by Robin Jarvis
Suddenly he heard the rumble and roar of four other vehicles approaching at speed. Their headlights swept the poorly illuminated gloom before them. Voices were barking commands and, as the lead car drew closer, he made out the thick black eyebrows of General Chung Kang-dae.
Martin uttered a dismal cry. They knew! They were making for the medical centre. But it was so soon. Gerald and the children couldn’t have got very far. They probably weren’t even hidden by the fog yet. They’d be sitting ducks on that mountainside. Martin didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just sit here and let it happen.
The four jeeps raced nearer. They were only moments away from passing when Martin threw himself forward. He dived between the Captain and the driver and wrenched at the steering wheel. The vehicle swerved sharply into the other lane and the approaching headlights dazzled him.
Horns blared and startled yells shrieked out. The tunnel was filled with the screeching of brakes and the reek of scorched tyres. The oncoming jeeps veered aside, while Martin’s scraped along the tunnel wall, showering him and the three soldiers with fiery sparks.
Suddenly it was over. The four jeeps thundered on and Martin’s skidded to a standstill. He couldn’t believe he had survived and despaired that he hadn’t been able to stop them. The Captain and the other two were bawling at him and he was wrestled back to his seat. One of them hit him, but he barely noticed.
“I’m sorry, Gerald,” he muttered, staring after the receding lights. “I’ve let you down.”
“You no do that again!” the Captain was shouting in his face. “You crazy UK!”
The engine started once more and the scarred and dented vehicle spluttered on its way, rattling and juddering until they reached the red double doors of their destination.
Martin stepped out and the armed guards stood aside. The Captain pushed him forward and he entered the meeting room for the second time that day.
The Chief of the General Staff was waiting, standing stiffly by the table. Martin thought he looked faintly embarrassed, almost shamefaced, as he bowed in greeting.
“What do you want?” Martin asked. “Why am I here?” Then he realised there was no interpreter present.
The Chief bowed again. There was something awkward, even shifty, about him. Martin saw his eyes slide over to the high back of a chair that was facing the large TV screen at the end of the room. Someone was sitting in it: Martin could just see the top of their head.
The Chief mumbled something that sounded like an apology, then strode past and left the room.
Martin didn’t understand. He looked across at the chair back, but he wasn’t in the mood to play these sorts of power games. Remembering he was cold, he moved over to one of the electric fires and held out his hands. Over by the far wall, the carpet was still dark with blood. He was just wondering where the young aide’s body had been taken to when the chair swung round and Martin had one of the greatest surprises of his life.
“Hello, Baxter me old mucker!” said an extremely familiar voice. “What’s all this then, a sabbatical? Or are you playing truant or what?”
Martin couldn’t believe it and his mouth actually fell open.
“Barry?” he cried. “What the hell…?”
The former headmaster of the school he had taught at in Felixstowe was grinning at him across the table. He was the last person Martin had expected to see here. Barry Milligan was now part of the Ismus’s inner circle and travelled the world with him and his Court. Way back, so long ago now, when the book had been distributed to the unsuspecting inhabitants of that quiet seaside town out of an old camper van, Barry had been one of the first to be possessed. He had become the mischievous character of the Jockey and had fooled everyone until the very last moment.
He was a middle-aged, squarely built man, with a face florid and craggy from a lifetime’s overindulgence in salt, saturated fat and whisky. His pot belly was a testament to the same.
“Is that all you’ve got to say, Martin?” he asked, laughing and slapping the table. “Here we are in a top-secret bloody military base, dug into a mountain – in North Korea, with China breathing down our necks – and that’s the best you can manage? That’s just rubbish that is. The thickest yobs we used to try and teach could’ve come up with something better than that.”
Martin regarded him uncertainly. His former boss was wearing a large black overcoat and he could see there was a blue tracksuit underneath. Where was the Jockey’s signature caramel leather outfit?
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “That was you on that helicopter earlier, wasn’t it? Makes sense now: no one in their right mind would risk flying through this fog. Shouldn’t you be skipping around the Ismus, amusing him with puerile tricks and scaring the rest of them with jokes that only you find funny?”
Barry shook his head gravely. “I’m not part of that no more,” he assured him, putting his hand on his heart.
“Pull the other one.”
“It’s true, I swear! I don’t know why or how, but a few months ago the effects of that book simply stopped working on me. I think it’s because of something that Ismus geezer was writing on his laptop. I caught a glimpse of it over his shoulder one day and… I dunno, the bit I read made my old head feel like it was about to split wide apart. After that, I stopped believing in it. Everything I thought was real – that mad, medieval place and the plonker I was supposed to be there – had gone. There I was, finally wide awake, and wondering what the hell had been happening. It’s like waking up from the longest pub crawl with the rugby lads. There’s a lot of it I can’t even remember.”
“Don’t do this,” Martin said. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Honest, Martin! I’m out of it, and today I managed to get away without them even suspecting I was back to normal. I just had to find you. I know how to get Carol and Paul out of it. We’ve got to get that laptop and make them read it. Just think – if we could email that file to everyone, this huge sorry mess would be over.”
Martin staggered and steadied himself against the table. Could it really be that simple? His heart began thumping with excitement and his eyes started to swim. The horror, the anguish, the horrendous loss of life, was the end of all that so near? Was he going to see the two people he cared most about in the world again? Was it possible?
A flame of hope spluttered in his heart and a tear ran down his face. In that brief instant of blazing joy, he totally forgot about the plight of Gerald and the children.
“Oh, thank God!” he uttered. “Oh, thank, thank God!”
Barry rose. He clapped his hands and cheered, as if his favourite team had just scored a try.
“We’re going to save the world, old son!” he shouted.
Suddenly Martin’s elation perished and the light that had flared so briefly in his eyes was quenched. When Barry moved, he could hear the creak and squeak of leather beneath his clothes. Martin stumbled back and gave a howl of anger and frustration.
“You evil, evil freak!” he raged.
“Haw haw haw!” the other man crowed. “I teased you, I tricked you, I taunted you and played you. What a bad boy the Jockey is. How he rides them all.”
Throwing off the coat and tracksuit, he revealed the toffee-coloured costume underneath and hopped around in a triumphant circle.
“But you were too easy, Mr Baxter,” he scolded, wagging a finger. “You wanted it to be true so much you quite took the pleasure of my game clean away. I was expecting to have to work much harder at the dissembling. Gullible chumps like you are no fun.”
The bitterness of Martin’s disappointment was almost unbearable. He felt utterly crushed. To have that sparkling hope dangled in front of him, only for it to be snatched away, was a pain he didn’t think he could endure.
But he had to.
“So what are you here for?” he asked, broken. “You’ve found me, you’ve won. What are you going to do now? I’d have thought your precious Ismus would want to be here and gloat in person at the finish.”
“Hoo hoo hoo!” the Jockey guffawed. “I’m not here because of you! You really do have an inflated view of your significance, even worse than that charlatan, Old Ramptana. No, we’ve known exactly where you’ve been skulking from the beginning. You just weren’t important enough to go chasing. Did you honestly think you were? Haw haw haw – that is very funny. Wait till I tell the Lady Labella; how she will laugh.”
“How… how is Carol? Is she OK?”
“The Lady Labella,” the Jockey rebuked him, “is in the pinkest of health. Since the advent of the Holy Enchanter’s son, she has been as radiant as the morning.”
Martin closed his eyes. Hearing that revolted him.
“And Paul?” he asked. “I mean the Jack of Diamonds, how is he?”
“The light-fingered doings of Magpie Jack are none of your concern, Martin Baxter.”
Martin gritted his teeth and fought the urge to smash the other man’s face through the large TV screen. It wasn’t easy.
“What about this new book?” he asked instead. “Was that part true? Is the Ismus writing a sequel?”
“Oh, most assuredly so. Wherever we go in this silly dreamland he has been tappy-tappy-tapping on his laptop, late into the night, shunning company and comforts. But it is not a sequel, for how can there be such a thing? ’Tis a furtherance of our merry lives in the Realm of the Dawn Prince. We of the Court are agog and breathless to be granted even so much as a fleeting glimpse of it, but that is forbidden for the moment, yes, for the moment.”
He gave a twitch of agitation and Martin guessed correctly that the Jockey had already tried and failed to read the manuscript.
“All will be revealed betimes though,” the Jockey continued. “A declaration shall be made this very day and the whole of this grey drabbery will know of it. Oh, such plans are a-place, such excitement there shall be for you all, yea, even the aberrants. We genuinely do all we can to make this drudging gloom more sprightly for you – perk it up and keep it lively, keep it bright and frolicsome.”
“You really shouldn’t bother.”
“Now, now, don’t irk. Let us not curdle this jolly day with your vinegary humour. I have come to rescue you from these dank grots and caves, fit only for worms and pin-eyed bats. You should be glad and singing.”
“You’ve already said it wasn’t me you’ve come for. So who, as if I didn’t know?”
The smirk slipped from the Jockey’s face. “My Lord Ismus wishes the Castle Creeper brought unto his presence,” he told him with great solemnity. “There is a covenant between them he is most keen to pursue.”
“I know all about that. It’s his maddest, most disgusting scheme yet. What I don’t know is how you persuaded the North Koreans to let you come here.”
The Jockey threw back his head and let out a throaty laugh.
“Persuade them?” he hooted. “They really aren’t in a position to deny me. When my Lord Ismus tells them to hop, they leap like hares from a burning field. Dear me, Mr Baxter, you cannot truly believe your raggle-taggle band of aberrants have been their guests these many months? You silly, dolting muttonhead. This impecunious country is on its knees and the people are suffering. Famine bites hard and their children are stunted and starving. Though they are friendless in this silly world, they are dependent on foreign aid, even from the West whom they despise. You and your young vagabonds have not been guests here, you have been hostages – and used as articles of barter for an increase in that aid. What wily hagglers they are. They have done well from the bargain. My Lord Ismus has been sending them oodles of food and fuel – such munificence! ’Tis a marvel their trousers still fit.”
Martin finally understood why the North Koreans had not explored ways of utilising Lee’s gift. They were too busy profiting from keeping him here. They hadn’t wanted to attack the Ismus, because they were accepting aid from him and now it was time for their benefactor to collect. This was why the Chief of the General Staff had looked so ashamed a few minutes ago.
“And have they also done a deal to keep their republic free of Dancing Jax?” he asked.
The Jockey tittered behind his hand. “Of course they have! The Holy Enchanter has given his word not to distribute the hallowed text within these borders.”
The sentence had scarcely left his lips when the lights began to flicker.
“Oh, the Ismus is such a rascally swizzler!” he giggled. “His promises are spun of the most brittle, sugary strands. Now I am charged to fetch the Creeper. You are to be taken to the whirlycopter. There are some surprises and japes in store for you, Martin Baxter. What a thrilling Christmas you’ll have in this tedious sleep world this year.”
“Wait,” Martin called as the Jockey brushed past him. “I just want to know… is there anything of the Barry Milligan I worked with for over twenty-five years still left inside you? Was that only an act before? Is there no trace of that rugger-loving sod anywhere?”
The Jockey stared at him in puzzled amusement. “We are the Aces,” he explained slowly, as though to a simpleton. “We do not have to pretend to be who we are not, in these shabby dreams. I am, and forever was, the Jockey. The man you thought you knew as Barry Milligan was but a pretence of my invention because the jest suited me. No more than that. There was never a drunken headmaster, there was never a school nor a mirthless place called Felixstowe – there is only Mooncaster. That is the one reality. How pitiful it must be to be an aberrant and not know this plainest of truths.”
Martin looked away and the Jockey scampered out of the room.
In the tunnels, the lights were exploding and panic and chaos had started. Harrowing cries were echoing through the passageways. The Jockey clambered into a jeep, his pinching caramel outfit squeaking and creaking. Then he was driven off, towards the medical centre.
The Captain and two soldiers who had brought Martin here marched him in the direction of the helipad. Gunfire crackled in the distance. Martin hung his head. It was over. Dancing Jax had finally conquered everything.
8
EUN-MI WONDERED WHAT was keeping the reinforcements she had sent her sister to find. It had been too long. Where had Nabi gone? What was she doing? Had she betrayed the Republic in favour of her new Western friends after all?
The young English refugees didn’t dare move or utter a word. They couldn’t take their eyes off the barrel of the gun that continuously switched aim from face to frightened face.
“Do you want to shoot us?” Gerald asked quietly. “Is that it? You want to punish us? What crime do you think we’re guilty of?”
“You steal People’s Army weapons!” Eun-mi reminded him.
“That’s not the reason,” he answered. “That’s the excuse. Your hatred goes back much further. You just don’t like us, it’s as basic as that – xenophobia. How very sad in one so young to be so completely brainwashed into despising and persecuting the unlike. But then that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Because my young friends and I are different. The rest of the world has the Ismus to tell them that; you have your Supreme Leader. Pogrom is pogrom, no matter who’s behind it.”
“I shoot you first!” the girl threatened, aiming between his eyes.
“Human nature really is so depressing,” he replied. “I could almost wish you would.”
“Gerald!” Maggie exclaimed anxiously. “Don’t say that.”
The old man gave her a gentle smile. “And then,” he said, “I remember that there are people like my dear friend Maggie here. Lovely, joyous souls with open hearts, brimming with kindness and affection, and I know we’re not so bad after all. But then you wouldn’t understand that, would you, Miss Chung? I don’t suppose your life has been a particularly happy one.”
Without taking her eyes off the Westerners, Eun-mi leaned back, into the corridor. It was deathly quiet. Scowling with impatience, she called for her sister. Where was Nabi?
“Of course,” Gerald continued fearlessly, “what you loathe most of all is yourself, isn’t it?”
Eun-mi’s face didn’t betray the fact that his remark hit home. If he was trying to provoke her, to get her to release them, it wasn’t going to work. Her self-control was impervious to his clumsy psychology. She prided herself on her detachment.
“I shoot,” she repeated implacably.
“That won’t make your father love you,” he told her. “The great General Chung – just what is it makes him so… indifferent towards you? You might as well be part of the furniture as far as he’s concerned.”
“No more talk.”
“Why is he so cold to you, but lights up whenever he’s with little Nabi? Why does he cherish and adore her, but treats you like something he’s trodden in? What did you do?”
Eun-mi pulled the trigger.
The air exploded. The teenagers shrieked and covered their ears. Most of them dived to the floor. The gunshot seemed to shake the room and Eun-mi’s nostrils flared with exhilaration as she kept the pistol level.
Gerald let out a staggering breath. For all his bravado, that had shocked and frightened him. Looking at the solemn-faced girl with the gun, he knew she had missed deliberately.
“Next time I kill,” she said coldly, the ghost of a smile pulling the corners of her mouth. “Next time you dead.”
Overhead the refectory lights crackled. Everyone glanced upwards. The fluorescent strips were flickering. Out in the corridor it was the same. The lights there were dying. A fizzle of sparks ran along the cables like a firework. Then the passage was engulfed in the supreme darkness that is only found underground.
The refugees murmured dismally and Eun-mi looked annoyed. She believed the generators were breaking down again. Too much of the machinery and equipment here was out of date. Too many elements had been repaired and jury-rigged far too often. It was infuriating that the power should fail at this critical moment.
Suddenly there was a snap of electricity from the wiring above their heads and the refectory was tipped into darkness too. The only light was an infernal orange-red glow from the grill of the wood-burning stove. It threw ominous black shadows around the room, leaping up the walls like tormented souls.
