“Hello, Tinks. Nice little set-up,” started Ned’s dad.
“Oh, indeed, Mr Armstrong, indeed. You never told me the jossers had such fantastic tech!”
“They’re a clever bunch, once you get used to them,” grinned Ned’s dad.
A now teary-eyed Tinker proceeded to shake Ned’s hand heartily and then gave his mum a rather elegant bow.
“The Armstrongs together – and here in our little home from home! You wait till the others hear about this. On second thoughts, I think I’ll tell them.”
Mr Fox patiently raised his eyes to the ceiling as the Tinker spoke into a watch on his wrist.
“Channel Alpha-niner, this is the big boff, over!” The little scientist was beaming now, though Ned sensed it had more to do with his watch than their arrival. “This thing is brilliant – so much quicker than a wind-modulator!”
“Big boff, over, this is the Beard. Can you please stop using this channel, Tinks. It’s for mission-only comms and Scraggs is fed up with being asked to bring you biscuits – OVER.”
Ned’s ears pricked excitedly. “The Beard” had to be Abigail, surely – the wonderful bearded lady of the old Circus of Marvels troupe. And if she was there, then her lump of a troll husband, Rocky, couldn’t be far away. How he’d missed them!
“This is a channel-wide announcement, over. That means you too, Tusky. The Arm—”
Before he could get to “strongs”, Benissimo clamped a hand over his mouth and brought down the full weight of a moustachioed twitch.
“Later, Tinks! They need to be brought up to speed.”
“Ah, right you are, boss.” Undeterred, the little man broke into another enthusiastic grin. “We’ll be wanting to fire up ‘Big Brother’ then.”
“Yes, gnome. Now get on with it.”
“‘Blinking Incredible Gateway’, or ‘BIG’ brother (named it myself, as it happens), was devised to replace the Twelve’s ticker network that Barba stole.” Tinks was relishing the chance to show off to Ned and his dad, and pressed a button on his desk. A large monitor came down from the ceiling. “Live satellite feeds courtesy of Mr Fox here, and more than a hundred Farseers keep round-the-clock surveillance on just about everything. They’re neurologically, metaphysically and outright magically connected, through a network that spans the globe. We use ‘satter-light’ and the ‘interweb’ – josser tech, you know – to send and receive the data. It really is clever stuff. In some ways it’s an even better system, though I do miss the—”
“Hell’s teeth, Tinks! Just show them Russia, would you?”
A second later and they were greeted by a satellite image of Siberia in Russia, which was when Mr Fox took over.
“Our eyes in the sky monitor everything, and had been doing so for a good while before the Tinker’s ‘Hidden’ enhancements. We immediately noticed a sharp spike in activity around the same time your tickers went missing. Though of course back then we didn’t know what it was. The truth is …” At this Mr Fox paused, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to admit. “Well, the truth is, back then we didn’t really know anything.”
A few button presses later and they saw countless orange lines leading to Siberia with a web of dots at its centre that covered hundreds of miles.
“The Darklings – they’re converging in the Siberian reserve,” breathed Ned’s mum.
“Indeed, ma’am. But why? You have other reserves – in the Americas, Asia and as far off as Australia – so why here? Why this one place?”
At the centre of the map, deep in the Siberian forest, was a large circular spot in black.
“This one area, large as it is, is also completely impenetrable to both our cameras and your Farseers. Apparently the tickers that Barbarossa has obtained not only keep a watchful eye but also scramble our signals. Benissimo and I – well, all of us – believe that that is where the creature is gathering himself. We have you and Ned to thank for that.”
“Excuse me?” said Ned’s dad defensively.
“You hurt the Darkening King, Terry, you and your son – when you broke Barba’s machine,” rumbled Benissimo.
Ned had dared to believe, in all their months of searching, that the Darkening King was wounded, that in some way when they’d set it free they’d also managed to hurt it. If Benissimo and Mr Fox were right, maybe there was still a chance, still a way to undo what Ned and his dad had put into motion.
“If what we believe to be the case is true,” continued Mr Fox, “Barbarossa won’t need an army when the creature rises. And yet huge quantities of metal and machinery have been flooding into the area from Gearnish. A great part of those consignments has been the ticker soldiers we’ve heard reports of. Which means that we will be facing not one army but two.”
Mr Fox paused for effect and the Tinker’s face turned red. His people had unwittingly created a machine in the Central Intelligence that had not just strengthened Barbarossa and his Demons’ forces but also doubled their ranks. Ned had only had to face one at the circus encampment and he shuddered at the memory of it.
“In any case, the Darklings that have managed to break free from their own reservations have for the first time let the world sleep soundly. Sticking to the shadows and dark places, they’ve quietly, slowly made their way to Siberia and the dark zone you see now.”
“But why? Why any army at all? Surely Barba and that creature don’t need them?” puzzled Ned.
Benissimo’s face lit up.
“And that is exactly the point, pup! Why? Because they do need those armies, desperately – isn’t it obvious? Until the Darkening King is fully restored there is still a weakness, a chink, a nook, a cranny that we can use to burrow through and defeat him!”
“Well then, what are you waiting for?!” said Ned’s dad. “If he’s weak and you know where he is, why wait? Why give him the chance?”
“Tinks, dig up the reports,” ordered Benissimo.
The screen filled with a stream of photos – by the looks of it, of mostly military personnel.
“Andrei Galkin, thirty-two. Spetsnaz and best in class, only survivor of a mission into the Siberian taiga. Currently on leave due to emotional trauma,” explained Mr Fox. “When we questioned him, all he could mutter was ‘magic and monsters’. The poor man was scared out of his wits. Not long after, we sent in a team of our greys. This time there were no survivors, though one of our operative’s bodies was discovered some weeks later on the outskirts of the forest. This footage was retrieved from his headcam.”
Ned and his family watched in ashen-faced silence. Even in low light, the video was shocking. At the centre of a clearing and towering over the forest’s canopy was a fortress. At its foot and along its parapets and walkways were hundreds, if not thousands, of Darklings. As poor as the picture was, the multitude of creatures made the metal structure look as if it was alive, a living breathing “thing”, and when its main gate opened, they saw them, bright and shimmering with reflections – an army of metallic tickers, man-sized and cold, pouring out and into the forest.
“I could go on, but I think the images are clear enough. Barbarossa has built his creature a castle and surrounded