by Peter Oxley
“All set?” I shouted over the noise of the engine and the wind.
“I think so,” he called back. “I’ve never done this when moving before, and the timing will need to be spot on, so…” He shrugged.
I peered through the front window. “How far to the Fulcrum?” I asked Pearce.
“A couple of minutes, I think,” he replied. “That last turn put us on the branch to Smallford, so we’re literally on the right track now.”
Andras dangled a pendant on a thin silver chain in front of me. “While I remember, you will need to wear these,” he said, handing similar ones to Joshua and Pearce.
I examined it with a suspicious eye. The stone was an almost perfect rectangle, around the size of my thumb, and glowed a deep red from within. “What is it?” I asked.
“It is a charm that will protect your senses from the worst of the Aether and Almadel. It will save you from being driven insane as a result of the things you will experience out there.”
“But we have travelled through the Aether and never needed one of these before,” said Joshua.
“Correction. You have travelled in a purpose-built device, which has shielded you from the particular experiences of the Aether. The Juggernaut has not been designed to provide any such protection. Gus ventured into the Aether without such a device once, but had the remnants of his brother’s house to offer familiar surroundings to comfort his senses.”
I shuddered as I remembered that time when we were transported to the Aether as a part of Maxwell’s doomed attempt to foil Andras’ plans all those years ago. The device that spirited us there had indeed also taken half his house with us, but we had still been very much aware of the creatures shambling around the vast black void beyond. I remembered the hungry, anguished noises they made as they scrabbled to gain entry and get to us…
“But I have been to other realms and not—” Joshua persisted.
“You have been lucky,” snapped Andras. “Some realms are more familiar than others. But trust me—Almadel is way beyond your limited comprehension. You are of more use to me sane and alive, but if you choose to ignore me…” He held out a hand for us to return the pendants.
Byron cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, this is one of the few times I agree with Andras. Don’t worry: the charms are benign.”
With a deep breath and a glance at the others I donned the pendant, relieved to note that I felt no different once it was around my neck.
“Here we are,” called Pearce, gesturing ahead. He and Joshua put on their own charms and then turned back to their tasks. The familiar thick vibration ran through the sword strapped to my back as Joshua started his incantations, the intensity increasing as we approached the centre of the Fulcrum and the power source that would punch us from our reality and into the Aether.
Then there was a blinding white flash of light…
Travel through a portal to the Aether has always been an unusual experience, jumping into a void that grabs and pulls you at speed before jolting you to land upside down a second later. This time was no different, except that the Juggernaut in its entirety was suddenly and bizarrely deposited inside a wood-lined train carriage. I looked round: plush velvet seating lined the walls, filled with slumbering old men and women. The inside of the carriage was lit with a golden yellow light thanks to ornate lamps placed at regular intervals along the walls, with a brazier crackling away on the far side. Glasses chinked together inside a nearby cabinet, a high-pitched syncopation that marked the motion of our steady progress.
I looked out of the nearest window to see an unending inhospitable desert, with skeleton-white sands lying beneath a jet-black sky. There was no sign of anything, living or dead, in that wasteland.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“The Aether,” said Andras, staring intently out of the window.
“Is it just me, or are we still in a train?” I asked.
Byron nodded.
“We are travelling through the Aether,” said Joshua. “I suppose this is the closest allegory our minds can conjure up. It is interesting that we all have the same perception of our surroundings: Maxwell would no doubt want us to compare notes on what we experience.”
I smiled. “Who are these others?” I asked, indicating the torpid passengers in their seats.
Andras looked at them with something approaching a sad gaze. “They are the residents of the Aether. The poor souls trapped here in an endless cycle of nothingness. Don’t worry: as long as we stay within the protections afforded by the Juggernaut and my charms then they cannot sense us.”
My breath quickened as I looked around, remembering the glimpses I had had of these creatures in the past when I had experienced the Aether in all its glory. The wasted bodies and deep-set, hungry eyes; the grasping claws that sought to pull us down to them…
The people sat around us seemed so ordinary and, when I said as much, Andras laughed. “They were once normal people like you. Why should you not perceive them as such?”
“And you?” I asked him. “You’re not wearing one of these charmed pendants. What do you see?”
He looked at the nearest one dismissively. “I see nothing worth worrying about.” He turned back to the window.
I glanced questioningly at Byron but he shook his head. “Best you don’t know,” he said. He had also forgone the need for a pendant, having been more than accustomed to the various other realms in his time. As a result, he did not share the same reassuring illusions as Pearce, Joshua and I, although the more I thought about it the more that I wondered how much of a boon our ameliorated perceptions really were. I itched to remove my pendant and see what was really before us, the true faces of the creatures and places we were passing by, even though I knew that the sights would no doubt drive me out of my mind.
Andras snapped me out of my reverie. “Ah, here we are,” he said, looking through the nearest window.
We followed his gaze towards a vast tunnel looming up in front of the train and swallowing it, carriage by carriage, into its dark maw. Then everything went black.
Chapter Seven
The Juggernaut was standing at an empty train platform. We jumped down to find that the ground was firm and paved, whilst the tracks themselves looked like ordinary train rails; that is if one discounted the fact that they dissolved into thin air a hundred yards or so in the distance.
“This way,” said Andras, leading us towards a doorway, through which I could see a stone archway and then a street.
“This looks just like Euston Station,” I said.
“I’m sure it does,” said Andras. “I can buy you a guidebook if you fancy.” He kept walking without looking back.
I exchanged a glance with Byron, sharing his unease in being at Andras’ mercy in his home world. As though he had sensed our thoughts, Andras turned and glared at us. “Look, I’m not the most welcome person here either, you know. After they deposed and banished me, the Four Kings would tear me to pieces if they knew I was here. Just try to blend in. Pretend that you are still in London; if you walk around as though you own the place, everyone will assume you belong. Now, please, do come on.”
I looked at the others and nodded. I felt my heart beat in my chest as we walked, fearing the scrutiny of the Almadites and knowing what they would do if they realised we were there. Andras had reassured us that the pendants round our necks had a dual purpose: placing a veil over not only our own perceptions but also those of everyone we met. As a result, the Almadites saw whatever they expected to see, as opposed to what we truly were. Regardless of this, we knew that we should not do anything to draw attention to ourselves, as the charms would not work under close scrutiny.
Passing through the archway and down the street, I had to keep reminding myself that I was in another world rather than our own London. Grey and brown stone buildings crowded around the muddy streets, filled with the shouts and bustle of hucksters, street urchins and harassed adults. At first glance I thought we were back
in Seven Dials, but then the scene shifted to Fleet Street and then Whitehall. I felt dizzy with the constant movement and changes: every time I focused on a feature or landmark it was snatched away. My head whirled and my stomach churned as I dashed back inside the station so I could lean against a wall for support.
I became aware of the others gathered around me. “Are you all right?” asked Byron.
“Everything keeps changing,” I said. “Just as soon as I think I recognise where I am, everything changes and we’re somewhere else. I’ll be fine; just feeling a little nauseous.”
Andras tutted. “You’re over-analysing, trying too hard to hold onto the world you know and impose it on here. The point of that charm around your neck is to help you see comforting familiarity, not the exact same things as back home. Stop fighting it and just accept everything as different. Although if you really are feeling weak, you should probably let me take your sword. Just in case, you know?”
“No.” I screwed my eyes shut and tried to let the sense of his words penetrate my mind. I am not in London, I thought. This is just a country overseas, one I have not visited before. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. At least everything had stopped spinning around me.
The buildings seemed to be the same as back home, but that similarity was only skin-deep. They stretched up beyond two, four or even ten storeys in height until they twisted and merged into a single mass high in the distant sky. The road beneath our feet was covered, not in mud or faeces, but in a springy brown, almost leathery substance. Like skin, a remote and sadistic part of me suggested. The people bustling around before us were dressed in normal clothing but their bodies and faces were unmistakeably Almadite: all harsh angles, searing red eyes and elongated teeth.
“Better?” asked Andras.
“I think so,” I replied. I turned to Joshua and Pearce. “How are you two?”
“I’m fine,” said Joshua. “I’ve been through it a few times.” He glared defiantly at Andras as he said this.
Pearce smiled at me. “Looks like none of us are as sensitive as you.”
I glared at him. “You didn’t feel a thing? Not even slightly discombobulated?”
“Nope. Thing is, you’re hankering after home. I’ve not thought of London as home for a long time. The benefit and burden of being a soldier.”
The first test of our resolve was stepping out into the press of demons wandering the streets. We tried to act as though we were just another group of denizens, at home and going about our business. I held my breath as we did so, every sinew tensed and ready to fight or flee. I felt exposed amongst those strange creatures and had a sudden flash of a recurring nightmare from my youth of finding myself in the streets stark naked with everyone looking and pointing at me.
Except that no one so much as glanced in our direction. We were loitering in the middle of the thoroughfare, and as a result a few demons jostled us and muttered curses at us, but that was no different to what would have happened back in London.
“Told you so,” grinned Andras as he led us off to the left.
We passed demons standing behind tables and with a jolt I realised that they were costermongers selling their wares. The first one we walked past had great slabs of meat on display, anonymous fillets interspersed with heads, limbs and other less recognisable cuts of flesh. Another was hawking items that I took for the equivalent of fruit and vegetables, although one plant on his grocer’s stall followed my passage with an unblinking yellow eye, its trunk twisting to keep me in view.
I shuddered and turned to see a row of street entertainers. A demon was weaving fantastical shapes out of fire, much to the delight of a group of infant creatures clustered around him. Another gave a loud shout before winking out of existence, only to reappear a few seconds later, floating in the air above his audience’s heads.
“Parlour tricks for the ignorant masses,” sniffed Andras.
I grinned, turning to see a demon in long, flowing robes shouting to his throng. As we drew nearer I could make out some of the words:
“…where a new land of plenty awaits, a fresh source of energy and hardworking slaves. Our valiant warriors even now are amassing…”
“He’s talking about our home, isn’t he?” I said to Pearce. He nodded grimly as we continued on our way.
Andras pulled us to the side and made a show of examining some wares for sale, gesturing for us to do likewise. When I shot him a questioning glance he muttered: “Warlocks approaching. They must not see us; keep your heads down.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw them—tall figures clad in dark robes, they seemed to glide through the streets whilst the crowd deferentially parted before them. I bent over a small box and pretended to listen as the stallholder described his contraption’s properties and benefits. I could feel the Warlocks passing in a cold wave as the salesman cracked open the box to reveal a small imp inside, the creature that powered the device’s actions.
Andras straightened up and nodded to us to indicate that the threat had passed, turning to lead us back on our way through that bizarre place.
After a while I stopped trying to consciously match landmarks and revelled in the pure other-worldly nature of the place in which we found ourselves. Everything was at the same time familiar and yet fantastical. The buildings were the most perfect mix of reality and dreams I could have ever conceived, merging shapes and directions in ways that defied all the laws of physics. On one corner, a building not unlike London’s Royal Exchange drew up from a familiar onion-domed roof into a point that continued skywards for miles before taking a sharp right turn and then returning to ground to form another structure that reminded me of Tower Bridge in its outline, although it was larger and brasher than anything found in my corporeal realm.
The sky was a hot red, the fires of Hell brought to life in the heavens and casting an angry light on us. I looked around for any form of sun and found three, one high above us while the others sat on opposite horizons. They were fainter and redder than our own back home, and a dozen small moons obscured portions of the lower ones so they appeared to have had pieces bitten out of them.
I looked round and then stopped, causing someone to bump into me from behind and curse me for not watching where I was going. I did not care, transfixed by the impossible beauty before us.
“What are you doing?” hissed Andras, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me along. “I told you to not draw attention to us.”
“What is that?” I asked, pointing.
It were as though all the clouds in the world had been gathered together and twisted into a rope that stretched across the sky from one horizon to the other, sprinkled with the lights from a billion distant stars. As I stared it came into focus and I saw that, rather than one entity, it was a band of millions and millions of tiny near-translucent objects, like dust all pulled together in one place.
“Beautiful,” Joshua muttered.
“The rings,” Andras said with a dismissive wave. “It’s just flotsam and jetsam.”
“It is the remnants from a thousand civilisations,” said Byron coldly, “chewed up and spat out by the ravenous monsters that feed and power this world.”
“Not quite,” snapped Andras. He turned and looked around. “This is hopeless. If we’re going to get anywhere without you idiots pulling us up every few minutes, we need to find transportation.”
Even the conveyances that the Almadites used were perversely identifiable. Some demons rode mounts with six thick legs, trunk-like bodies and the heads of wolves. Others were transported in carriages that were moved by some form of gaseous propulsion piped out from within: not unlike a steam engine but also completely unlike one, for these vehicles travelled through the air as well as on land. The sky above us was thick with them, all travelling in different directions with little sign of logic or coordination between them as they circled and criss-crossed, tipping their hats to each other as they passed.
It was one of these carriages that Andras hailed, rais
ing his hand and yelling into the air. He pulled us to the side of the thoroughfare and a few moments later a black metallic object glided to the ground, landing beside us in a cloud of sulphuric orange smoke.
Andras bundled us inside as he barked orders to the driver seated on the roof. I looked around the small vehicle, which was fitted with a pair of velvet-lined benches. The walls were covered in intricate carvings that I at first took for random patterns until I looked closer to see likenesses of faces, twisted into varied degrees of agony and despair.
“Nice,” I muttered. “Very homely.”
“They give one something to look at,” Andras said. “And act as useful handholds. Speaking of which, I’d brace yourselves if I were you.”
We had no sooner sat down and shut the door than the carriage lurched sickeningly upwards, pressing us back into our seats. We tried not to shout out in alarm lest we alert the driver, but terror was writ large on our faces. Was this Andras’ betrayal? Had he entrapped us?
The carriage froze, hanging above the city. I chanced a look out of the window and saw that we were level with the higher reaches of the taller buildings we had seen from the ground, with other carriages whistling past us. From this fresh vantage point I could see that the buildings had an almost organic look to them, and what I had assumed to be brickwork or plaster was in fact a continuous flesh-like membrane. Windows were picked out at regular intervals and I could see Almadites within, working and performing other duties too bizarre for my comprehension. I blinked and then through another window I saw a room full of clerks bent over desks made of tree trunks, writing on long scrolls in the light generated by floating globes.
We were jerked back into our seats by the carriage pulling forwards and braced ourselves for yet more violent commotion, but this time the ride was much smoother.
“You can relax now,” said Andras. “It is the process of taking to the skies that is the most jarring.”
