Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

The mist in the center of the hall was very thick. We couldn’t see through it.

“The chain…” Lockwood gasped. “Where is it, Luce?”

“I don’t know….” Looking behind, I saw the shapes of our pursuers clustering at the doors.

“Oh, God . Where is it?”

“We’re almost at the other end. We must have gone too far….”

We circled in a panic, around and around. Lockwood wanted to go one way, I another; we almost tore his cape, tugging it between us.

We stopped, spent and despairing. I could hear many footsteps on the earth behind. All around us, just the swirling mists, the mist and melting wall….

And there, slouching in a corner by the sidewall, a thin and rangy youth, hair spiked, hands in pockets, staring at me. He stood amid a pile of discarded jars and boxes. He was as gray as the inhabitants of the dark village, except for his grin, which gleamed sardonically even in the swirling dusk and was somehow most familiar. He stretched out an arm, pointed behind me. I turned, saw the post and chain.

“There it is!” I pulled Lockwood around. “Look!”

Lockwood cursed. “ Why didn’t we notice it before? Are we blind? Come on!” We circled toward the post. When I glanced back, the mists had closed in once more and the grinning youth was gone, and we were alone beside the post and its icy iron chain.

“Hold on to it,” Lockwood said. “We go together. You first. Follow it right through. Don’t stop for anything.” He had drawn his sword, was staring all around us. The mists, swirling like stage curtains, grew darker with approaching forms. I caught a flash of Hetty Flinders’s bright blue dress.

It probably wasn’t very far we had to walk before stepping back into the circle. But it seemed to go on a bit, what with the awkwardness of being clasped together, so that we could only shuffle like penguins, and with the people of the village now erupting from the mist, and with us both swinging our rapiers to keep them at bay. When the vortex of Sources in the circle came into sight, it was a positive relief. I was almost ready to greet Solomon Guppy and Emma Marchment as old friends. Without regrets we threw ourselves over the chains, through the wall of whirling, shrieking spirits, and found ourselves again in the still heart of the iron circle.

The man in iron armor was nowhere to be seen. We inched our way along the chain toward the other side.

“If Rotwell’s out there,” Lockwood said, “we’re just going to have to deal with it. I’d rather be killed by him than have something… happen to me back there.”

I glanced behind us. “Think they could follow us through?”

“The iron will hold them up. But why not? It’s a hole, and there are a lot of them. I only hope Steve Rotwell and his friends get to meet them, too. Got your sword ready, Luce?”

“Yep, and if I don’t stab someone’s backside with it in the next five minutes, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.”

“Let’s see if we can surprise them, then. Come on.”

Again, just for an instant, the rushing ghosts were all around us. And then we were over the chains, and we stepped out together into the warmth, noise, and joyous, blinding light of the real world.

Where a battle was going on.

Even without the explosions, even without the blazing white magnesium fires, even without the shouts and screams and the whizzing flares, we’d have struggled to comprehend anything in those first few moments. The sensory contrast with the place we’d left was just too great. My brain was seared by savage brightness. The pain was numbing. I squeezed my eyes shut just as a wall of sound and heat hit me like a shovel to the head. I stumbled back, confused and helpless. Beside me, I could sense Lockwood doing the same.

All of a sudden I felt wet , too; the ice from the spirit-cape was melting. Freezing moisture ran down my neck, soaking my shoulders and arms. The shock jolted me into action. I peeled away from Lockwood, threw off the cape, took a mighty step—and promptly fell over something solid lying on the floor. I landed flat on my face in the soft, damp earth.

“Have a nice trip?”

I spat soil from my mouth. Then I opened my swollen eyes a crack, and through bleary but steadily improving vision saw the ghost-jar sitting in the open backpack, where I’d left it among the empty boxes. The reflection of white fires danced against the glass. The face behind it was watching me with unfeigned glee. I recognized the grin.

“Hello again,” it chuckled. “You look so rough. It’s really excellent. But you’d better wake up quickly and get involved, or they’ll destroy the place without you.”

“Who will?”

“Your friends.”

Shocking news delivered by a skull: that’s about as good a recipe as I can think of for making you snap out of your pain, exhaustion, and psychic befuddlement. I didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified—it was probably a combination of both. But I rolled over, forced my unwilling muscles to get me into a standing position; and by the time I’d managed that , I had more or less absorbed what was going on.

The old-time Viking/Saxon smackdown was no longer the most recent skirmish on that barren square of ground. A new one was in full swing. Everywhere I looked, magnesium flares were exploding, salt-bombs were bursting, pellets of iron filings were spattering viciously against the wall. Debris littered the floor; it was a piece of wood from the platform at the end that I’d stumbled over just now. The focus of the action appeared to be the corner of the building, between the piles of crates near the door to the weapons room and the side passage we’d seen the Rotwell crew leave through earlier that night. We’d heard them coming back in shortly before we’d gone into the circle, and sure enough they were still there, most of them. But they were no longer doing anything remotely scientific. No more clipboards for Mr. Johnson. No more flasks for Steve Rotwell. Instead, they and the rest of their team were scurrying around in panic as a rain of small explosions peppered them. A bright magnesium fire burned in the exit to the passage, preventing their escape. The electric cart was overturned, wheels gently spinning. It appeared to have been driven into the wall.

The origin of the ongoing attack was the pile of burning crates by the other door, and here three fast-moving figures could be glimpsed, popping out from cover at random intervals to hurl ghost-bombs and blast iron capsules down on the foe. Several of the Rotwell group were returning fire from behind the upturned cart, and the man in hulking iron armor, the erstwhile Creeping Shadow, was making strenuous efforts to climb up onto the crates, presumably to do battle. He wasn’t having much luck. His armor was battered and his helmet slightly askew; and his progress was limited by his inability to raise his knee high enough to reach the wooden platform.

So intent was everyone on the fight that no one had noticed our arrival. There was a movement at my side. It was Lockwood, fearsomely disheveled, but calmly rolling up the wet and steaming spirit-cape and stuffing it in his backpack. “Everything okay, Lucy? Warming up a little?”

“Just a bit. Look at all this. What’s going on?”

“It appears to be a rescue effort.” He pointed in wonder at a slim shape half concealed between two crates. It had spikes of ashy, deranged hair, a ferocious, feral expression, and an enormous capsule-gun in its slender hands. “Is that…is that actually Holly ?” he asked.