Catherine Fisher - The Slanted Worlds

“At least you still have your dreams,” he muttered.

Before she could say any more Venn was there, water dripping from his hands and clothes. She saw at once that something had changed in him. His skin was pale, his hair held a strange new silvery shimmer.

He stood and turned and yelled in an explosion of fury that shook the Wood. “Go! All of you! Leave my house alone!”

The starlings screeched. They rose in a mighty flock, so many of them, thousands upon thousands, that they darkened the sky, and Sarah felt the relief of the trees, the weight lifted from them, the slow, sliding arrest of their descent.

Janus watched as plaster crashed from my ceiling. Then, as if deliberately enjoying my obvious terror, he walked straight through the bars of the cage!!

He stood face-to-face with David.

“Give me the bracelet,” he said calmly. “Only I can save you now.”

“Dad! No!” Through the ache of the stab wound, Jake watched his father anxiously.

David stared Janus down. But I saw he was quite defeated. He said, “We have no choice, son. None at all.”

His fingers unclicked the silver snake.

But in that second the mirror pulsed, and out of it stepped a stranger, a dark scarred man. He too wore a bracelet, and carried a most peculiar weapon, made of glass. He leveled it straight at Janus.

“Yes you do,” he said quietly.

All down the street, the bombs began to fall, one by one. And now I knew that under one of them, I would die.

25

. . . And since that day, in every generation, the eldest male of the Venn family has faced the fearsome choice. Some have died in strange circumstances, others have fled the land, others have marched recklessly to war and been killed in the front line. As if each had a terror of what awaited him in Wintercombe Wood.

But one day, a Venn will re-enter that dark forest forever.

And its Queen will be waiting.

Chronicle of Wintercombe

PIERS RAN INTO them as they straggled back to the house; Venn striding ahead, Gideon at his heels, Wharton trailing behind with Sarah.

“Oh Excellency!” Breathless, he clasped his hands to his hips, doubled up. “So glad I’ve found you . . . message . . . Sarah . . . she’s after the coin . . . knows about it.”

“Message from who?” Venn stared at him. “Piers, who the hell have you left looking after the mirror?”

“The cats. And Maskelyne.”

“Are you insane!”

Piers looked uneasy. Venn swung on Sarah. “You promised to help me,” he said quietly. “Instead you went after the one thing that will destroy me. How can I ever trust you now, Sarah? If my own family betray me, how can I trust anyone?”

She was silent. She wanted to say something to ease his pain, but no words came.

“So where is the broken coin?” His voice was bleak. “Did you get it back? Did you let Summer know the one thing she should never know?”

She was all at once too tired and dismayed to care what he thought. “I tried to get it and failed. Summer kept it in a red box that seemed to hold the whole universe. And though I didn’t tell her what it could do, I think she’s beginning to guess.”

Venn snorted, looking straight ahead through the trees. “My greatest enemy owns half of the device that can destroy everything I’ve worked for. And you gave it to her.”

Sarah was silent. She felt Wharton’s hand squeeze hers, a reassuring warmth. He said, “Look, hadn’t we better get to the Abbey? If Maskelyne takes the mirror . . .”

Venn was already running. They raced after him, through the tangled undergrowth of the bare wood, along paths muddy with rain, leaping fallen branches. Ducking out onto the overgrown lawns, Venn stopped, amazed.

The hillside at the back of the house had moved. Now the wooded cliff and its overgrown graves hung at a new angle, the ancient chapel up there broken in strange formation, on the edge of the ravine.

He seemed struck by it; he whispered, “An avalanche of earth,” and Gideon raised an eyebrow at Sarah.

She said, “Like on Katra Simba?”

Venn turned his winter stare on her. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. Except that you survived, and the others didn’t.”

He nodded. “And how I wept for them, Sarah. Deep below the ground, buried in that terror of whiteness, digging my way out with my own hands, how I cried out for them. But the mountain was inexorable. The mountain spat me out and ordered me away. There was nothing I could do.”

He looked away, then said, “The rain has stopped.”

She nodded. Far away, up beyond the gray lid of cloud, the sky was lightening.

As they hurried through the cloister, she felt as if something around them, something in him, was dissolving, cracking, opening wide. It scared her.

At the Monk’s Walk all seven cats were sitting outside the lab.

“What’s this?” Piers ran among them in dismay; he opened the door of the lab and tumbled in.

Rebecca turned. “Thank God!” she said.

Venn hauled her roughly back from the mirror. “What on earth has he done to it?”

For the mirror was not black. It was clear as ice, and through it they saw Jake.

And David.

And Janus.

Janus gazed at the weapon. The he raised the blue discs of his spectacles to Maskelyne. “I am beginning to suspect you made that especially to kill me over and over. Because of course I am just a replicant. A copy of myself.”

Maskelyne nodded. “For now. But one day I’ll find my way back to you. You took my mirror and used it for such evil.”

“We.” Janus’s blue glasses caught the light. “We used it. You yourself experimented with darkness, my friend. You taught me everything I know. You were Blaize to my Merlin. I am simply the pupil who surpasses the master.”

Maskelyne’s aim did not flicker.

“Fire!” Jake growled.

“No need.” The scarred man jerked the weapon toward the mirror. “Leave now. Leave us alone. There’s nothing for you here.”

Janus shrugged, a piqued distaste in his face. He bowed sarcastically to Alicia, who drew herself up stiff with dislike.

“Are you just going to let this man go?” she demanded.

“He’s nothing.” Maskelyne stepped aside. “The original is a thing far in the future. Ask Sarah.”

Janus turned to David. “Tell Venn he will never succeed. Time is too much for any mortal. It will destroy him.”

He turned to the mirror, and to his astonishment, Jake saw that it was a window now, completely transparent, and that they were all in there, Piers, Sarah, Wharton, Venn. And Rebecca, her gaze on Maskelyne, dark and troubled.

Venn came close to the silver frame. “No, it won’t.”

“Oh, you think you’re so different, Venn.” Janus nodded. “And maybe you are. Maybe you can evade time. But that will have its price. And one day soon, you’ll really have to choose. Between being human, or being something other. Between bone or bramble, flesh or feather, love or liberty.” He smiled, coming close to the mirror. “Who knows. Maybe you’ll forget your beloved Leah. Maybe you’re forgetting her even now.”

Venn’s eyes narrowed. But before he could snap out an answer, Janus was gone, walking into the clarity of the mirror. For Jake it was if the man strode quickly down a long tunnel of square rooms, diminishing into the vanishing point like a figure in some optical illusion, but for Sarah, just behind Venn, it was as if Janus walked toward her, growing huger and huger, so that she wanted to step aside, out of his way, but he passed through her, through the room, widening over ceiling and walls, becoming a gray shadow, a cobweb, a smudge.