The Train to Impossible Places--A Cursed Delivery

by P. G. Bell

  Stonker climbed to his feet and inspected the controls. Every single one of them was dead: the glass in the panels cracked, the mantelpiece broken, the carriage clock smashed to fragments on the floor. He prodded the embers in the fireplace with his toe. They let out a weak cough of sparks and died. He rested his forehead against the ruined pipework and drew in a shuddering breath. “I hope this is worth it,” he said with a quaver in his voice.

  As she looked around at the devastation, Suzy wasn’t at all sure that it was. The damage to the library was bad, but the damage to the Belle was even worse. Suzy wasn’t sure the old locomotive would ever run again, and the thought brought a lump to her throat. She wanted to say something to Stonker and Ursel, to reassure them, but knew she didn’t have the words.

  “Don’t just stand there gawking!” said Frederick. “We need to get to the advanced magical practice section, and the guard will be here any minute.”

  “You do what you must,” said Stonker, sounding old and tired all of a sudden. “We’ll stay here with the…” He patted the mantelpiece, and a chunk of it came away in his hand. “… with the wreck. I can’t just abandon her here. Besides, I expect we’ll have some explaining to do once the authorities arrive.”

  The sound of many running boots reached them from the depths of the library.

  “I didn’t want any of this to happen,” she said, backing away. “But it really is for the best.” Is it, though? The treacherous little itch in her brain wasn’t so certain, but she chose to ignore it. She didn’t want to imagine what it would mean to discover she was wrong, after everything that had happened. “Crepuscula wants to take control of the Union. If I can find the right book, I can use it to help expose her plan and stop her. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ll explain it all properly when I get back. I promise.”

  Stonker nodded, and Ursel put a comforting arm around him. Then, with the sound of boots growing closer, Suzy turned and ran.

  29

  IN PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

  The library was big. Suzy had assumed the Belle had crashed into its main hall, but she quickly realized that it was just a side room. As she scrambled over the fallen bookcases and around the locomotive’s crumpled boiler, she passed through an ornate wooden archway into an even larger space. This one reached up several stories, with a broad spiral staircase wrapping around it and several landings on which she could see countless rows of shelves all stuffed to bursting with more books.

  “Where do we start?” she said, pulling Frederick out of her pocket.

  “Third floor,” he said. “Second room on your right. The advanced magical practice section.”

  She pressed her nose against the snow globe and glared in at him. “How do you know that?”

  He hesitated, but only for a second. “I’m a genius, remember? Now come on!”

  Before she could argue, there were signs of movement at the top of the staircase, and the sound of more boots arriving at a run.

  “The Lunar Guard!” he hissed. “Hide!”

  Suzy dashed for cover behind one of the large, freestanding bookcases in the center of the room. It was tall enough to screen her from sight from the landing above, but faced the bottom of the stairs so, by removing a couple of the books and peering through the gap, she had a perfect view of the guards as they clattered down the final flight, weapons at the ready.

  She frowned. They were all young women, wearing matching silver jumpsuits beneath plate armor and heavy utility belts. They all wore their hair in a pageboy cut, each dyed a different color—she saw acid green, fire-engine red, and neon blue jog past. Each of them carried a chunky silver rifle, and Suzy got the distinct impression they knew how to use them.

  “Look alive, ladies,” their sergeant barked. “Secure the crash site and check for any wounded. And stay frosty—you know how important this is.”

  Suzy shrank back as the sergeant took a last look around the room before jogging after her squad.

  “What happens if they find us?” Suzy whispered.

  “Nothing good,” Frederick said. “So please, let’s get a move on before reinforcements arrive.” It was enough to stir Suzy to her feet.

  “Third floor?” she said.

  “Second room on the right. And quickly!”

  * * *

  She padded as quickly and quietly as she could up the stairs, aware that she had nowhere to hide should anyone step out onto one of the landings above them. It was a long climb, which gave her time to pick at the stray thread of another unanswered question. “Why are they called the Lunar Guard?” she whispered.

  “Why do you think?” said Frederick.

  “Well, lunar means anything to do with the moon,” she said, trying to keep one eye on the room below them, in case any of the guards reappeared. “But we’re not … oh.”

  And suddenly it all clicked into place. Everything she had seen since she had jumped aboard the Impossible Postal Express, all the places she had been, all the things she had learned: There was one thing connecting them all.

  “We’re on the moon,” she said. “We’re inside the moon. It’s hollow!”

  “Of course we’re inside it,” said Frederick. “Where else would we be?”

  She almost laughed at the realization. It had been there in the nebulous sky above the Obsidian Tower. The sailors of the La Rouquine had used it to navigate by and had put it on their rum bottles. And she had seen it in Trollville, carved above the entrance to the post office. Three different Impossible Places, all with the same moon.

  “But it’s my moon,” she said, reaching the first landing. “I mean, the actual moon moon. The one that orbits Earth.”

  “So? It orbits everywhere.”

  But how was such a thing possible? She was tempted to duck through an archway to another room, labeled LUNAR HISTORY, but crept on past it.

  “Center Point Station…” She thought aloud as she started up the next flight of stairs. “It’s not just a name, is it. The moon is the center of the Union.”

  “The one point where it all meets and overlaps, yes,” said Frederick. “It’s the Meridian. Like the hub in the middle of a wheel, showing its face into each Impossible Place equally. Honestly, this is the most basic geography.”

  But there was still something wrong. Something that didn’t fit. “Then why can I see it from Earth?” she said. “Earth isn’t part of the Union.”

  “How should I know?” he said. “Just hurry up before our luck changes.”

  Too late. There were the sounds of more footsteps from downstairs, and the voice of the sergeant reached them.

  “Secure this floor. Backup’s on the way.”

  Suzy scampered up the remaining stairs to the next landing, thankful that her slippers muffled her footsteps. She was halfway up the third and final flight when a door banged open somewhere above her, and the sound of more heavy boots reverberated through the library.

  “Quickly!” hissed Frederick.

  She clutched him to her chest and ran, mounting the top of the stairs and sprinting along the landing to the second archway. Sure enough, the sign above it read ADVANCED MAGICAL PRACTICE, and as she ducked through it she caught a brief glimpse of the first reinforcements clattering out onto the landings above. There were a lot of them.

  Suzy huddled against the wall just inside the arch and listened to the new squads thunder past outside, so close they made the floor quake beneath her. Over the noise, a voice from the landing called out, “Sergeant Mona, what’s the situation down there?”

  “Crash site secured,” came the sergeant’s distant reply. “Two crew, one with an injured arm. We’re tending to her now.”

  “Do either of them have the snow globe?”

  Suzy tensed.

  “No,” said the sergeant. “They claim to know nothing about it, but the human girl is missing. We’ve started a search.”

  “We’re here to assist you,” said the speaker on the landing. “Lord Meridian wants that snow globe at all cost
s.”

  The hairs stood up on the back of Suzy’s neck. They know all about us! Her hiding place, already precarious, suddenly seemed even more exposed.

  “We’ll take each floor in turn,” said the speaker, her voice starting to fade as she descended the stairs. “Work our way up.”

  “Did you hear that?” hissed Frederick as the woman’s footsteps receded. “You really need to hurry.”

  But Suzy didn’t move and instead tightened her grip on him until his glass squeaked between her palms. “They know who we are,” she said.

  “Can’t we worry about it later?”

  “No.” She gave him a hard look. “You’ve been lying to me again.”

  “I haven’t, I promise!”

  “You know your way around the library. The guards knew we were coming. Lord Meridian is looking for you! You’ve been here before.”

  She heard him swallow, although he had no throat to do it with. “Maybe.”

  Suzy screwed her eyes shut—she was so furious, she couldn’t even bear to look at him. “I’ve risked my life—I’ve risked other people’s lives—to help you. Wilmot died saving us, and you still can’t tell me the truth.” She swallowed a lump of rage. “I’m going to hand you over.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  His challenge was all she needed, and a calm determination filled her as she stepped out onto the landing. She was going to do it. She didn’t doubt herself.

  “You’ve come too far to give it all up now!” he whispered, his voice tight with fear. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “Watch me.” She could hear the guards tramping to and fro below them. It would only be a few seconds before one of them looked up and saw her.

  “I work here,” he said, the words almost falling over one another, he spat them out so quickly. “At least, I did until I ran away. There. Are you happy now?”

  She wasn’t, but she brought him back to eye level. “Tell me why,” she said. “And make it good.”

  “I’m a spy,” Frederick said. “There are hundreds of us here. We’re called observers.”

  “Do you really expect me to believe that?” she snapped. “Why would a library need spies?”

  She had retreated with him through the archway to the cover of the shelves again and was backing along the aisles, keeping one eye on the titles she passed. The Joys of Levitation; You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly; Gravity Is for Wimps …

  “Because it’s not just a library anymore. Lord Meridian changed all that.”

  “The keeper of the tower?”

  “He’s obsessed with knowledge,” he said. “Hungry for it. The tower’s collection isn’t enough for him. He wants more, and faster. He wants to know everything.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she chided. “No one can know everything. It’s impossible.”

  “You haven’t met him,” he said. “He’s not like you or me. Once he learns a fact, he never forgets it. They say he can recite every book in this library, word for word, from memory. And when he ran out of books, he set up the Observatory.”

  Suzy frowned. “He wants to study astronomy?”

  “No,” he said. “He wants to study the Union. It’s a magical observatory, staffed with observers like me, and each of us is assigned an Impossible Place to watch over. We record everything we see and hear.”

  Suzy paused to pull a book down from the nearest shelf: VWORP, VWORP—Advanced Dematerialization. She replaced it and hurried on. “So what were you spying on?”

  “The Western Fenlands,” he grumbled.

  “You mean that country you’re definitely not the prince of?”

  “I was born there,” he muttered. “I hated it.”

  “So I guessed,” said Suzy. “But you said you grew up on a farm. So how on earth did you end up here?”

  “I got a letter one day,” he said. “A handwritten invitation from Lord Meridian himself. He said word had reached him about how clever I was, and he wanted me to work on his new ‘research project.’ All top secret stuff. He offered me room and board here in the tower, access to the library, and a full education at the end of it. It was like a dream come true. At first.”

  “What changed?”

  “Crepuscula.” An edge of fear crept back into his voice. “I don’t know how she found me, but I looked through my spyglass one morning and she was just standing there, staring back at me. Like she knew I’d be watching.” Suzy felt a little thrill of fear and shivered on his behalf. “She told me she knew Lord Meridian was working on something big, and she offered to make me a very rich young man if I could get her proof of it. I had to gather as much information as I could on the Observatory—who we were watching, how we were doing it, and why—and put it all in a NeuroGlobe she’d send me.”

  Suzy stared at him in horror. “And you agreed?” she said. “After everything Lord Meridian had done for you!”

  “It’s not as simple as that,” he replied, although the shame in his voice was palpable. “I thought if I went home with a fortune, my parents would be pleased to see me. We could leave the farm and buy a proper house somewhere that didn’t stink of cows all the time. And I’d finally have somewhere I wanted to stay, with a family that wanted me.”

  Suzy still wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him, but part of her half hoped this story was a lie. Because it was a very sad story, and, if true, she would have to feel sorry for him. And she was still too angry with him to want to do that.

  She turned the corner into the next aisle, and the first book she picked off the shelf was called Spells of Transformation. A quick flip through the pages told her it was mostly concerned with changing base metals into gold, but they were definitely getting closer.

  “Why didn’t you want to stay here?” she said. “I thought this was your dream job.”

  “It turned out to be really, really dull,” said Frederick. “Lord Meridian had me watch the Fenlands parliament building for a whole year. Everyone from the premier and his advisers down to the cleaning ladies. I assumed the other observers were studying really fun stuff, but we’re not allowed to discuss our findings with each other, so I never knew what any of them were looking at until I started gathering evidence for Crepuscula. I had to ask a few leading questions here, eavesdrop on a few sneaky conversations there. It took me months, but I finally started putting the pieces together.”

  “And? What did you find?”

  “That the ‘research project’ wasn’t what Lord Meridian said it was,” he said. “We were supposed to be studying everything from crop rotation to animal migrations, but really we were all looking at the same thing—people of influence. Monarchs, politicians, generals, and business people all across the Union.”

  “But why?”

  “Have you ever heard that expression ‘Knowledge is power’?”

  Suzy frowned as she considered the implications. She was beginning to have a very bad feeling indeed. “Spying on that many powerful people,” she said. “If he knows everything they know, he’d be more powerful than any of them.”

  “Exactly,” said Frederick. “No one would be able to stand against him, except maybe for Crepuscula, and that’s only because she’s even worse than he is. She’s already one of the most dangerous people in the Union, and if she ever finds out just how big the Observatory project really is, and decides to get her hands on it … no one would be safe from her.”

  Suzy shuddered at the thought. “We can’t let that happen.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “This should be the place. Check the shelf.”

  She stopped and scanned the spines. “I don’t see it,” she said. “But I think there’s one missing. Look.” She held him up so he could see the one empty space on the shelf. “Someone must have taken it.”

  “Who?” He was starting to sound frantic.

  “Who do you think, Frederick?” said a woman’s voice, a second before a figure stepped out from the shadows in front of them.

  “Oh no!” he squealed
. “Not her! Run, Suzy!”

  But Suzy couldn’t run. She was frozen to the spot by the sight of the rifle pointing straight at her.

  30

  MEETING MERIDIAN

  Suzy stared at the white-hot energy crackling deep within the barrel of the rifle, which was held by one of the Lunar Guard. Her bubble-gum pink hair fell to her shoulders, which bore a captain’s insignia, and Suzy caught the flash of a gold tooth as the woman gave a triumphant sneer.

  “Captain Neoma,” said Frederick, his voice cracking with fear. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you,” she said. “Lord Meridian has the book you’re looking for and invites you to join him in his study for a little chat. Probably about why you slipped past my guards and blew a smoking hole in my otherwise flawless career.”

  Without taking her eyes from Suzy, she unclipped a small radio from her belt and spoke into it. “Sergeant Mona? I’ve apprehended the fugitives. Inform His Lordship, and bring the other intruders up to the advanced magical practice section.”

  “Wait,” said Suzy. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” said Neoma, replacing the radio. “Frederick here tried to sell us all out to Crepuscula, and now he’s going to pay the price. A few decades in a prison cell ought to do it.”

  “No!” they both chorused.

  Sergeant Mona’s squad thundered into the room in two neat rows, with Stonker and Ursel between them. Ursel wore a field dressing on her arm. They both had their arms cuffed in front of them.

  “Hello, Suzy,” said Stonker, out of breath from the forced march. “I’m afraid it’s not going terribly well.”

  “Quiet,” snapped Neoma, ignoring Ursel’s answering growl. “Sergeant, I need you to stay here and get this library secure. The rest of you, come with me. Let’s not keep His Lordship waiting.”

  * * *

  A large, rattling antique lift carried them from the library to the heights of the tower, where they stepped out into a short length of corridor. A reinforced door at the opposite end was labeled OBSERVATORY. NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION.