Shadowland

    'Stop talking and pick him up,' Collins ordered. 'He'll fight, so get a good grip.'

    Tom jumped sideways and tried to run back down the stairs, but Thorn put an arm around his chest and yanked him backwards. He kicked, and Thorn hit him on the top of his head with his knuckles.

    'Get a grip on him, I said.' Collins bent over to pick up the nails. When he touched them, they shimmered on the carpet, and when they were in his hands, they glowed a pale silver, as if lit from within.

    Pease grabbed a leg with each doughy hand. Snail took his wrists, and he could not move: Tom strained against their touch, but Thorn increased the pressure on his chest and drove all the breath out of him. Mr. Peet wandered off and sat down on the aisle seat, where he twisted around to watch. Thorn's sour breath washed directly over Tom's face.

    'Observe the nails,' Collins said. Now he held the mallet in his right hand. The long nails had turned a molten golden-red, and seemed to pulse in the magician's hand.

    'Good trick,' said Thorn.

    'You stink,' Tom said, and Thorn rapped him on the head again; a sharp jarring pain. With only half his strength, Thorn could break his skull.

    'This boy is a magician. We need something extra to hold him.' Collins held the nails in front of Tom's eyes. 'Understand? You'll never coax these out of the boards. I think you'll be content to wait for the performance.' He turned to Pease and Snail. 'Hoist him up.'

    The three trolls carried Tom to the frame, Thorn walking backward. 'Keep a hold on those arms,' Thorn said, and freed his arms so that he could grip Tom's waist with both hands. 'Come along with me — I'll belt him in.' He lifted Tom, and pinned him with one hand stuck hard into his belly while he worked the cinch. Tom wriggled, but Thorn's hand pushed his stomach against his spine.

    The belt closed around his belly. The men sprang away. He was firmly held and four feet above the ground. The clasp bit at his skin; the old pistol chewed the small of his back.

    Collins held the nails up again. They shone out bands of color, like prisms. 'All right. We will proceed. Thorn, kneel down and hold his feet against the wall.' Thorn bent down and rammed Tom's heels against the green.

    'Snail, you hold the right arm. Pease, you take the left. Palm out against the brace.'

    They seized his arms and pulled them out, stretching them until his elbows threatened to turn inside out. Tom howled, 'You can't! You can't!'

'That is your opinion,' Collins said, and approached, one shining nail between thumb and forefinger, the mallet already lifted in his right hand.

    'NOOO!' Tom bellowed. Pease flattened his fingers back, exposing the palm.

    'The pain won't be as bad as you anticipate,' Collins said, and pressed the point of the first nail into Tom's left palm.

    Tom clamped his eyes shut and fought against every­thing — the men holding him spread-eagled, the buckle sawing at his skin.

    Collins hammered the mallet against the head of the nail. There was a grunt immediately before the impact: and then incredible pain, as if not just the nail but the mallet itself had thrust itself through his palm. He screamed, and heard the scream in a disembodied, hallucinatory way: it was as visible as a flag.

    'You ain't paying us enough,' he heard Pease say.

    'Now you, Snail. Get those fingers back.'

    Tom's right fingers uncurled by themselves. My hands, he thought. Will I ever. . . ?

The pinprick of the nail's point: the muffled grunt of effort of concentration; the rape of his right hand.

    My hands! They seemed the size of his whole body, and burning. He saw his own screams rippling away from him.

    'Not too much blood,' Collins said with satisfaction.

    Tom went out of his body and floated among the bright screams.

9

Sometime later the pain in his enormous hands brought him back. Sweat dripped down his nose, itching like a dozen ants. His throat had been sand-blasted. His muscles screeched; his ears pounded. At intervals a loud crump! from the outside rattled the frame on which he was suspended, and he deliriously thought that bombs were falling, that Shadowland was being shelled, and then realized that the explosions were fireworks. One after the other, single explosions, double and triple explosions, like wordless sentences commanding and insisting and insist­ing again. Ka-bang! Ka-bang whamp!

He was afraid to look at his hands. The three trolls lay across the seats in the last row, now and then looking at him without curiosity, as if he were a picture they found wanting. One of the nails kept a bone from being where it wanted to be, and the pressure, which faded in and out, made all the other pains increase. He tried to push his hands flatter against the wood, and for as long as he could hold them there — not a long time — the agony lessened.

    When his hands sagged, the fire returned. Pease and Snail glanced up at him with real interest. 'Sings good,' Pease said, and Thorn snickered.

    'The kid's right,' Pease said. 'You do stink.'

    'Kiss my ass,' Thorn said.

    Tom risked a peek at his left hand, and was relieved that he could see no farther than its heel. A little drying blood crusted the strap of his watch.

    You're a magician, aren't you?

I never wanted to be.

    But you are?

Yes.

    Then use your mind to pull out the nails.

I can't.

    That's what you thought when he told you to raise the log. Just try.

He tried. He saw the nails slipping out of the wood, gently easing from his hands, sliding out easy and slow . . .

    and it felt like wires had been suddenly thrust into the wounds; he could see the nails glowing, turning gold and blue and green . . . he uttered a high floating falsetto wail, and saw that too, a thin rag ascending to the ceiling.

    'Kid sounds like a female alcoholic,' Pease said.

    See the odd things you learn? If you hadn't tried that, you'd never have known that Pease is the trolls' wit.

'We ain't gettin paid enough for this,' Pease said, as he had before. 'Badgers is one thing, this is something else.'

    'You tell me how,' Thorn growled.

    'Blow your mouth some other way when you talk at me.'

    Tom sagged against the cinch.

    When he looked up, M. was sitting beneath him, his knees drawn up, his back resting on Thorn's seat. He was back in the prep-school costume. 'Did I call it, or did I call it? Give me a little credit.'

    Tom closed his eyes.

    'I can't save you from this, obviously, but I can save you from the rest,' M. said. 'Open your eyes. Aren't you at least prepared to admit that you've been had?'

    'Leave me alone,' Tom said.

    'It talks!' Pease roared.

    'I can still do you a lot of good,' M. went on calmly. 'Those nails, now — I could slip those out for you. Wouldn't you like that?'

    'Why?' Tom asked.

    'He wants to know why,' Pease said.

    'Because I'd hate to see you wasted. Simple as that. Your mentor has done us a fair amount of good over the years, but you — you'd be extraordinary. Should I try those nails? It's a simple matter, I assure you.'