Guardians Book One - Magic Rising

Chapter Eleven

"Never been on the Tube, then?" Kath asked. The women were seated, but Pes stood, one arm wrapped loosely around a pole, watching the train shoot from the overground line into the tunnel and the darkness. The train had filled up from Richmond, and sweaty commuters had filled the seats and the standing-room in the aisles, bumping along with their beach bags and bottles of water and, in the merrier cases, cider.

"Mind the gap!" the station announcement boomed as the doors closed on a crowded Earl's Court, the train lurching off again. A couple of tourists giggled at the overused phrase, an endless warning that had become a hackneyed catchphrase. It still always sounded ever so slightly threatening to Kath.

Lady turned her head slightly to cover Pes' reply for the benefit of the other commuters; Kath grinned, knowing that the unwritten rule of London transport was, you act like there wasn't another soul on the train with you apart from your friends, regardless of what bizarre behaviour anyone may be indulging in.

"Never," Pes replied, glancing over their heads to the black-on-black wires and tunnel wall shooting past outside, the occasional spark flickering in the darkness. "I only visit London for Lady, in truth. Mostly I roam." He smiled. "I'm not really a city type. But I like people, so I travel, these days, and look at the world, at all the amazing things humans have done. Although I can never experience it, of course, I can admire it."

Kath frowned, but he seemed perfectly happy with his outside-looking-in role.

"Of course, I have a special interest in medicine," he said. "What humans learn in such a short time is incredible. I am so proud..."

"But you...you're...?" Kath fumbled for words.

"I also embody healing," said Pes. "And yet..." His heavy lids dropped over his eyes. "One of my regrets is that I cannot allow myself — the pure magic of my existence and power — to be used in a large scale way. The strength of it would rip a hole in the fabric of the reality of the world; it would be too much. So I cannot heal the world. I can...occasionally...place the right tool in the right hand. But that is all." He moistened his dry, sore lips. "That is the burden of a Guardian — we are to keep our magic from being used as much as to use it. To unleash pure magic on the world would be like...a forest fire instead of a bonfire, like an earthquake instead of...a roller coaster." He smiled once again.

"That's really hard," said Kath. Lady shifted beside her, still silent. "I'm sorry..."

"I am lucky to exist at all," said Pes, suddenly grave. "And to have developed a personality, really. A few of my...comrades...prefer to simply be what they are, be around the humans who worship them...in here..." he tapped his chest, then his temple. "Whether they know it or not. They call it their 'calling', and it makes us happy to know. And of course, there are those who are wild, who we have to watch out for, those who the Darkness thinks they can tempt..."

The train lurched, pitching them all sideways.  

"Jolty," Kath said, righting herself. Pes' head was tilted; he was still hanging onto the pole to keep upright, but listening. Beside her, Lady had sat bolt upright, tense. The already-stuffy air had grown thicker, even heavier, rank with the smell of sweat, perfume, cheap fried food and illegal alcohol; the train lights flickered and dimmed. Kath struggled for a deep breath.

"Here? Surely not..." Lady hissed.

"Hmm? What is it?" Kath squinted out of the window, and the train was slowing down, grinding to a halt in the middle of the tunnel. "This isn't a station and..."

"Wake up, man!" A voice teased from her other side. "You ain't there yet..." Kath looked over with a grin, but her smile faded as she watched the teenage boy shaking his apparently sleeping friend, slowly slump over his prone body himself, eyes closing, a distant half-smile on his face. As Kath's horrified gaze carried on down the row of seats she could see each and every passenger's head bobbing forwards to their chests, eyes closing, falling into unconsciousness.