"Let them have a look at you!" said someone else. "Let them see you for what you are!"
Chester felt numb… bereft… I can't believe this. I can't believe this.
For a moment it was as if all the jeering and chanting and catcalls had stopped. As if he were in the eye of the storm, as if time itself had stopped. Then hands took hold of his ankles and legs, guiding them onto a step of some kind.
What now? He was heaved onto a bench and shoved hard against its back, in a sitting position.
"Take him away!" someone barked. The crowd cheered, and there were rapturous yelps and wolf whistles.
Whatever he had been put on lurched forward. He thought he heard the plunging of horses' hooves. A carriage? Yes, a carriage!
"Don't make me go! This isn't right!" he implored them.
He began to gibber, his words making no sense.
"You're going to get exactly what you deserve, my boy!" said a voice to his right, in an almost confidential tone. It was the Second Officer again.
"And it's too good for you," came another he didn’t recognize from his left.
Chester was now shaking uncontrollably.
This is it, then! Oh God! Oh God! This is it!
He thought of his home, and the memories of watching television on so many Saturday mornings popped into his head. Happy and cherished moments of normality with his mother in the kitchen cooking breakfast, the smell of food in the air, and his father calling from upstairs to see if it was ready yet. It was like another time, another century.
I will never, ever see them again. They're gone… it's all gone… finished… forever!
His head sank to his chest. He went limp as the stone-cold realization that it was all over spread through his whole body.
I am FINISHED.
From the soles of his feet to the top of his head he was filled with a crushing hopelessness. As if he'd been paralyzed, his breath slowly left his lips, pulling with it an involuntary animal sound, a half whine, half moan. An awful, dread-filled sound of resignation, of abandonment.
For what seemed like an eternity, he didn’t breathe at all, his mouth gaping, closing, opening, like that of a stranded fish. His empty lungs burned from the lack of air until finally his whole body jerked. He sucked in a painful breath through the clogged wave of the hood. Forcing his head up, he let go a final cry of utter and final despair.
"WWWWWWIIIIIILLLLLL!"
Will was surprised to find he'd dozed off again. He awoke, disoriented and with no idea how long he'd actually been asleep, as a dull, far-off vibration roused him. He couldn't pinpoint what it was, and in any case the cold, hard reality of the choice to go into the Deeps came flooding back to him. It was as if he'd awoken into a nightmare.
He was Imago crouching by the well, inclining his head toward the sound, listening. Then they all heard it plainly; the distant rumbling grew louder with every second until it began to reverberate around the chamber. At Imago's direction, Will and Cal shimmied over to the opening in the floor and readied themselves. As they both sat with their legs dangling from the edge, beside them Imago was leaning his head and shoulders into the well, hanging down as far as he could.
"Slows around the corner!" they heard him shout, and the noise grew more and more intense, until the whole chamber was vibrating around them. "Here she comes. Bang on time!" He pulled himself out, still watching the tracks below as he kneeled between the boys.
"You're sure this is what you want?" he asked them.
The boys looked at each other and nodded.
"We're sure," Will said. "But Chester…?"
"I told you, don't worry 'bout him," Imago said with a dismissive smile.
The chamber was shaking now with the sound of the approaching train, as if a thousand drums were beating in their heads.
"Do exactly as I say — this has to be timed to perfection — so when I say jump, you jump!" Imago told them.
The chamber filled with the acrid taint of sulfur. Then, as the roar of the engine reached a crescendo, a jet of soot shot up through the opening like a black geyser. It caught Imago square in the face, spraying him with smut and making him squint. They all coughed as the thick, pungent smoke flooded the Cauldron, engulfing them.
"READY… READY…," Imago screamed, pitching the backpacks into the darkness below them. " CAL, JUMP!"
For a split second Cal hesitated, and Imago suddenly pushed him. He dropped into the well, howling with surprise.
"GO, WILL!" Imago screamed again, and Will tipped himself off the edge.
The sides flashed past, and then he was out and tumbling into a vortex of noise, smoke, and darkness, his arms and legs flailing. His breath was knocked from him as he landed with a jarring crunch, and a pure white light burst around him, one he couldn't even begin to understand. Points of illumination seemed to be leaping over him like errant stars and, for the briefest of moments, he really wondered if he'd died.
He lay still, listening to the percussive beat of the engine somewhere up ahead and the juddering rhythm of the wheels as the train picked up speed. He felt the wind on his face and watched the long wisps of smoke pass above him. No, this wasn't some industrial heaven; he was alive!
He resolved not to move for a moment while he mentally checked himself over, making sure he didn't have any broken bones to add to his already burgeoning list of injuries. Incredibly, other than a few additional grazes, everything seemed to be intact and in working order.
He lay there. If this wasn't death, what was the bright, fluxing light he still saw all around him, like a miniature aurora? He pulled himself up onto one elbow.
Countless light orbs the size of large marbles were rolling around the gritty floor of the car, colliding and rebounding off one another in random paths. Some became trapped in the runnels in the floor and would dim slightly as they touched, until they became unseated and scampered off on their ways again, flaring into brilliance once more.
Then Will looked behind him and found the remains of the crate and the straw packing. It all became clear. His fall had been broken by a box of light orbs, which had smashed open when he landed on it. Thanking his luck, he felt like cheering, but instead helped himself to several handfuls of the lights, stuffing them into his pockets.
He got to his feet, bracing himself against the motion of the train. Although foul-smelling smoke streamed thickly around him, the loose orbs lit up the car to such effect that he was able to see it in detail. It was massive. It must have been nearly a hundred feet long and half that in width, much larger and more substantial than any train he'd ever seen Topsoil. It was constructed from slablike plates of iron, crudely welded together. The side panels were battered and rusted away, and their tops worn and buckled, as if the car had seen eons of hard use.
He dropped down again and, his knees grinding in the grit on the floor, the movement of the car buffeting him around, he went in search of Cal. He came across several other crates made from the same thin wood as the one he'd landed on, and then, near the front of the car, he spotted Cal 's boot propped up on another line of boxes.
" Cal, Cal!" he shouted, crawling frantically toward him. In the midst of a mass of splintered wood, his brother was lying still, too still. His jacket was splattered with a wet darkness, and Will could see there was something wrong with his face.
Fearing the worst, Will shouted even louder. Not wanting to knock against Cal in case he was badly hurt, he clambered rapidly across the top of the crates alongside him. Dreading what he was about to see, he slowly held a light orb up to Cal 's head. It didn't look good. His face and hair were slick with a red pulp.