Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley (29 page)

Danyl sat on Gorgon's toilet eating a bean salad.

He'd made it. He'd walked up the road that wound through Threshold, numb and dumbstruck after the horrors he'd escaped. Screams still rent the air, and Cartographers ran back and forth along the hillside, but they paid Danyl no mind. He was just a lone person stumbling through the dark.

Then he reached the ladder. It stood amidst the debris of the scaffold, luminous in the moon's glow, rising to the front door of Gorgon's house. Behind the house loomed the clifftop: a region of bare stone pitted with scrub; above that were the southern hills, a dark mass rising and rising.

Danyl climbed the ladder. He opened Gorgon's front door, took his torch from his pocket, and switched it on. He saw a disappointingly ordinary lounge with several doors.

He stepped inside.

The first door opened onto a small laundry which smelled of laundry. After that was the kitchen, which smelled of cabbage. It was cramped. A hot plate sat on a bench, surrounded by mounds of miscellaneous rubbish. A tiny table piled with more debris sat in the corner. There was only one chair. An empty footbath sat on the floor before it.

Danyl turned left. The beam of his torch danced about. He flinched every time the house shifted in the wind or a horrible scream rang out from the development below. He should have brought a weapon. But Steve had their only taser and he'd insisted on taking it.

Where was Steve? He was supposed to rendezvous with Danyl at the foot of the ladder. That was the plan. Danyl had waited for him for a few minutes, hissing Steve's name into the darkness, then he'd given up. Maybe Steve had already entered the house? Or been captured? Or just gotten bored and distracted, and wandered off somewhere else? All of these were strong possibilities.

Danyl opened the next door. He was greeted by the scent of disinfectant. It was the toilet. The room next to that was a bedroom. It contained a single bed and a dresser with no mirror. An old-fashioned cassette-player was on a shelf with hundreds of cassette tapes in giant piles beside it.

There was one door left at the far end of the hall. It opened onto a narrow flight of stairs leading down.

This was it. Gorgon's basement. Was Gorgon waiting down there in the darkness? Of course. Was Danyl ready to confront her? No, he decided. Not quite yet.

He was afraid. He was also hungry. He backed away from the stairs and returned to the kitchen. He rummaged through the fridge, found half a bowl of bean salad and retreated with it to the toilet, which seemed like the most defensible room in the house.

And now he sat in the dim light, eating beans. The wind howled. The salad had some kind of vinegar marinade that tasted really good. The rain started again; a roar of white noise on the roof overhead extending into infinity.

What would he find in the basement? Answers? More questions? Verity? If she was still there, how would he rescue her? Carry her up the stairs through Gorgon's house and down the ladder, then down the slopes of Threshold and back through the tunnels? Well, that would just be really hard work. It would take hours. It would be exhausting. And yet, Danyl reflected, that was the best possible outcome. Whatever happened when he reached the basement would probably be far worse.

He finished his beans and stood, his mind weighed down by grim thoughts. Then he made his way through the empty house. He descended the steps. A cold breeze blew up from the basement, carrying with it a rich organic scent. It was the smell of DoorWay. The stench of other worlds.

The basement stretched the length and width of the house. Its dirt floor was wet with puddles. Three of the walls were concrete. The back wall was bare stone: the base of the cliff. Danyl's torch lit up a cot in the centre, piled high with blankets. He hurried to it, his feet splashing in the deep puddles. He pulled back the blankets and sobbed as he ran his hands over the blank face staring back at him.

Verity! It was Verity! Danyl had done it! He'd outwitted Gorgon. Eleanor. The Cartographers. Ann and the giant. And possibly an evil sentient mathematical universe. He'd found Verity.

He kissed her forehead. He grasped her warm hand. ‘I'll get you out of here,' he whispered. Yes, it would be a major drag carrying her all that way, but it was worth it just to see her. He wondered when she'd wake up. She obviously hadn't been dosed with the new batch of DoorWay. Maybe she'd walk some of the way herself? That would be nice. Danyl couldn't do everything.

He lifted her arm and draped it over his shoulder and stood, lifting her off the bed. He lurched towards the stairway. He was leaving. He felt, for a brief, impossible second, that he was going to make it.

It was then that he heard the music. The keening notes of the recorder, rising and falling. A child's tune, mocking his plans, killing his hopes. He turned and shone his torch towards the sound. It lit up a fissure in the rock. It looked like a patch of shadow, but it was an entranceway. A tunnel leading deep into the earth. The walls of the fissure gleamed and dripped in the torchlight. They curved downwards out of sight, leading directly into the heart of the ancient stone hills that loomed high over the Aro Valley. A figure detached itself from the darkness and moved into the light.

It was Gorgon.

‘How far down does this go?'

Gorgon turned and squinted at him. ‘Eh?'

Danyl raised his voice. ‘I said how far DOWN DOES THIS GO?'

‘Aye.' Gorgon nodded. ‘It goes down.'

The walls of the tunnel were close and slick. The floor descended in an odd natural stairway consisting of irregularly spaced, shallow steps. They'd been descending for a long time. The tunnel seemed to curve in and down like the interior of a nautilus shell. Where did it end?

And who or what was Gorgon? Danyl still didn't know. He'd expected an evil genius or an insane monster. He was even prepared for an unimaginable alien intellect peering out through a human's eyes.

What he wasn't prepared for was a mostly deaf elderly lady who laughed a lot for no obvious reason. She walked behind him, a tiny bent-over creature with a large head topped with bright white hair. She carried a cane and had a limp, but walked briskly. She hummed as she walked: the same strange, tuneless tune she'd played on her recorder. Sometimes she broke off her humming to cackle. She kept up her speed on the slippery descent.

She didn't even answer to the name Gorgon. When she'd first appeared in the basement, standing inside the fissure in the wall, her hideous music flooding the room, Danyl had turned towards her, still straining to hold Verity up, and he'd said, ‘Take me, Gorgon. But let Verity go.'

The music stopped. She lowered the recorder, tipped her head to one side and said, ‘Eh?'

Danyl repeated his offer.

‘Eh? Take who?'

‘TAKE ME, GORGON.' His voice clattered in the darkness; the echoes of echoes. Gorgon shook her head.

‘No, no. Me brother called me Gorgon, but he's passed, see. The Adversary took him. And he had them all call me that at school, like. A long time ago now. And with all these young people runnin' around the property, they all call me that.' She touched her fingertips to her chest. ‘But you can call me Georgie.'

‘Georgie?'

‘Aye. Is that your girl you've got wit' you there?'

Danyl held Verity close to him. ‘Yes. Well, sort of. We broke up. I might still have feelings for her. I'm not sure. You know how it is. Anyway,' he injected a note of steel into his voice, ‘I'm taking her out of here, Gorgon.'

‘Georgie.'

‘Sorry, Georgie.'

‘You can't leave with yer wee girl,' she said. ‘She's in a bad way.'

‘She'll be fine once she's free of this place,' Danyl said. ‘She's been drugged with DoorWay.' He pointed at her lips to show Georgie the blue stains, but Verity's lips were untouched.

‘She's not taken the compound,' Georgie said. She stepped out of the tunnel. She wore baggy polyester trackpants and a wool overcoat. The skin around her eyes was heavily lined, and her lids were shut. She looked like she was blinking but the lids never opened. She was blind.

She said, ‘If your girl took my brother's compound that they brew up in that lab, she'd be awake again by now. No. Yer young lady got into my house a few days ago. Got past the guards. Got in while I were fast asleep. Got down here and then went down there.' Georgie tipped her head in the direction of the tunnel. ‘Where it all began. When she went down there, she crossed over to the City. I found her and brought her back here, to keep her close to me and look after her.'

‘How do I wake her up?'

‘We don't. We wait,' Georgie replied. ‘She's trying to reach the Spiral, and when she gives up she'll come back to us.'

‘Verity's been searching for that Spiral for her whole life,' Danyl said. ‘What if she reaches it?

Georgie chuckled. ‘She can't. The way is sealed. The only way she could reach it is if all the other pilgrims trapped in the City all woke up somehow. Imagine that!' More chuckling. ‘That would be a terrible thing. A terrible thing. Everything would be lost. But don't worry, lad. That'll never happen. Your girl will come back to us eventually.'

The sweat on Danyl's back had cooled. Now the cold seemed to seep inside into his body, chilling his blood. He said, ‘What would happen if all of the pilgrims woke?'

Georgie pulled her head back like a surprised bird. ‘All woke? No, no. The Cartographers and all will make sure they don't wake. Don't be minding that. It's horrible that they keep all those poor souls trapped in that City, against their will. But if they all woke while Verity was there, why, then the way would open. She'd reach the Spiral. She'd pass beyond it. And with no one else in the Real City, the way would be open. The terrible thing beyond the Spiral could pass through the City and into Verity. And that'd be the end of us. Of everything. But don't you worry about that. Everything's fixed and runnin' smoothly. Pop your girl back down in the bed, there's a lad, and we'll have a cup o' tea and I'll explain it all, calm and simple like.'

‘Hurry up ahead there,' Georgie urged. ‘We've no time. Run. Run!'

Danyl was trying to run, but Verity was heavy. A dead weight. He had to walk sideways through the narrow tunnel while carrying her along with him. She was still unconscious. And if what Georgie had told Danyl was true, she might never wake up, and if she did, something unthinkable might happen.

But there was a way to save her from the unthinkable thing. That way lay somewhere far below, at the end of the tunnel. Danyl was unclear about what that was, or what lay ahead of them, or what the unthinkable thing that might happen was.

‘You'll see when we get there,' Georgie replied to all his questions.

‘Where is
there
?'

‘There is the Chamber of the Great Sponge.'

‘Great Sponge?'

‘Aye.'

‘What is the Great Sponge?' But Georgie did not hear him. She continued on down the tunnel, and with much shouting and cackling and cryptic mumbling in the darkness, she told Danyl her story.

One day when she was a young girl, Georgie fought with her father. He punished her by locking her and her brother in the basement. They were down there for hours, and eventually, when they stopped crying and looked about in the meagre light from the tiny windows, they discovered a discoloured patch on a wall. It wasn't stone, like the rest of the cliff that the house was built up against, but some kind of brittle crystalline material with a dull blue sheen to it. The girl and her little brother picked up tools from their father's workbench and chipped away at the patch of blue. It broke off in clumped fragments, revealing a tunnel that led deep into the earth. They took a torch and ventured in.

The tunnel was a long, curving spiral that descended into the hill. After walking along it for a while, the children got scared and turned back, but when they reached the entrance, they found it blocked. The brittle blue material had grown back. It was damp and sticky with jagged edges. They could see their father's tools through the tiny cracks where the wall hadn't closed, but they couldn't reach them, and they couldn't break their way through without them.

They called for their father—they screamed—but he didn't reply. Maybe he couldn't hear? Maybe he did hear but did not come.

So Georgie told her brother to stay at the mouth of the tunnel while she went back down to look for another way out. She followed the spiral down, deeper and deeper, until she came to a chamber.

It was huge. The beam of her torch couldn't reach the far side. It revealed other passageways leading out again, but Georgie ignored them and approached the pool in the centre of the chamber. It was filled with a liquid that looked almost like water, except it seemed to glow with a faint blue light. She knelt by the pool and dipped her little finger into it, then she raised it to her tongue.

She woke in the Real City.

‘Then what happened?' Danyl demanded. Georgie had fallen silent.

‘Eh?'

‘What happened when you saw the Real City?'

She sighed. ‘I walked about for a bit. Then I saw the Spiral and walked up to it and touched it.'

‘What happened then?'

‘Once I touched it, the City just disappeared. Melted away, like. Just like that. And I saw what was beyond it.'

‘What?'

‘Somethin' horrible.'

Georgie lapsed into silence. Danyl tolerated this for several seconds then demanded. ‘What, specifically? Horrible how? What did you see beyond the Real City?'

‘Something old,' Georgie replied. ‘Somethin' old and mad that's always been scratching at the edge of space and time, tryin' to get into our world.'

‘Was it the evil sentient mathematical universe?'

‘Eh? I can't hear ya. You'll have to speak up.'

‘EVIL SENTIENT MATHEMATICAL UNIVERSE?'

‘Eh?'

Danyl gave up on questioning her and let Georgie tell her story.

She'd glimpsed the thing beyond the Real City for only a brief second, she explained. She'd been exposed to only a tiny quantity of the liquid in the pool and she woke up on the cold dirt floor of the chamber to find her brother Simon standing over her, furious with worry.

She didn't answer any of Simon's questions. She was trying to understand what had just happened to her, and as she thought, she became aware of an itching inside her mind. A fragment of the thing beyond the Spiral coiling within her own consciousness. The mere act of seeing it had allowed it to infect her, but only partly. She could feel its outrage at having failed to take her away completely and then cross over, and as she lay there on the damp stone she felt the tiny seed it had planted in her mind flicker and die.

But while that happened, her brother stepped over her to the pool, dipped his fingers into it, and tasted the liquid. She watched in horror as his eyes froze, he fell to the ground beside her and crossed over into the Real City.

She knew that her brother would find his way to the Spiral and go beyond the Real City. She knew that the thing waiting there would seize him and pass into him. She shook him, slapped him, but he didn't respond. He was gazing on another world.

She decided to follow her brother into the Real City and bring him back. But what if she passed through the Spiral and saw the thing beyond it again? The mere act of seeing it would allow it to possess her. She loved her young brother. She'd have done anything to save him. So she kneeled beside him, took one last look at her hands, and then drove her nails into her eye sockets, tearing out her own—

‘Wait,' Danyl interrupted. ‘You actually tore out your own eyes?'

‘Oh, aye.' Cackle.

‘Is that even possible? Wouldn't the agony make you lose consciousness first?'

‘It were quite painful.'

But it worked. The Real City, Georgie explained, acted as a kind of airlock. One person could pass through to the Spiral, and then the thing beyond the Spiral could pass back, into our world. But if a second person entered the Real City, then the way from beyond the Spiral was blocked. When Georgie awoke in the City for a second time, this time with no eyes, she couldn't feel any pain, nor could she see the great plaza, nor the bridges, nor the Spiral. She could sense her brother, somehow, in the place beyond the Spiral and she could sense the impotent rage of the thing that dwelled there. Her presence in the Real City blocked its passage. It could not pass. Simon Ogilvy awoke, and so did Georgie.

They fled the chamber, but they took the wrong exit and spent days wandering in the darkness before they stumbled into the stormwater drains and a police search team found them. They were safe. But the seed that the thing had planted in Georgie's mind, which died, had taken root in Simon Ogilvy's mind, and thrived. He spent his whole life trying to return to the Real City and the thing beyond the Spiral.

‘OK, stop.' Danyl was struggling to make sense of it all. He was also struggling to bear the load of Verity's weight. He lowered her to the steps and sat beside her, panting. Georgie stood and waited just out of the circle of his torchlight.

‘Let me just understand this,' said Danyl. ‘If someone passes through the Real City and beyond the Spiral, then the thing waiting there can enter into them. And that's bad, right?'

‘Aye.'

‘But it can't enter into them if there's someone in the Real City? The City is a conduit, and if someone is inside it then the way is blocked?'

‘Aye. But we don't have time to rest.' Georgie stepped towards him. The shadows ran from her aged, eyeless face as she approached the torchlight. Her eyes looked like mouths. She pointed at Verity; her head slumped on Danyl's shoulder. ‘She doesn't have time. This'—she waved her hand, indicating the universe—‘doesn't have time.'

Finally Danyl understood Georgie's plan. DoorWay. The Cartographers. The Real City. ‘Because all those pilgrims were blocking the way!' he explained, proud of his comprehension. It all made sense! ‘And now that they're awake, the thing beyond the Spiral …' his grin faded. ‘It can pass through into Verity and enter our universe.'

‘Aye.'

He stood again. His brain buzzed at him. He hoisted Verity onto his shoulder and started walking. ‘And we're going to this underground pool because that's the source of the DoorWay compound. Your brother figured out how to create a synthetic version, but we contaminated the entire batch. So the only way through to the Real City is down here.'

Georgie did not answer. The stairs were levelling out. The roof of the cave curved up and out of sight. The walls widened. They'd arrived.

They were in a gigantic cavern. Water trickled down the walls and fell in columns from unseen outlets high above. The floor was submerged but the water was only ankle-deep. It was warmer than Danyl expected. A tepid bath.

Georgie led them towards the heart of the cavern. The humid air smelled of copper and rot. There was a faint washing sound, like a tide on a distant beach. It seemed to come from far below.