by Amanda Fleet
“Faran fears you’ll stay Outside,” said Lord Sondan, tilting his head to one side.
I tucked the guide into my bag. “I know. I won’t. If I’m not back by lunch, it’s because I can’t, not because I’ve chosen not to.”
“You have salve?”
“Yes. Lots. All different types.” Their pots clinked together in a section within the bag.
“What will Outside be like when you get there? What season will it be?”
I’d done the calculations earlier. By the time I got Outside, it would be early September, the year after I’d first left. “It should be nice. The days will be a little longer than here, and the weather might be okay. I should go.”
I needed to leave before my nerves got the better of me. Lord Sondan nodded. I settled my bag on my back, double-checked where various knives were hidden, and that I had my wallet in my pocket. There was almost no money in it, and I still wasn’t sure I should use my ATM card, but what I had was better than nothing. With a last look back, I set off down the hallway that led to Traitor’s Gate – the portal named in my dishonour and the one that led to the hillside above the place I used to call home.
***
I emerged through the portal and stared at the round boulder in front of me, next to a track that led down the hillside towards my old house. Aegyir had cut my finger off on that boulder and threatened to kill me. I tipped my head up, relishing the feel of the sun and wind on my skin. It seemed like a lifetime since Finn and I had sat up here, drinking beers, looking out over this landscape towards the rolling hills and green fields of Cumbria. Out here, it would be more than eighteen months since he died. In The Realm, it was mere days. Even having been back and forth between the two worlds, it was only sixteen days for me, but so much had happened since he died it was almost as if years had passed. I felt ripped in two. Half of me ached for Finn and the life I’d had out here; half of me yearned to recreate the life I’d once had with Faran. If I could find the stones, perhaps I could protect that future. One thing was certain – I could never be with Finn again.
“Come on. Get on with it,” I muttered to myself.
The potential location of the source of the stones was twenty miles away or so from where I stood. From the sun, I guessed it was about eleven in the morning. I needed to check a map and, if possible, some history before I went there. For all I knew, I’d remembered the geography all wrong and the stones weren’t actually in Cumbria at all. First stop, the library.
I started down the muddy track for a few steps before stopping sharply. This was the quickest way to get into town, but I would end up walking past my old house. More importantly, I would also walk past my neighbours’ houses, and the last time one of them had seen me, I was being dragged up here by a man who looked intent on killing me, and I hadn’t been seen since. I clicked my tongue and turned back. I’d have to circle around over the hill and walk to the next town. At least my library card covered all the local libraries.
Two hours later, I settled at a table in the library, comparing the copy of the map from the library in The Realm with a modern OS map. It was close, but not quite perfect. All the towns and settlements were missing for a start, as were all the roads. I chewed the end of my pen, thinking. The book from The Realm was old. Which meant it had a drawing of a Cumbria that was even older. Sixty times as old. Nothing on the modern OS map indicated a quarry or a mine or anything near the area but then, if it dated back millennia, there’d be no trace at all. All those stories in the books in The Realm couldn’t be wrong. There had to be something here. Why draw a map of it and describe the properties of the stones if it was all just a fairy-tale?
I peered at the map from The Realm again, lining it up with the OS map as well as I could, and concentrated on the hard landscape rather than anything man-made. The area where the stones had been found was marked quite clearly on the Realm map but the same area on the OS map was featureless. It was the top of an escarpment, with warnings of potholes all around. Should I go there anyway?
Lilja’s words came back to me: Black. A lot of black.
Shit. Were the stones from a cave?
I rubbed my forehead. I had zero experience of caving. I also had no torch, no hard-hat, no ropes, no compass, nothing. Should I go back to The Realm and get all of these things? I stared at the map again. The location definitely lined up with this crag.
I packed my things away. Back to The Realm to get some equipment seemed the sensible option.
***
Four large men were waiting for me outside the library. I recognised two from the battle in The Realm. All carried bats or metal bars that could crack my skull wide open. I palmed a couple of knives and debated going back into the library, but a fifth man now stood right behind me, blocking my route. I hoped Faran was right and I was one of the top warriors in The Realm, but even if I was, I didn’t fancy my odds.
“You are on a fool’s errand, Aeron.” Aegyir’s voice rippled forth from one of the men, sending shivers down my spine.
I squared my shoulders, looking braver than I felt. “If I’m on a fool’s errand, why are you sending your slaves to stop me?”
The man laughed, taking two steps forward, a sneer on his face. When he spoke, it was still Aegyir’s voice that came forth. “They’re not here to stop you. They’re here to kill you. You are no use to me now that I am in The Realm. Your only value was as an invitation. Since you refuse to remove the stone around your neck, the fact I have you in thrall to me is wasted, and your threat to me significant.”
I braced myself and wished I had Faran at my side.
“Is there a problem here?”
I turned. Two police officers stood next to me, eyeing the men suspiciously. One of them clicked her radio, but before she could report in or summon any assistance, the men attacked them. Both police officers were down within seconds, but I didn’t have time to worry about the horrific squelching sounds being elicited or the blood pouring from them. I had my own battle to deal with. One of the men rushed at me, and I crouched, getting my centre of gravity as low as possible before ramming my shoulder into the man’s legs and flipping him. He landed badly and didn’t look as if he’d get up quickly. Another of the attackers swung a metal bar at my head, and I ducked easily. The numbers weren’t on my side though, and the bar eventually connected with my shoulder, sending fire down my right arm.
A few people joined the fray, trying to get the men off me and the coppers. Some of them probably regretted their decision as blows landed and punches connected, but gradually, the tide began to turn. Aegyir’s slaves gathered themselves and backed off before breaking into a run. Well-wishers surrounded me, wanting to get me to a hospital, but I shook my head. I’d have to give a name, date of birth, and address, and then my seven days would evaporate in police interviews and questions and lame explanations of where I’d been for the last eighteen months. I gabbled away in the language of The Realm and broke free, shrugging off any help and sprinting for safety. Thankfully, no one gave chase.
So much for trying to be inconspicuous.
I found shelter in a barn a couple of miles away and took stock. My right arm still tingled, but otherwise, I was in reasonable shape. Nothing that salve couldn’t fix, anyway. I stripped off and rummaged through my pack to get the pot, grateful for the seclusion of the barn so I could bellow all I liked as I healed.
Sensibly, I should go back to The Realm, get equipped to go caving and possibly get Faran or others to help. Realistically, the routes back to The Realm would be populated with Aegyir’s slaves who would kill me. Quite probably, the route to the cave system would also be full of people who wanted to kill me. Go back, or go on? The only help I wanted out here was Faran, and there was no way Lord Eredan or Lord Sondan would let him leave. Not with Aegyir still loose in The Realm. If I went back and said nothing about the slaves and just got ropes and equipment, could I even use them on my own? No. I had no skills in that department.
If the stones
were in caves, I needed a torch, a compass, a pickaxe, chalk, a copy of the OS map… all of which would cost money and I had precious little cash on me. Should I use my ATM card? How quickly would anyone follow up that it had been used? I doubted I was a priority. Not after eighteen months. There surely wouldn’t still be a big team investigating my disappearance. Maybe I’d have enough time to use it and get away to the caves. I sighed. It wasn’t as if I had a choice. I might be crazy enough to go into a cave system with no experience, but I wasn’t stupid enough not to take a map and compass and some way of marking my route.
I peeked out of the barn and guessed what time it was from the sun. Given the time of year, it was probably about four o’clock, which meant I didn’t have time to go to a town to get everything. The shops here closed at five, and I was a good two miles away. The barn seemed safe enough to sleep in. Maybe I should settle here for the night and get things in the morning. I also needed to get a cheap watch. I wasn’t going to be able to rely on the sun to keep track of time once I was underground.
I sat outside the barn, watching the sun go down, my brain going over what I would need and what I’d have to do to get the stones. Plans made, my thoughts drifted to Paul – my adopted father. My heart lurched as an image of him popped into my mind. Was he still searching for me? Did he think I was dead? Had he given up hope of ever seeing me again? I hated the thought of him still searching for me; grieving for me. Should I send him a message and tell him I was alive and safe? Tell him not to worry about me?
I screwed my face up. If I made contact and then returned to The Realm, it would only make things worse for him and give him false hope that he’d see me again. Surely that was crueller? But the idea of Paul spending the rest of his life wondering what had happened to me… searching for me… dying without ever knowing I was okay… That broke my heart.
As the darkness thickened, the stars emerged, and I thought back to the night I’d sat outside a barn with Faran as he traced out the constellations for me. The feeling of being split in two overwhelmed me. I belonged out here, in this world. The one where I drew for a living. The one where people cooked their own food and went to the pub and did all the things I missed. My heart ached for all of that and for the man I’d had that life with. But as I looked up at the stars and the solitary moon, I realised my heart ached for Faran too. I missed him. I wanted to sit here with him and point out these constellations to him. Teach him what my skies were made of. I breathed in deeply and for a second, I thought he was next to me.
A hollow feeling settled in my chest as I realised he wasn’t even on the same planet as me.
14
Having slept on the hard floor of the barn, I was stiff and sore in the morning. I made a makeshift breakfast of some of the food I’d brought, and set off. The nearest place I thought I could get everything I needed was a small town about four miles away. I hoped the place was large enough to offer some protection from Aegyir’s slaves and I could get everything without incident. And if using my ATM card flagged up alarms with the police before I got to the caves, I’d just have to deal with it.
Miraculously, my card wasn’t blocked, and I got everything I needed. I also managed to get a bus to a place not too far from the edge of the area where the stones might be. As I got off, the bus driver warned me that there were lots of potholes on the top and to watch how I went. I thanked him, shouldered my pack and started my climb up to the top.
It didn’t take me long to find an access into the caves – I almost fell down it. The bus driver wasn’t kidding with his warning. I lay down flat on my stomach and peered into the hole. It dropped about ten feet, with ferns growing in the walls and a sour smell coming up. I tried to see if there were any foot holes I could use to climb back out if I went down. There weren’t. I found the hole on the OS map and marked it, then navigated to the next one. No luck there, either. The third hole had a pocked side with enough nooks and crannies that I thought I would manage to climb back out when I needed to. I marked the map again, then lay face down, my feet dangling into the pothole, scrabbling for purchase on the walls.
As I climbed down the twenty feet or so to the bottom, my balance was skewed by my rucksack pulling me backwards far more than I’d expected. My head banged on overhanging branches and outcrops, and I winced. I should have found a hard hat from somewhere. I suspected I was going to bang my head a lot more times before I made it back out.
At the bottom, I took stock, nervous about what might lie ahead. I hated the dark. No sounds from above reached me, but every noise I made was amplified by the tight space. The air was damp, and bright green moss grew in crumbly crevices. Light filtered down from above revealing a couple of tunnels leading away from the shaft, somewhat disconcertingly cluttered with the skeleton of a sheep that had fallen and never been rescued. I arranged the bleached bones so that I would recognise the place later and checked my compass and the map. The tunnel that appeared to lead in roughly the right direction to where the stones might be, petered out after a few feet so I came back to the middle and tried the other one. It narrowed rapidly but kept going. The light disappeared after a few feet, leaving me with just my torch to guide me. I did my best to sketch on the map the approximate direction and any twists and turns the tunnel took, hoping if I could mark junctions clearly enough, I’d be able to find my way back. After managing to squeeze through a couple of gaps I hadn’t thought I was small enough to negotiate, my delight blossomed when the tunnel opened out significantly. As soon as I reached the widening, I marked up the passageway I’d just crawled through. The walls were pretty dry here so at least the chalk wouldn’t get rinsed off, but just in case, I also gouged out a rune into the stone.
I shone the torch around me, trying to get a feel for the space. The roof was a few inches higher than my head, and there were two other exits from the open area: one a vertical crack that ran away from the direction I thought the stones lay, and the other lower down with just enough clearance that I could crawl through it if I pushed my pack ahead of me. The crawl space did at least lead roughly in the right direction. I slid the pack off my back and edged my way into the crack.
I was about five feet in when the walls started pressing in on me. My chest constricted, and I struggled for air. I tried to turn around and get out, but I couldn’t move. My hands shook so badly and were so slick with sweat that I almost dropped the torch.
“Come on, Aeron. Breathe. Crawl back if it’s too much.”
My words didn’t comfort me. Chances were, the stones lay beyond this narrow tunnel somewhere. I didn’t know why crawling through on my belly was worse than squeezing through a vertical space, but it was. Perhaps it was the irrational fear of the rocks above me suddenly falling and crushing me, but terror paralysed me. I couldn’t summon any obedience in my muscles to crawl back to the open area, nor to go on. My vision tunnelled and spots started forming.
“Slow your breathing. You’re hyperventilating. Slow it down.”
My voice ricocheted off the rocks around me, unnaturally loud in the confined space. Sweat pooled in the small of my back, and my neck prickled. I concentrated hard, counting each breath in and back out. I had to get on top of this.
Finally, after what felt as if a day had passed, my muscles agreed to cooperate, and I inched the backpack forwards, squirming after it. A few feet on, I hit a dog-leg and spent another lifetime negotiating the bag around it, followed by me. My body was scuffed and sore, but I either had to go on or go back before I could get any salve on my grazes.
Two more kinks in the tunnel, and then it narrowed. The bag went through, and I could see past it enough to tell that once I got through this narrowing, I would be in a cave. If I couldn’t get to it to turn around, I had a twenty-yard crawl backwards to the last cave.
I wriggled and twisted, but every time, some part of me got snagged up. My hands bled, as did my scalp from the numerous times I’d banged it. My toes scrabbled for a grip to help push me forwards, and I reached towar
ds the cave with one arm, compressing my shoulders into a smaller formation. Rough stone skinned my cheek but I moved forwards an inch.
“Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck,” I thought, my panic rising as rocks pinned my spine. Sweat poured off me, and my heart rate tripled. I swallowed down bile.
If you’re sick, you’ll just have to crawl through it!
I gained another inch by dint of exhaling as far as I could, squirming forwards and finally breathing in again. I couldn’t take a full breath and panted for a while.
You’re not stuck. You’re not. You can get through this. Just another couple of inches and you’ll be through.
If I could just get my shoulders through, I was sure the rest of me would follow. I breathed out as far as I could and managed to gain another fraction of an inch, feeling as if my shoulder could dislocate at any moment. If it did, could I put it back in? Probably not.
I forced the thought from my head and pushed again. “Goddamnit! Come on!”
And then I was through. I lay on my back, gasping, sweating hard, waiting for my heart rate to drop again. After a good few minutes, I crawled the last few feet into the open cave, scraped a series of markings on the rocks to indicate which tunnel I’d just come through, and swung my torch up to see what was in the cave.
As the beam bounced around, the rock sparkled. At first, I wondered if it was wet. The thought of getting trapped in here with rising water almost pushed me into another panic attack, but as I looked closer, I realised there was something in the rock making it twinkle. My heart leapt.
Had I found the stones?
No. Life wasn’t that kind. I’d found some stones, and I duly chipped some out and stowed them in my backpack, but they didn’t resemble either the charm I wore on my wrist nor what I’d seen of the talisman at my neck. Nor did they have the red colour that the other warning stones were supposed to have.
