Authors: Kim Falconer
Relief, Mistress. It’s best we are not found by anyone from Treeon Temple, past, present or future, if this plan of yours is to work.
You’re right, my gorgeous one. Relief it is.
Makee let the glamour down and disappeared into the portal, the warhorse and raven in tow. ‘Now it begins,’ she said, stroking Amarillo’s crest. ‘Kreshkali isn’t the only witch who can run between the worlds, and now we know hers is not the only time.’
The raven cawed, flapping his wings.
‘Take us back,’ she whispered, her hand brushing over the plasma. ‘Take us to old Corsanon. There’s a woman called Jaynan I have to find!’ She chanted a spell, twisting it and folding it in on itself until it covered the glowing rock. ‘Who shall pass, pass not with guile. Who shall try, shall only fail…’ Purple strands of energy jumped out, hitting her palm and
zapping like a lightning strike. She jerked her hand back and rubbed her fingers. The smell of burnt flesh filled the corridor. Amarillo reared; his iron-shod hooves clipped the edge of the rock wall and sparks flew. ‘Easy, lad.’ She soothed the stallion. ‘You don’t want to bring the roof down on us.’
The portal swirled, streams of light dancing in spiral patterns.
Will the corridors run true, Mistress? Without one of the blood?
The Lemur raven settled on the back of Amarillo’s saddle.
‘One of the blood!’ She spat the words.
Will they?
he persisted.
‘We’re about to find out, Woca. We’ll either land where I intend, or…’
Or?
‘We’re lost in the corridors forever.’
R
osette inched her way forward, peering into the dark. She kept her breath soft, her steps guarded, unsure of the footing. Her fingers groped along the wall, chunks of rock breaking loose, crumbling in her hands. She coughed in the dust. This place was new—she felt certain she’d never been here before, but still she had a strange feeling of déjà vu.
‘Drayco? Can you see anything?’ she whispered, resting her hand on the temple cat’s back.
I see everything.
Drayco’s voice reverberated in her mind, warm and deep, a soothing balm in the dry atmosphere of the cave.
She patted his head. ‘Like what, for instance? Can you describe it to me?’ She couldn’t see her fingertips when she held them in front of her face.
It’s a wide tunnel, Maudi. A cave. Wider than the sewers under Half Moon Bay, and the smells are broader here too. There are not as many metallic tones, though there is at least as much decomposition.
There’s daylight ahead, bats behind. Watchfulness ahead, sleepiness behind.
‘Thanks.’ She strained into the blackness. ‘More light ahead? More than what?’
More than here. See?
‘Can’t see. That’s the point. Where’s Jarrod?’
Drayco pressed his shoulder against her side.
I don’t know.
‘I thought you could see and smell everything! He was just in front of us.’
He was just in front of us in the portal, true. But this is not the portal and he’s not anywhere in front of us now.
Dust wafted across her face, the feel of it gritty on her lips. ‘He has to be.’
Really, Maudi? Is that true? He has to be?
‘Doesn’t he?’
Rosette cupped her hands to her mouth and called out. ‘J-a-r-r-o-d!’ Her voice echoed through the cave, waves rippling in all directions. Before the sound died away, pebbles started trickling down the walls. Jarrod didn’t answer, but the mountain rumbled and groaned. Rosette clamped her hand over her mouth, holding her breath. ‘Oh no.’ She sank her fingers into Drayco’s fur, clutching him tight.
I wouldn’t be yelling at this point, Maudi.
Drayco’s tail brushed past her as he snapped it back and forth.
The mountain’s edgy.
‘What do you mean,
edgy
?’
I mean unstable, volatile
…
edgy. Like a keg of dynamite near a campfire.
‘Got it,’ she whispered. ‘But Jarrod was here only a second ago.’ She continued forward, taking baby steps. ‘Where could he be?’
Drayco didn’t answer. He gave her hand a nip and quickened his pace.
I want to get out of here.
‘Me too.’ She stumbled after him towards the light.
The call to this world had been urgent. Rosette had felt it instantly. They’d been at Timbali Temple, searching the library for ancient records, looking for a map or a list that identified all the portals to the many-worlds. They knew of a few—those of the Richter line being intrinsically drawn to them—but Jarrod thought there were more scattered throughout Gaela. They needed to be identified. Rosette had suggested they search the archives of the oldest libraries, but so far they’d found no clues.
The portals were aligned to intention. If the traveller had a strong enough focus—a clear and fearless picture of their destination—they could enter. They might even end up where they wanted to go, but the real ticket was in the blood. The safest travel pass was encoded in the DNA. The Richter line had it, and Grayson. They could commune directly with the Entities, as could Jarrod. For anyone else, though, the journey would be a gamble. With the portals between the worlds open to so many—the traffic between Gaela and Earth ever increasing—Kreshkali had concerns, the risk of trackers being one of them.
‘ASSIST is down, but maybe not all the way out,’ she’d said when she and Rosette had discussed it.
‘Is there anything we can do about it?’ Rosette had asked.
‘I’m weaving a selective spell at each portal. Travellers with the wrong intentions will be stopped, or at least diverted.’
‘Wrong intentions?’ Rosette had said.
‘Wrong to us.’
‘And it will work?’
‘It will, if we can find all the portals.’
Rosette had nodded, and begun the search. She and Jarrod had found cryptic text in Timbali referring to
the portals, though their exact locations were not disclosed. Rosette wondered if they might have been so well known at one time that they didn’t need a map to identify them. Jarrod wasn’t sure.
‘The ancients knew of them, that’s clear,’ he’d said. ‘And they used them, on occasion. But they were meticulous record keepers. Look at these lists.’ He had held up a scroll the length of his body. ‘You can see how many nails were in each horseshoe and an all-too-graphic description of what their dogs were fed. It makes sense that there would be a set of coordinates for the portals as well.’
‘Then there is,’ Rosette had said. ‘We just haven’t looked in the right place yet.’
She’d been up a ladder reaching for the top shelf when she’d heard the call—a deafening sound that had stopped her cold. Jarrod’s eyes told her he’d heard it too, but when she looked past the long tables and shelves of the library and out into the courtyard, she realised no one else had. Students were reading quietly, sparrows and yellow-eyed figbirds were dipping in and out of the courtyard, initiates were meditating under the flowering cherry trees. A messenger rode past, waving at a friend near the well.
Before it sounded again, she’d closed the book in her hand. As the cover dropped down on the thick pages, a letter fell out. She’d caught it in her fingers, holding it tight as she’d turned it over. The envelope was the colour of cornsilk with a blood-red seal on one side and dark blue writing on the other—a flowery script spelling out the name
Nellion Paree
in flamboyant loops and jags. She had dropped it into her bag while backing down the ladder, no time to give it more thought. They’d been called to another world, loud and clear, and the need was urgent.
After packing some basic supplies and sending a
quick message to Kreshkali, they’d sailed south to the Gulf of Tasisia. Even though the distance to the mainland was shorter to the north, a current ripped through the strait, making it impossible to cross. The only way to and from the Isle of Lemur was the Port of Tuscaro at the south end of the Gulf. It took a little coaxing to get Drayco back on board, but the Azul Sea was smooth and calm, the breeze filling the sails. The next morning they’d made their way to Flureon by coach—two days’ travel with a good team.
‘This is another reason why we need those maps,’ Jarrod had said. ‘There would be a portal on Lemur, surely.’
‘If there is, it’s hiding,’ Rosette had said.
They’d slipped into the portal above Bastis Point, trusting the Entity to take them where they were needed. Now Gaela was far behind, and what lay ahead, Rosette had no idea. Jarrod had been right in front of her. It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t there now.
She kept one hand on the rock wall, the other on her sword hilt, and squinted into the distance. ‘Is that the light up ahead that you’re talking about, Dray?’
You can see it?
‘I can. It must be the way out.’
I certainly hope so, Maudi.
A pinprick of light showed in the distance. The ground rumbled beneath her and she tripped over the uneven rocks. Drayco waited for her to scramble up again before breaking into a jog.
‘Jarrod must be waiting for us at the entrance.’
If he is, he’s not answering me.
The mouth of the cave widened as they approached.
Something’s not right, Maudi.
She slowed, dropping her hand from the wall and drawing her sword. It sang as it cut through the air, glinting in the increasing light. Holding it in a guard
position, she rested her other hand on Drayco, feeling the tension in his neck.
I don’t think the sword’s going to be of much use, though.
‘Why not?’
You can’t fight a mountain with it, and right now, the mountain is the problem.
A tremor shook, the ground rolling like a wave.
‘What was that?’ she whispered, gripping the hilt with both hands.
Feels like an earthquake to me. A big one.
Rocks tumbled around them.
‘Run!’ she screamed.
The ground churned as she bolted towards the opening. Pebbles and dirt rushed down the walls, turning into torrents that piled in mounds of debris. Dust billowed and she choked, the taste of chalk in her mouth. The ground opened up behind them, and they raced to stay ahead of the rifts. The acrid smell of sulphur filled the air.
The entrance was only a breath away. It framed a landscape of twisted trees and swamp. Tangles of branches were draped with sea-green moss, hanging like tattered kelp at low tide. A murder of crows took flight from bare limbs as they approached, their squawks and caws drowning out all but the tearing ground.
‘Keep going!’ Rosette yelled as the roar of the cracking mountain hammered her ears.
They burst through the entrance onto a narrow track and skirted the cliff face. There was no sign of Jarrod, and no time to investigate. She sheathed her sword, then raced down the trail to the edge of the marsh. They hit the swamp running, muck sucking at Rosette’s boots and caking her bare legs. The hem of her skirt and cloak were heavy with ooze, forcing her
to a slow-motion trudge. Drayco moved in a series of leaps, mud up to his belly fur. He kept his chin high, his long black whiskers brushing the surface as he sank deeper into the mire. He grumbled obscenities in her mind. The stench was nauseating.
What do you think died here, Maudi?
The hoary trees quivered and shook, branches crumbling as they fell.
‘Everything,’ she answered, shouting to be heard.
We’re going to add to it if it gets any deeper. We can’t swim in this sludge.
‘There’s higher ground this way.’ She motioned for him to follow, touching his neck as she veered out of the depths. Not far ahead stood a large oak, branches spread wide over a knoll—an oasis in an endless black mire.
The ground firmed as they reached the roots of the tree. It was still alive, judging by its olive-coloured leaves and the odd acorn among the twist of branches. Rosette turned, her sides heaving, mud dripping down her legs. A deafening sound boomed from the cave, the mouth now obscured by boulders, rock and rubble. Dust clouds shot towards the summit, slowly settling like a mist on the newly reshaped rock face.
‘Jarrod?’ she whispered.
The entrance to the cave, and to the portal, was gone. Save for their breathing and the squelch of mud, everything was silent.
Drayco narrowed his orange eyes, staring back the way they’d come.
That portal’s lost, I imagine.
Rosette grimaced. The mire was seeping in between the laces of her boots, saturating her socks like noisome glue. She wiped her hands on an edge of her cloak before brushing back wisps of hair that had escaped her long braids. ‘If the portal is lost, Drayco, so are we.’
The temple cat didn’t answer. He bristled, staring up into the tree.
‘What, Dray? What do you see?’
A low growl emanated from his throat.
Jarrod sat cross-legged by the mouth of the cave, his back against the rock wall. He closed his eyes, wishing he could do the same to his nose. The smell of decay made him sick to his stomach, a feeling he was not accustomed to. There were definite disadvantages to being in a human body, tulpa or no. This was another to add to his list.
The benefits outweigh the drawbacks, though.
He smiled at the thought.
A picnic scene came immediately to mind—particularly the blooming cherry trees in the courtyard of Timbali Temple’s main library. Rosette’s long black hair was covered with pink flower petals, filled with the scent of early spring. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Not long after the picnic had been packed away and they were back in the library, they’d heard the call. Looking into each other’s eyes, they’d closed their books and were out the door in moments, heading for the Gulf of Tasisia and the portal on Bastis Point.
But the picnic had been lovely
, he mused.
There would be other picnics, surely, but never exactly like that one, with the cherry blossoms in her hair and the figbirds chattering overhead. He’d been going to broach a topic—one that had been on his mind for some time—but never quite got to it. Now it would have to wait. He wrinkled his nose.
What’s taking her so long? They were right behind me.