Free The Circle Line by Ben Yallop

doorways, lines we call them, are dotted around the place. Sometimes when we need to use them we have to scare men away from them so we can come and go. Because these places already feel cold and strange to many of your people it takes little effort from us, a noise here, some smoke there, to chase you off.’
    Weewalk turned to face Sam and fixed him with a hard stare, ‘Sam, it is not ghosts you must fear. They are but a trick. It is those who shape the ghosts and cross the paths where the barrier between worlds is thin that you must beware. There are many lands in my world and many different peoples but one group, people from the land of Rivenrok, are coming to kill you and your kind. People have been disappearing. The Riven have been taking some and killing others. They seem to be very keen to get to you.’
    Suddenly they heard a noise from the direction of the woods, where they had entered the building. The ' kerlok' noise of a rock moving under foot. Weewalk stiffened and held his breath. Sam, seeing the fear in the little man's face, did the same. They both heard a quiet voice, coming closer, but could not hear what it said. As it neared a sense of dread settled into Sam's stomach and deepened. Weewalk put his lips to Sam's ear.
    ‘Come with me. These people will kill you or worse.’
    Sam nodded, suddenly fearful. Everything that the little man had said had been utterly incredible but what Sam did feel sure of was that the fire had been no accident and now he could feel a palpable sense of malevolence coming from the direction of that voice. He stood as quietly as he could and snapped the candle from his makeshift stand, spilling warm wax down his fist. It began to gutter more wildly as he lifted it. He stood in the middle of the room. He looked at Weewalk and the sloping tunnel behind him. He swallowed a lump in his throat and then followed Weewalk down into the darkness.

Chapter Six
     
     
    The tunnel sloped steadily down, a concrete and brick shaft into the cold earth. Blackness had enveloped them almost as soon as they had entered, pressing in around them. The flickering candle seemed to have little effect. They had been walking for several minutes before the oppressiveness of the room behind them seemed to ebb away. After a short while doorways began to appear to either side but the candlelight did not penetrate far. Sam stopped to look in one, feeling braver in the darkness than he expected thanks to Weewalk's presence. The room was almost entirely empty except for a very old looking machine in one corner and a bundle of faded newspapers and battered cardboard boxes in another. Weewalk did not wait for Sam to look and so he had to hurry to catch him up again. The little man seemed perfectly able to navigate without the light of the guttering candle that Sam carried.
    As they walked into the depths of the earth, Sam became aware of a hum ahead of them. It was a sound that he couldn't quite focus upon. Unsure of the source Sam turned his head but couldn't locate it. He had a friend who lived well outside the village near one of the giant electrical pylons which towered over the surrounding fields. The noise was something like that made by the current in the cables but with a slight ring to it, like distant bells. A thousand questions flooded Sam's mind. He wasn't sure what to believe. Here in the darkness, by candlelight, walking behind this strange little man with noises swirling up from the depths of the inky blackness, Sam could almost believe the story he had been told. That there was another world. There was no doubting that the last twenty-four hours had been bizarre. He risked a whisper.
    ‘Where are we going?’
    Weewalk whispered back over his shoulder ‘There is a line down here, one of the passageways I mentioned to another place, Dragsholm, far from here. We’ll be safer then.’
    ‘Are you from the other world?’ Sam asked
    ‘Yes,’ said Weewalk ‘I am a kobold.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A