Billy stood before the great curved finger of a mountain. A path led straight into a dark cave at its centre, and a cold wind blew from its gaping mouth.
‘Don’t tell me we’ve got to g-g-go inside the mountain,’ said Tom, his grey face pale and tense. ‘I still think it’s a trap.’
‘Me too, but if we want to find the sword we’ll have to carry on,’ said Billy with an uneasy grin. ‘Wait there a minute.’
He walked cautiously up to the entrance and, after a moment’s hesitation, stepped inside. A low humming noise emanated from the rock, and a flash of light snaked around the cave’s mouth. Billy waited, expecting something to happen, but the flashing died away and everything became silent.
‘Come on, it’s all right,’ said Billy with a sigh of relief. But when his friend tried to follow, he couldn’t. A wall of transparent rock had formed across the entrance, and Billy watched helplessly as Tom hammered on it with his fists – he was shouting something, but Billy couldn’t hear a word he said. Then a werehound appeared out of nowhere and slunk towards the petrified boy.
‘Watch out!’ Billy screamed, but his friend couldn’t hear and the hound grabbed him from behind. The glassy wall began to turn black and Tom gradually faded from view, wriggling and floundering in the hound’s paws.
‘Tom!’ Billy yelled again, but he was gone and Billy was trapped inside the mountain. His knees buckled beneath him and he sank to the floor feeling marooned and alone, and horribly guilty about Tom – he should never have let him come on such a dangerous mission. Tears began to trickle down his face, but a gentle buzzing from his pocket watch reminded him of his quest, and he forcefully wiped his cheeks dry.
‘You mustn’t give up now. You mustn’t,’ he told himself firmly, getting to his feet.
Although it was dark inside the cave, somehow he could see quite clearly. It was like the inside of a great black cathedral that stretched back into the mountain. The walls were flanked with fluted columns of rock that soared up to a high vaulted ceiling, and at the far end of the cave, sitting in a beam of light, was a massive block of stone. It looked like a great tomb from a Victorian graveyard, and the vibrations from Billy’s watch became more urgent.
‘That’s got to be the stone Fleetfoot was on about!’ he muttered, and hurried towards it, feeling small and vulnerable in the cave’s vast silence. A sudden swishing noise stopped him in his tracks. He thought he saw a swirl of dark mist from the corner of his eye, and spun round. He could see all the way along the cave in both directions, but there was nothing there.
‘Just my imagination,’ he told himself, his heart hammering in his chest, and carried on.
The stone block was huge, a good head higher than Billy, with a great slab of polished granite on top. Trembling with nervous excitement he climbed onto it. There, carved into its surface, was the image of a sword just as Fleetfoot had described. Billy felt sure the real sword was hidden inside too, for the air around it felt alive with energy, making his pocket watch rattle like an alarm clock.
He studied the granite slab, looking for a catch or keyhole. Surely there had to be a way to open the stone tomb – but how? Then he noticed a small carving of a fiery sun, just below the image of the sword. It was raised, like a button, and he pressed it with his thumb. It was set solid, and didn’t move.
‘NO!’ Billy cried out loud. Had he come all this way for nothing? In sheer frustration, he stamped down on the stone orb with all his weight. There was a loud click, a hatch silently opened down the slab’s centre and there, lying in a shallow cavity, was the legendary sword!
It was longer than Billy himself and made of a dull grey metal that pulsed slowly with a dim light. The handle was inset with a golden sun motif and deep blue lapis lazuli. It looked just like the engraving on the back of Billy’s watch, and he knew they had to be connected. With a rush of excitement he squatted down and wrapped his hand around the sword’s thick handle.
‘Found what you were looking for?’ asked a silky voice.
Billy spun round and gave a strangled gasp. Standing behind him was the terrifying figure of the Magician. He was over three metres tall, as thin as a whip and dressed in black from head to toe. His face was as white as paper with a short snub nose and long, greasy beard. His coal-black eyes stared out from deep, dark sockets.
Billy was so shocked he just stood there, dumb with fear.
‘Well, there’s the sword – pick it up and try your luck,’ said the cadaverous Magician in little more than a whisper. When Billy didn’t move, he exploded with fury. ‘Pick up the sword,’ he bellowed, the stringy tendons in his neck standing out like cables.
Petrified, Billy grabbed the sword, determined to put up a fight. He lifted it a few centimetres and tried to swing it over his head. It was so heavy he toppled backwards off the slab and sprawled on the ground, the sword landing next to him with a resounding clang. He stared up at the Magician, his eyes wide with terror.
‘How has a worm like you resisted my magic?’ sneered the Magician derisively. ‘Well, my shivering little night-child, that is about to change.’
He swept his arm in a wide arc, and Billy gasped as the cave began to streak and melt away around him, like a painting left out in the rain. He found himself standing on a vast flat roof, high above the fortress courtyards. A low wall ran around the perimeter, next to which hundreds of cowering night-children had been gathered. They were packed onto the adjacent rooftops too, all guarded by collectors and crawlers, werehounds and shadowmen, who stared in rapture at the towering figure of their master.
‘Just who are you?’ Billy asked in a small and frightened voice.
The Magician leaned down and thrust his paper-white face into Billy’s. ‘I am your worst nightmare, boy,’ he hissed. ‘I am everybody’s worst nightmare.’
Then the Magician drew himself up to his full height and extended his arms.
‘I am the thump in the night that sets your heart pounding, and the scratch-scratch-scratching of night demons at your window pane,’ he roared, and his words echoed around the sky. ‘I am the fat, hairy spider that crawls out of your dreams and over your face, and the bloated serpent that slithers from beneath your bed to swallow you as you sleep. I am the night itself – I am your fear, 5126!’
Billy shook with terror. There was no chance he could defeat the Magician now. He’d failed.