“If they’re like this, then I don’t think they’d be missed much,” Variam muttered, then held up a hand before Anne or I could speak. “Fine, whatever. I won’t burn the bitch to death while she’s sleeping. But you’d better hurry, because if she wakes up while you’re gone, I’m not making any promises.”
“We’ll make sure it’s clear for when you come out,” Luna added.
I nodded, then glanced at Anne. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
We stood together in front of the great tree. “Here we go,” Variam said. “Don’t think I can keep this open for more than a few seconds, so don’t hang around.”
I felt the spell start to form and took a deep breath, then as the rent in the air formed in front of us I darted through, Anne at my side.
| | | | | | | | |
The Hollow had been otherworldly and beautiful. The hill on the Chilterns from which we’d gated had been ordinary, but still beautiful. The deep shadow realm was neither.
We came down in a wide, tall chamber. Pillars ran from the floor to the ceiling, and platforms linked by spiralling ramps jutted from the walls. Everything was coloured in different shades of purple, mauve to lavender to violet, and a thick haze hung in the air. From somewhere above, white light filtered down through the mist. The air smelt dry and clean, almost antiseptic, but there was no sound.
Anne and I scanned left and right, reflexively taking positions back to back. “Anything?” Anne asked.
“Nothing in the futures,” I said. “You?”
“Nothing alive.”
There was something alien-looking about this place. Maybe it was the architecture—too many rounded corners, not enough straight lines—but then again, maybe it was something else. The Hollow had been deadly, but that had been the creatures inside it. Here, it felt as though the whole environment was watching us, and I didn’t think we were welcome.
“So how are we supposed to be finding these dreamstones again?” Anne asked.
“Still working on that part,” I said, frowning. There was something strange about this place. I was looking through the futures of us searching, and while some of them were what you’d expect, there were flashes of possibilities that just didn’t fit. Strange creatures, natural hazards, even glimpses of what looked like combat . . . but when I looked again, they weren’t there.
“Something about this place feels like Elsewhere,” Anne said. “I don’t know why, but . . .”
“The futures do too,” I said. “Too fluid.” I pointed. “Okay, I’m pretty sure that this direction has something. Can’t promise what. But let’s check in first.” I touched the communicator in my ear. “Vari, come in.”
Silence.
“Vari, it’s Alex. Come in.”
“Why is it,” Anne said, “that these communicators always seem to fail whenever we really need them?”
I bit back a couple of swear words. It wouldn’t have helped Anne’s morale. “Okay, so calling for extraction is out. Good news is that it looks like the gate stone’ll work.”
The gate stone was the backup plan. Variam was holding its mirror, meaning that it should gate us straight back to where he was. “Except that we won’t be able to call for help,” Anne pointed out.
“There is that.”
Anne shrugged. “Nothing new then.”
We set off, walking in the direction I’d marked. “So,” Anne said, “what exactly do dreamstones look like?”
“According to Arachne, it’s a case of ‘you’ll know it when you see it.’”
“Do you think there’s some way we could make sure Richard has a weaker one?”
“I got the impression that . . .” I trailed off. “Heads up.”
Ahead of us, the corridor opened up into a tunnel. The features were the same, weirdly curved purple lines, with strange objects hanging from the ceiling that looked like a cross between stalactites and giant frozen bats, but straight ahead was a sphere of pure black, edged in violet.
I walked forward cautiously. I couldn’t see any immediate danger, but there was the same weird fluidity to the futures, half-glimpsed possibilities of horror and surprise blinking in and out. “It’s a portal,” I said.
“To where?” Anne said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s something . . .”
“There’s something inside,” Anne said.
I nodded slowly. I couldn’t get a clear vision, but I could get a sense of something within the darkness, an impression of silent power. Stepping through would take me into a maze of narrower corridors, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back out. “There’s a problem,” I said. “It’s not stable.”
Anne didn’t take her eyes off the sphere. “Hmm?”
“If I step through, I think it’ll collapse,” I said. “Or redirect, maybe. Wherever it’ll take me, I can’t see you there too.” I frowned. “Maybe there’s some way to stabilise it . . .”
“I don’t think it wants you,” Anne said absently.
I started to ask what she meant, then spun. Just for an instant I had an impression of something behind us, huge and looming, then it was gone. The corridor behind was empty. “Anne,” I said. “Anne!”
“Hmm?”
“Was there something there?”
“It’s okay,” Anne said. “I’ll be back.”
I should have realised what Anne was about to do, but the phantoms were distracting me and I put it together just a second too late. I grabbed for her just as Anne stepped forward and touched the sphere. There was a moment where she seemed to twist and warp, then she was gone. I swore, hesitated an instant, jumped after her—
—and stumbled through into an empty corridor. The sphere was gone. The corridor was empty both ahead and behind. “Anne!” I shouted.
My voice echoed from the walls, fading into silence. I couldn’t see Anne. Except that it felt as though I should be able to see her—there was a future where she was right ahead of me, walking slowly down the corridor—then as I reached for it, it was gone. “Damn it,” I muttered. Anne was usually more careful than this.
I thought I could see a possibility in which I found Anne. Just like the others, it blinked in and out, there and gone again, but it was the best lead I had and I went running down the corridor. I could gate out at any time I wanted, but Anne wasn’t holding the gate stone and if I couldn’t find her then she would be in real trouble. I turned a corner to find a black wall blocking my path, sheer and lightless and straight as a razor, but a glance at the futures told me that it wasn’t dangerous and I stepped through.
And stopped. Right in front of me was a boy, maybe twelve years old, light-skinned with a shock of black hair and dark watchful eyes. He was sitting upon a curved shelf, his legs swinging underneath him, and he was looking at me. “What are you doing here?” I said.
“You aren’t ready,” the boy said.
Something about the boy’s face and the way he was watching me seemed weirdly familiar, but I didn’t have time to think about it. “I’m looking for a girl,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
“She’s not looking for you.”
I advanced cautiously. I didn’t think the boy was hostile, but something about him made me uneasy. He didn’t move, looking up at me with those big dark eyes. “Where’s Anne?”
“You’re going to lose more than you think.”
I stared at the boy. “Who are you?”
The boy hopped off from where he was sitting, his shoes thumping onto the floor. “I won’t stop you,” he said. “Just don’t forget.”
“What are you—?”
The boy knelt down, sinking into a ball, and then he was gone. The curving, chairlike rest that he’d been sitting on was gone as well. In its place was a jagged, moundlike crystalline formation, amethyst-coloured and rising to a blunted point.