by Amy Cross
“Estella...”
“It would be so easy,” she whispered. “You'd barely even have to do anything. I just need Kate out of the way. It's simple. Help me, and I'll help you.”
“I...” He paused again.
“Come on,” she continued. “You know it makes sense.”
He turned to her.
“He won't do it,” Kate said suddenly.
Turning, Estella and Nixon were both shocked to see Kate standing just a few feet away, at the corner of the dark street.
“He won't,” she continued, stepping toward them. “I know James Nixon, and I know he'd never betray Edgar. You should help Alice, Estella, but not because you want to get something in return. You should help her because it's the right thing to do.”
“Are you,” Estella sneered, “of all people, going to tell me what's right and what's wrong?”
“I never did anything to you,” Kate pointed out, as the ground trembled beneath their feet. “I never tried to hurt you, I never tried to take anything from you.”
“But you did!” Estella shouted, stepping toward her. “You took Edgar! You took my home! You took my mother, you took Portia and the children!”
“Those children never even existed,” Kate replied. “They were illusions, placed in your mind by Edgar. And your mother? From what I heard, she was insane long before I ever arrived on Thaxos. As for Edgar and your home, I didn't take them from you.” She held her ground as Estella stepped closer. “I remember when I first went back in time,” she continued, “and when I first got to know you. I couldn't understand, Estella, how someone so kind and friendly could end up as this bitter, twisted witch. The truth is, I still don't understand. You don't have to be like this. You can still turn away from the darkness.”
“Kate,” Nixon said, “be careful...”
“She won't hurt me,” Kate said firmly, keeping her eyes fixed on Estella. “She knows she has another choice.”
“I could kill you right now!” Estella hissed. “I could wipe you from existence!”
“And then what? Edgar would turn back to you? Do you really, truly think that's what would happen? Because if you do...” Kate paused, before stepping toward her. “If you do, then go ahead. Kill me.”
Estella opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. With tears in her eyes, she seemed to be on the verge of sobbing, before finally she turned away.
“You were right about one thing,” Kate continued. “Edgar does need you, Estella. He needs all of us. He needs us to stand with him and face Ashalla. Maybe we can't help him, maybe we can't stop what's going to happen, but we have to try, and we have a better chance if we're together.” She paused, before reaching a hand out. “Estella, please... Come with us, let's go and find Edgar and work out how to end this madness. You were against us ninety year ago at the lighthouse, but if you stand with us this time, we have a better chance.”
“You can't reason with her,” Nixon said, stepping back from Estella. “Kate, seriously, she's too far gone. The madness has eaten into her mind.”
“No,” Kate said firmly, with her hand still outstretched, “I don't believe that. I believe the good Estella is still in there somewhere. I think she'll help us if she can.”
As rain continued to fall, they stood in silence for a moment. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Estella slowly turned to Kate and reached out to take her hand.
“You'll come with us?” Kate asked. “You'll help?”
“I...” As tears ran down her cheeks, Estella seemed frozen by fear and shock. “I'm sorry,” she whispered finally. “Kate, I'm so sorry...”
“It's okay,” Kate replied, “there's no need to think about it now. We have to -” Suddenly the ground shook beneath them, with enough force to knock Kate off her feet. Before she could fall, however, Estella reached out and caught her.
“What do we do now?” Estella asked. “Where's Edgar? How can we help him?”
“I don't know,” Kate replied, “but we have to find him.” She turned to Nixon. “If Ashalla is waking up, what would Edgar do next? Where would he go?”
“I have no idea,” Nixon stammered, “I -”
Turning, he saw a figure racing toward them along the street. A moment later, Madeleine came into view, stopping and leaning against him as she tried to catch her breath.
“Where have you been?” Kate asked her. “And what happened to you?”
“Long story,” she replied, “no time. We have to find Edgar. Has anyone seen him?”
The ground continued to tremble beneath their feet, and after a moment Madeleine turned and looked toward the town square.
“The church,” she whispered finally. “He's heading toward the church!”
“Why would he go there?” Nixon shouted, as they set off along the dark street, heading toward the square and then taking a left turn. “I mean, Edgar has never exactly been the church type.”
“When Ashalla starts to burst through,” Madeleine explained, “there'll naturally be a weak point in the island's surface, one that he'll aim for. The spot is likely to be on lower ground, which means it'll be somewhere in the town, and the church would be kind of ironic, don't you think?”
“But what are we going to do when we get there?” Estella asked.
“We're going to stop him making the biggest mistake of his life,” Madeleine replied as they rounded the corner, “and we're going to -”
Stopping suddenly, she saw that a small crowd had gathered around the church, which seemed to be at the epicenter of the tremors that continued to rock the island.
“Kate!” Lazare shouted, running over to meet them. “Where have you been?”
“Long story,” she replied, stepping forward as she saw that the church had been completely destroyed. “Was anyone hurt?”
“There have been fatalities,” Lazare replied. “We're just trying to get everything in order, but it's not easy. The whole island is in chaos, I'm starting to think that maybe we need to evacuate.”
“Do you have enough boats to do that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It'd take several trips. We're talking eight, maybe twelve hours in total.”
“Then you'd better get started.”
He grabbed her arm. “Is it really that bad?”
“The whole island could sink,” she told him. “It could be split apart.”
“Then we need to start with the children,” Lazare replied, turning to look toward the cantina. “I have to get all the children into boats.”
As Lazare hurried away, Kate and the others edged closer to the church, while struggling to stay on their feet as the island shook with increasing violence.
“Suzanne!” Kate called out, spotting a familiar face. Rushing over, she put her hands on the sides of Suzanne's face. “Are you okay? I was worried you'd drowned in the chamber!”
“I found a way out,” Suzanne replied, “but...” She turned and looked toward the church. “Has Baron Le Compte lost his mind?”
“Why?” Kate asked. “What did you see?”
“I...” Clearly shocked, Suzanne could only stare at the ruins for a moment.
“Edgar!” Madeleine shouted, as she ran past them, racing toward the edge of the chasm. She almost tipped over the edge, only for Nixon and Estella to grab her at the last moment.
“He went in there!” Suzanne told them, as she and Kate reached the edge. “Baron Le Compte was here just a few minutes ago. He said he had no choice, that he was out of options, and that he'd do his best.” She turned to Kate. “He told me to give you a message. He wanted you to know...” She paused, as if she didn't quite know how to get the words out. “He wanted you to know that no matter what happened to him, he'd always remember you. He said that even if there's only a fragment of his soul left, he'd be thinking of you. I'm sorry, Kate, but the look in his eyes... I don't think he expects to come back.”
“He went into the crack?” Madeleine asked, clearly horrified by the idea. “Are you
sure?”
“I'm sure,” Suzanne replied.
“Then we have to go in after him,” Madeleine continued. “If he's down there with Ashalla, we have to follow.”
“But then what do we do?” Nixon asked, as the five of them stood and stared down into the darkness below. “How do we stop Ashalla?”
“That's not the problem,” Madeleine replied, her eyes filled with dread. “There's been a terrible mistake. It's not Ashalla we have to stop.” She turned to Kate. “It's Edgar.”
Part Fifty-Two
Prologue
In a land beyond time...
For a moment, Edgar considered giving up. Right there on the battlefield, with the bodies of his enemies weighing him down, no longer able to tell the difference between their blood and his, he allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to stop.
To breathe his last.
To settle against the rough soil and close his eyes.
To feel the life drain away.
To let others finish the fight.
A moment later, that weakness passed, replaced by pure, unbridled anger. There was disgust, too; disgust at his own willingness to consider defeat, and disgust at his failure – even for just a fraction of a second – to keep pushing onward. He took a moment to reach through the blood-soaked mud and find the handle of his sword, and then he took another moment to tense the muscles of his shoulders, ready to bear a great weight once again. Finally, with all the strength he could muster, he began to rise, pushing aside the lifeless corpses of countless bodies until he rose once more against the burning red sky and stood tall on the battlefield.
In the distance, an agonized cry rang out.
Turning, he saw that Ashalla had moved on, edging ever closer to Gothos. The cold-blooded vampires, knowing their hopes were fading in the war, had unleashed one final assault. From somewhere unknown to the warm-bloods, they had managed to summon the great cold-blooded god Ashalla, who had emerged from the mountains at the edge of the plain and was now making his way toward the mansion at Gothos. Stumbling forward, Edgar knew he had no choice but to strike again, to try to bring down the god before him, even though he had seen many of his fellow warm-bloods swatted aside, some of them even crushed into the ground with such force that they could never be expected to rise again.
Nearby, Cassandra lay wounded, one side of her body torn from the other. She was trying to crawl across the mud, but although her body was mending itself, she clearly had no chance of returning to the fray in time. A little further on, Makho and Diana were in similarly bad shape, struggling to rise even though their bodies had been badly damaged in the previous attack. With Patrick far away facing the Stark Wraiths, Edgar knew that Gothos was mostly undefended, and that the fall of the house, while not necessarily ending the war, would mark a devastating blow to his own side. Somehow, Ashalla had to be stopped.
So he stumbled on, feeling his strength returning with every step, slowly catching the vast beast ahead. He had no idea what he was going to do when he faced Ashalla, but he knew one thing.
Even if he lost his life, he had to make a stand.
I
Today
The whole world shook around him, but still he climbed further down into the depths of the pit. The air was getting colder and he could barely keep himself from falling, yet he knew he couldn't turn back.
From far below, an echoing groan began to rise.
Losing his grip for a moment, Edgar slipped down the rockface for a few meters before managing to grab hold again, but he instantly felt a sharp pain in his shoulder where one of the sharp rocks had torn his flesh. Blood flowed freely down his back, soaking his shirt, and for a moment he felt as if the easiest thing would just be to let go, to fall and accept his fate. He felt as if he'd spent his entire life trying to hold back the inevitable, trying to defeat a force that charged at him with furious intensity.
Still, he knew he had to keep fighting. No other possibility existed in his soul.
Looking down into the darkness, he realized he could see a hint of movement. Something was down there, uncoiling itself, preparing to rise again and bring a fresh wave of devastation. He remembered the last time he'd seen the great cold-blooded vampire god Ashalla, on the plains beyond Gothos. He'd been so sure that the creature was dead, everyone had been sure, yet now he could feel its soul in the depths at the bottom of the pit. The beast had been resting under Thaxos for all these years, healing, waiting to be woken.
He had no idea how he was going to stop it, but he knew one thing. He would not fail, even if it meant losing his life in the process.
***
“Blah blah,” Madeleine muttered, hauling a length of rope toward the edge of the pit. “Edgar can be a little dramatic sometimes, a little...” She paused for a moment, trying to find the right word, before turning to Kate. “Gothic? Does that describe it? He can be a little gothic, can't he? He buys into the whole tortured vampire thing.”
“He struggles with his burden,” Estella suggested, standing on the other side of the pit and looking down into the darkness. “His soul rests uneasily with that burden.”
“You hear that?” Madeleine continued, smiling at Kate. “That's exactly the kind of stuff that doesn't help.” She turned to Estella. “Seriously, you buy into it too. You encourage him!”
“Can you stop squabbling?” Kate hissed, grabbing the rope and starting to tie it to the metal peg she'd found among the ruins of the church. “We have to get down there and warn Edgar before it's too late!” She checked the rope, finding it to be strong and sturdy, if a little old. “Where did you find this thing?”
“It was in the rubble,” Madeleine told her. “One end was attached to this big old bell.”
“But do we know how far down the pit goes?” Kate asked. “Ashalla must be buried deep!”
“Sure,” Madeleine replied, “but he's rising up, and Edgar's heading down, so they should meet pretty niftily in the middle.”
“This can't be true,” Nixon muttered, staring down into the pit with a shocked look on his face. “I've studied the texts that describe the last days of the vampire war, I know them off by heart. Ashalla fell, his body was destroyed, there's no way he should have been able to survive. Even the combined efforts of all the remaining cold-bloods wouldn't have been enough, so... How is this happening?” After a moment, he turned to Madeleine. “Are you sure that Gothos is right about all of this?”
“The timelines of the vampire war and the human world have never been properly synchronized,” Madeleine replied. “You know that, right?”
“Yes, but -”
“And Edgar's forgotten that. He thinks that if Ashalla is about to rise from beneath Thaxos, it must be because he survived the war, escaped, and came here to be resurrected. Even Quillian thought that.”
“I know, but the thing is -”
“But Ashalla isn't being resurrected,” she added, starting to lose patience with him a little before turning to look down into the pit. “This is the birthplace of Ashalla, it's where he comes from. Once he has risen from beneath Thaxos, Ashalla will go back in time to the vampire war and play his role. He'll fight, he'll bring the warm-bloods to their knees, he'll advance on Gothos and all that stuff, and he'll inspire their final fightback. The stratagem of Cerulesis, the rally on the Calpathian hill, the prophecy sewn shut by Cassandra and placed in Patrick's hands... All of those things were essential to the end of the war, and they only happened because of Ashalla's presence on the opposing side. If Edgar stops Ashalla from rising tonight, he'll change history.”
“So we have to stop Edgar?” Kate replied. “We have to keep him from pushing Ashalla back.”
“Bingo,” Madeleine muttered, putting an arm around her while turning to Nixon. “See, James? Kate gets it.”
“I should have figured this out sooner,” Nixon muttered. “How could I have been so stupid? I stuck to a linear interpretation of time, when I of all people was the one who used to warn the Arridian
Guard that -”
“Stop talking!” Madeleine said firmly. “For God's sake, Nixon, if we do things your way, we'll still be standing here coming up with theories while the world crumbles around us. We need to get to Edgar. The problem is, he's too stubborn to figure this out alone. He's too caught up in the idea that the war has to be fought at all costs, he's blinded by the belief that somehow the war is still going on, that he still has to fight. He can't see the nuance of the situation.”
“The birth of a god,” Nixon whispered, crouching at the side of the pit. “It's almost too much to believe. Can we really be about to witness such a momentous thing?”
“Witness it,” Madeleine replied, “get caught up in it, get incinerated by it. That's the general idea.”
“And Edgar...” Estella said after a moment, her voice filled with fear. “Can he stop it?”
“Edgar climbing into this pit,” Madeleine told her, “is a little bit like someone standing under a space shuttle as it's about to blast off. He doesn't have much chance of stopping it, but he's sure as hell going to get burned. Then again...” She paused, before trying the rope around her waist. “With Edgar, you never know. My brother is annoyingly capable of coming up with some last-minute crackpot plan that might actually work, or at least it might work enough to alter what happens here today. In trying to keep the war from re-starting, he might change everything that already happened. He might re-open the conflict itself.”
“And then there's be a new time-line?” Kate asked.
“Either that,” Nixon replied, “or multiple conflicting time-lines. Actually, I have a theory about the thermal dynamics of infinite time that suggests a causal connection between a root time-line and several differentiating -”
