Extropia

by Robin Bootle

  Edward followed Hasgard’s gaze, and his heart stopped. There, on the terrace, his dagger was loose on the floor. He dived to grab it, barely remembering to break his fall as the dagger zipped off the terrace.

  Hound’s body seized up, his back tightening in an arch as the blade pierced the flesh between the bottom of his helmet and the top of his armour. Just as quickly the blade extracted itself.

  Edward charged, expelling the air from his lungs in a great roar of anger. As the dagger shot forward for a second stab, he whipped it from the air and sunk it with both hands deep into Hasgard’s chest.

  27

  The Beast

  Elizabeth cradled Hound’s head as he gazed at the sky. Each breath wheezed through what might have been a punctured lung. As weak and broken as he appeared, Edward kept his distance.

  ‘You need to go back,’ Elizabeth said, her voice shaking, and Edward knew why: with Hound gone, the only way back for Edward and Elizabeth was by recovering the Tartarus Stone from Dēofol himself. ‘Do you have someone who can look after you?’

  Hound nodded ever so subtly. ‘I’ll be watching. I’ll come back for you, I promise.’

  She stepped back and a ring of black began to form around his body. His eyes rolled into his head as he battled to stay awake. The ring began to fill to the centre, forming a sphere. But then with a whoosh it imploded into nothingness. He shook his head. ‘I’m too weak.’

  ‘I guess that’s it then,’ said Edward. ‘Our only way out of here is through the Tartarus Stone.’ And knowing Hound wouldn’t last long, he added, ‘We’d better get going.’

  ‘I’ve seen him, Edward.’ Elizabeth’s voice was quivering. ‘I’ve seen Dēofol. I… I don’t know how we can beat him.’

  Edward wished some magic words would come to him to help lift her spirits. To lift his own spirits. He couldn’t even tell her Look how far we’ve come, because the whole journey felt like it had been staged, and they were about to walk into the final act, the final trap. So much so that, even if they were to turn back, he was certain Dēofol would be waiting for them all the same. So in the end all he managed was, ‘You’d better take this,’ as he passed his dagger to Elizabeth.

  He recovered his shield and together they set off, slowly at first, Edward filled with the feeling that they were heading towards a fight they could never win. All he wanted now was for it to be over with. His legs broke into a run, and Elizabeth followed.

  They swerved into the platform, at once grinding to a halt. Not because they were faced with Vanderboom, or Dēofol, but because there was no sign of either of them, nor anyone. There was nothing here at all, only intricately carved stone archways that lined either side. Twenty yards in front, the platform came to an end.

  ‘I don’t understand. He has to be here somewhere!’ exclaimed Elizabeth.

  Edward fought to recall what the captain had said. ‘Look underneath,’ he called over the sound of the storm. ‘You check that side!’

  He ran along the left-hand edge, stopping occasionally to kneel beneath the archways and look under the platform. Still he found nothing, his view blocked by stone divides that carried the platform’s weight down into a central beam. He met Elizabeth again at the end of the platform, on a circular terrace that offered a view over the south of the Lands of the Sun. Below, the battlefield was illuminated by sporadic lightning and the faint luminescence of a cloud-obscured moon. The soldiers of the two armies were now indistinguishable, entangled in one brawling mass of men and metal.

  ‘James!’ He skirted the terrace, beginning to question whether James had already been snatched off to some faraway prison. He moved to the central tip of the platform and called again, hopelessness creeping into his voice. ‘James!’

  A faint noise like a whimper found its way to his ears through the pouring rain and the crashing thunder, as if it had come from the air itself. He lay down, placing his shield beside him before peering underneath the platform.

  At first, he didn’t dare believe what he could see. There, in the shadows between two vast stone supports, a giant birdcage dangled freely above a hundred-yard drop. In it was James. His black hair had grown long and messy. He was barely clothed, shivering and drenched. His skin was pale and taut. It was like looking thirty years into the future. It seemed impossible from the state of him that it had only been a year. And on his side, the area of his wound seemed inflamed, part scabbed and part still seeping.

  ‘James!’ Edward called at the top of his lungs. ‘Over here!’ He signalled to Elizabeth.

  ‘Edward?’ James was staring at him with wide, haunted eyes. A partial smile flashed across his lips, but vanished just as quickly. ‘Oh, Edward, you shouldn’t have come! You have to go! Get out of here! Be anywhere but here!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you! We’re going home, James. Do you understand? We’re going home!’

  ‘Please, Edward, Dēofol’s waiting for you! They’re both waiting for you!’

  Edward shook his head in frustration. He knew full well the risks he’d taken by coming here. ‘Just hold on to something. I’m going to lift the cage!’

  Already it seemed an impossible task. It wasn’t just the need to lift the cage ten feet to the platform’s level. There was also the ten feet away from the overhang and back again. Combined, it was an unconquerable ravine.

  ‘Edward, listen to me!’ James called over the pouring rain, but whatever he said next was drowned out amidst a deafening crash of thunder.

  ‘We don’t have time for this!’ Edward yelled back. ‘You’re distracting me!’ His fingers tightened around the edge of the terrace. ‘Elizabeth, grab hold of my ankles!’

  He felt her wrists grip the base of his calves. He focused on the top of the cage where a metal hoop nestled in the belly of a large black hook. At once metal began rattling against metal. He narrowed his eyes, trying to obscure from view the drop below. One misplaced knock of the cage could send James falling. Already he felt sick. The cage had risen a little, but he was being too slow. And in a wave of doubt, the cage crashed back into the hook and swayed from side to side.

  ‘Edward, listen to me,’ James’s voice turned soft, pleading. ‘You don’t have the strength. Please go, while you still have a chance.’

  Edward closed his eyes, ignoring his brother. The last thing he needed was to add James’s doubt to his own. He took a deep breath, then another, waiting for the sickness to sift down into the stone beneath his stomach.

  Above the battle, the sight of his worst fears interrupted his meditation. The red mist was building, a harrowing mass of poison forming overhead as the men below fought on against Dēofol’s army, unawares. With so many of them clustered together, the massacre would be swift, friends turning on each other with only hatred in their eyes.

  Elizabeth’s grip on his calves loosened as she too was surely distracted by the sight below. James swung his head to look, and the three of them watched in silence as the mist began to descend.

  From near the centre of the battle a blue light erupted in a semi-sphere that grew until it encompassed the descending mist and the whole battlefield. ‘It’s okay,’ Edward cried to his brother, ‘Ivandell has the General’s Ward!’ The ward, he thought, the most powerful artefact in the game. The blue light began to collapse on itself, leaving the air above the battle clear of mist. A chorus of cheers roared on the wind to fill his ears, every voice echoing down into his heart and filling him with courage.

  ‘You mean, you made it to the mountains? You found the warrior’s hideout?’ James was again gazing at him in disbelief. But then his frown disappeared, replaced with a look of resolute determination. He placed his feet a little wider than his shoulders and took hold of the bars of the cage, then nodded.

  Edward’s gaze settled once more on the top of the cage. This time, he had to be fast.

  The cage launched
away from the overhang, and just as quickly the sickness rose from his stomach. He swallowed hard, trying to keep the nausea buried as he replayed the cheer of the battle in his mind.

  ‘You’re doing it!’ cried James, his voice further fuelling Edward’s strength.

  The cage shot up, exploding the sickness to every ounce of Edward’s flesh. ‘Elizabeth, pull me out of the way!’ he spluttered as his body began to spasm. He felt her hands tug his ankles as he battled to remain focused on the cage. ‘Faster, Elizabeth!’ His vision grew fuzzy as the blood drained from his head. The cage blurred into the darkness that surrounded it. ‘I can’t hold on!’

  With a sharp tug she pulled him back. He let go. The world turned numb. He couldn’t feel the terrace that he knew was there, only a piercing noise in his ears. He retched, coughing bile into the grooves between the stones beneath his lips. But through the overwhelming desire to sleep he made sure his eyes remained open. He tilted back his head, searching for the one thing he needed to see above all else. And when he found it, he at last let the tiredness close in. His eyelids slipped down and his mind turned still. For before him, clinging to the bars of his cage and safely on the platform was James, alive.

  * * *

  He didn’t know how long he’d been out. Not long he guessed; the storm was still raging, James was still in his cage, and Elizabeth was right beside him, shaking him awake.

  ‘Edward, get up, quickly!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘Someone’s coming!’

  He could hear the fear in her voice, but there was nothing he could do; the idea of standing seemed inconceivable. He could barely feel his legs. ‘I can’t,’ he wheezed.

  ‘Edward, you must!’ Her voice snapped with urgency as she stood up and shuffled back towards James. ‘Please, Edward, it’s…’ But her words trailed off, her head shaking frantically from side to side.

  Without warning, she was hoisted ten feet into the air, over Edward’s head and out of sight. James’s fingers snapped away from the bars of his cage, his body rigid with fear. It took every last remaining drop of strength for Edward to roll over. And although he’d guessed who was there, he’d never expected to see the thing, the monster, that stood before him.

  Ten yards away, Elizabeth lay awkwardly on the wet stone of the terrace. Over her, growling softly, some kind of creature loomed that could only be described as a devil, an eight-foot-tall beast, its skin crimson like the mist, its eyes bright red like fire.

  * * *

  The devil’s feet were bare, his stocky calves as big as Edward’s head. His waist was covered with a thick leather skirt that reached down to his knees. The forearm-sized muscles of his abdomen climbed like a ladder to his heaving chest, each pectoral moulding his skin into a six-inch cube. His face was drawn in a snarl, his nose pointed and his lips black.

  ‘Dēofol,’ Edward whispered. He tried to push himself up but his elbow buckled, not yet ready to take the weight.

  ‘Well, who else could it be?’ the monster replied, laughing as he stomped towards him. ‘I must thank you, Edward, for saving me the effort of lifting your brother. The nausea does become somewhat of a bore, although they are little more than twinges for me these days.’

  Through his trembling fear, Edward was dumbstruck. The monster’s voice was gravelly, the ring of every word echoing with a deep guttural evil. But something about how he spoke sounded off. The words he used, even the rhythm of his voice.

  ‘You really have outdone yourself, finding your way here, into Extropia, finding the general even. Such a shame poor Ivandell had to kill him. Now, come closer, child.’ Dēofol beckoned him over with the tip of the five-foot-long black blade in his hand.

  ‘Stay away from me, you monster!’ Edward struggled to his feet as a wave of dizziness nearly sent him tumbling back down. Even on his feet, Dēofol seemed so huge. More than two feet taller, and at least twice as wide and twice as deep. There was no way Edward could win this fight. Not physically, at least.

  ‘You can’t trust him,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t trust Vanderboom. The moment you enter the real world, he’ll betray you, just like he betrayed my father. He won’t share his wealth with you, or anyone! And you won’t be strong out there, not like you are here. You’ll be weak!’

  ‘Edward, Edward, I don’t think you understand.’ Dēofol appeared amused. ‘Vanderboom won’t betray me.’

  ‘You don’t know him like I do. You have to kill him now, while you still can!’

  ‘You disappoint me, Edward.’ Dēofol laughed. ‘I think it’s time we got to know each other a little better!’

  Dēofol thrust out a clawed hand. At once Edward was drawn toward him, his feet sliding across the wet stones. He pushed and struggled to free himself, clasping at thin air as if it might release the pressure around his waist, but there was nothing he could do. Seconds later, he came to a stop, only inches from Dēofol’s face.

  ‘You still don’t know me, Edward?’

  ‘What are you talking about? You’re a monster! A murderer!’

  Dēofol smiled, and Edward was forced around so that he now faced the wall of archways that lined the platform. Dēofol lifted his hand in the air, gently moving his fingers as if playing with the rain. And before them, drops of rain began to gather, forming an oblong, watery mirror.

  In it was something that sent Edward’s head and stomach into a spin.

  Beside him in the mirror stood not Dēofol, but a man in shining silver armour, a mage’s staff in his hand. The fattened flesh of his cheeks was pulled back in a wicked smile beneath a sparse paddy field of hair. It was a face he would recognise anywhere.

  It couldn’t be real. Some magic trick of Dēofol’s. But then what about the way it spoke, the way it seemed to know Edward?

  At last, the name escaped his lips in disbelief. ‘Vanderboom?’

  ‘Yes, Edward,’ said the man beside him in the mirror. ‘I am Dēofol.’

  28

  The Second Element

  Lightning forked across the cloudy sky, lighting up the reflection in the mirror and leaving no mistake as to what he saw: Vanderboom, in his real-world form, somehow only visible as Dēofol’s reflection. ‘You killed all those women, all those children? How could you?’ He turned, ready to unleash his anger directly into Vanderboom’s face, but recoiled at the shock of seeing Dēofol’s fiery eyes and razor-sharp fangs.

  ‘I was in the woods, the Tartarus Stone in my hand and trying to evade your brother, when I ran into Dēofol,’ explained the red mass of flesh before Edward. ‘Dēofol hadn’t quite warmed to me then, you see, not like he has now! Immediately, I opened the portal to escape as he came for me. I stepped inside and was about to jump. But before I could do so he was there with me, inside the portal, watching me, as confused as myself. For a split second, I felt him inside my mind, inside my heart, filling me with an unconquerable desire to… to turn the world upside down. But, when I woke back in your father’s attic, I was alone, and my yearning for destruction seemed nothing more than a strange dream.’

  Edward stood mesmerised, unable to consider any plan for escape, drawn in and overwhelmed by the petrifying, bulging red monster before him. He recognised the way it spoke, the rhythm of its voice and its words, as Vanderboom, but the sound was harsh and deep, like an evil spirit in any movie. He forced his eyes back to the mirror, preferring to deal with the familiar face of Vanderboom than the confidence-destroying sight of Dēofol.

  ‘I felt confused, like something was missing, but for months I couldn’t return,’ continued Vanderboom’s watery reflection. ‘When at last we had replicated our first VirtuaPort, I jumped. Dēofol’s voice was at once inside my head, preying on me, urging me to do the most awful things, awful yet wonderful. It wasn’t until I stumbled into a horde of Dēofol’s men that I realised what had happened. I was about to run, when they knelt down. And do you know what they said?’ Vander
boom laughed like a champion basking in his own glory. ‘“Hail Lord Dēofol!” They could see only him, Edward. When Dēofol tried to jump, but with no body of his own to go, his mind became entwined with mine! And so now you see his powerful body, with mine just a shadow. But you hear me, my thoughts, and he is nothing more than… a little devil on my shoulder, shall we say?’ Vanderboom’s face tilted down, casting shadows down his cheeks. ‘I’d only wanted to use this technology to find a way to go on living. But all that changed the moment I met Dēofol. He showed me what real life is! And now all I need is that blasted Tartarus Portal to allow him to return with me to the real world.’

  ‘You’re not even human any more,’ Edward whispered, too overwhelmed for his words to carry any venom.

  ‘Do any of us even know what it is to be human, Edward? You yourself have foregone your body in order to save the lives of your family. I have done the same, for my own life. Is it really so different?’

  ‘I won’t be stealing the bodies of others! You’re a murderer! They’ll arrest you the moment you step out of here!’

  ‘Oh really? Even when I’m in someone else’s body?’

  ‘Oriel can see everything you’re doing. He’ll know exactly whose body you’ve stolen!’

  ‘I’m afraid not. My good friend Marchosias has seen to that. The screens on your ports no longer work. Face it, there’s nothing you can do to stop us. Dēofol and I are bored of this pitiful little place. It’s time to move on to a bigger goal. It’s time to wreak our havoc on the real world.’

  In the corner of Edward’s eye, Dēofol’s bulging chest took a deep breath, the timing mimicked by the balding man in the mirror. It was as if the idea of everything he had just described was so exciting it had got the better of him. ‘You’re actually insane, you know that?’