Mark Newton: The Book of Transformations

‘They’re hopefully already down below,’ Vuldon said. ‘If my plan worked and the priest was right.’

*

Caley suddenly wanted to be a kid again. He wanted to be near his family, listening to stories or being cuddled by his aunt or whatever — anything other than being out here, in this chaos. The anarchist networks were probably shattered — or, at least, he couldn’t find anyone he knew.

He stopped still, as the panic flourished, and the thing in the sky started dismantling Villjamur. He came across one of the old information boards, where an old copy of MythMaker was still nailed up, and he looked at the comforting pictures, never quite knowing the full story. Suddenly another kid ran up to him, a very young blonde-haired girl. ‘Hey, that’s not the latest — other kids are saying there’s more nailed to the tavern round the corner, and it’s something everyone has to see urgently, but I’m… too scared to go there on my own. My folks… I don’t know where they are.’

Caley was about to make a comment about how posh she sounded, when something exploded nearby. It was shortly followed by the presence of a hideous-looking half-beast, half-human form, with two horns. People began screaming as it lashed out at them.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Caley said. Sister. He took the girl’s hand and steered her along the street. They rounded the corner and at the end of an abandoned plaza was the tavern, and the door to the building did indeed seem to hold a nailed piece of parchment.

With the wind gusting behind, Caley and the girl focused on the flapping instalment of MythMaker.

‘Can you read?’ Caley asked.

The girl nodded and began reciting the story. Just then, she began to go into some weird trance. She breathed one word over and over again — ‘Underground’. Caley looked at the pictures and saw some weird symbols sketched all over them.

The girl tugged his sleeve with remarkable force, ushering him back through the streets as if she knew the way on instinct — all the more strange considering she’d previously been afraid to cross the street on her own. There was an old stairwell by the corner of a butcher’s shop, and she kept on muttering, ‘Underground, underground..’

They descended into the darkness, where Caley could hear voices — not one or two, but hundreds, a bizarre unison he hadn’t heard since one of Shalev’s early gatherings.

‘Where is this place?’ Caley asked her, but the girl ignored him, all the time muttering the same word as the city rumbled overhead. Caley slid his way through some of the patches where water had frozen, and used his hands against the wall to guide himself. It was only in this relative calm that he realized how tired he was — he had been up all night, and through the dawn. Presently he came across a flow of children of all ages, holding torches. They were in one of the old escape tunnels, a vast arched route that reeked of sewage. A few adults were shouting things to control the kids, but no one seemed to pay much attention to them.

And the children were all individually whispering the word: ‘Underground…’

Caley released the girl’s hand and moved through the throng until he came across an adult. ‘Hey, mister, what the fuck is going on?’

‘Mind your language, runt,’ the man replied, pushing back his hood to reveal a bald head. ‘Anyway, I’ve no idea. Took my youngest to read one of them Mythica things-’

‘MythMaker,’ Caley corrected.

‘That’s right. And he just started going all strange and was insistent we followed him outside. I didn’t want to come, what with all the fighting, but he started screaming, so we came with him, and he brings us down here — and just look at all this!’ He gestured around to the tunnel, and the children who were all marching one way.

*

‘What do you mean?’ Lan demanded. ‘Did you have a plan?’

‘MythMaker,’ Vuldon replied.

‘What about it?’

‘It was my creation. I made it. Then the priest showed me a way of controlling people’s minds with certain symbols. I knew some kind of shit was kicking off — though I’d no idea it would be this bad — and wanted all the children to get somewhere safe, underground. So I asked Ulryk on how best to do that.’

Lan didn’t know quite how to respond. ‘And did it work?’

‘Can you see many children?’ Vuldon replied.

They continued through the streets, steering people away. Where buildings had collapsed, Vuldon and Lan inspected the wreckage for any survivors. Where possible, they lifted people out. And strange creatures were walking about the city now, things she could barely comprehend, with two, three, five, nine legs, or sets of eyes, or wings. They had been sent down from the dark structure up above, which now hovered over Villjamur.

The creatures began attacking civilians — until Vuldon and Lan stepped in.

Vuldon picked up some discarded military swords, threw one across to Lan. By the time she caught it, Vuldon was hacking into some of the beasts using nothing but raw strength and brutality. Lan joined him, using her powers to step through air as her advantage. She chopped at the creatures in their purple columns of light before they had a chance to reach the ground. Blood splattered over a wide area, while citizens ran for cover.

In the following hour, Lan and Vuldon moved their way down-city, from the third to the second level, towards the outer walls, slashing down incomprehensibly structured creatures, or guiding people to safety. In the distance, the higher levels of Villjamur were no more. The enormous sets of city gates were open; it looked as though they had been blown apart by some astounding force and, from where they were stood, she watched a tide of humans and rumels pour out towards the refugee camps, into the snow, some travelling on horseback but many on foot.

‘Vuldon,’ Lan said, in a sudden pause in combat, ‘what happens when we get out of the city? We’re going to have to steer everyone to safety again. There’ll be tens of thousands of people out there.’

Vuldon shrugged. ‘Worry about that when we get out.’

‘We should join them now,’ Lan said. ‘Look.’

More and more creatures were descending slowly upon the city, floating down to the streets where they would create carnage. Not even the exotic hybrids she had known in the circus could match these monsters for sheer macabre form. And there were more: it looked like rumels were among their ranks, red-skins, garbed in some alien military attire, and brandishing swords.

‘There’s hardly anyone left here to help,’ she said. ‘We should go.’

For a moment, Vuldon didn’t do anything, and she prodded him again: ‘I feel your need to help people as much as anyone, Vuldon. But seriously, there’s nothing left of this city. And the people outside will need our help.’

Sunlight streamed across the tide of people, and she moved towards them, ‘Come on, Vuldon.’

The huge Knight eventually turned to follow her, but then he shot to one side — a small family was backed up against a wall by a former jewellery shop, a woman and three children, while a bruise-coloured attacker with three legs and several arms reared above them. Bearing hideous, vicious rows of teeth, it must have been twice the height of a man. The woman brought her children closer to her, closed her eyes, obviously expecting that death was only seconds away. But Vuldon managed to get there in time: he shouldered the thing’s legs, rolling under it and bringing it down with a colossal groan.

Lan ran towards the family, and pleaded with them to follow her. As she steered them away from the conflict, she observed another beast emerging from a side street, running towards where Vuldon was struggling with the other one, rage set into its abnormal face, its maw wide.