Mark Newton: The Book of Transformations

Yeah, well I’m sure you didn’t have one abuse you at length, she thought, repressing that bitterness. ‘Anyway. I’ve conditioned myself to not let any of it affect me. I assume that they just feared what they didn’t understand.’

‘One of the many reasons that we cultists must keep to ourselves,’ Cayce observed dryly.

‘So eventually I fled from home and spent a couple of years in various rough spots of the city, even a short while in the caves of Villjamur. I found happiness with a friend for a while, but I can’t remember much of those days.’

They said nothing, merely listened.

‘Do you need any money, for all of this?’ Lan offered. She had some money tucked away, not much — her late father had grown fat off the ore industry and had dealings in Villiren. Because of their rift she hadn’t spoken to him in five years, so it had come as a gut-wrenching surprise when she inherited what little was left of the family money. Cancer had eaten up her mother a year ago, and Lan being the only blood relation left, and because of a quirk of Villjamur law — she was legally a man — the property deeds became hers without much question.

‘It may surprise people like you, but we are not at all interested in money,’ Cayce replied. ‘You see, where we come from, it is not of much use.’

‘Ysla.’ They breathed the name of their home island as if it was some nostalgic memory. She thought about the strange things that might go on there. An island populated only by cultists. She dreamed of magic.

‘We will be in touch,’ Cayce said, ‘so, if you please, do not go anywhere for a while.’

As if.

The cultists filed out one by one and Lan returned across the cold streets in deep thought. It had seemed like this questioning was all a formality, that Cayce already understood her needs, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up.

*

Another long wait followed, whilst she moved through the same routine: performance after performance, in front of diminishing crowds. How long would she have left before Astli reduced his staff again?

Night after night, while the other performers retreated to the dormitory, she waited alone by the moulded entrance to the amphitheatre in case another letter arrived.

*

Another freezing evening and another show, but this time there was a knock at the dressing-room door and a bald man kitted out against the cold asked her to travel with him to an outpost on Jokull. ‘Bring whatever you need for a short trip, and most of all prepare for cold weather. Snow’s deepened along the east of the island. Roads are shitting precarious at best.’

This is it then.

Lan was out of there. Her pulse was uncontrollable and she wanted to cry with joy, but she held herself together. She threw a few items into a bag whilst the others stared on impassively. One of the girls blurted out, ‘Where the hell d’you think you’re going?’

Lan thought she heard someone mutter ‘Dyke.’

‘I need to go out for a while.’

‘Show’s about to start. Think you can just walk out now?’ Marre, a thickset girl in a shimmering silver outfit, made for the door as if to try to block Lan’s path. She fingered her dark locks and pouted her lips.

‘Don’t tell Astli, please,’ Lan whispered, pausing from her packing, emotion bubbling in her eyes.

‘This once,’ Marre grunted, exposing a rare glimpse of humanity, and lumbered back to her chair.

*

Lan’s hands around her escort’s waist, they rode for days across Jokull in the biting cold, deep into raw wilderness. Much of the island was layered in snow and ice, the landscape so similar no matter where they rode, a dull and bitter place to live. Animal life here was sparse, and how anything could salvage an existence here was beyond her. Tiny hamlets persisted, names she had never before come across — Thengir, Valtur — and people managed to make a living on simple rations, fresh fish, berries and seabirds. It was a humbling journey.

Her companion maintained an almost complete silence, grunting his replies to her. His face was permanently screwed up in concentration. She wondered if he had been born with such a scowl.

The cultist must have known what she was, and maybe that was the reason he treated her with virtual hostility — he was not the first. He was indifferent to her every need, as if he resented having to accompany her to the destination. Bringing up her concerns wasn’t something she was prepared to do — as she always had, she would silently plod on without initiating that conversation.

Isolating and imposing, the wilderness continued to unsettle her, with the ice wind blustering into her. She could have been on another world entirely. For so long, all she had known was the chaotic clamour from the auditorium, screams of the crowd, girls cackling at her in the changing rooms, the animals screeching… And now the only sound was that of the horse doing her best to plough across the long-forgotten roads of Jokull, and when they rested all she could hear was her own breath. She didn’t have any idea of where they were or where they were going. And she didn’t care. Soon she would be free.

*

On the second night they rode through thick bushes right into the heart of a dying forest that her escort declared portentously as Vilewood. Little could calm her nervousness at entering the darkness. The pungency of the sodden vegetation was intense, and occasionally a bird would dart past, startling her.

Eventually, she could see pairs of white lights bordering a path towards a clearing, and their horse headed instinctively in that direction. On closer inspection the lights were shaped like candles, but the flames were like none she’d ever seen, tiny spheres balanced on the tips of sticks — cultists were indeed the proprietors of bizarre objects. The trail of lights cut through the forest, and her vision was soon limited to no further than their radiance.

‘We now dismount,’ the cultist declared.

They arrived at what she thought was a small shack of a church, but it wasn’t the male and female gods, Bohr or Astrid, who were worshipped here, but that mysterious technology over which the cultists had a monopoly. Any Jorsalir carvings had been destroyed — instead, diagrams of bizarre instruments and etchings of numbers and symbols were scrawled across the walls.

Lan was ushered through the arch and down a spiral staircase, her bag of clothing in her hands, and guided onto a small plinth in the dark where she sat with her legs dangling over the edge, waiting, shivering and listening to an increasing hum.

It was all so quick.

Bright lights and disjointed thoughts, and her eyes closed as if by force*

Eyes wide open.

White stone carvings and columns and friezes filled her vision. A massive daedal mural covered the ceiling, a picture of metallic landscapes and curious, box-like creatures. For a moment she stared dumbly, and then the contents of her stomach began to churn.

Men and women in pale-coloured garb glanced over her as she shakily pushed herself up. Their presence was a blur. Instantly Lan made to vomit and a woman darted in to throw a bucket under her head. She threw up into it, collapsed to her knees, clutching the container and, when she’d finished spluttering, looked around embarrassed, cautiously wiping her mouth on the cloth handed to her.

‘Welcome, sister.’

Lan pushed herself upright and breathed heavily. ‘Sorry about.. doing that. I couldn’t help it.’ What an entrance, Lan.

The faces of those gathered were pleasant, full of cheer, and she could sense that they meant her no harm.

‘It’s all right, sister,’ a voice chimed.

‘Such methods of travel have side effects,’ another explained. ‘These things often happen when your body is snatched from one place and relocated thus.’