‘Get out of here, all of you!’
‘No!’ cried Daisy, but the gap was almost closed.
‘I can do this,’ he snarled, wielding the bat. Up ahead the dancers were grinning at him malevolently, enticing him forwards.
‘I eat the undead for breakfast,’ he said, grinning back. And he charged.
It was a confused few moments, which Ryan struggled to recall when he tried to look back on it later. All the creatures had come at him at once, snarling and dripping their bodily fluids everywhere. But then there was a gap in his memories. The next thing he knew he was standing over their bodies, bat in hand, wiping the streaks of black blood from his face. It was an odd feeling. He must have just gone absolutely berserk. Still, it had all worked out rather well. Walking gingerly on the slick stone floor he made his way back along the corridor and up the stairs.
As he neared the ante-room again he felt a strange dizziness come over him. The air was alive with energy, and as he staggered and leant against the wall for balance, Tristram’s words rang clear in his mind; ‘This is beyond you, Ryan. This is life and death’. For the first time, Ryan could feel some real power at work. He looked at the bat he had formed from the remains of an old French stick and suddenly it seemed woefully inadequate. In class he would have been quite proud of it, but having seen first-hand the forces Tristram had at his disposal it just didn’t compare. If Tristram was losing the fight, what on earth could Ryan hope to offer?
He slumped against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to fight off the feeling of hopelessness that was welling up. Suddenly his father’s face appeared before him; the stern, proud features appraising him, looking for signs of weakness. And signs of failure.
‘No!’ Ryan roared, rising to his feet and swinging his bat at the non-existent image. ‘I can do things. I am good enough for you. In fact, I’M BETTER!’
The last words came out at a near scream, and he charged up the stairs and across the ante-room, paying little heed now to any of the weird sensations that assaulted his body as he neared the great hall. Without any pause for thought, he leaped through the doorway with a cry that became lost within the deafening noise inside.
There were sensations he could ignore, then there were the laws of physics, which he could not. Unfortunately, in his absence, someone had wreaked havoc with the gravity settings in the room, and as he crossed the threshold there came a weird twisting feeling, which started with his leading hand and ran right through his body to his trailing foot. Suddenly he sensed that, rather than being upright, his body was now travelling parallel to the ground. He had no time to readjust himself as Newton’s laws did a quick recalculation and sent him crashing against the left-hand wall, which was now the floor.
The impact knocked the wind out of him, and when he opened his eyes everything was a funny shade of green. It took him a while to reorientate himself and get used to his new perspective on the room. Most of the green tinge eventually faded from his vision, but there remained the sickly light filtering through the window at the far end.
The place was a mess. Barely a single item of furniture had escaped decimation in the battle between Tristram and the two Nightweavers. Porcelain and splintered wood covered the newly allocated floor, while the huge table had been rent in two by some power Ryan couldn’t possibly imagine.
Even as he looked on, one half of it began to move, as a rain of debris continued to fall from the ruined walls and ceiling. It rose into the air, upright, towering over everything beneath it. Then it planted itself on the floor, standing proudly on its own, and from behind it the two brothers appeared. They were both bloodied and beaten, and all of the sadistic glee that had prevailed earlier was now gone. Their eyes were filled with reckless hatred, and again Ryan was hit with the desolate feeling that he really had no place in this battle.
Slowly the second half of the table rose into the air, manipulated by the brothers as if it weighed nothing at all. Immediately Ryan noticed a dark shape on the floor that had previously been concealed. It was Tristram.
Ryan’s heart sank even further. All his hopes of arriving to find luck on his side, and for him to be able to play a part in a glorious victory, were gone. As the second half of the table fused into place, forming an enormous cross in the centre of the room, the brothers turned their attention to Ryan’s fallen tutor.
This time it was no ruse. Tristram was beaten. He had been no match for the power of the two vicious Nightweavers. Skeiron and Kaikias stood over him, kicking his body and shouting obscenities at him. Then, using whatever power and understanding they shared, they raised him high into the air until his body was at the centre of the cross, arms stretched out to either side.
‘What do you reckon brother?’ cried Skeiron with a mirthless laugh, picking up one of the many knives that littered the floor. ‘Hands or feet first?’
‘Oh, hands definitely,’ replied Kaikias. ‘Then he can hang around while we skewer the rest of him.’
To Ryan’s horror, Skeiron took the knife and hurled it at one of Tristram’s outstretched hands. It fizzed through the air and embedded itself deep in the wood, missing his right thumb and forefinger by a whisker.
Kaikias turned to his brother and cuffed him across the face.
‘What are you playing at?’ he screamed. ‘You’re useless. Let me show you how it’s done.’
He reached down to pick up another piece of cutlery, but, unbeknown to him, Ryan had already started to move. He wasn’t going to sit around and watch his friend get crucified. Bat in hand, he covered the ground between them with more speed than he could possibly have managed in the real world, and as Kaikias raised his arm to take his shot, Ryan leapt forwards and belted it as hard as he could at the elbow. There was a dreadful CRACK! as the joint gave way and doubled back on itself, limp and useless. Kaikias screamed in pain, but Ryan wasn’t finished. He rounded on Skeiron, who was too dumbstruck to react, and cracked him as hard as he could across the side of the head.
At that moment several things happened at once. Tristram’s body, still suspended in front of the cross, began to fall. At the same time gravity decided to revert back to its normal plane, sending everything and everyone hurtling back towards the real floor. As Ryan crashed to the ground for the second time in quick succession, he was suddenly aware of other voices in the room, shouting.
He struggled into a sitting position and was astonished to find the ungainly shape of Billy Richards standing over him.
Billy offered him a hand.
‘On your feet Butler,’ he said with the faintest of smiles. ‘We’re getting you out of here.’
Ryan took it, his head still reeling from another mind-bending experience.
‘Who is we?’ he asked dreamily.
‘We, is me,’ came another voice. ‘And him.’
Ryan turned and was confronted by a filthy-looking man, with unkempt hair, tatty clothes and a beard that looked like it contained the remnants of at least three meals.
‘Rex Bailey,’ said the man, holding out a hand. It was clad in a fingerless glove. ‘Glad to make your acquaintance, again.’
‘A pleasure,’ said Ryan, shaking it, but still not quite comprehending what was going on.
‘We’ve been trying to get to you, but couldn’t,’ explained Billy. ‘They had some ‘weave going, but you broke it.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Rex. ‘We can have a full debrief later. Let’s get you both out of here.’
‘Tristram…’ groaned Ryan.
‘He’s already gone,’ said Rex grimly. ‘I just hope to God that they didn’t do too much damage to him. Now, are you ready?’
Ryan gave the faintest of nods.
He felt Rex’s hand on his forehead, then for a brief moment his brain felt a strange massaging sensation. Then came a gentle push and everything went black.
21
Ryan’s eyes had only been open a few seconds before he threw up violently over his bedroom floor. He groaned loudly, thinking it was grossly unfair
that he hadn’t been given any warning. He was slumped at the foot of his bed, the warm light of morning bathing his face through the skylight above him. In front of him his huge TV screen glowed softly, politely asking whether or not he wanted to continue his game. The joypad he had been using had slipped from his grasp and was lying on the floor next to him. He picked it up and selected Yes.
Unlike his other Dreamweaving experiences, he hadn’t woken up to a crippling hunger, although having chucked up the remains of his sweet-feast he did feel a little empty. What was far more noticeable were the aches and pains all through his body. It felt like he had gone twelve rounds with Harry Hopkins and his cronies. He tried not to move too much, content instead just to twiddle his thumbs and play his game, unwilling to find out the full extent of his beating.
After a while he decided that it couldn’t be all that bad, since his gaming skills were back up to their usual high standards. He chuckled softly to himself as he ripped through the jungle in a jeep, mowing down everything and everyone in his path. He had played through the level many times, but now he found himself appreciating it in a whole new light; noticing subtle details and marvelling at how fluid and natural the controls felt. Eventually though, the puddle of vomit next to him began to smell and he knew he couldn’t put off dealing with it any longer.
He climbed slowly to his feet, wincing as