Chimera Book One

Chapter Nineteen

Just as it seemed as if they would be pulped against the ceiling, the basket tipped sideways to deposit Kyp and the others down a steep metal chute.  They spilled out the other end onto the stone floor of a windowless warehouse, where they were set upon by a legion of penknife beetles.  The beetles picked them up and bore them away as ants carry leaves, transporting them up ramps and along suspended gantries.  They sorted Kyp and Jamie into a container filled with dolls’ heads and mannequin limbs and left Sir Regulus knee-deep in hubcaps.  Bertram was left upside down in a hamper of broken chamber pots.

They waited until the drumming of the beetles’ feet faded away before making their way cautiously through the warehouse. They passed huge glass jars filled with nuts, bolts, and towering stacks of tightly bunched newspapers.  High above their heads were more wire baskets loaded with chandelier pendants and doorknobs.

After much squeezing through vents, climbing over pallets and navigating chambers filled with pulleys, chains and butchers’ hooks, they arrived in an emptier space dominated by a large u-shape of narrow railway track. The track entered the warehouse through one pair of see-through plastic swing doors and left it through another.  A line of seven shopping trolleys faced the second set of doors. The trolleys were being loaded with chipped garden gnomes and broken flowerpots by a miserable looking armchair-ape wearing a yellow hardhat and fluorescent jacket.  When the last of the seven trolleys was filled, the armchair-ape covered their contents with sacking and pulled a large lever near to the track.  Lurching into motion, the trolleys battered their way through the doors and disappeared.  Another seven clattered through the first set of doors and stopped.

‘That’s our way out,’ whispered Sir Regulus.  ‘The trollies must go up to the Auxiliary, the reclamation factory in Thingopolis.’

A whistle blew.  The armchair-ape removed his hard-hat and jacket and hung both over the lever.  They froze as the armchair-ape walked past their hiding place on his way out of the loading bay.  They waited a few more seconds, before hurrying to the trolley-train.

‘Take a trolley each,’ instructed Sir Regulus. ‘Cover yourselves with sacking.’

A faltering moan made all four of them jump. The moaning continued, soft and plaintive. It was coming from beneath a blue tarpaulin in the corner of the loading bay.  Sir Regulus indicated the others should remove the tarpaulin on his command, Kyp and Jamie taking a corner each.  The edge of the tarpaulin between his teeth, Bertram waited.  Sir Regulus nodded and they snatched the tarpaulin away.  Beneath it was a large pile of scrap metal.  Buried beneath the metal pipes and corrugated sheets was a white carousel horse. Only the front part of the horse was visible. The animal was resting its scarred head on its front legs.  Sir Regulus gasped.

‘Circinus?’

The carousel horse’s eyes flickered open.

‘Sir Regulus?’ it said. ‘It can’t be.’

Sir Regulus laughed joyously. ‘You’re alive!  The dismantlers? How -?’

‘They weren’t quite quick enough to finish me.  What of Whirlitzer?  He lives?’

‘Yes.’

A great sigh shook the horse’s body.

‘Tell me of him,’ demanded Circinus. ‘Tell me everything.’

Sir Regulus hesitated.  He extended his arm toward Bertram and the two boys.

‘Circinus, I’d like you to meet Kyp, Jamie and Bertram. We’re getting out of here, and so are you.  Boys, help me move this metal.’

‘I asked you a question,’ said Circinus. ‘Has something happened to Whirlitzer?  You are his best friend, Sir Regulus.  If you can’t tell me, then who?’