Emily Rodda - The Shadowlands

His thin, sour face was the face of Fallow.

Lief gripped the edge of the door till his knuckles turned white. That is not Fallow, he reminded himself desperately. Fallow is dead. That creature, 3-19, simply wears the same face. But still his breath came fast and his stomach heaved with loathing.

Then the female figure looked up from the chart and half turned towards her companion. Bright white light illuminated her delicate face, her pale blue eyes.

Lief stared for a split second, then shrank back behind the door, numb with shock.

12 – Discoveries

Barda, Jasmine and Emlis were clustered in front of a narrow door on one side of the workroom. Skirting a long white table cluttered with jars, measuring jugs and a pot of bubbling green liquid set over a low flame, Lief ran noiselessly to join them.

‘There is nowhere to hide in here,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘We will have to go further.’ She paused as she noticed the expression on Lief’s face. ‘What is it?’ she muttered. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost.’

‘I have,’ Lief whispered back. ‘That woman—the woman in the pod room—is Tira of Noradz.’

Barda and Jasmine gaped at him, horrified.

‘Who is Tira?’ Emlis asked, looking from one to the other.

‘A friend who once risked her life for us,’ said Jasmine, swallowing hard. ‘We knew her people had been brought to the Shadowlands. We hoped to find her, to save her. But—’

‘But it seems she does not want to be saved.’ Barda clenched his fists. ‘She has become the Shadow Lord’s creature. What have they done to her?’

‘The answer is in there, I think,’ Jasmine said slowly. She moved aside and pointed to a notice on the door.

There was no sound from behind the door. Lief tried the knob. It turned smoothly. He pushed the door open a crack and peered into the room beyond.

At first, all he could see was a haze of soft pinkish-red light. He blinked, and the room slowly came into focus. It was another, much larger, workroom—huge, silent and empty. The strange red light glowed from the walls, ceiling and floor. On the wall facing Lief there were two vast doors, firmly closed.

A wave of dread swept over him. Jasmine was pushing him from behind, urging him on, but for a long moment he resisted her. Everything within him was crying to him to stay where he was. He clutched at the Pirran Pipe beneath his shirt and at last gained enough strength to stumble into the room.

Many work tables jutted from the side walls, each one stretching about a third of the way across the room, each one fitted with a set of broad leather straps. Lief’s mouth went dry as his imagination suddenly peopled the room. The helpless victims strapped to the benches. The cold, white-clad figures working over them, carrying out their master’s orders.

Doing… what?

The broad strip of floor in the middle of the room was bare, but scars on its hard surface showed that it had not always been so. Something heavy, large and square had once stood in the exact centre. Shallow ruts, like the tracks of cartwheels, showed that the object had been pulled out of the room by way of the double doors.

There seemed nothing to fear, yet Lief’s whole body quivered as he moved towards the marks on the floor. He knew without question that evil itself had been in this red-lit room.

The others felt it too. Emlis seemed to have shrunk within his cloak, his small face pinched, and his teeth slightly bared. Barda was breathing hard, as though he had been running. Jasmine’s face had paled. Filli had disappeared beneath her collar, and Kree was like a black statue on her shoulder.

Instinctively they all avoided stepping on the marks on the floor. They edged past them, pressing against the ends of the work tables, their eyes turned away.

They reached the double doors and, after listening carefully and hearing no sound, ventured through.

A surge of evil power hit them full in their faces, stopping them in their tracks.

They were in a dim, red-lit space with double doors on every wall. The space was completely bare except for a huge, square metal box which stood in the centre, where the dented tracks in the floor ended. The box was as tall as Jasmine, and had wheels on its base and a trapdoor at one end. Its hinged lid was open, hanging flat against one of its sides. Clearly, it was the object which had been moved from the workroom.

Evil radiated from it like heat. But the feeling was cold, a deathly cold that seemed to chill their blood, freeze their very bones to ice. Emlis began to whimper.

Lief forced his hand upward and grasped the Pirran Pipe. A little warmth stole through his fingers. He took a step forward.

‘Stop!’ hissed Jasmine, clutching his arm. ‘Lief, no! Do not go near it!’

But Lief had to know. He had to see what was inside the box. Clutching the Pipe more tightly he moved forward, Jasmine stumbling behind him, trying to hold him back.

He reached the box, and, gritting his teeth, looked over its edge.

At first all he could see was a squirming, pinkish mass. Then his throat closed as he realised what he was looking at—thousands upon thousands of long, pale worms with scarlet heads, thrashing and writhing in a bath of red slime.

And the worms sensed him. They began rearing, trying to reach him, their wicked scarlet heads straining upward, their tails lashing.

With a choking cry Lief jerked backwards, crashing into Barda and Jasmine, who were directly behind him.

He did not need to ask them if they had seen. Their appalled faces told him that they had.

‘We have to get out of this place,’ Barda hissed. He pointed at the double doors to their right. ‘That way! By my reckoning, the rubbish mounds are on that side. There may be another door…’

‘No!’ Jasmine was shaking her head, pointing to the doors ahead. Barda glared at her, and her pale face flushed scarlet. ‘We must go on!’ she cried desperately. ‘There must be prisoners here.’

Lief looked from one to the other—and at Emlis, cringing behind them.

Jasmine wanted to come here, all along…

The thought drifted into his mind, stuck there. He knew it was true.

‘Jasmine, who—?’ he began bluntly. He had just enough time to register Jasmine’s startled, guilty expression when a noise from the workroom made him break off.

It was the sound of voices and ringing footsteps. Tira and her companion had finished their inspection far sooner than he had expected.

‘… it cannot be helped!’ Tira was exclaiming. ‘You heard the message. We are needed at once! The Conversion Project is about to be put into action.’

The companions glanced around frantically. There was nowhere to hide. Barda grabbed Lief’s arm and made for the right-hand doors, with Emlis shuffling after him. After just a moment’s hesitation, Jasmine followed.

They swung into chill darkness. The doors had no sooner closed behind them than they heard someone entering the room they had just left.

‘Ah, my beauties!’ Tira’s voice cooed. ‘Your time has come! I have just had word of it.’

There was a creaking sound, then a slam and four clicks, as the lid of the box was swung closed, and locked into place.

‘What is happening?’ Jasmine whispered in panic. ‘What are they going to do with those… things ?’

‘Ssss!’

The hiss was startling in the dark silence. Lief, Barda, Jasmine and Emlis jumped violently and spun around.

Behind them, its roof covered by a tangle of heavy cloth, was an iron cage on wheels. Inside the cage, something moved.