, always at night and always disappearing before anyone could get near her.’
‘Did you find out who she was?’ Sam asked.
‘Not at first. But her appearance coincided with a huge increase in activity from Odoursin’s forces and we began to suspect that this figure was of great importance to him. We began to see much greater concentrations of horseflies in the towns and cities of your world. Their deployment could only mean one thing: they were searching for her.’
‘But why?’ Sam tugged at his lower lip. ‘Why did they want her so badly?’
‘It wasn’t her they wanted,’ Firebrand went on. ‘It was something that belonged to her. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on a translation of the prophecy and find out what that was. We moved fast and managed to find her before they did. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, it wasn’t enough to stop them.’
‘But who was she?’ asked Sam.
By way of reply, the handset clicked quietly and the words on the screen dissolved, to be replaced by an image of a woman of about thirty-five. She was standing in a summer meadow, her auburn hair held out of her eyes by her left hand as she waved to someone with her right. Behind her was a low hedge and beyond it a redbrick house. It was a beautiful summer’s day.
Sam gave a cry of shock, longing and recognition.
The house was his own and the woman standing in the field was his mother.
The handset clicked again and the image faded to black. The following words appeared in its place:
When the Dreamwalker’s Child walks in Aurobon, then shall the East be in the ascendant; a plague shall descend from the sky and the Earth will fall into shadow… but the Dreamwalker’s Child shall rise up against the Darkness.
Sam looked at Skipper and saw that she was staring at him.
‘Guess who,’ she said.
Twenty-two
A small flame of fear and excitement began to burn in the shadows around Sam’s heart.
