Ruth still couldn’t walk when the adjudicator sent one of henchmen to
fetch her. He and Patrick had to practically carry her, and Ruth felt
more helpless and vulnerable than ever. The adjudicator was waiting by
the door, high-heeled boots tapping with impatience. It was dark
outside and Ruth was bundled into the back of the van so quickly she
could tell nothing about where they were. Patrick and the remaining
fantom climbed in after her, and the doors shut.
She tried to gauge far it must be to the Buxton cave by how long the
journey took, but her head still ached and her thoughts were taken up
with worrying about the music and how she was going to get up to the
cave. With some old bed linen that had been in her prison room she had
tried to bandage her ankle, and she had been grateful that she still had
her rucksack, with a couple of painkillers tucked in a pocket. But it
hadn’t done much good.
She did know most of Thespis more
or less off by heart. But that wasn’t the same as being able to sing
it when you were under duress and scared half to death. Singing in your
kitchen wasn’t the same as singing while you head felt like it was
going to explode and you could not stand up without help. She
remembered the adjudicator’s anger when they had made mistakes in their
singing before. She had said that wrong notes or imperfections in the
music meant the fantom created was weaker and imperfect in turn. Well,
the one that would be created tonight would not be a perfect specimen,
however hard she tried. That was something, at least.
But as they made their way through the torchlit caves towards the
hidden cavern, Ruth felt even that small hope draining away. The
adjudicator had instructed the fantom to carry her, and it had her
clutched in one stony arm like a baby, except tighter. Her head and
feet occassionally bashed against the wall or roof of the tunnel as the
fantom moved along. She could not be sure but she felt that it
remembered what she had done to the other fantom, and was deliberately
taking taking little action to prevent her getting hurt.
Eventually they reached the cavern, and Ruth was set down, bruised
and shaking. Patrick stood beside her, scarecely less nervous as the
adjudicator and fantom loomed over them, their shadows in the torchlight
dark and sinister.
“Now, sing!” the adjudicator commanded.
They did their best. They were too scared not to. Ruth had given up
any idea of resistance. She made a few mistakes, entirely by accident,
and the look she got from the adjudicator each time terrified her so
much that she was more likely to get things wrong, not less.
As they sang a rocky outcrop slowly unfolded. First head and limbs,
then hands and fingers, feet and toes, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. But
there was a difference between this one and the first two to be created,
Ruth thought. Huddled exhausted in a corner as the adjudicator
inspected the finished fantom once they had finished singing, she
thought the creature looked clumsier, lumpier and somehow rougher. But
it would still be a formidable enemy, and a useful servant.
When they arrived back at the adjudicator’s headquarters, Ruth was so
tired that she could barely struggle up the stairs with what help
Patrick could give her. At the top the adjudicator turned on him. “Go
and get food and drink for yourself and her. And don’t dawdle!”
He did as he was told. The adjudicator pushed Ruth into the bare
little room where she had been before. The fantoms were behind her and
Ruth was suddenly afraid that now the second one had been recreated she
was expendible.
“What are you going to do with me now?” she asked, trying not to sound apprehensive as she felt.
“Do with you?” the woman answered. “Well, what do you think I should
do? I can’t let you go, can I? You know too much. And you did your
best to destroy my plan. Well, you failed. But it doesn’t mean I’m
inclined to let you off.”
She raised her hands, one still containing the baton. The new fantom
lumbered into the room. Ruth shrank away from it, but it reached down
with a fist and picked her up by her ankles. She gasped with pain as it
swung her from side to side like a pendulum, and jiggled her up and
down like a yoyo. It was playing with her, like a child with a new toy.
She tried to protect her head with her arms as it came within an inch
of coliding with the wall, and her overactive imagination presented
horrible images of having her brains bashed out against the floor or
walls. The creature swung her higher, and she felt her arms brush the
ceiling. She realised she was crying out, begging the adjudicator to
stop the creature, pleading for mercy as the woman laughed.
After one more terrifying spin the fantom dropped her in the middle
of the floor. Ruth lay still, sobbing in pain and fear, as the creature
stood over her. The adjudicator looked down at her.
“I could get it to stamp on you, and crush you so that you died-
pop!- like Mad Margaret’s fly,” she said. “But I might need your voice
again.” There was a noise behind her. Patrick appeared in the
doorway, and practically threw the food he was carying to the floor as
he pushed past the adjudicator and knelt down by Ruth.
“Other parts of you both are expendable however, so don’t even think
about trying to cause any trouble.” She turned and left the room, the
fantom following her. A moment later they heard the key turning in the
lock.
The story continues...
No comments:
Post a Comment