Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

Mark Jenkins awakened to the sound of a gull squawking at the passing boat. The high-pitched caws reminded him of summers at Jones Beach. For a moment he thought there was something significant he was supposed to remember, something about the beach, or Long Island, then he let the notion fade. There would be time later to dwell on it.

He lay back in the narrow bow of the sailing vessel he had stolen for their covert attack on the Prince Marek, his head on Brynne’s folded blanket, ignoring everyone else. Above, the single sail was taut, but apart from the salty tang of organic decay drifting out from the inter-tidal zone – he didn’t need to look up to know that they were near the shore – he couldn’t feel the breeze which pushed the boat along. The sun was bright and warm, too warm for autumn, and as it fell across his face, Mark wished that sleep would take him again. There was perhaps no more perfectly innocent time than the few seconds after waking, when, for three or four breaths, there would be no pain, no stress, no nothing. In that brief space of time Mark sometimes forgot where he was, even who he was.

And today’s awakening would be the worst, for Brynne was gone.

Mark gazed into the near-cloudless pale-blue sky, staring at nothing, until he was jolted from his introspection by two stony cliffs coming into view. The gigantic granite gateposts stood nearly two hundred feet high, towering over the sailboat as it passed between them. Mark watched the sail flutter and collapse as the light wind was cut off and the boat slowed nearly to a stop. As the cliffs swallowed him up they cropped the expanse of cloudless sky into a thin ribbon, reminding him of an arroyo near Idaho Springs, a narrow canyon – a killing field for Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper or John Wayne in the closing minutes of any one of hundreds of westerns he had watched as a boy. He imagined this view, the stony walls, the powder-blue stripe, was one dozens of C-list actors had enjoyed moments after being thrown from the saddle with the hero’s. 45 slugs buried in their chests. But that was home; out here it wasn’t an arroyo, or a box canyon: here, it would be… what? A fjord? Good enough, he supposed, not really caring, a fjord.

Brynne was dead. Missing, Garec said, but Mark knew better. The explosion as the great ship blew across Orindale Harbour had been devastating. Gilmour hadn’t seen her on the main deck, and Mark knew she was on board – he had let her go. There was nowhere else she could have been except on the quarterdeck, stalking some unsuspecting guard, or throttling the life out of a Malakasian sailor. She would have had no chance as the planks beneath her feet disintegrated into splinters – one of which had become lodged in his own neck. Gilmour had yanked it out later; Mark had it wrapped in a piece of cloth and shoved into his pocket: a grisly souvenir.

‘I love you,’ Brynne had whispered in almost comic mimicry of Mark’s clumsy profession only minutes earlier. He had laughed at her accent: she had sounded like a German tourist. But she was perfect, for him, and for his world. They were supposed to be together. Looking down at him from the aft rail, she had looked like any other woman – any other perfect woman, a doctor or teacher, an accountant, even. That was from the shoulders up, away from the bristling array of daggers, dirks and blades she wore across her chest and at her hips, the weapons that marked her as a doomed revolutionary fighting an unbeatable enemy. It would be a long time before Mark recovered.

He ignored the looming cliffs, wrapped himself in Brynne’s blanket and ran a finger over his cracked lips. He felt his neck, where Gilmour had removed the black splinter. The wound was infected, seeping pus, and as Mark poked the swelling, discoloured fluid spurted out. He found a piece of stained sailcloth and dipped it into the salt water, then dabbed gingerly at the jagged tear. He folded the cloth into a small square, pressed it against the wound and left it there, its coolness comforting.

His wound attended to, Mark buried his nose in the blanket and inhaled, hoping to catch her aroma, but all he could smell was pungent woodsmoke. He felt tears come again and stared up between the cliffs, Heaven’s granite gate, trying to control himself. Weeping wouldn’t bring her back, and he didn’t want the others to see his weakness. The grey and white gull drifted overhead, cawing a warning. Mark felt as though he had been switched off, paralysed by grief. Would he die here? That question had bothered him for weeks, but now it no longer mattered.

Listlessness and rage warred inside his head, making him feel nauseous and exhausted. Only by shortening his breath, taking gulps of air, could he keep from vomiting all over himself. Finally, as he regained his equilibrium, he sat up and reached for a skin of water. He focused his eyes on Garec and Gilmour, who were talking quietly in the stern.

‘I wonder how far in it goes.’ Though still too pale, Garec had been getting stronger since Steven had pulled the arrow from his lung, but his face looked haunted. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes darted nervously from left to right.

‘We should continue on.’ Gilmour looked distrustful of the granite gates, as if he feared Eldarn’s own Gary Cooper might be up there, taking aim over the open sights of a lever-action rifle. ‘This fjord will shelter us while we find someplace to put ashore.’

Garec looked around. ‘There’s nowhere to land here; we’ll have to go further in,’ he said. It was the midday aven, three days since Nerak had blown the Prince Marek out of the water. Now they needed a flat bit of ground before Steven’s watch read five o’clock, for it was almost time to open the portal. ‘But we’ve lost our tail-wind.’ He nodded towards the sail, hanging flaccid from the single spar. ‘We won’t get far at this rate.’

Humming softly, Gilmour traced a weaving pattern through the air; with a turn of his hand, a gentle breeze snaked into the fjord, caught itself up in the limp sailcloth and began pushing the stolen vessel inland. With a satisfied look he asked, ‘What time is it?’

Garec looked at Steven’s watch in consternation. ‘Um, three andlet’s see, the rune four represents a twenty, doesn’t it, so three and twenty. We have almost two full revolutions of the long stalk before we have to open the portal.’

‘Two hours. Less than an aven,’ Gilmour confirmed. ‘That’s not much time.’ With another gesture he increased the wind thrumming through the narrow canyon. ‘We’ll give it an hour. If we haven’t found level ground by then, I’ll swim the portal over and scale the cliff face. I’m sure I can open it up there.’ The Larion Senator, still using the emaciated body of Caddoc Weston, the Orindale fisherman, pointed towards the top of the fjord.

‘All right.’ Garec knew better than to doubt Gilmour’s abilities – he might look like a frail old man, but Garec was quite certain he would scamper up the stone cliffs with all the agility of a mountain goat. ‘I hope we find someplace soon. Mark needs a break, some hot food… gods, Gilmour, he needs any food. Have you seen his neck?’

‘He’ll be fine. There are things no sorcery or wisdom can change, and he is in the throes of one such thing right now. Time is the only thing we can give him.’

‘And what of Steven? What if he fails to come through again today?’

Gilmour heard the growing agitation in Garec’s voice. ‘Then we will wait until his watch reads 5.00 again and we will open the portal. Each time we do, we will be closer to Sandcliff Palace, of course.’

‘What if he’s not coming back?’

‘He’ll be back.’

‘But you said if the portal in Steven and Mark’s house was closed, he could fall anywhere in their world. Is that right?’ Garec tried to remember what Gilmour had told them about the Larion Senate’s far portal system.