Chapter 21

Idris had caught and eaten several foxes before they could get to the shelter of their dens and out of the torrential rain, but the cooling-effect the downpour was having on his body told him that he needed to "top-up" on some of Pugh's finest-grade anthracite from the stock-pile at the mine. The presence of the four dragons was, to the local population, a common "secret", and Pugh didn't really mind the loss of a few hundredweight of his coal now and again whenever the dragons felt a bit peckish. Now heading back over the mountains to Smoke Hill, he glimpsed a flash of something small and white moving at the lower edge of his vision, and angled his flight path to investigate.

As his altitude decreased, he saw that it was a sheep that had been trying to find shelter from the rain and had wandered off the edge of a cliff-face, and, by the look of it, had fallen onto the boulders below, breaking one of its legs in the process. An agreement Idris had made with the local sheep farmers was that they wouldn't bother him and family if the only sheep the dragons ate were ones such as this one, ie, victims of falls and other such incidences, and not their healthy livestock. He therefore saw nothing wrong in finishing off his ad-hoc mealtime with a rare delicacy, as it wasn't often he'd come across an injured but live sheep such as this one, besides, the animal would only be left to suffer otherwise, he thought to himself, and eagerly dove down.

The taste of the ewe helped to finally clear away Idris' ire to nothing more than a memory and, as he licked his razor-sharp talons clean of entrails and some clumps of wool, he turned his mind back to home. Just as he readied himself to take fight, though, faint but regular subtle vibrations in the rocks beneath his feet told him that Gladys the railcar was approaching on the main line some distance away, and as she neared the mountain he was on, a heavy throbbing sound accompanying them caused him to crane his neck up into the rain-filled air as he tried to discern where and what it was he could hear. It was definitely something airborne, and then, the heavy throbbing suddenly increased and a buffeting down-draught from the massive white round shape right above him forced him to flatten himself against the bottom of the cliff-face lest he be seen. It was one of the flying machines the humans used, a helicopter.

Turning his head to follow the aircraft's flight, he watched it slowly pass over him and out of sight over the top of the cliff-face. He'd seen the yellow rescue helicopter from Anglesey flying near Smoke Hill before when people got lost or stuck on the mountains, and had always made sure not to fly anywhere near them lest he be seen, and he hoped that this white one wasn't looking for him. It seemed, by the different sound it was making, that it was hovering somewhere not too far away, somewhere near the tunnel entrance, then it began moving away, the different noise of its engine telling Idris that it was following the railway line between the mountains. The noise of its engine eventually dwindled away until the only thing he could hear was the howling wind and the hissing of raindrops against his now hot scales. The vibrations his sensitive feet could feel from the railcar had also gone, but he waited at the foot of the cliff-face for a bit more until he was confident the helicopter wasn't coming back. He readied himself again to take flight, but just as he was about to take off, the ground he was standing on suddenly shook violently and there was a mighty rumble and crashing of rocks. Alarmed, he shot up to the air. #Has that helicopter crashed?# he wondered, and flew over towards the railway line to see what had happened.

As he approached the area of the tunnel entrance, he noticed a change in the pattern of the ground below him. Beating his wings to hover over the track, he looked both up and down the line, but couldn't see any wreckage from the helicopter, Diesel Ten having ran far enough away from the collapsing mountain to be out of sight. From the rocks and rubble that was strewn over the tracks coming out from the old tunnel, though, it was obvious that the roof just inside the entrance had collapsed. Fearful for the humans he knew were inside, he flew down and approached the rock-filled entrance. As he peered inside, he thought to himself, #I'll need some help,# and took off again to fetch Olwen and the children.

ooo

Diesel Ten turned up the collar of his jacket and started walking along the track. It would take him a fair while, he knew, but he was happy enough with his current situation, knowing that he'd finally gotten rid of Thomas the tank engine for good and spoiled any plan that Sir Topham had to save the accursed magical engine, Lady. He was bound to reach a station somewhere further up the line where he could sneak on board a train away from here. Now, though, all he had to do was to work out how he could work his way back into Sir Topham's good books, as well as work with the sly welshman planning to take over the Sodor railways. He wasn't sure if the man was all that trustworthy, and he certainly didn't trust that old steamy in the shipping container, Tyrone, either. Maybe he could arrange another little "accident", he thought, and get rid of him as well! Smiling, despite the rain working its way under his collar and running down his back, he began walking and to start making new plans.

ooo

Rocks bounced and clanged against Ivor's sides and rear buffers as Jones struggled to control his panic, torn between opening up the little engine's regulator to get away from the falling rocks and not running over Thomas, whom he knew was further down the tunnel and walking ahead of the brake van. After the initial loud thump of a seemingly large rock hitting the ground behind them so hard that they felt Ivor himself shake, any shouts of panic and alarm were lost amidst the tremendous cacophony of noise the other falling rocks and boulders made, then, after a few moments, the noise subsided, leaving only some hissing and the rhythmic mechanical sounds of Ivor's engine to be heard. Jones looked behind him and, by the light of the lantern in Ivor's cab, saw Mr Dinwiddy crouching down against the coal bunker, his arms held protectively over his head. "Are you all right, Mr Dinwiddy?" he asked. "I... I think it's stopped," he added quietly, fearful that too loud a noise, even his own voice, might set off another roof-fall. He decided it would be wise to stop and check with the others that they were all right, and closed off Ivor's regulator and applied the engine's brakes.

"Wha... what happened?" Mr Dinwiddy gasped, slowly pulling himself up and peering over the top of the coal bunker.

"I think it was the vibrations we made as we started moving," said Jones, still in a hushed tone, "after all, there haven't been any trains in here since it was boarded up. James did say there were some rocks on the track when he came in here to have a look after we took the planks down. They'd probably fallen from the roof some time and it only needed us being inside here now to disturb the rest of them. I hope the others are okay."

"Are you both all right, Mr Jones, Mr Dinwiddy?"

Thomas' sudden voice from the track behind him caused Jones to jump and almost bump his head.

"Yes," he replied. "A bit shaken, though. What about James and Jeanie?"

"They're okay as well," said Thomas, holding his lamp up to try and see the entrance. "What happened?"

"I think it was the vibrations we were making, and Gladys passing by, that set it off," said Jones. "She passed by not long before it happened. What with that and the roof beams likely being a bit weak, well, something must have moved and they gave way. We were lucky not to be hurt, but Ivor took a few bumps on his cab roof and boiler. Are you okay, Ivor?"

"brp," said Ivor softly as he, too, was quite aware that they may inadvertently cause another collapse.

"Well," continued Jones, "we've got no choice now but to carry on and hope the tunnel will take us somewhere."

"You're right," agreed Jones. "Imagine the look on Pugh's face, though, if it does come out at his pit and he comes back tomorrow morning to see us there waiting for him!"

"Hee-hee," chortled Mr Dinwiddy, amused by the thought of the miner's surprise.

"And then we can make an early start on repairing Edward," said Thomas. "I'll get James and Jeanie to pass on any instructions to you so that I don't have to shout so loud."

"Good idea," said Jones. "I'll wait for a signal before releasing Ivor's brakes. Seeing as it's a downward gradient in here, I think it'll be better if we release the handbrakes on the wagons and just let our weight start us rolling."

"Yes," said Thomas, nodding. "I'll borrow your shunting pole and do it as I go back. Wait for a call from James."

Jones watched the light from the lamp bobbing its way back down the tunnel, being lowered to the ground occasionally as Thomas levered down the handbrake and pulled out their retaining pins. He waited a couple of minutes and then heard James' voice call out, "Okay, Mr Jones, whenever you're ready!"

Jones then released Ivor's brakes and wound his regulator just enough to give the wagons in front of Ivor enough of a push to get them rolling down the gentle gradient, both feeling the jerking hearing and clanking of buffers from the motley procession. As he listened again for any warning shouts or more instructions, he now and again gave the little engine just enough steam to stop them from stopping.

"Bend ahead!" he suddenly heard James call out, then, seconds later, "Stop!"

He closed Ivor's regulator and quickly applied the brakes, hoping there wasn't anything serious amiss.

For a minute or so, all he could hear was Ivor's gentle "whooshing" before the glow of James' cab lamp could be seen lighting up the tunnel as he walked up to stand beside Ivor.

"Thomas says," said James, "for you both to come and see what he's found, and to bring your lamp with you."

"What's he found?" asked Jones.

"I don't know," said James, "but he seemed very excited."

ooo

##Wait,## Idris told Olwen and the children.

Cautiously, he stepped nearer the tunnel entrance, fearful of another rock-fall and of being buried. Suddenly being flattened by tonnes of rock and rubble wouldn't give him the freedom of movement that needed in order to dig himself back out again, and he'd be stuck until Olwen could get him back out, and it would be dangerous for her as well. Peering through the gloomy rain into the entrance of the tunnel, he saw that an area near the bottom of the fallen rock seemed a bit darker than the rest. Looking up at the blockage, he saw then that a massive slab of rock had fallen down from the roof and lodged itself at an angle against the tunnel wall, leaving a little space underneath that, he reckoned, he might just be able to squeeze himself into to see how far he could go.

Carefully, he crawled under the slab, finding that he had to go down onto his knees if he wanted to move any further. Inch by inch, he worked himself forward, both hearing and feeling his back and wings scrape against the slab every time he moved, taking great care not to push against the rock lest he disturb it. It was quieter now, the sound of the rain outside blocked out by his own body, and he cocked his head to listen out for any other sounds, sounds that would tell him if there was anyone still alive, but he couldn't hear anything. After he'd been wriggling his way for about ten minutes, he decided to see how far he had left to go, hoping that none of the humans were laying unconscious just ahead of him and that he burn them, so, and also due in part to the pressing weight of the slab above him, he could only inhale a short breath...

A dragon's digestive tract has a second "stomach" chamber that connects back its throat by means of a consciously-controlled valve, which leads to a tube in which, over the millennia, special glands have formed. These glands, using by-products from the dragon's diet of animal and coal, produce hydrocarbons, especially methane and octane, and are controlled by the dragon's nervous system. There are also glands nearby that produce an oxidant and, most importantly, a highly flammable liquid fuel. When exhaled into the atmosphere, this liquid combination of hydrocarbons, oxidant and fuel creates the fire that dragons are famous for, and it was fortunate that Idris had "stocked up" on some good Welsh anthracite not long before. It was this clever and unique process that allowed him to illuminate the cramped, dark space ahead of him, and saw that he still had several yards to crawl until he would be past the rock-fall and inside the tunnel itself.

It wasn't until after nearly twenty minutes of slow wriggling that he could finally stand upright inside the tunnel. Still feeling a bit squashed, he flexed his wings rather awkwardly within the width of the tunnel to relieve them of their cramped stiffness, before letting them settle back into place at his sides. He let out another cautious blast of flame, but there was nothing to see inside the tunnel except the tracks, the disused lamps hanging from the surviving roof beams and columns, and the tunnel wall itself. #They've obviously gone further down. I hope none of them are hurt.#

As though to confirm his thought, he heard some shouts and the sound of Ivor's engine echo up the tunnel, but there was no trace of panic or alarm in the shouts, they were more like instructions, and he believed that his friends had been lucky and escaped the rock-fall without major incident. #Good.#

Turning back to face the crawl-space he'd just emerged from, he called through for Olwen and the children to come through, and to take care as they did so. He knew they'd be all right, though, as they were all smaller than him, and seeing as he'd gotten through there, they certainly would.

ooo

"My word," said Jones.

"How big is this place?" asked Jeanie.

Even with the lamps they were all holding, they still couldn't see the cavern's far walls. What they did see, however, was that the procession led by Toad the brake van had stopped a couple of feet short of a triple set of points that ran across the cavern floor.

"This is where it happened!" cried Mr Dinwiddy, jumping excitedly. "This is where I saw it all happen!"

"Look, over by there!" said James, pointing over to the right.

The others looked to where he was pointing and, on the rightmost of the three tracks the line they were standing on had split into, and approximately forty-foot long and looping around a bare, flat area of ground between that and the centre length of track, they saw a lone cage wagon.

"That's the one they kept Idris' father in!" Mr Dinwiddy eagerly told them. "See, I was right! I was right I was!"

Jones walked over to the wagon and held his lamp up against the iron bars so that he could see inside, but all he could see were the dried-out remains of a bale of straw and some bones from a small animal, maybe from a fox or lamb that had been thrown into the cage for Idris' father to feed on. Looking at the thick wooden planks that made up the floor of the cage, he made out some deep gouges where the trapped dragon must have tried to dig his way out. Right then, he felt so sad for his friend Idris, swallowing as a lump came up to his throat. Turning away from the prison cage, he said, "Let's look around to see what else is in here."

Seeing Thomas, James and Jeanie walking into the darkness along the middle track, he and Mr Dinwiddy went over to the one on the other side of the cavern, soon realising that they were in the continuation of the main tunnel line.

"We'll walk on a bit to check there's been no more roof-falls," he said to Mr Dinwiddy. "I think they used that cavern as a handy place to store their equipment in and to shunt the wagons used to bring rubble out."

"Sounds about right," said Mr Dinwiddy, walking beside him and holding on to Jones' elbow, "and to sacrifice young, naked women. Oh dearie me!"

The track that Thomas and his two friends were walking along went on for about a hundred feet or so before coming to a stop against the rocky wall of the cavern next to a low, wood-built platform. On the other side of the platform, they saw the end of the line that the cage wagon was on.

"This," said Thomas, "must have been where they loaded and unloaded their stuff."

"It's like this mountain is hollow inside," said Jeanie, looking up as she tried to see the cavern roof.

"Look there," said James, pointing to where the platform stopped a few yards short of the cavern wall.

In the space were bits of ancient drilling machinery and some broken picks and shovels. There was an up-turned wheelbarrow minus its wheel, and a length of wood with what looked like wooden rungs sticking out of it. There was a wooden crate about six-foot or so long, and its lid was nailed shut.

"Do... do you think," said Jeanie, "that that is what Mr Dinwiddy saw those men carrying in?"

"Maybe," said Thomas, and he jumped down to take a closer look at it. "Hey, there's something carved onto the lid!"

James and Jeanie both climbed down after him and held their lamps close to the crate to see what he'd found. The carving, from what Jeanie make of it, was like nothing she'd ever seen before. It was a sort of cross between the hieroglyphics used by Ancient Egyptians and stick-figure writing. Above and below the unusual script were other marks, most of them quite similar to those she'd seen earlier that day on both the former engines' bare chests. She shivered.

"I-I don't know w-w-what it m-means," she stammered.

"Let's open it!" said James, putting his lamp down and grabbing onto the side of the lid.

"Fuck no! Ow!" cried Jeanie, stepping back so quickly in fear that she bumped into the wooden platform and fell onto her backside.

"Yes, let's!" said Thomas, and he, too, put down his lamp to help his friend heave the lid off.

After a bit of effort, it came away with a series of loud creaks as the nails someone had used many decades ago to seal it shut gave up their hold.

Carefully putting the lid down onto the ground, Thomas picked up his lamp and held it over the now-open crate. "Well, so much for that!" he said.

James peered into the crate and let out a quiet, "Oh!"

Jeanie, now feeling only slightly anxious after seeing their reactions, asked, "What's in there?"

"Apart from some dust and old cobwebs," said Thomas, "it's empty."

James helped Jeanie to her feet and they followed Thomas as he started to slowly walk across the empty space between the two tracks. He was holding his lamp in front of him and appeared to be looking for something, for he occasionally stooped down and used his free hand to brush away some of the decades-long accumulation of dust before getting up and doing the same thing a couple of feet away.

"What are you looking for, Thomas?" asked James.

"Somewhere around here must be where they did whatever it was to that woman," he said. "Come on, you two, help me look!"

"What are we looking for?" asked James.

"I don't know," said Thomas. "What do YOU think, Jeanie?"

"I-I'm not sure," she replied quietly, casting her eyes over the ground as she slowly swung her lamp from side to side, using the edge of her shoe to move some of the dust away. She wasn't sure that she wanted to find anything, never mind not knowing what it was she was supposed to be looking for.

The three friends continued slowly worked their way over the open space, none of them seeing anything particularly odd-looking or unusual, then Jeanie saw James drop down onto on his knees and quickly clear away the dust in front of him. "What have you found?" she asked him.

"Come and look!" he called back to her. "There's some darker patches of ground by here," then, turning his head, he asked, "Is this what you're looking for, Thomas?"

Jeanie and Thomas walked over to where James was still clearing away dust, and Thomas also got down to help, now with both hands. Eventually, they both stopped and moved back slightly to get a better look. Jeanie held her lamp near the ground to see better what they'd uncovered. "Oh... my... God!" she gasped, her free hand rising up to cover her mouth in shock, or was it panic?. She wasn't quite sure which.

"What is it?" asked Thomas, looking at her with concern.

"It... it's all true!" she cried, pointing to the ground. "Look... look at its shape!"

Thomas pulled Jeanie back to get a clearer view and held out his lamp to illuminate what James had found and what had alarmed Jeanie. "Oh, dear," he said quietly, seeing it for what it was.

"Ooh," said James. Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he knew he'd seen something like this before, but not in black and grey. He couldn't recall where he'd seen it, or even when, but he felt a sense of familiarity with what he was looking at, and he was pretty sure that the colour red was involved instead of black. Redirecting his thoughts back to the present, he looked again at what they'd uncovered and nodded his head.

Quite unmistakably on the ground in front of them and in the middle of what looked like super-heated rock, was the lighter silhouette of a human being with his or her arms and legs outstretched. Just a couple of inches away from the outstretched limbs and in the same lighter shade, there were small, round-ish patches of ground, as though something had been positioned there when the super-hot flame had incinerated everything before it.

When Jones and Mr Dinwiddy got back to the cavern, they saw their three friends in a huddle and staring at the ground. "What are you looking at?" Jones asked them.

"We've... we've found where the woman that Mr Dinwiddy saw was s-s-sacrificed," said Jeanie.

On hearing that, Mr Dinwiddy slumped against Jones' side, his mind sending him back to his youth. It was so close, now, that frightening event of so long ago, so close in space but, thankfully, so distant in time. He felt his long-time friend put his arm around his shoulder and allowed him to help him seat himself down on the hard ground.

"Are you okay, Mr Dinwiddy?" Jones then asked him, a silly question, he knew, but it was what one always asked anyway.

"Aye, Jones the Steam, I'll be all right in a minute I will. You'd better tell them the bad news."

"What bad news?" asked Thomas, frowning as he looked at the old man.

"The tunnel leads to a dead-end," said Jones. "It comes to a stop after fifty feet by a set of buff-"

"RIGHT, THAT'S IT!" Jeanie suddenly called out, angrily whirling around to face both Thomas and James. "It's been just one thing after another," she snapped at them, "and I've now had a gutsful of it! There's no way I'm staying here to rot away in the dark, so you two are like supermen, yeah? So," pointing back towards the waiting trucks, "go back to the entrance and start digging our way out! I'm going to make a cup of tea for the rest of us while we wait, and give me a shout when you're done, yeah?" She then stormed off towards the brake van, the arm holding her lamp held ram-rod straight in front of her.

"We can't do that," Thomas called after her.

"And why ever not?" asked Jeanie sharply, stopping her angry march and looking back at him over her shoulder.

"Because we'd end up pulling the rest of the mountain down on top of us," said James.

"So, we're really stuck here," said Jones, sadness in his voice as he stared at the ground. "A rock-fall at one end, and a rock wall at the other. It's quite poetic in a sad kind of way, when you think about it."

"That it is, Jones, that it is," agreed Mr Dinwiddy, nodding his head. "At least they had the good sense to put up those buffers before they hit the mountain it was!"

"Talking of THEM," said Jeanie rather haughtily as she turned to face the others, "where did THEY go to, eh? YOU," she then said, pointing at the old man sitting on the ground, "said that they never brought their wagons out of the tunnel before they boarded it up, and YOU," she continued, pointing at James, "said that the stone HE'D," pointing back at Mr Dinwiddy, "stuck in the track donkey's years ago was still there before you pulled them planks off! So, answer me that, then, eh?"

Jeanie then folded her arms across her chest and stared rather indignantly at the rest of the group. "There's GOT to be another way out of here," she then said, "or did they just snap their fingers and make everything disappear like magic?" She waved her free hand in the air to emphasise her point, trying several times, and failing, to snap her fingers. She then stared quite crossly at her hand as it refused to do her bidding.

"Hee-hee!" giggled Mr Dinwiddy. "It's ALL magic, and YOU can't do this..."

"And HE'S definitely mad!" said Jeanie, nodding her head down towards Mr Dinwiddy as he, quite audibly, snapped his fingers together with a loud click.

"WHAT was that?" asked Thomas, his face looking quite excited.

"I said," said Jeanie, "that HE'S definitely mad," nodding her head again to Mr Dinwiddy.

"No, not that," said Thomas, shaking his head. "Mr Dinwiddy, you said there's a set of buffers at the end of the tunnel? It can't be as simple as that!" he said, looking at James.

"Yes it is," said Jeanie. "He's definitely mad. Just look at him cackling away like a lunatic. He's stark raving bonkers, and I don't blame him one little bit. I think I'll go mad as well, no, I think I AM already mad after all I've been through lately, I just haven't started cackling yet. Give it time, though, and I'll be sitting down there with him, giggling and probably drooling away quite happily in a world of my own."

"No," said Thomas. "He said that it's all magic. Mr Jones, I want to see those buffers Mr Dinwiddy just mentioned. James, you come as well. I've just thought of something."

"What do you mean, Thomas?" asked James, then, a look of realisation spread across his face and he grinned at his friend. "Oh," he said, "I hope you're right, Thomas!"

Jeanie frowned as she watched the three men disappear into the darkness with their lamps, then smiled as she looked at Mr Dinwiddy, and asked, "Would you like a nice cup of tea, Mr Crazy Old Man?"

It didn't take long to reach the end of the tunnel and the set of buffers. Thomas stepped up close to the round buffer on the left and placed the palm of his left hand flush up to it. Turning his head to face James, he said, "Do the same on the other one, and tell me what you feel."

James copied what Thomas was doing and looked back over to him, now grinning broadly. "So THAT'S how they got their wagons out without Mr Dinwiddy seeing them! Where do you think it goes to, Thomas?"

"I've got no idea," Thomas replied, quietly enjoying the almost-electric tingle flowing up his left arm and into the rest of his body, "but as you can see, neither of us seem to be able to get through it. Probably because we're not engines any more."

Looking back to Jones the Steam, he then said, "Have you or Ivor ever used a set of magic buffers before?"

"Never," said Jones. "I've never heard of anything like that before I met you, and they look just like ordinary buffers to me." He then walked over to stand next to James and placed his hand next to the former engine. "They feel just like ordinary buffers as well."

"I feel my insides tingling," said James. "Do you feel it, too?"

"Yes," said Thomas, "and it's just what it felt like when I went through the ones on Sodor when I went to Muffle Mountain."

Thomas stepped back from the buffers and thought to himself for a few moments, then said to Jones the Steam, "I don't know if they'll work for Ivor, so we'll have to shunt Edward out from the middle and put him in front of Toad, and then have Ivor push him into the buffers. That's the only way we'll be able to activate the portal and get wherever they'll take us."

"What do you mean 'activate the portal', Thomas?" Jones asked him.

"I don't know where we'll end up, maybe back to Sodor," said Thomas, "but, wherever they go to, this is our only way out of here, but it's more likely we'll end up wherever those men and their wagons went to all those years ago."

"Oh-er," groaned Jones the Steam. "I wonder if I'll be able to give Dai Station a ring when we get there. He'll be wondering where we are when Ivor and I don't turn up for work tomorrow morning. It's a pity I'm going to miss Rhodryr's party, I was rather looking forward to that!"

It didn't take long to explain their plan to the others, despite Jeanie interrupting with several sarcastic comments, and soon, after a series of shunts using the two empty lengths of track, the order of wagons was such that Edward, with Toad and the other trucks between him and Ivor, was leading the way towards the set of buffers, after the little green engine gave a mighty push to get them all moving again and get up enough speed to get them all, hopefully, through the magic portal.

"Here we go!" Thomas called out from Edward's footplate as he felt the procession start to move.

"I hope this works!" said James, holding on to a handrail.

"It had better work," said Jeanie, standing between the two former engines, "or I'm going to be fucking furious with the pair of you!"

"Hee-hee!" giggled Mr Dinwiddy, bobbing up and down on his toes inside Ivor's cab. "We're all going to go out with a bang!"

"brrP?" tooted the little green engine.

"No we won't, my old friend," said Jones the Steam as he opened Ivor's regulator even more, "I trust Thomas... I think!"

~Why ME?~ wailed Edward, closing his eyes as the distance between his buffers and the stationary ones just ahead rapidly dwindled to mere inches before they came into contact with a mighty clank...

ooo

It was another ten minutes before Olwen emerged from the gap under the slab, closely followed by an excited Gaian and Blodwen. Because the tunnel had been boarded up long before he'd hatched out of his egg, Idris had never had the chance to explore the old tunnel, and now he was here, curious, and rather eager to explore the tunnel with his family and friends, once they caught up to them. From his father's memories, though, he knew of the cavern that lay round the bend further down the tunnel, but he was also keen to see where the tunnel eventually led to, as that was something not even his father had known. ##Come!## he instructed his family, and they all set off down the tunnel.

Soon, as they entered the bend, Idris could see the faint glow from Ivor's cab lamp lighting up the top of his head, then he heard some shouting, and then Ivor asking if he was going to die, and then, just as the glow from the little engine went out of sight round the furthest part of the bend, there was an almighty clang of metal and then, complete silence. It sounded like they'd crashed into something, a stationary truck that had been left in the abandoned tunnel, maybe, and he and Olwen started to gallop the rest of the way, blowing fiery snorts to light their way as they raced to help their friends.

Rounding the bend, the two dragons entered the cavern expecting to see carnage, but instead of the mass of wreckage they were anticipating, there was nothing there. There was no sign at all of Ivor, the other blue engine, the wagons, and not even Jones, Mr Dinwiddy, the young woman and her two not-men friends were to be seen. The cavern was empty except for the three sets of track and something he'd never seen before with his own eyes but knew quite well, for on the rightmost of the three branch lines and illuminated by the glow from his fiery breath, there was a single wagon, his father's iron cage.

##Go!## he told Olwen, gesturing with his head to the tunnel on the left. She would call him if necessary, but there was something he just had to do here first.

Olwen went down the tunnel extension in search of the missing trains, quickly realising that it came to a dead end. She searched, but there were no side-exits to be seen. Puzzled as to where the trains and humans could have gone to, she turned round and made her way back to the cavern and her mate.

Idris stood in front of the lone wagon and put his snout up close to the unyielding metal bars, and sniffed inside the cage, detecting faint traces of fear and rage that he knew, their familiarity not through any experience of his own, but that of his father. For a while, he just stood there, re-living through the memories from his father of his struggle to fight against the oppressing power of the Words used against him by the humans, and trembling with the agonising pain he'd felt when they'd ripped away several of his scales before branding his tender inner flesh with the Mark of Obedience.

Snarling, he stepped back, and roared with rage at what had been done to his father, and took in a deep, deep breath, savouring the volatile mixture he felt building up within him and was about to release... and exhaled a blast of concentrated super-hot flame that enveloped the cage wagon, setting its wooden floor alight and incinerating some small bones and straw that had been left inside. He took another deep breath and let out another flame, and another and another until there was nothing left of the wooden floor but ash that fell onto the metalwork and ground below. More angry hot flames poured onto the glowing iron bars and steelwork of the wagon's wheels until all that remained where the prison cage had stood for nigh on a hundred years was a pool of molten metal spreading out from between the two iron rails, then he heard Olwen approach him from behind and he turned round, and cocked his head at the puzzled look on her face.

He walked towards her as she stepped forward to meet him and rubbed the side her snout hard against his cheekbone. He growled softly, acknowledging her greeting and appreciation of what he'd just done. It was a small but welcome consolation, nevertheless, seeing that he'd disavowed his long-held desire for revenge against the Hatt bloodline. ##You didn't call for me,## he said to her.

##They are not there,## replied Olwen.

##What do you mean 'they are not there'?##

##I mean what I say, Idris, yet I will say it again. They are not there. They have gone somewhere else. I cannot explain it in any other way that would say what I mean.##

Now, equally puzzled, Idris went over into the tunnel to look for himself, ignoring the curious Gaian and Blodwen as they, now having caught up with their parents, went over to explore the hot pool of metal they could see on the cavern floor.

At the end of the tunnel, Idris went up to one of the metal buffers and sniffed at it, then said, ##I can smell Jones the Steam and I can smell the not-man. They have gone somewhere else, Olwen, and I must go, too.##

##The children?##

##Take them home with you. I don't know where this magic will take me, but they must be kept safe. You will be safe.##

Olwen again rubbed her snout against Idris' cheekbone. ##Be careful, Idris. You have told me of how they caught your father. It was a trick they played very much like this.##

##Then I will be ready for them should they try, Olwen. I know the trickery they plan to use.##

Idris then rubbed his own snout against both of Olwen's cheekbones in a farewell gesture.

Olwen stepped back a short distance and watched as Idris' scales began to glow hotter and hotter until each individual scale appeared to be shining with a sparkle of its own, and then her mate stepped between the two buffers and disappear into the rock wall behind them.

ooOOoo