That’s when we saw it. A long metal thing all strung together. It had windows and there were people inside it. At the head was a huge black contraption that made the motors we’d seen look positively puny by comparison.
Smoke belched out of what looked to be a metal chimneystack as it roared along, then slowed and disappeared behind a large building.
I looked at the others and we raced towards the building.
From inside I could hear a voice boom out, ‘The 9:10 express train to Greater True, boarding now. The 9:10 express train to Greater True. All authorized persons, please make your way. And ladies and gentlemen, and the kiddies too, mind the divide between the train and the station platform.’
Delph said, ‘Express train?’
‘Seems to be a way that people get about,’ I said slowly.
Petra said, ‘Greater True? What’s that?’
I said, ‘Greater means bigger. So, like True, but bigger?’
But something the voice had said was bothering me.
Who were these authorized persons?
I stared up at the brick building that this express train had apparently pulled into. The sign on it read TRUE TRAIN STATION.
My gaze ran over the large facade.
‘I think we’ve just found our hiding place,’ I said.
‘What, with all these blokes?’ said Petra sceptically.
‘That’s kind of the point,’ I shot back. ‘Let’s go.’
3
ABANDONED
The train station was a cavernous place, even bigger inside than it had looked from the outside. It was filled with people carrying bags, rushing about. There weren’t this many Wugs in all of Wormwood.
On one wall was a large sign. On it were the names of I supposed places, and next to them were numbers. People would stop and stare up at it, glance at timekeepers wrapped round their wrists and then scurry on.
‘It’s a schedule,’ opined Delph. ‘Tells the people where the trains are going and when. We had something like that back at the Mill.’
I nodded. It was still so shocking that a place like this could exist right next to the Quag. And that Wormwood could be on the other side of that Quag, a village stuck well back in another time as compared to here, which had motors and trains and just . . . stuff that I had to admit was far nicer.
As I looked around, I could see a sign blinking over an entrance leading to a long sleek train that had pulled into the station.
GREATER TRUE.
I saw males – men – standing in front of the glass doors that led to the train. A line of folks had queued up in front of the doors. They were all very well dressed and clean, like the angry bloke in the big motor. They held out their tickets and then something else to the two men. I drew my wand, hiding it up my sleeve, and muttered, ‘Crystilado magnifica.’
I could see clearly now what the ‘something else’ was. It was a small notebook, with their picture and name inside. They were all holding up their hands to the fellows at the entrance. There was something on their palms, but I couldn’t see what it was.
I noticed that one bloke had left his notebook behind on a bench. I ventured over and picked it up. It was filled with writing and some pictures too, of a kind I had never seen.
‘Blokes here do seem so happy, don’t they?’ said Petra, with mild disgust in her voice.
She was watching a woman on her knees scrub the stone floor with a large sponge and a bucket of soapy water. The woman was smiling and humming away as though she had all the coin in the world, without the back-breaking job she was performing.
I looked around. Petra was right. I noted the pleasant expressions on just about everyone I saw. It had been the same back at the cafe – except for the angry bloke in the long motor and the bloke who had chased us from the church. Just about everyone else looked very content.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We can’t stand around here.’
I spotted a set of stairs and we hustled over to them and started climbing. We kept going, passing blokes along the way until we stopped passing anyone and were all by ourselves. We turned right and left and then up another set of steps. We passed down a corridor with a series of doors lining it. I used my wand to see behind the doors. They were rooms filled with odds and ends. But then one appeared that was not.
I opened the door and we stepped through.
It was empty, but set against one wall was the backside of the sign we had seen holding the schedule for the trains. There were slits in it. Through them I could see the interior of the train station we had just left. I leaped back when the sign started to vibrate.
‘What the—!’ I exclaimed.
‘New train times,’ Delph said.
‘Right,’ I said.
It was all unnerving. I had anticipated seeing death and destruction and the Maladons ruling over all of it. But there was none of that here. There was peace and prosperity and apparent freedom.
I was so disappointed. And then I immediately felt guilty. Who wouldn’t prefer peace to war?
We had left Wormwood to find the truth. The truth of our past, and then the truth of our future. Now, I began to wonder what that was. Did the Maladons even exist any more? It had been eight centuries since the war, after all. A lot could have happened in that time.
I looked up at Delph and could tell from his expression that he was thinking the exact same thing.
‘Maybe the Maladons got beat,’ he said. ‘Beat by the blokes what live in this place.’
I shook my head. ‘They’d have needed magic. Other than the two that followed us, we haven’t seen anyone perform any. And there’s something else.’ I held up my gloved hand. ‘Their wands could detect the mark of the three hooks. That’s our symbol: peace, hope, freedom – everything the Maladons hated. So the two we fought in Saint Necro’s had to be Maladons, otherwise how would they know to track the three hooks?’
Petra and Delph looked as bewildered as I felt.
My mind was so tired I couldn’t really think any more. The sign began to whir again and in those spinning pieces of metal I saw my own mind whirling wildly out of control. What if I was wrong? What if the Maladons didn’t control this place?
What if Astrea Prine and her lot had made a colossal mistake that had doomed all Wugmorts to the bleakest existence possible?
I looked down at my wand. Magic might be useless to me if there is no battle to fight. If there is no war to win. If there is no grand enemy to vanquish. My brother, John, was back in Wormwood, enduring the tutelage of Morrigone that had already transformed him into something unrecognizable to me. Had I left him for no good reason?
A sudden thought hit me.
My parents! And my grandfather!
Were they here, in True?
I glanced up and found Delph staring at me.
‘Don’t make much sense, does it?’ he said.
‘What doesn’t?’
‘Well, your grandfather Virgil’s this Excalibur, right?’
‘Right.’
‘An Excalibur?’ interjected Petra curiously.
‘Right powerful sorcerer from birth,’ explained Delph. ‘He left Wormwood in a ball of flames a long time ago when me and Vega were just wee things.’
‘What’s your point, Delph?’ I said sharply.
‘So maybe he came here. And maybe he saw the same thing we did.’
‘You mean a peaceful place where everyone is so very happy and well fed?’ I said snidely.
‘Right. But then he summoned your parents, like Astrea said he done. Why would he’a done that if something weren’t outta sorts? I mean Virgil was always one smart bloke. Don’t think he woulda done that for no reason, eh?’
I mulled this over. What Delph said did make sense.
But then my mind veered to another possibility. One that perhaps even Delph had not considered.
My grandfather had not summoned me. He had left me behind. My parents had never tried to contact me.
Which could only mean one thing. That t
hey were just fine with me spending the rest of my life in Wormwood – without them.
‘What are you thinking, Vega Jane?’ asked Delph, who was watching me closely.
I felt tears rising to my eyes, but I looked away. I didn’t want Delph to see me like that. And I definitely didn’t want to display any such weakness in front of Petra.
I composed myself and said, ‘I’m thinking that we’re going to have to figure this out on our own. Because I don’t think there’s anybody here that can or will want to help us.’
I looked at each of them in turn before settling my gaze back on the floor.
‘We’re alone.’
4
THE LATE TRAIN
Delph and Petra fell asleep on the floor with their heads on their tucks. Harry Two had his head on my lap and was snoring softly. As usual I could not sleep. Whether here, in the Quag, or back in Wormwood, sleep had never come easily for me. My mind was whirling too fast.
I looked enviously over at Delph and Petra, close together, perhaps too close. This was going to come to a head at some point, I knew. I just didn’t know what the result would be.
Restless, I turned to look out through the back of the sign. It must be very late. In fact, the train station was quite empty now, with nary a bloke toting a bag in sight. I couldn’t see the front of the sign, so I didn’t know if any more trains were coming in.
I had slumped down and closed my eyes when I heard it. A low, faraway whistle. Then another. Then, a rumbling. It was growing closer.
I opened my eyes and looked around.
‘It’s like last night, eh?’
I turned to stare at Delph, who was awake and looking at me.
He said, ‘When we were coming to True, we heard it. It was about this time of night, I reckon. The whistle. And the rumble.’
He was right. We had heard these sounds when flying towards True last night.
‘It’s late for a train, isn’t it?’ I said.
Petra woke and sat up.
The rumblings became louder and louder. Our gazes were fixed through the slits in the sign on that part of the station. We could see through glass doors the location where the trains would come into the station.
Though it was now dark, I knew we would have no trouble seeing the train come into view because they had little lights on inside. I had seen that on other trains.
The rumbling became very loud, and I tensed; but the train never appeared. Instead, the rumbling sound faded.
‘What happened to the train?’ said Delph. ‘Where did it go?’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’ I got up and headed to the door. The others followed me.
We reached the main floor of the station and peered around.
In a low voice Delph said, ‘Vega Jane, maybe being invisible would come in handy now.’
I nodded and ensnared everyone with my magical tether, then turned my ring the wrong way around. We instantly vanished from sight. As we moved along, I kept gazing around and listening. I thought I could hear something, but it wasn’t clear where it was coming from.
We passed through the glass doors and stopped at the edge of the train platform, where shiny metal rails ran in parallel between stout wood. This was what the train ran on, and it was clever indeed. It might have been something my brother, John, would have invented, given the opportunity.
‘Where could the train have gone?’ said Petra. ‘I mean, doesn’t it have to run on those metal things?’
Delph said, ‘It had to be close or else we wouldn’t have heard it from where we did.’
‘Maybe there’s another place for the train to stop.’ I looked down. ‘Under the station?’
They both looked at me quizzically. ‘Why would it do that?’ asked Petra.
I felt my skin start to tingle all of a sudden. I didn’t know why. I had always relied on my instincts. Maybe they were sending me a message.
‘Why would a train be coming in this late at all?’ I asked.
Delph said, ‘To keep it secret-like from everybody, cos most folks are sleeping now.’
‘Exactly.’
Petra looked around and pointed. ‘Those stairs head down.’
We went over to the staircase. It was so dark we could see nothing. I said my incantation, pointed my wand and the area was magically magnified.
‘Big doors,’ said Delph. ‘With a bunch’a signs that say DO NOT ENTER.’
‘I bet they’re locked,’ added Petra.
I had no doubt they were. I led the way downward and when we reached the doors, I pointed my wand and said, ‘Ingressio.’
I heard locks click, and one of the doors moved an inch or so. I pushed it open just far enough for me to peer through.
There was a short corridor and yet another set of doors. We passed through these, and then the stairs headed steeply downward.
Soon, it felt like we were about a mile underground.
We stepped through the last set of doors and looked around.
It was dark and musty and huge. Easily as big as what was up top.
Delph said in a hushed voice, ‘Do you hear that?’
It was a rumbling sound, but not like the noise before. It was lower.
We went over to a door set in the wall and put our ears to it. We could hear something.
I pointed my wand and said, ‘Crystilado magnifica.’
Revealed on the other side of the door was a long hall. It was full of people: men, women and children. They had all clearly just got off the train, and were marching along in silence, carrying small tucks.
Next to them the darkened train was sitting on the tracks, the engine belching smoke.
‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to see what’s going on. Petra, keep your wand ready.’
I released the tether once they were safely hidden. Invisible, I used my wand to open the door just enough to allow me to slip through. Luckily, no one was watching the door. When the last of them had passed by, I fell in behind the group.
At certain points along the way were more cloaked blokes holding wands. Maladons – they had to be. When the line wasn’t moving fast enough, they roughly pushed people along. As I watched, a small girl with dark skin was knocked down by one of them. When a woman I supposed was her mother went to help her, she was also struck, and she fell next to her daughter.
The others marched on, not once looking back at their fallen comrades. As the column disappeared down the long hallway, the mother and daughter were jerked up by two men, taken over to a far wall and lined up against it.
‘’Tis a heavy price to be paid for dawdling, vermin,’ one of the men hissed. He raised his wand.
Without even thinking, I raised my wand and said, ‘Impacto.’
The spell shot out from the tip of my wand and blasted both men off their feet. They sailed through the air and landed hard against the floor of the platform, their wands flying from them.
I rushed forward to help the girl and her mother, but they stood there without moving. I realized they must be under the Subservio spell. I released them from it and they looked around in confusion.
‘Are you OK?’ I said.
I had forgotten that I was still invisible. The mother screamed, clutched her child and they ran off in the other direction, away from the column.
‘Wait!’ I said. But then I heard feet running towards me. I leaped out of the way as a group of cloaked Maladons with raised wands rushed past me. I heard the sounds of spells being cast and people screaming.
I turned and ran in the other direction, towards where the column of downtrodden had headed. I reached a door through which they must have passed, eased it open and slipped through.
On the other side of the door was a long, dark hall. I heard noises coming from the other end. People were talking in raised voices. Obviously everyone was on alert now.
‘Crystilado magnifica,’ I said, pointing my wand ahead. What I saw made me freeze.
The room was enormous, caverno
us really; easily the largest room I had ever seen.
In the middle of it was a huge crowd of people, including those who had got off the train. In front of them, on a large white wall, were blurred images, moving back and forth.
Everyone in the room was staring at it, transfixed.
I could hear a sound. Like the images on the wall, I couldn’t make out actual words; it was simply murmuring, something less than a whisper and a bit more than silence.
The mass of people were now rocking from side to side in unison. Then each reached out and gripped their neighbour’s hand.
I looked back at the wall. And as I looked at it and as I listened to the murmurings, I could feel something happening to me. I began to sway back and forth. My mind felt loose, hazy. It wasn’t frightening. In fact, it felt right; it felt safe. I wanted it to happen. Memories that I had started to fall away from me. I felt good. My eyes began to close.
‘Vega Jane! Are you here somewhere?’
My eyes snapped open and I looked wildly around.
‘Delph?’ I whispered. ‘I’m over here, by the wall.’
From the darkened shadows stepped Delph, Petra and Harry Two.
I revealed myself to them by turning my ring back around. ‘How did you get down here?’
‘Some angry blokes with wands come through, and we decided where we were hiding wasn’t all that safe. They went through a door and we slipped in behind them before it closed. Finally worked our way down here.’
‘What’d you find out?’ Petra asked.
‘All those people from the train – I think the guards are doing something to their minds. If you hadn’t called out, I think I would have lost my mind.’
I was thinking about the Omniall spell I had used back in the Quag to banish the mind of a creature called a wendigo. Was that what was happening here – a banishment of all those people’s minds?
‘Then what happens to ’em, do you think?’ said Delph.
‘Maybe that’s why it’s so peaceful here,’ I said slowly, the puzzle blocks tumbling into place in my head. ‘Why blokes get along and all. Why even people scrubbing stones are smiling like they have the life of leisure.’
Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt Page 3
