Forever Shores (41 page)

Captain Dar's face creased in a small smile as he looked towards the gate. ‘Well, Mr Tremen. Important friends or no, you might just be in serious trouble.' He noticed Lambholder. ‘Waste dumping, lad, is highly illegal. Not to mention dangerous. From what our hapless friend here has had to say, Chindler Sheeze isn't just peddling second rate storage vials, he's offering to store waste for wizards, too.'

‘But isn't that what we do? Store waste?'

‘And we're the only ones who do it properly, lad. Plenty of fly by night outfits offer to store magical waste, but they know how dangerous it is. They simply find some out of the way gully or hole in the ground, and dump it. Untended, there's no telling what the magic'll get up to. It can even get into the water system, and then there's hell to pay.'

‘Like on Soogli Bay, right Chief?' Crully put in.

‘Soogli Bay?' Lambholder's head was spinning. The sordid side of the magical waste business had never entered his childhood stories.

‘The fishing industry there was ruined when some illegally dumped waste flowed into it,' Captain Dar said.

‘All the fish were killed?'

‘Not exactly. The raw magic changed the fish into tentacled monsters. The entire fishing fleet went out one morning and never came back.'

‘Oh.'

The wizard had just been bedded down in the infirmary when the floor shook again. Immediately after the tremor came a sound like very high-pitched thunder. It went on and on, and as it did, Captain Dar's face blanched.

Crully looked out the window. ‘Oh, glory be,' he whispered. ‘Glory, glory be.'

Crully's face was green when he turned back to Captain Dar and Lambholder. Then it turned red, and when it changed to a ghostly blue Lambholder realised that Crully's face was being lit by light coming from outside.

Captain Dar sighed. ‘Ever had one of those days?' he asked the ceiling. He bowed his head, pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed it a little. Then he looked at the tips of his fingers for a moment, thinking.

His mind made up, Captain Dar strode to the door. ‘Lambholder, you're with me. Crully, round up the men. Get all the crash wagons, the pumps, all the crucibles we've got. Full protective gear all round.'

Lambholder made his way to the window. Not far away, a huge fountain of sickly light was blasting skywards. An indigo dark cloud was collecting at its head, and Lambholder could see ugly, half-formed shapes in it. His childhood nightmare monster, the Midnight Sheepeater, seemed rather jolly compared to these. He found his voice. ‘What's happening?'

‘I think we've found where Tremen and Sheeze have been dumping their waste.'

The horses pulling Captain Dar's wagon were stolid creatures. They had to be, Lambholder decided, if they had to attend many magical waste spills. But even they had sensed the urgency of the situation. Draped in leather protective gear, the horses rumbled along at a bone-shaking pace, and Lambholder's nervousness grew.

As they drew closer, the fountain of fire swelled, distended and grew. Hideous things were flapping in the cloud that was expanding like a leech the size of a thunderhead. It rippled, too. It reminded Lambholder, unfortunately, of the sheep carcass he had found after searching for the lost animal for two days. As he'd approached, its sides had moved and he was sure it was alive. But as he came closer he saw that the motion was that of thousands of maggots writhing on and just under the skin of the dead sheep.

Lambholder shuddered and turned away from the cloud.

Captain Dar drove the horses in silence. Lambholder had tried to talk to him as they wound through the gently glowing holding ponds, past the pits full of tarred barrels, around the mounds of cracked storage vials and crucibles. It was no use.

Lambholder was worried. The bottle that Captain Dar had clamped between his legs hadn't been opened, but Lambholder thought it was only a matter of time. He looked over his shoulder. The rest of the brigade was strung out behind them, carts and wagons piled high with barrels, sweepers, booms, scrapers, hoses and other paraphernalia Lambholder couldn't even guess at. The final wagon at the rear was some distance behind, and Lambholder thought he could make out the tubby leather-swathed figure of Corporal Crully.

In the rear of Lambholder's wagon was the largest crucible he'd seen. Brown with age, it was three times the size of the Invincible. Two large corpsmen were needed to wrestle the lid alone into place.

The wagon rounded a slide of fallen rock and Lambholder finally saw where the fountain began. It was a jumble of boulders and shards of rock right at the far end of the expanse of leaching and holding ponds. The fountain blasted from the rocks like a pillar of fire. It swayed and pulsed, its colour a ghastly mixture of brown and dark purple that would make an interior decorator blanch.

‘I think you'd better stay here, Lambholder. This is no place for you.'

Lambholder tore his gaze away from the horrible sight. ‘But sir! I'm here to help.'

‘Thanks, lad, but there's not much you can do.' He pointed at the fountain. ‘That's coming from one of the old underground cess pits.'

The other wagons drew up. After some arguing, swearing and spitting from the men, Captain Dar stood. For a long moment, he stared at the bottle in his hands. He lifted it, weighed it in one hand then the other, then shook his head and passed it to Lambholder.

Straightening, Captain Dar took off his helmet and addressed the corpsmen. ‘Men, we're facing possibly the most dangerous situation in my time with the Waste Brigade.' He paused, took a deep breath and went on. ‘Tremen and his friend thought they were onto a good thing, obviously. The old underground cess pits haven't been used for a long, long time, and they thought they could dump waste in there for years before anyone found out.' He jabbed a finger at the fountain. ‘But we stopped using the cess pits for a good reason. When enough high level waste accumulates in a confined space, this sort of thing happens. And that's not the end of it. If we can't plug this, it's going to blow.'

A mutter of concern ran through the corpsmen. ‘That's right. It could set off all the waste held here, in ponds, pits and barrels. The country for a day's ride hereabouts would simply cease to exist. Then raw magic waste would rain down on the rest of the kingdom for a week.' He drew a deep breath. ‘Nothing would be unaffected. The familiar would become the monstrous. Horror would become commonplace. Nightmares would walk the earth.' He narrowed his eyes. ‘Men, it's up to us to stop it.'

Corporal Crully stepped forwards. ‘This'll be overtime, then?'

Captain Dar snorted. ‘Call it triple time if you like, Crully. If we stop this I'll personally see to it.'

Lambholder thought that if the cheer that went up were any more ragged, beggars would refuse to wear it.

‘Crully,' Captain Dar said. ‘I want you to stay here.'

‘Righto, Chief!'

‘Once we've capped this bruiser there'll be plenty of mopping up to do. I want you to take half the men and take care of it.'

‘I'm on it.'

‘Squads 2, 4 and 6 will come with me.'

‘Sir!' Lambholder said urgently. ‘Sir!'

‘No, lad. You stay with Crully.' He slapped Lambholder on the shoulder. ‘You'll make a corpsman, lad. Felden Lambholder would be proud of you.'

‘But that's the point, sir! I have to go with you! I want to be part of a story, too!'

Captain Dar paused. He studied Lambholder. ‘All right, lad. Stick close by me.'

‘I'll still stay here, Chief?' Crully asked in a way that admitted only one answer.

‘Do that, Crully.'

Lambholder took up his seat alongside Captain Dar. The captain silently drove the horses, and the unlucky corpsmen plodded along behind.

Soon, they were forced to abandon the wagon as the road petered out. Lambholder helped the men lift the huge crucible off the wagon. It took a dozen of them.

‘Right lads,' Captain Dar said and he led the way. They tottered towards the magical blast. Lambholder found it hard to look closely at the pillar of magic. It shifted colours and
squirmed
in his sight, making his stomach churn. He decided to keep his head down, concentrating on placing his feet carefully and shouldering his part of the weight of the massive crucible.

Glittering flakes began to drop through the air. The men cursed as the going quickly became slippery underfoot. Several of the corpsmen fell, and one couldn't get up again. He lay there, flopping loosely. Another crawled away, butting his head against rocks as he went.

The crucible started to slip. ‘Hands!' gasped Lambholder, and together they eased the crucible to the ground. The glittering flakes continued to fall all around.

‘Fairy dust!' Captain Dar called over the roar of the magical blast. ‘It's from the blast! Don't let it touch your bare skin!'

Lambholder nodded, then gritted his teeth and lifted his side of the huge crucible.

They staggered on. Lambholder found he had to lean forward, as if struggling against a gale.

The weight of the crucible increased, and Lambholder looked up to see that one of the men had let go and wandered off while another was crouching and appeared to be earnestly talking to a rock. The rest were skipping off, hand in hand.

‘It's just you and me, lad!' Captain Dar shouted. He took hold of the crucible and steadied the weight. His helmet jerked in the buffeting waves of magic thrown off by the blast.

Lambholder gritted his teeth and staggered forward, holding on desperately to the crucible. Despite the helmet, strange smells were creeping into his nostrils—coal, wintergreen and dry paper. His eyes itched.

‘Here! Put it down!' Captain Dar shouted over the roaring. Lambholder looked up to see they were only a few paces away from the mighty jet as it threw itself skywards. Overhead, the inky cloud was writhing and boiling. Lambholder shuddered, but eased the crucible to the rocky ground.

Just as he was steadying it, the ground underfoot heaved and lifted. Lambholder was thrown off his feet. He hit the ground, hard, and then frantically tried to scramble to his feet. Large rocks were being tossed around like marbles as the blast belched and doubled in vigour.

Lambholder squinted and shaded his eyes. All the rocks had rolled aside, and the magical blast was now erupting from a bare hole in the ground. Captain Dar had somehow managed to move the crucible right onto the lip of the hole. He held one arm over his eyes.

Overhead, booming laughter rolled across the sky.

Lambholder lay on his stomach and lifted his head. He thought of his ma and his ten aunts. He smiled at the memory of the farm and the frosty beauty of Upper Harkbut. He wondered what the sheep would do without him.

But something inside Tilden Lambholder had changed. He knew you could take the boy out of Upper Harkbut, but you could never take Upper Harkbut out of the boy, but for a long, long time his heart had belonged to the Waste Brigade. True, his dreams weren't exactly matched by the reality, but wasn't that why dreams were dreams and reality was reality? Here he was, a real-life down-to-earth corpsman in the Waste Brigade. If his life was about to end, at least he had achieved what he'd wanted to do, what he'd left home and all he'd ever known for.

Tilden Lambholder looked out at an out of control magical eruption of the highest magnitude, knowing that it might be the last out of control magical eruption of the highest magnitude he'd ever see, with a strange sort of contentment.

He saw Captain Dar, labouring to keep his feet in the face of the blast, hugging the crucible and using it as a shield. But even the great crucible was rocking backwards and forwards as the blast jetted upwards, magic bursting forth in all directions.

At the last moment, Lambholder saw what Captain Dar was trying to do.

‘Captain!' he cried.

Captain Dar, with one last effort, tilted the great crucible and tipped it into the spouting maw of the magical eruption. He teetered a little, but then flung himself backwards.

In an instant, the blast was shut off as the great crucible jammed tight in the mouth of the cesspit. The fiery pillar stuttered, faded, then disappeared.

Lambholder ripped off his helmet and cheered. But before he could go to the weary looking figure of Captain Dar, something plopped next to him.

It was a sticky sound, like thick custard falling on a floor. Lambholder blinked. Gently at first, drops were falling to earth all around. Sticky, multi-coloured drops. Some of them writhed when they hit the ground. Some grew wings and flew off, buzzing. Others simply hissed and dissolved the earth.

The sound of feet came from behind. Lambholder slowly climbed to his feet in time to greet Corporal Crully and the rest of the brigade.

‘I'd keep that helmet on, if I were you!' Crully said to him. Then he rubbed his hands together. ‘Righto, men! We've got work to do!'

The next day, Lambholder was in Captain Dar's office again.

Captain Dar's eyebrows were singed and the tip of one ear had turned to silver, but apart from that he seemed unaffected by his ordeal.

The only significant change that Lambholder had noticed was that the wastepaper basket was full of bottles. Most of them weren't empty.

Captain Dar speared Lambholder with a look. ‘So, you still want to be part of the Waste Brigade?'

From outside came the sounds of the brigade at work—whooping and calling as they rounded up lively sproutings from the magical fallout, swearing as stuff proved harder to scrape into a crucible than it looked, spitting and then cursing as they realised for the thousandth time that spitting inside a helmet wasn't a good idea.

‘Yes sir. More than anything.' Lambholder felt a twinge at thus declaring his future and leaving his ma and ten aunts to run the farm all by themselves. They'd been brave when he'd set off, but he knew that things were going to be hard for them without him.