Catherine Fisher - The Slanted Worlds

Sarah collapsed. Wharton gasped.

Summer screamed a shrill screech of fury and with a flurry of feathers became instantly a black hawk with yellow eyes; she flew and the room flew with her, the sofa transforming into a fallen log, the deep carpet a pile of leaves, the ceiling the crowded trees of the Wood.

And above, in the starry darkness of the sky, the tiny bird flew up and up and up, until it was lost to sight in the frosty galaxies, the endless black eternity of space.

24

Come with us! Join us, all you men and women who have courage in your hearts. For what is life without freedom?

Illegal ZEUS transmission

MASKELYNE HURRIED PIERS through the corridors of Wintercombe.

The crashing from outside was enormous, as if all the trees of the Wood were marching down on them. At the front door Piers hung back. “Why me? Why me? I can’t . . .”

“You will. You must.” Maskelyne grabbed the little man and turned him, pulling the white lab coat off him quickly. “Piers, we’re all depending on you.”

Piers laughed, a horribly nervous cackle. His red waistcoat darkened to brown, his clothes faded to the drabbest of tweeds. “Got to blend in, then. Camouflage.” He pulled a coat from the rack and huddled into it.

“Now listen to me.” Maskelyne already had both hands on the door bolts. “Get out there and find Venn. You have to tell him what Sarah is up to. You have to protect the Zeus coin. If Summer gets her claws on it . . .” He shook his head, anxious, the scar livid against his dark hair. “You’re the hero now, Piers. Not the servant anymore. You’re the warrior, the lonely defender against the dark. If you do this, Venn will never be able to thank you enough.”

“You think so? Really?” The little man swelled a little. “Well . . . right.”

“Ready?”

“No . . . Look. I don’t . . .”

Maskelyne hauled the bolts back. The door crashed open. The gale hurtled horizontal rain across the hall.

Piers’s objections were snatched away. He took a great breath, clutched the coat around him and was gone, as if he were a small brown leaf the wind had sucked up and blown far away.

Maskelyne instantly slammed and locked the door. Leaning his back on it, he stood there a moment like a shadow in the hall, his eyes on the rain patterns, the damp tiled floor, the stairs going up into the deserted corridors and attics of the Abbey.

Finally he allowed himself a small weary smile.

Because now, at last, he was alone. With the mirror.

Ignoring the darkness he ran swiftly along the Long Gallery and into the Monk’s Walk. Down through the ancient arches the river foamed in its ravine below; the air was saturated with water, the walls running with damp.

The mirror called to him. He could hear its voice, that strange toneless whine that was always somewhere deep in his mind, modulating and searching, tormenting him with its anxiety, as if somewhere it had lost the language it had once spoken and yearned only to find it again.

“Hush,” he whispered. “Hush now. I’m coming.”

The lab was silent. He came in and stood there, listening. Then he approached down the tunnel of the malachite webbing.

The mirror waited in its silver frame. He knew those words; he knew their meanings. He reached out to touch them, and his fingers caressed the archaic spell that he had seen forged and placed here centuries before.

He said, “I’m back. I’m here. It’s only us now. Forget the others, forget Venn. They’re lost. Only we exist.” He reached out for the new controls. “And now they never need come back.”

His fingers closed on the switch.

Then, behind him in the darkness, a sound made him freeze. The most peculiar mew, a gurgle. A message from a mind before speech, without language.

He turned in terror.

“So don’t I exist?” A girl’s voice, hard with bitterness. “Or am I forgotten too?” She came forward out of the shadows, wrapped in some dirty robe, and his breath choked him because for a moment he had thought she came from a past so distant that he had buried all traces of it.

“Rebecca? When did you . . .” He stopped, staring.

The baby moved in her arms. He came and looked down at it, the round grizzling face, the tiny clenched waving fists. “What happened back there? ”

Her face was scorched with contempt. “Not what you think. This is David’s son. His mother died of the plague . . .”

Maskelyne licked dry lips. “Look, Rebecca . . .”

“What were you going to do?” She came forward, her head on one side. “Leave them there? Venn, Jake, David? Close the mirror against them? You know how to do that, don’t you.”

He did not speak, but she had her answer.

She felt the baby squirm against her. She said, “There is no way in the world I will ever let you do that. I thought I knew you, Maskelyne. I thought I loved you. But maybe I haven’t a clue about who you are. Who you really are.”

This time I was a little more prepared. When the mirror opened, I held my skirts down and stared boldly into the black vortex. How shall I describe it? Like seeing for a second into the very depths of space, into the terrible emptiness beyond the remotest galaxy and the final ashes of the last star.

And when it ended, my room felt tiny and crowded.

A boy stood there, a tall thin lad in a dark suit. I saw at once that he was bleeding from a cut in the shoulder; he all but collapsed onto my hearthrug. And behind him, dropping a strange bird-face mask and hurrying to his side, was—at last!—David.

“Jake!” He looked up. “Venn! Get some . . .”

His voice stopped. He looked around. At Janus, standing calmly in the bars of my father’s cage.

“What . . . ?” His eyes took in the details of my room rapidly.

“A little detour, I’m afraid,” Janus said. His smile was a mockery.

I poured out some wine from the decanter and hurried over to hold it to the boy’s lips. Instead he took it from me and drank a sip. He stared at me with dawning astonishment.

David stood slowly. “Alicia?”

“That’s right, dear.” I became very businesslike. “How wonderful that you’ve finally made it! Now, this must be Jake, I presume, and really, what a nasty gash he has. Come and sit down, child.”

They were amazed. David said, “Why here?” and Jake replied in a murmur, “I don’t know.” Neither of them could take their eyes from Janus.

“You mustn’t worry about that wicked man from the future.” I fussed Jake into a chair. “My father and I were quite prepared. As you see, he can never get out of that cage.”

They looked at me as if I was a child. Jake—quite a handsome boy really—said, “Don’t you understand? He’s a replicant. He can walk through that anytime.”

“Nonsense. Only a ghost could.” I stood upright and looked at Janus. “Can you?”

He smiled. “My dear lady, I would never be so impolite.”

It was then I truly understood the evil that was in him, as if for a second something dark and cruel flickered in my shabby room. I turned quickly. “He wants your bracelet. Go! Hurry!”

Janus was quicker. He reached out and pushed me aside so that I stumbled over the footstool and fell rather awkwardly on the rug. Jake leaped up.

“Move!”

Catching hold of his father’s hand, he stepped back against the mirror.