The Society of Dread (21 page)

‘I do not speak of battle,’ the garghoul answered. For a moment it appeared that Tristus would say more, but his face darkened with doubt.

‘Come on,’ Theo urged. He was surprised that Tristus remained in the cage, now it was melting away. ‘You can help me! We can beat Dr Pyre together, can’t we?’

The garghoul did not reply. Tristus’s face seemed somehow empty, like the stone statue he sometimes pretended to be.

Theo suddenly felt anxious. ‘I know that he beat you before, but he – he took you by surprise then, didn’t he?’ His voice trailed away.

‘You had better seek your destiny alone, Theo,’ Tristus said, his voice hollow.

‘What do you mean, alone?’ Theo asked the
garghoul. ‘Why won’t you come with me? What’s wrong?’

Tristus stood motionless, still clutching the golden bars that were melting like ice all around him.

‘I cannot help with this, Theo,’ he said softly. ‘For now . . . I am blind.’

Blind?
Theo gazed at his friend, stunned.

‘The blast,’ Tristus explained, ‘from Dr Pyre. His power went straight into my head . . .’

Theo didn’t know what to say.

‘Come with me –’ he began awkwardly.

‘No,’ Tristus said. ‘You must go where you are needed. But please fear nothing on my account. My war is over, perhaps. I hear the stone calling me.’

Theo looked helplessly at his friend. Suddenly a terrible scream echoed from somewhere beneath them.

‘Go, Theo!’ Tristus urged. ‘Dr Pyre is at work in the chamber below. Matters race to their end. The Candle Man is needed, as ever, on the very brink of disaster.’

* * *

Theo headed downwards in the direction of the horrible cry. He had now reached the ominous command dome itself. Pale fumes hung around the arched entrance, but there was no sign of any movement.

Why aren’t there any guards?

Then Theo saw him, just beyond the archway: the unmistakable form of Hollister, the nastiest of all the Sewer Rats. The enormous figure stood, an unmoving sentinel.

Hollister had not seen him. Theo drew closer and realised that Hollister would not be seeing anything ever again. The Sewer Rat was standing still because his body had been incinerated, fused into a pile of smoking ashes.

Theo raised his hand curiously to touch the figure. Before his eyes the ashen form trembled, then cascaded to the ground in an avalanche of grey dust.

Stepping over the remains, Theo entered the dome. He was in some kind of control room, but
the Sewer Rats were no longer in control. Eerie, pale forms could be glimpsed, sprawled among the drifting vapours. Some, like Hollister, were pillars of smoking ashes. Others were little more than a streak of soot, stretched out in despairing attitudes.

The Sewer Rats were dead.

Why had Dr Pyre turned against his followers?

Hearing voices from an inner chamber, Theo went to investigate. He peered through a final doorway. Now he had reached the very centre of the vault, the heart of the Wonderful Machines.

A circular inner sanctum, a hundred feet across, met Theo’s gaze. Sunk into the floor of this chamber was a central well, pulsing with pale light. Standing at a barrier before this well was Dr Pyre, facing his last remaining underling, the wretched, one-eyed Queasley.

‘But, my Lord!’ Queasley cried. ‘It – it was all agreed!’ The quivering Sewer Rat pointed a trembling finger downwards, into the well of light. ‘We helped you rig up the alchemical bomb! We
were going to strike at the world above . . . at the Surfacers!’

Dr Pyre’s cracked hands played over the surface of the control panel. He spoke with a calm detachment.

‘Moments ago,’ the faceless man croaked, ‘I revealed my true purpose to you all and gave you the chance to flee. Instead, you all chose to attack me. Your fate is now sealed.’

As Theo edged nearer, concealed by banks of machinery, he could see the bomb that Queasley was referring to. About twenty feet down, suspended in that shaft like a fallen star, was a shimmering ball of crystal and light.

‘This was always my intention,’ Dr Pyre continued in a dry whisper. ‘To harness the power here to create an alchemical bomb. To use the ill-named Wonderful Machines to destroy themselves, to destroy the furnaces, the fortresses, the wisdom of the alchemists. I intend to destroy all.’

‘That isn’t what we agreed!’ Queasley screeched. ‘You – you can’t!’

A cold fire burnt in the eyes of the faceless man.

‘I am Dr Pyre,’ he whispered. ‘Destruction is the one gift I have left.’

He pointed a single, gnarled finger at Queasley.

‘No!’

The Sewer Rat’s cry was cut short as his body was engulfed in a ball of flame. For one moment, black, twisted arms seemed to rise up in defiance, then Queasley’s tortured frame caved in upon itself and crumpled into white-hot dust.

Silently, Dr Pyre turned back to his work. Then he stared, astounded.

Theo stood before him. Unnoticed, he had slipped from the shadows to within reach of his enemy.

‘There will be no more destruction,’ Theo said quietly.

Dr Pyre froze, as if he were seeing a ghost.

‘Is it . . . can it be, my Fool?’ Dr Pyre gasped. He seemed uncertain.

Theo remembered that when he had met Dr Pyre before, his own head had been bandaged and
he had been hidden under a layer of soot. It wasn’t surprising the man had trouble recognising him.

‘How – how did you get here?’ Dr Pyre demanded.

‘I walked through the fire,’ Theo replied. ‘I may be a fool, but I am a very dangerous one.’

Theo stood between Dr Pyre and the controls.

‘I can see it now,’ Dr Pyre said with a strange awe in his voice. ‘I can see your . . . face.’ The man’s voice had changed somehow and was tinged, for a fleeting moment, almost with wonder.

Theo was puzzled. Why should his face matter so much to Dr Pyre?

‘It is too late,’ Dr Pyre muttered. ‘Too late now for all of us!’

He raised a charred hand and, with a look of pain on his scarred visage, unleashed a searing blast at Theo.

The fire struck home.

Hungry flames licked at Theo’s body, but found nothing to burn – only pure green light. Theo gazed up at his attacker.

‘It’s never too late,’ he responded calmly.

‘No!’ roared Dr Pyre. ‘I will not be stopped!’

He raised both blackened hands together and unleashed an even more terrible bolt of flame.

This time, Dr Pyre’s blast did not strike Theo. Instead, it cascaded around him in a curious way, curling and swirling erratically. Dr Pyre staggered back, aghast.

The flames began to dance around their slight, human target, flaring into extravagant patterns above his head, like the lightning of a personal aurora borealis.

‘What is it?’ Dr Pyre cried out, a tremor of horror in his voice. ‘What is happening?’

The young Candle Man reached out towards Dr Pyre. With an agonised expression, the faceless man raised his arm desperately to keep Theo at bay.

They touched. For an instant utter silence filled the chamber. Time seemed to stand still. Then, with a noise like the tearing of space and time itself, the aurora exploded outwards and ripped the control dome apart.

‘W
hat are you doing, you unintelligible gnorn?’ Skun screeched.

The leader of the smoglodytes had scrambled through the cracks in the cavern wall to follow Theo’s trail. Now he had stumbled upon the last living garghoul, standing in the middle of his melting cage.

‘There is a battle going on!’ the smog cried. ‘Glory to be won! Have you not heard of the Society of Dread?’

‘I have not,’ Tristus replied.

‘Well, we just invented it. We are a great alliance – smashing Dr Pyre and his rotten melch, the crelp! There are legends to be writ, lives to be lost! And you . . . an ally of the Candle Hand, you stand up here like a statue?’

Tristus let out the faintest of groans. ‘My sight
has been taken away,’ he said. ‘But unfortunately, not my hearing – as I can still hear your infernal jabbering.’

‘You’re blind?’

Tristus nodded.

The smoglodyte crept closer, like a timid bird, his head cocked on one side.

‘And you’re just going to stand there?’

‘The fates have spoken,’ Tristus said. ‘Like a fool I tried to help the humans fix their cursed Aftertime, and this is how I have been repaid. It is a clear sign that my time for helping is over. Let the network fall down on me. Let the city become rubble. Let a thousand winters roll above. I will stay here and become one with the stone.’

Whooom!

An ear-splitting explosion shook the vault. Below, the Candle Man and Dr Pyre had just met in a terrible confrontation of ancient power – too much power for the stone around them to contain.

The rock walls shuddered. Great cracks
appeared, crazing the surfaces around them. The machinery in the vault groaned. Nearby, one of the gleaming spires toppled. Shards of stone rained down from the cavern roof high above. Behind Skun, several smogs leapt up and down in fright.

‘Disaster!’ one shrieked. ‘The whole
crabang
is going to come down on us!’

Tristus did not stir.

‘Selfish monster!’ Skun screamed. ‘How can you waste your great power when there are cowards trapped in this disaster who need your help!’

Tristus slowly raised his head.

‘I have often pondered what dark fate awaited me,’ he groaned. ‘But I never imagined being called “selfish” by a smoglodyte! Now I am too ashamed to return to the stone that created me.’

The garghoul stood proudly, unfurled his damaged wings. ‘You are right, for once,
nilfug,’
he cried. ‘Lead me to the wall of this vault.’

‘Certainly,’ Skun said, bouncing up on to Tristus’s shoulders. ‘Forwards, for the Society of Dread! If you will give me the honour, Mr
Asraghoul, I, Skun, will be your eyes!’

The rock walls gave another horrible groan. Orpheus officers up above, Chloe included, felt the cavern shake. Beneath the Furnace, in cells and dungeons, slaves trembled as the world seemed about to end around them.

Tristus, guided by Skun, placed his hands against the wall of the great vault.

Stand,
Tristus commanded the cavern around him with all his heart and mind. As garghouls had done in ages past, he felt his way into the stone and gave it his strength.

We will stand together.

It was not easy. Tristus almost felt himself being torn apart as he supported the stone with all his strength and wisdom.
We will stand.

The stone shuddered and groaned. The walls of the vault, the tunnels of the Great Furnace, the roof of the great cavern above them – all seemed to creak, cry out, sigh and protest, cry and whisper, yearning for destruction or peace.

Peace,
Tristus told the stone.
Choose peace.

We will stand,
he told the stone.
We are standing.

We stand.

Then suddenly there was silence.

Dazed, Theo rose to his knees. The control dome, now a blackened wreck, was dark and silent. Theo peered down into the central well and saw the alchemical bomb in the shaft below. It no longer gleamed with power, but rested, slightly askew, in shadows.

A low groan reached Theo’s ears. Through the gloom he could now see Dr Pyre sprawled on the metal floor. Like Theo, then, the old alchemist had survived the incredible explosion that resulted from their encounter.

Theo looked at his hand. It was solid, not glowing green any more, just flickering with the softest of lights. He had survived unscathed. The same could not be said for Dr Pyre. The faceless man lay on the edge of the central well, obviously hurt. His skin was no longer dull grey ash. Now it was black, scorched, yet broken up into a mass
of fine cracks, which glimmered with a ghostly, green light.

‘And so . . .’

A cracked whisper came through the gloom. ‘And so . . . doom takes us all.’

Of all the things Theo had been expecting Dr Pyre to say or do, this was not one of them.

Dr Pyre gazed around as a fine web of green energy flowed around his body, so faint it almost seemed like an afterglow.

And it was eating him away.

‘So it
is
you,’ Dr Pyre remarked, trying to touch the ribbons of light as they flashed around him. A spark slipped through his fingers. ‘Here is my proof.’

‘What do you mean?’ Theo asked.

‘I did wonder,’ the man gasped, ‘when – when I saw your face properly for the first time, Fool.’

My face?

A horrible cry split the darkness as Dr Pyre began to writhe with pain. Green flames poured from his eyes and he slumped to the ground. He
lay there, his body glowing like the last coals of a dying fire.

Theo stared, horrified. Gradually, the stricken man stirred again and rolled on to his side. At last, Theo’s curiosity got the better of him.

‘Why did you say,’ Theo asked, daring to step closer, ‘that I have doomed us all?’

‘What is the use?’ gasped Dr Pyre. ‘What is the use of words, in a world where truth turns into lies and disaster?’

Theo felt afraid. Dr Pyre pushed himself up, racked with pain, and sat against a control panel. His ashen body looked delicate now, pale and spent – as if about to fall apart.

‘How can truth turn into lies?’ asked Theo.

‘This world can never be better now,’ Dr Pyre said bitterly. ‘Because of you . . . the one person in the world who could have stopped me.’

Theo gazed at the ruin of a man slumped before him. It was a terrible sight. ‘Help me,’ Theo said slowly. ‘Help me to understand.’

Dr Pyre sighed. ‘Words have always been used
against me. Clever lies have beaten me and driven me mad. But for you, my Fool,’ he gasped, ‘I will attempt a little truth. A little truth before the horror that is to come.’

‘O
nce there was a hero called the Candle Man,’ Dr Pyre began.

Theo’s soul seemed to stir at the sound of that name. Here, in the dark and shattered control dome, deep in the heart of the now-dormant Wonderful Machines, it felt like he and Dr Pyre were the only humans left in the world.