Fantom chapter 5, part 2.

   Patrick stood up. “Don’t hurt her,” he protested.
  “Shut up,” the adjudicator said, brushing him off.
   Ruth tried to face her with as much courage as she could muster, but she was still woozy from her fall and felt weak and afraid.
   “So you think you have a choice?” the adjudicator said.  “I think you’ve been living in a world of fiction for too long.  But why should you put yourself through this?  Your little friend there was much more reasonable.  Perhaps with a little incentive-”
    “You think you can bribe me?” Ruth said in a small voice.  
    “Your friend was willing to help, after he was shown the benefits,” she said.  “It didn't take much, not more than the hint of a threat and the promise of a patter part.  Which role have you dreamed of playing?  Phoebe? Phyllis? Patience?”
   Ruth looked at her, her courage as low as her heart.  “I’m not good enough,” she said.  “And I know it.  I know the parts I’d like to do, but I know as well that most amateurs are better than me, let alone professionals.  I’d just be embarrassed and ashamed.  I want to play great parts, but I know it’s not me.  You can’t tempt me that way.”
   The woman looked at her angrily.  “Stupid girl,” she said.  “If you won’t help me of your free will I’ll force you.  This is your last chance to do yourself a favour.”
   The fantom was beside Ruth now.  She looked up into the holes that were its’ eyes, and knew she didn’t have the strength to resist.  Whatever she might wish, she was not as brave as her story character.  She couldn’t do it.
   But she made a last attempt, tearing her eyes away from the glistening, stony creature.
   “I can’t do it,” she said.  “I...the two of us can’t sing all the parts, and even if we could, I can’t sight read  well enough to sing them.”
   “You can do enough of it for my purposes.  And you don’t need to sight read,” the adjudicator said.  “You know it.”
   “Not every part,” Ruth protested.  The fantom was almost touching her.  “I never learnt all the soprano parts.  And I can’t reach all the notes- I’m an alto.”
   “You’re a mezzo-soprano,” the woman replied brusquely.  “Don’t try any more excuses.  You can do it and you will- or suffer inconcievable agonies.”
   She nodded to the fantom.  Its’ huge, hard hands reached down towards Ruth’s already injured leg.  She cowered back and tried to move but felt the wall behind her.  She heard her voice crying out “no, no!” as the fantom picked up her injured ankle.
   “You said you wouldn’t hurt her!  You promised!”  Patrick shouted.  The adjudicator smiled.
   “I lied.”  She raised the baton.  “Time to twist,” she said.
   “I’ll do it,” Ruth sobbed.  “I’ll do it.”
   “That’s more like it.”  The adjudicator lowered the baton and strode over to Ruth.  “You’ll do as I tell you?  Sing for me?”  
   “Yes,” Ruth sobbed.  
   “Good.”  She waved to the fantom to let go of Ruth’s foot.  It did so suddenly, and Ruth cried out as it hit the floor.  The woman laughed.  “Be ready in an hour,” she said.  “You’d better start warming up if you’re going to reach those high notes.  I don’t want any cracks.”  She swept out of the room, the fantom following obediently.
   Ruth buried her head in her arms and wept.  Not just from the pain, but the shame.  The fantom had not actually hurt her very much.  But the moment it’s strong, stony hands had touched her her imagination had gone into overdrive, picturing skin and muscles torn apart, bones grinding and cracking under the monster’s hands.  That had been what had made her give in.  
   It had all been pretty pointless, really.  If she was going to be forced into creating a new one, she hadn’t achieved anything by destroying the fantom in her fall from the castle.  She had just got herself injured for nothing.  Oh, her feint had allowed the others to escape and- she hoped- warn the authorities, but would anyone believe them?  And if the adjudicator was bringing her plan forward as Patrick had said would there be time to stop her?  
   She wondered if there was any chance the others would be able to rescue her.  Then she laughed bitterly at the thought.  She was thinking like her story-characters again.  No one was coming to rescue her.  How could they even know where she was?  She didn’t know herself.  And even if they did, what could her friends do?  It would be mad for them to try.  
   And what would happen when the adjudicator found out that Tom had lied to her?  Ruth knew that if she was asked she would give away the real location of the TTC.  She was ashamed of her weakness, but could not help it.  There was nothing she could do now, except obey.
  She sat up.  Patrick came over as she tried to stand, and tried to help her.  She tried to put weight on her injured ankle, and sat down quickly, stifling a cry of pain.  There was no way she could walk.  

  Patrick sat down beside her and Ruth looked at him out of the corner of her eye.  That woman had lied to him.  Now he must be thinking what else she might have lied about.  He would be afraid what might happen to him, what other promises she might not keep.  Perhaps he was thinking that what he had done had also been all for nothing.  Yet Ruth was glad of his company, silent and melancholy though it was. She shivered.  Patrick reached out to take her hand, and looking down saw the bruises and red marks on her wrists.  “Is...is that from where I...”

 “Yes,” she said.  He let go her hand, and turned away, ashamed.  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

 She reached out and laid her hand on his.  “It’s ok,” she said.  She could not yet forget that he had let her down, had not lived up to who she had hoped he was.  But she couldn’t blame him for being afraid.  And she desperately wanted not to be alone.

The story continues...

Fantom chapter 5, part 1

5. When hope is gone.

   Ruth opened her eyes, her head throbbing.  She was lying on a dirty rug on the hard wooden floor of a small upstairs room.  It was dark, only a dim light filtering in through a small, high window.  She guessed that it was either evening or early morning.  Her left ankle was agony as soon as she tried to move it and she almost lost consciousness again.  She tried to sit up but as soon as she moved she felt sick and the pain became unbearable, so she lay still.

   She closed her eyes and tried to remember what had happened.  She had destroyed the fantom- but she had fallen from the castle walls.  And- well, judging by her surrounding she was still in the hands of the enemy.  Maybe the others had escaped, but they had not got help quickly enough to save her.

   The darkness that had come over her was receding, although she rather wished it wasn’t.  On the other side of the door she heard footsteps and Patrick’s voice, seemingly continuing an ongoing conversation with the adjudicator.  

   “...but you said you wouldn’t hurt her!”

   “The deal was that we wouldn’t kill her.  And we won’t, unless she does something stupid again.  Of course, if you’d rather we killed you instead...”
   “But you promised...”

   “Shut up and stop whining.  Go and see if that fool of a girl is still alive.”

   There was the sound of a door slamming.  Ruth tried to make sense of what she had heard but her head was still woozy and she found it hard to concentrate.  The door opened and Patrick peered in, gingerly looking to see if she was awake.  When he saw that she was he hesitated, but then came towards her and sat down next to her.

   “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

    Ruth said nothing.  Her head was starting to clear and she remembered his part in events.
   “Is there anything I can do?” he asked hesitantly.  
   “You could find a doctor and some way out of this place,” Ruth said shortly.  
   “I wish I could,” he said earnestly.  Ruth realised that he was as much of a prisoner here- wherever 'here’ was- as she was.  He was obviously out of place here, not trusted by the guards, unable to leave without the adjudicator's permission.  
  “Did the others get away?” she asked.
  “I think so.  She didn’t catch them before we left the castle and I think she’s speeding up her plan rather than try to find them.” 

   She tried to sit up.  Patrick tried to help her, but she felt sick immediately and lay down again.

   “I'm sorry,” he said again.  “Does it hurt a lot?”

   “Quite a lot,” she said, trying to smile.  “My own fault, I knew I’d get hurt.  It seemed worth it, to destroy that monster.”

  “It was very brave,” he said.  “I don’t know how you did it.  I thought you’d...you were dead.”

  “I expected to be,” she said quietly.  “Maybe that would have been better.”

   He took her hands in his.  “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, pleading.  “I didn’t think anything like this would happen, I didn't mean it to be like this.  She promised you’d all be safe.”

   Ruth looked at him.  She could believe that he hadn't wanted anyone to be hurt- but he could have done something to stop it, to help her and her friends, and he hadn't.  But he had been scared, she had seen that, scared for his own skin.  And he still was.  She knew how that felt.  

   I didn't betray my friends when they refused to help the adjudicator, she thought.  I helped them escape and destroyed that Fantom.  

   But could you do it again, her second thoughts whispered.  Now you know what the consequences are?  

   “I’m sorry,” Patrick repeated.  “Please forgive me, if you can.”  

   Ruth stared at him.  Forgive him?  After all he had done- after betraying her and threatening her with a gun?  Could she really forgive him for that?  How could he even ask?  Her first response was surprise and anger, but as she looked at him she remembered his story.  This was the real Patrick, not one of her stories.  He was human, fallible, as was she.  Who was she to judge?  And he evidently was genuinely sorry.

   Maybe she would be able to forgive him one day- but not yet.  She could not forget what he had done.  

   But before she could speak the stomp of heels outside the door heralded the adjudicator.  Patrick stood up hurriedly as she entered.  Ruth sat up and shrank back, afraid.  The woman scowled at her.  “So you are still alive then.  Useful but rather a shame- it would have been more fun if you had been the victim of your own little triumph.  A pyrrhic victory would be so much more poetic.  Almost operatic.”  She gave a cold laugh.  “Escaping death is more than you deserve.  And if you don’t do what I want you’ll wish you hadn’t.”  

   “What do you want me to do?” Ruth asked, and wished it wasn’t so evident from her voice that she was  terrified.  The adjudicator smirked.  “Nothing too difficult,” she said.  “I want you to sing.  Between the two of you,” she looked across at Patrick, “you can create me a new fantom to replace the one you destroyed.”
    “No!” Ruth said, almost without thinking.   If she had stopped to think, she would not have had the courage to say no, looking up at the menacing mound of wet minerals behind the adjudicator.  
    “No?” the adjudicator repeated.  “Oh, I think you will.”  She motioned with her baton, and the fantom lumbered towards Ruth.

The story continues...

Fantom chapter 4, part 5.

   “Hey,” Ruth called out to the creature, as it lumbered towards the others, trapped in their corner.  “Hey, rocky!  Leave them alone- I’m the one you need to worry about!”  She ran towards it.  Confused, it looked away from the others and turned towards Ruth.
   “No!” screamed it’s mistress.  “You stupid girl, what do you think you’re doing?  Idiot boy, why did you let her go?”
   Ruth could not run far.  Climbing up the steep path to the castle had been too much for her.  Patrick was still sitting gasping on a block of stone.  He reached out towards Ruth as she passed him.
   “What are you doing?” he gasped.
   “What I can to put right what we’ve done,” she said, evading him and scrambling up the wall where it was broken down.  
   “No!” he cried, suddenly realising what she was going to do.  He stood up and reached out towards her, but was pushed out of the way by the adjudicator.
   Ruth was standing on the top of the wall, holding on to the branches of a thin tree that clung to the top of the slope for balance.  She looked down.  The valley was a long way below.  Behind her, the monster was pulling itself up after her, too intent in it’s pursuit of her to notice any danger.
   Looking over her shoulder, she saw the evil woman watching, a striking figure, her dress and scarf flowing in the wind.
   “Come down from there,” the woman said, aiming her gun at Ruth.  Ruth looked at her, her limbs shaking in fear.  
   “No,” she said.  The creature was close now.  Too close.  With a sudden movement she swung herself off the wall, clinging to the tree branch as she dangled out over the steep drop.  The clumsy form of the creature, thrown off balance by her move, toppled from the wall and fell like a stone to the valley below.  Scarcely daring to look down, Ruth heard a sound like a thousand nutshells cracking as it shattered.  
    “No!” screamed the adjudicator.
   Ruth clung onto the tree.  She could feel the wood creaking and beginning to give way.  If she couldn’t climb back onto the wall she would soon fall after the creature- the tree was a spindly thing and could not bear her weight for long.  
   But the adjudicator was still aiming at her.  Ruth tried to move towards the wall.  The branch creaked alarmingly.  “If you move, I’ll kill you,” the adjudicator said.  Ruth looked shakily at her.
   “If I don’t get back on the wall I’ll fall and die anyway,” she said.  “So what do I have to loose?”
   “You killed my servant,” the woman said.  “And thanks to you the others have escaped.  Again.”  It was true.  Ruth could see them making their way down the path as fast as possible, now that the creature was no longer keeping them trapped in their corner.
   “Good,” Ruth said.  “That was what I wanted to do.  If I die doing it, so be it.  My life’s worth little enough anyway.”
   “Spare me the self pity,” the woman said.  “Fall, or be shot.  I don’t care which.”  The branch creaked again.  Instinctively Ruth reached out for the wall with her feet.  The woman raised the gun.
   “Don’t shoot!”  Patrick cried, pushing her out of the way.  He scrambled up onto the wall and reached out towards Ruth.  “Take my hand!”
   But it was no good.  Even as the woman turned on him, the branch broke with a snap.  Ruth, reaching in vain towards the wall, fell.  Patrick leant out to try to catch her and almost overbalanced himself, and the last thing he saw before the woman pulled him backwards was Ruth’s terrified face staring up at him as she plummeted towards the remains of the creature.  

   Adam, Tom and Agnes pelted down the hill, scrambled over the castle wall and kept running.  Agnes tripped and would have fallen if Tom hadn’t steadied her.  They heard behind them the heavy footfalls of the Fantom.   Snatching a glance over his shoulder Tom saw it reach the broken down castle wall and pause.  It couldn’t climb over it.  It lumbered off towards the one gate, much further along the wall.  That might give them enough time to get away.  
   But where could they run too?  The adjudicator had cars, vans.  They couldn’t escape from her on foot.  They needed to raise the alarm somehow, get help.  And what about Ruth?
   Behind them they heard shouting, and then a noise like the beginning of a landslide.  They stopped and wheeled round, but they could see nothing to explain the noise.  
   The Fantom behind them, however, seemed to know what it was.  It had stopped, and was making a scratching, groaning sound, as though keening for some injury.  The three looked at one another.
   “Come on,” Adam said.
   “But what about Ruth?” Tom said.
   “She told us to run,” Adam said.  “Whatever happened, to run.”
   More shouting drifted down the hill to them.  Then a scream.
   “We can’t just leave her!” Agnes said.
   Then it went quiet.  The Fantom hesitated, unsure whether to follow them or return to it’s mistress.
   “We’ve got to go,” Tom said wretchedly.  “That thing will be after us in a minute.  We can’t help Ruth by getting captured again.”
   They knew he was right.  Sadly, they turned and continued down the hill.

The story continues...

Fantom chapter 4, part 4.

   Inside the shell of the castle keep, Ruth sat down, shaking.  She tried not to think about the gun that had been pressed to her head, tried to think herself somewhere else.  She buried her head in her hands, and was surprised into a small cry of pain as the rope cut into her wrists.  
   The others, exhausted from their night on the run, sat down around her.  Agnes put an arm round her, and Tom gingerly picked at the knots on her wrists before reaching into a pocket for a penknife to cut them.  Patrick watched them from the top of the steps.  He still held the gun, albeit rather as if he didn’t know what to do with it.  
   “I’m sorry,” Ruth whispered to the others.  “I was trying to warn you.”
   “We couldn’t have got far anyway,” Adam said.  “Are you ok?”  There were red circles on her wrists from where the ropes had grazed them.
   “I don’t know what she’s planning, but it’s nothing good,” Ruth said.  “Did you manage to tell anyone what happened?”  Tom, Agnes and Adam looked at each other and then at the ground.  “We didn’t really get a chance,” Agnes admitted.  “And...we panicked a bit.”
   So there was no help coming.  Ruth leaned her head against the stone wall, looking out without any hope of finding a way out.  Looking out through the slit window she saw the adjudicator, with both Fantoms beside her, giving orders to the two or three human guards who had come with her.  They began to move off down the path to where the vehicles they had come in were parked.  Ruth guessed they were being sent to look for the TTC.  How would the adjudicator react when she found out that Tom had lied to her?  Ruth was glad the adjudicator hadn’t asked her- she could not have lied as convincingly as Tom.  
   So all that was left to guard them was the Fantoms.  And Patrick.  Would he actually use that gun, fire on his friends?  For his sake as well as theirs, she hoped not.  
   Behind where the adjudicator stood was a broken-down wall, on the other side of which was a long, almost sheer drop towards the valley.  Anyone trying to escape that way would smash onto the rocky slopes below.  There was no way out there.
   At least- not directly.    
   An idea, a horrible idea, was forming in her mind.  Perhaps there was a way to let the others escape, a way to distract or even destroy the stone monsters.  
   “Listen,” she said to the others, still gazing out through the window slit.  “I’ve got an idea that might work, I don’t know yet.  But if you get a chance- even the smallest hint of a chance- then run.  Spit up, she can’t chase all of you.  And get help.” She turned to face them.  “Don’t pay attention to what’s going on behind you, don’t look behind you, don’t even listen.  Just go.  Please.”  
   The other three looked at each other.  “Ok,” Tom said.  “But what’s the plan?”
   “I- I don’t really know yet,” Ruth said, standing up.  “It’s just an idea.  But remember what I said, when the time comes.”  There were bits of gravel and chips that had broken off the wall by her feet.  She picked up a few and climbed up to a sort of gallery that ran round the inside of the keep.  She stopped at a big window opening, high above ground level, and looked down on the adjudicator, weighting the stones in her hand.  And then she threw.
   The first one was miles off, but her second whistled past the adjudicator’s head.  The third was miles away, but the next two were closer, and the sixth actually struck her shoulder.  The woman looked round angrily, and saw Ruth.   
   Patrick hurried towards her, the gun uncomfortably in his hand.  “Stop it,” he said anxiously.
   “Bring her out,” the adjudicator called to Patrick.  He came towards Ruth and, not very roughly, pulled her away towards the exit.  
   “What do you think you’re doing?” the adjudicator asked angrily.     
   Ruth was too scared to reply.  Her plan didn’t seem such a good idea now.  She looked over her shoulder, and saw the others had come to the doorway and were watching.  She made eye contact with Tom.  He would understand.
   Patrick was holding her by the arm.  Ruth looked back at the adjudicator.  
   Then she pulled her arm free and ran.
   She didn’t expect to get far.  She heard the adjudicator shouting at Patrick and the Fantoms to get her.  She could hear the heavy treads of the rocky monsters behind her.  She reached the edge of the castle bailey, and scrambled over the wall.  Climbing that should slow the monsters.  For a moment as she struggled onwards she wondered if she would actually be able to get away.  Then she felt a grip on her arm.  Turning, she saw it was Patrick, wheezing from the effort of chasing her.  The Fantoms were not far behind.
   They dragged her back up the hill to the adjudicator.  Ruth saw with satisfaction that she was standing by the castle steps alone.  The woman shouted at the Fantoms, pointing to where Tom, Agnes and Adam were running away.  One broke off and lurched towards them surprisingly fast, like a sheepdog hemming them in against the wall of the bailey.  The other Fantom dragged Ruth up to the adjudicator, and then turned to help it’s fellow.
   Ruth looked up at it.  It was made of stone.  Stone and water.  It looked somehow less glisteney than usual, as if it were drying out up here in the wind.  She thought.  Perhaps it had become brittle- perhaps it was more vulnerable.  She tried to remember what was on the other side of the wall.  The drop was not sheer, but it was steep.  She gulped.  She had to try it.

The story continues...

Fantom chapter 4, part 3.

   Ruth stared out through a window slit.  Dawn was coming, a grey and damp morning.  Light but soaking rain had begun to fall and she wished the castle still had a roof.  Neither the adjudicator nor her creations were visible, and the castle ruins looked deserted.
   Something attracted her eye.  She saw Tom emerge from a gap in the tumbledown walls, followed by Adam and Agnes.  They looked around, obviouslt unsure where they were.  Ruth’s heart sank.  So they hadn’t escaped, as she had hoped.  The adjudicator couldn’t be far away.  Was this a trap?
   She shouted through the gap in the stones.  “Tom! Adam!”   Outside the keep Tom and the others stopped and looked round to see who was calling them.  
   Behind her Patrick stood up and looked round anxiously, unsure whether he would get into trouble for letting her make noise.  
   Ruth shouted again.  The others were already running towards the keep.  “Agnes!  Get out of here, it’s the adjudicator, she’ll-”
   Ruth was pulled away from the window by the strong fingers of the adjudicator, who had suddenly appeared behind her.  She struck her again with the baton.
   “Come with me,” she hissed.  “You-” turning to Patrick- “Make sure she does what I say.”  She handed him a gun.  “Use it if necessary.”  She turned and led the way up the steps.
   Ruth stared at him for a moment.  He was looking at the gun in his hands, hesitating.  Then he looked up.
   “Go on,” he said.  "Don't make me use this."  Ruth turned away from him and followed the woman up the steps, her heart lower than it had been even during the darkest part of the night.
   The sky was almost red now, as the sun rose through the cloud and remains of the fog.  The adjudicator stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the castle bailey.  Tom, Agnes and Adam stood looking up at her, trapped by the two Fantoms, who, looking just like stone, had been perfectly camouflaged against the walls and had come forward to cut off their escape.  
   “Welcome,” the adjudicator said.  “I was hoping you would join us.  You see I have your friend here.”  She indicated Ruth with her gun.  “So I suggest you do as you’re told or she’ll regret it.”  
   Ruth, surrounded by guns and with the menace of the Fantoms in the background, was terrified.  The heroic thoughts she had had of telling her friends to run, to abandon her and save themselves melted away.  Her only thought was for her own safety.  She looked at Patrick out of the corner of her eye.  He was not looking at the others, but only at the adjudicator, and the gun was in his hands and aimed at her.  Now she knew- she was no better than him.
   “What do you want?” Tom asked.
   “You,” the adjudicator replied.  “I can’t let you go wandering across the countryside telling people what I’m doing.  You’re going to have to stay with me.”
   “Why are you doing this?” Agnes asked.  “What do you want those- things- for?”
   “The Fantoms?” the adjudicator said, patting one on the shoulder.    “They are loyal, practically indestructable, and obedient to whoever has the power to control them.  Which I do.  Nor do they require payment, although they will be rewarded once I have gained power over this land.  Yes,” she had caught their expressions of shock; “That is my plan.  This land was once great, but we have sunk.  We forgot the importance of Art in all its’ forms to our national life.  I shall restore it.  When Art is at the centre of our leaders’ thinking, it will be clear how to solve our problems.  And then this country will be great again.”
   The adjudicator looked at Ruth and then down at Tom, Adam and Agnes who were staring in disbelief.  “You helped me create the Fantoms,” she said.  “So I will offer you a choice- the chance of a lifetime.  Join me.  You will be well rewarded.”
   The others looked at one another.  Ruth looked at Patrick.  He would not meet her eye but was still holding the gun, not quite pointing at her, but enough to be a threat.  
   “Put the guns away and stop threatening our friend, and then maybe we’ll consider it,” Tom said.  
   “Oh no,” the adjudicator laughed.  “If you’re that squeamish you won’t be much use to me.  No.  Join me, and then perhaps I’ll put the guns away.”
   “You force us to help you, take our friend prisoner and chase us all night through rain and fog, and then expect us to say ok, fine, we’ll join your insane plan to take over the country with stone monsters?”  Adam said.  
   “You will when you see the alternative,” the adjudicator said, raising her gun again.  “Oh, and there’s one other thing I want- your time capsule.  Where is it?”
   They looked at one another in confusion.
   “Why do you want it?” Tom said, playing for time.
   “I’m not stupid enough to tell you all my plans,” the adjudicator said angrily.  “This isn’t a Bond film.”
   “Then we’re not telling you,” Adam said.  “It’s not to be used for evil.”
   “Tell me or your friend dies.”  The adjudicator put the gun to Ruth’s head.  
   Ruth felt sick, frozen with fear.  And yet- at the same time she knew that this woman should be prevented from getting the TTC at all costs; whatever her plan was it could be nothing good.  She wanted to tell her friends to keep their secret- but she did not have the courage to say it- or perhaps not the courage to mean it.
   In the chill of the earliest dawn on that lonely hill she felt the cold metal pressed against her skin, not moving or trembling in the slightest.  She clutched at the rail on the stairs in front of her and stared at the ground, desperatly afraid but trying not to sway her friends’ decision by showing it.
   It seemed an eternity before Tom shrugged.  “All right,” he said.  “We left it back in York.”  He gave the adjudicator the details of where they had first found the TTC.  Ruth did not look up, afraid that her expression would betray his lie.  She admired his acting, more convincing than she had imagined he could be.  She hoped none of the others would give him away, by accident or not.  She looked sideways at Patrick.  But he too was staring at the ground.  She realised that her friends would only now be realising that he was there willingly, not as another prisoner.  They probably didn’t know he had stopped her escaping from the cavern.  
   “Good,” the woman said.  “Now, get inside the castle.  You too,” she turned back to Ruth.  “And you, boy, keep an eye on them.  Any attempt to escape, you know what to do.”  She moved away from the steps and Ruth and her friends had no choice but to obey. 

The story continues...

Fantom chapter 4, part 2.

   It was a long, dark night.  Ruth and Patrick sat in the back of the van, shivering, and waiting for dawn.  They seemed to have been driving all night, although with the darkness and the constant changes of speed and direction she had no idea how far they had come.  She had long lost track of any direction and lay in the dark, unable to do anything but wait.
   And then they stopped.  For a few minutes nothing happened, although she could hear the adjudicator talking to someone.  She wondered if it was just a temporary stop somewhere.  Then the voices got louder, and the back doors of the van were opened.
   “Out,” the adjudicator said, indicating Ruth.  “And if you try anything silly, like running off, it will be the last thing you do.”  Ruth did as she was told, but clumsily unbalanced with her hands tied she slipped getting down from the truck and fell over.  The adjudicator reached out and struck her with the conducting baton, with surprising strength for an older woman.  
   “Now get up, and come with me,” the woman said.  “And keep quiet.”
   Patrick jumped down and helped her stand up, just in time or the Fantoms would have trodden on her as they stepped stiffly out of the van.  Silently and smarting, Ruth followed the adjudicator as she strode up a steep slope.  A path zig-zagged up the slope.  At the top Ruth could see the dark shape of a building  looming against the slowly paling sky, but was no closer to knowing what or where it was.  
   Soon all her energy was needed to drag herself up the slope.  In the dark she could not see how far they had come or how far there was left to go.  All she could hear was the clip-clip of the adjudicator’s shoes in front, and the heavy stony footfalls of the Fantoms behind her.     
   It was a wild night.  The wind had risen and was blowing the fog away, leaving the night cold and clammy.  Ruth shivered.  The hill was steep, and she found herself struggling for breath.  The Fantoms were just behind her, she was in fear that they would tread on her they were so close, but she could not go any faster.
   At last, at long last, they reached the summit, and Ruth realised where they were.  In the whole night’s driving round and round they had only come a few miles from Buxton.  This was Peveril Castle, near Castleton.  Ancient walls loomed around her, mostly tumbledown and robbed-out, with only the keep standing more than a few feet high.  
   The adjudicator pushed Ruth down some steps into a corner of the keep.  “Watch her,” she said to Patrick.  “Don’t let her out of your sight.”  She turned away to order the guards to spread out and keep watch.  The Fantoms were nearby, slumped down beside a wall in their usual ‘off-duty’ fashion.
   Ruth sat down.  The keep at least kept out the howling of the night wind, but it was still cold and damp, even in August.  It was dark inside the keep, but the sky above was growing paler.  Dawn would come soon.  She looked at her wrists, now red and sore from the rope that still bound them.  She wished the adjudicator could at least have untied her.  
   She looked across at Patrick.  He was sat by the steps, staring at nothing, occassionally looking at her when he thought she couldn’t see.  She was reluctant to ask, but she had no choice.
   “Patrick,” she said.  He looked at her.  “I need my inhaler- it’s in the rucksack.  Could you find it- please?”  He found it and gave it to her.
   “Thanks,” she said.  Why did she feel she should apologise when it was his fault she needed his help?   
   She thougth he looked ashamed.  “Are you ok?” he asked hesitantly.  
   “Yes,” she said shortly.  But it was evident that she was lying.  She didn’t try to disguise it but sat with her head in her hands, ashamed that Patrick would see her crying but unable to stop herself.
   “I’m sorry,” she heard him say quietly.  She looked up.
   “You could have let me go, even if you wanted to stay yourself,” she said.  “Why did you stop me?”
   “I was scared,” Patrick said.  “I didn’t think anyone would escape.  I needed to do something to show her I was still on her side.”
   “So you gave her me.”
   “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know it would be like this.  And now- there’s nothing I can do except go through with it.  Or I’ll end up as a prisoner too.”
   “It doesn’t look like it would make much difference,” Ruth said.  “Except that your hands are free you’re trapped here as much as I am, except that it’s by your own choice.”
   She retreated into silence.  How could he have done it?  He had used her to trade for his safety; that wasn’t how to treat a friend.  She looked across at him in the grey pre-dawn light, sat hunched on the steps.  She could see that he wasn’t pleased or proud of what he’d done, and was begining to see that the reward he’d hoped for was unlikely to materialise.  But he’d been scared.  She wondered if she’d have done any better in his shoes, fear on one side, temptation on the other.  She remembered the the panic and terror as the Fantoms had advanced on them in the cave- would she have pushed someone else in front of her, if she could, and sacrifed them to save herself?  Quite likely.  
   She realised why she felt so disappointed.  It was because it wasn’t how the Patrick of her stories would have acted.  He was not her Patrick, who would never have done somthing like that but would have been brave and honourable.  He was just a frightened young man.  It wasn’t fair to judge him by the creation of her imagination, and dangerous to forget that they were not the same.  
   But it didn’t make her less disappointed.

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Fantom chapter 4, part 1.

4. When the night wind howls.
  
   After what seemed like hours they reached the entrance to the cave.  The adjudicator strode up to a van that was standing nearby.  Another man dressed like the guards was standing by it, and from his conversation with the adjudicator Ruth gathered that the others had not yet been caught, but the guards were closing in on them.  The adjudicator opened the back doors of the van.  
   “In here,” she said, pointing her baton at the monsters.  “You too, girl.”  Ruth looked at her miserably, her bravado gone.  “Why do you want me?” she said.    
   “Get in,” the adjudicator repeated.  She produced her gun again, and threatened Ruth with it.  “Do as I say.  You” -this was aimed at Patrick- “help her in, and get in yourself.”  They did as they were told.  
   “Please, at least untie me,” Ruth pleaded, but to no avail.  The doors were slammed shut and they were trapped with the Fantoms.   
   She heard doors slamming and the engine was started.  Now it was noisy as well as everything else.  She sat trying to balance herself against the van wall, afraid and uncomfortable.  Her wrists hurt where the rope chaffed.  The van went round a sharp corner and, unable to steady herself, she almost fell into one of the Fantoms.  They were sitting hunched up, inactive, but Ruth could feel that they were still aware, and likely to react to any perceived threat.  
   They seemed to be driving very fast.  Another sharp bend, and Ruth lost her balance and fell over.  She didn’t bother trying to get up but lay there, facing the side of the truck.       
   “Ruth?”  Patrick spoke to her for the first time since he had stopped her climbing the stairs to escape.  She lay still and quiet.  She was afraid, but also angry with him.  Why had he done this?  
   “Are you ok?” Patrick asked in a whisper.  Still she didn’t reply.  
   “Ruth?  Are you all right?”
   She stared at the wall.  “Am I all right?” she said.  “Well, apart from being betrayed, threatened with a gun, tied up, thrown in the back of a van and locked up with those- things!  Other than that I’m fine, except perhaps knowing that I’m being kept prisoner by a mad woman with some plan to take over the world with monsters that I helped bring into existence.  Oh yes, I’m fine.”  
   “I’m sorry,” he said.  
   “Sorry?” she said.  “You betrayed us.”
   “I didn't know she was planning to do this!  She just asked me to get you all to go to the cave and sing Thespis- she said she’d heard we’d found an original score and she wanted to hear it.”
   “Didn’t you think that it was odd she wanted us to sing it in a cave?”
   “She said it had to be somewhere secret so that no one else could hear it and claim they’d discovered it.  She said she’d make sure we got the credit for having found it and that if we kept it quiet to start with we could make money from selling the score.”
   “So that’s what made you do this,” Ruth said bitterly.  “Money.”
   “I thought all she wanted us to do was to sing!” he protested.  “What’s wrong in that?  I didn’t know about all this.”  
   “But after she’d made us create those- those things-” she glanced fearfully at the silent Fantoms- “After you knew what she was doing, you still chose to stay with her, and stopped me escaping with the others.”  She turned over and glared at him.  “I hope you think what you’re going to get out of this is worth it.”
   He looked uncomfortable.  “I’m sorry,” he said again.  “But...look at me.  I’ve got no future as it is.  Even in G&S I get passed over in auditions, let alone any hope of getting a decent job, of success in the real world.  She offered me hope, told me she could help me get parts professionally.  Of course I wasn’t going to turn it down.”
   “But she threatened you along with the rest of us, when we thought those things were going to attack us.  You were as scared as I was then.  Wasn’t all she promised you just a trick to get you to bring us to her?”
   He shrugged, not meeting her eyes.  “What have I got to loose?”
   Ruth did not reply.  
   They had no idea where they were going.  The journey seemed to go on forever, weary afternoon leading on to wearier evening, and even wearier night.  Ruth lay in a corner, too scared to sleep.  It was dark in the van, only occassionally illuminated as they passed streetlights.  She could not see the Fantoms but knew they were there, lurking, in the darkness.  She was hungry, thirsty and uncomfortable.  She tried not to think of the remains of the picnic in the rucksack she still wore, but in the end thirst got the better of her pride.
   “Patrick?” she said.  He had retreated to the other side of the van and not spoken since their last exchange.  She heard a rustle and felt, rather than saw, him come towards her in the darkness.  
   “Yes?”
   “There’s some food and drink in my rucksack, but I can’t get it off with my hands tied.  Can you get it?”
   “I’ll have a go.”  She heard the zip and felt him rummaging around inside the bag.  
   “I think there’s a torch in there too,” she said.  A moment later a flash of light illuminated the darkness, and made her screw up her eyes.  Soon they were both eating and drinking what was left from their picnic.  Ruth wondered what had happened to the others.  Had they escaped?  Or were they also captives?

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Fantom chapter 3, part 5.

  Tom and Adam emerged panting from the shaft into the folly.  Agnes was not far behind them, and they could see the guards, with their guns, only a step or two behind them.
  “Run!” Tom said.  They ran out of the folly and, to the surprise of a few tourists who were wandering around the hilltop, dived down into one of the grass-grown hollows that pitted the ground.  There they tried to recover their breath.
   “They can’t do anything to us out here, can they?  There are other people around,” Agnes said.
   “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Tom said.  
   Adam was peeping out between the rocks at the lip of the hollow.  “They’re heading the other way,” he said.  “Can we get down the hill this side?”
   Tom peered over the opposite edge.  “I think so.  We’d better try, anyway.  If we stay here they’ll find us eventually.”
   “And we need to get help for Ruth,” Agnes added.
   It was only later that they realised that the sensible thing to do would have been to phone for help.  But when you’re being chased by someone with a gun you don’t always think of what would be sensible.  
   They began to make their way down the hill, as unobtrusively as possible.  At the bottom of the hill they avoided the car park by the cavern entrance and struck out across a playing field towards the campsite.  They had almost reached their tents and were beginning to think they had escaped when behind them they heard shouts and the roar of a van.  
   “Here!” Tom shouted.  His car was parked next to the tent.  He fumbled in his pockets for the keys, and then dropped them into the grass.  Eventually he got it unlocked and they got in just as the guards arrived.  Swerving round them, Tom drove off the campsite, just as a bullet glanced the back of the car.  
   “Where are we going?” Adam asked.  She and Adam were hunched down in their seats, afraid of further bullets.  
   “Anywhere they’re not,” Tom said grimly.
   “There’s a car following us,” Agnes said.  “And a van behind that.”  
   There were no further shots, but the car and van followed everywhere they went.  They drove around for hours, afraid to stop, afraid to go back to the camp site.  It was starting to get dark and they had been tired and silent for some time.  They were driving up a steep narrow road when suddenly Tom spoke.
   “Oh good grief,” he said.
   “What?” Agnes asked.
   “I’ve just realised where we are, or rather where we’re going,” he said.  “It’s the old A625.  It doesn’t go anywhere any more, it’s closed.  There were landslides and the road- just ends- it can’t be far ahead.
   “We can’t get through?”  Agnes asked.  Tom shook his head.
   “We can’t turn back,” Adam said.  Behind them, headlights showed their pursuers were still hard on their heels.
   “We’ll have to run for it,” Tom said.  “Maybe we can loose them in the dark.”
   “It’s getting misty too,” Agnes said.  “What’s that ahead?”
   “A fence,” Tom said.  “It must be the end of the road.”
   It was.  Tom swerved into the lay-by just before the fence, and they jumped out and disappeared into the dark.  On the other side of the fence the road seemed to continue as normal for a few metres, then they heard the noise of slipping stones and Adam said, “Ow!”  
   “What is it?” Agnes whispered.  Behind them they could hear shouts of wrath and the slams of car doors as their pursuers argued about what to do.  Headlights were visible through the mist.
   “There’s a drop- the road’s subsided,” Adam said.  “About half a metre.  Watch out, let me help you down.”
   “There’s several places it does that,” Tom whispered.  “I’ve been here before.  “I’ve got a torch but if we use it they’ll see us.  We’ll have to feel our way along, and stay together.”
   Shreds of fog drifted past them as they made their cautious way over the uneven surface of the broken road.  It was not long before they were disorientated and had lost track of both the road and their direction.  Behind them they could still hear occasionally the sounds of pursuit.  Occasionally a torch beam would pierce the mist and they would duck down behind a dry stone wall, but each time the mist closed in again and the light and sound disappeared.
   In the darkness they made their way over boggy ground and through fields.  They clambered down a steep rocky path which, on reaching the bottom, they realised was actually a mostly dried up stream bed.  
   Eventually, as the sky began to lighten they climbed wearily up a hill, hoping to be able to see where they were.  There seemed to be some sort of building at the top of the hill, although they could not see more than a rough outline.  They had heard nothing of the pursuit for some time, and were so tired by now that they did not realise until too late, that they were not the only ones there.

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