Magic Parcel by Frank English

him.”
    Algan beckoned Jimmy to follow, and they set off at a reasonable speed towards the inner door, which no doubt led to somewhere interesting.
    The inner part of the cave was entirely different from anything he had ever seen before. In fact, the two parts were so different that they could have been in separate worlds.
    They entered now a series of corridors - borings might have been nearer the mark - which could have been caused by some giant passing worm, the sides of which were smooth to the point of glassiness. The floors were still covered by the same universal cork and sawdust, which lay so thickly on the ground that the only noise they could hear was a swish and squeak as they padded along.
    There were no adornments to the circular walls except for the occasional strange-looking serpent lanterns casting an eerie soft green light everywhere. He was so entranced by the appearance of it all that he never noticed the transition from the corridor to another, similar, room. In fact, he wasn’t even certain there had been a transfer; if there had, the door must have vanished for certainly no door was to be seen anywhere in that room.
    He allowed his gaze to wander around the room, jumping from groups of bottles and jars on tables to globes and maps, to other pieces of equipment he didn’t recognise at all. His eyes skidded to a halt as they caught sight of a long, low table covered by a white mark-free cloth; and it was there his heart lurched and his breath almost stopped, as a gasp sped from his lungs to explode from his mouth into the room.
    Under that sheet lay a body, totally covered to the chin. The skin, white almost to the point of transparency, and the form were those of a boy; eyes fast shut, breathless, still, frozen in that last eternal sleep of death.
    It was Tommy.
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Chapter Nine
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    The night was black; blacker than had been seen for many an age. An occasional wandering chink in the cloud curtain allowed enough light from the intense blue moon to pour onto the rise and fall of the Southern Downs, crowned by the mysterious, ancient standing stones. Smooth, round, hard and black, the stones had been set on the uppermost rise of the range of hills many ages of man before, for what reason no one now knew, save the lore masters and magicians of that realm. Rumour and legend had it that they were part of the magic of old, and had since become a trysting place, a refuge for restless spirits and evil beings. Black they were; blacker than the surrounding gloom, picking them out like a brooding menace in the shadows.
    At that moment, the cloud split, wide enough to allow the pent up blue light to cascade to the earth like a released waterfall. The light splashed across the black surface of uprights and crosspieces, gathering all to spotlight the great arch underneath, highlighting a black solitary figure on horseback below.
    The Horseman! The Wandering Rider! It was him! Figure of legend, phantom of nightmare, he had come again, as in the past, at a time of greatest strife and need. Why had he come? What would be his course? Steed and man were as one, a great shadow cloaked in black. No covering to his head he wore, only a black flowing mane of hair. Motionless they stood, immobile; statues both but for the slight flicking of the horse’s tail.
    The last despairing trace of a dying moon splashed desperately across the Rider’s head and face revealing that there was no face!
    Hair encircled the featureless visage perfectly but neither eyes nor nose nor mouth looked out from this mask of doom, making it all the more terrifying and terrible to behold.

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    Suddenly the horse’s tail stopped in mid-twitch, the horseman stiffened and half-stood in the stirrups, head slowly turning from side to side. Those acutely sensitive ears had detected something in the upper airs, something which made their whole corporate being bristle with anticipation.
    There was a flash of silver spur