Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  His right hand held Frankie’s. His other hand was clutched round a locket. A locket with one black curl and one red. Red hair. Minnaloushe. For a moment sorrow washed through his entire body.

  No time for grief now. No time for tears. Inside the locket was also a curl of the deepest black. Black as coal. Black as the feathers on the wings of a crow. The crow that was watching him with one beady eye. So close to him that if he put out his hand he would be able to touch it.

  For a moment the bird tilted its head quizzically, watching Gabriel as though debating how to react to the intruder. But then it moved its weight from one leg to the other and started grooming its feathers.

  He was inside. He was deep, deep within the palace.

  Gabriel looked around him. He was standing in an enormous hall made of stone. The place had gone to ruin. The tall windows, the delicate tracery of the frames still intact, were broken. There were holes in the thick walls, gaping squares of blackness, and the sweeping stone buttresses were crumbling.

  There was a sound in the air. A wail. A long falling cadence: the sound unbroken, like a frozen waterfall. He recognised it for what it was. He was listening to the sound of a mind in distress. Morrighan was grieving. He wasn’t the only one who was feeling the pain of Minnaloushe’s absence.

  A movement at the corner of his eye made him turn round sharply. But it was only the crow. It had taken wing. It was flapping its way across the room and was heading for the open door and the passage beyond. After a moment’s hesitation, he followed.

  He stepped out into the stone passage. It was not really a passage, but a kind of mezzanine, bordered by a thin black railing. He placed his hand on the railing and his stomach felt suddenly hollow as he gazed down the vertiginous depths of a central shaft plunging down to unimaginable depths.

  The mezzanine on which he was standing was only one of many. From where he stood he could see the floors above and below: mezzanines, concentric tiers and galleries spiralling dizzyingly upwards and downwards, creating a disorienting distortion of perspective. And doors—millions of doors opening ceaselessly into the remotest distance: mystical replication.

  For a moment his mind buckled under this visual onslaught. So many doors and no map. The previous two times that he had walked through the memory palace he had been looking through Robert Whittington’s eyes. Every time he opened a door, he had been guided by Whittington’s knowledge of the order of places and the order of things. But this time he had not interfaced with the boy’s psi space. This time he was on his own, walking through a mind that was hostile and cold. He had no idea where he was or how to continue. He did not know which doors to open and which to leave alone. He had no idea how to find the portal.

  It didn’t matter. He closed his eyes tightly, shutting out the hallucinatory image of infinite doors. It didn’t matter. Morrighan was sure to guide him to the portal herself. That was where she wanted him to be because that was where he would be at her mercy. He could choose any door at random and wander through this labyrinthine palace at will. She would find him.

  He waited, his hand on the railing, expecting at any moment to sense her signature—that heavy scent of musk and frangipani—but there was nothing. The only signature inside his mind was Frankie’s—faint, ghostly—like a shadow shimmering across a pane of glass. And again he wondered: would it hold?

  He opened his eyes. The crow was sitting about three feet away from him, perched on the railing. Its tiny eye stared at him pitilessly. Maybe he should follow the crow. Maybe the crow was to be his guide. But even as he made to move towards it, the bird lifted its wings and sailed soundlessly over the edge of the railing, plunging down, ever down, until the crescent of its black wings got lost in the shadows far, far below.

  No guide then. Gabriel straightened. Well, a journey started with a single step. He turned the handle on the door nearest to him.

  So many doors. You could go mad simply from the idea of so many doors. And as he walked from room to room, that eerie frozen wail was becoming ever more pronounced. The deep melancholia, the ice-cold anguish, was overwhelming.

  It seemed to have affected the physical environment as well, turning it into a weird broken-down building site. He found himself walking up staircases that hung suspended in space, leading nowhere. Winding corridors ended in blank enigmatic walls. Many of the doors opened not into rooms, but onto nothingness, so that he would step through and find himself teetering vertiginously on the edge of empty space. And when he did enter a completed room the proportions appeared distorted: the walls buckling, the ceilings pulled askew. The windows drooping deliriously in their frames.

  And he was troubled by an indefinable sense of something missing. He couldn’t work out what it was. But then it hit him. The rooms were completely empty. There were no objects, no figures behind the doors. Where were the talismanic memory images which should have populated these rooms?

  In his first two rides, every room he entered had been occupied—butterflies, blind monks, bloodied doves, giant marbles, lashless eyes—millions of potent images, meticulously conceived. But the rooms through which he was wandering now were bare except for fallen masonry. In some rooms the brick walls were raw and unplastered as though builders had left the premises prematurely. Why?

  But even as he wondered the answer came to him. These rooms had the appearance of being unfinished because that was exactly what they were. This was a work in progress. Minnaloushe had been building this space, but she never had the chance to finish it. And Morrighan was unable to continue without her sister’s help. The anguish Morrighan was feeling was not just for her sibling’s death. It was also for the worlds that would remain undiscovered now Minnaloushe was no longer there to help her sister conceive fresh horizons.

  The wail was increasing in intensity. An unceasing sob. It chilled him to the bone. He was approaching a door with thick strap hinges and a highly chased lock affixed to the timber. He placed his hand on the doorknob and the door swung open.

  This room was not empty.

  It was a big room, a very big room. The floor underfoot was covered by rotting leaf litter. The walls were plastered and he was able to see the shadowy outlines of faded frescoes. Vines curled riotously across the beams in the roof space and climbing roses drooped from flexible stems. There were several trestle tables overladen with seed trays, pots and garden tools. In the air hovered the sweet stench of decay. Several narrow windows, obscured by foliage, lined the walls. A gaseous green light filtered through the dirty panes.

  Something swept past his elbow. A black shadow. The crow had returned. It descended on something in the far corner of the room and perched on top of two hump-like objects covered by what looked like sacking. From where Gabriel stood, he couldn’t see what they were. The light wasn’t strong enough.

  Hesitantly he walked forward. Something told him that he did not want to go any closer, would not want to see what was underneath the sacking. He took another step forward. A sense of foreboding hammered at his brain. No, no.

  He put out his hand to remove the hemp-like cloth and the crow screeched. It flapped its wings in agitation. No, no.

  The wail was now deafening. His fingers gripped the cloth and it started to slide off the objects, caught for a moment. With a determined gesture he ripped the entire length of it clean off.

  Minnaloushe’s body was covered with flowers. Big white star-shaped flowers, the like of which he had never seen before. They were growing from inside her body; the thick stems were sprouting from deep within her flesh, pushing vigorously up through the skin. The flowers gleamed with health and vitality, every petal perfectly formed. Her eyes starry white chambers, her mouth haemorrhaging snowy blooms. Her hair shot through with tender shoots of green.

  Next to her was Robert. Red flowers for him, not white. Red as the fiery petals on the humpback tree shading the swimming pool at Monk House. And suddenly Gabriel knew where Morrighan had buried the boy.

  He staggered back.
/>
  Gabriel…

  His name uttered like a sigh. Like the wind blowing through leaves. The sound made his palms go clammy. It came from behind him.

  The sigh solidified into a whisper. Ga-bri-el. A soft drawn-out whisper—three syllables.

  Ga-bri-el…

  And the air was heavy with the scent of musk and frangipani.

  • • •

  She was dressed exactly the same as when he had encountered her in his first ride. A long dress made of velvet, black but not black, the luscious fabric shot through with emerald thread so that when she moved the folds of material gleamed with light. The sleeves were tight-fitting, as was the bodice, the dark colour accentuating the pallor of her skin. The neckline was delicately pleated and very low-cut, and he could see the full tattoo of the Monas on the soft swell of her breast. From her neck dangled the pendant with the letter M.

  But her true black hair was uncovered, the hood of the cloak turned down. She was not wearing the mask. And why should she? They knew each other now. Oh, yes, they knew each other. No need for subterfuge. No need for hide and seek any longer.

  Ga-bri-el… She lifted her hand. Beckoned.

  He looked away from her and down at the blooming bodies at his feet. Robert bleeding fiery petals. Minnaloushe’s skin looking like alabaster: transparent but shot through with shadows. Underneath the fine pallor lay patches of decay, but still the flowers blossomed with heedless vigour. A bizarre marriage of fecundity and death. A grotesque image conjured up by Morrighan’s mind to keep her sister alive in her memory.

  He stretched out his hand tentatively, mesmerised by the sheen of the white petals.

  Don’t do that.

  He looked back at Morrighan. Her blue eyes glowed. Her crimson mouth was fire.

  Leave her. Come with me.

  Bitch! He was suddenly suffused with fury. Murdering bitch! He lunged at her. She side-stepped—a slight movement. He was punching at air.

  A glimmer of amusement came through from her. And he supposed it was ridiculous. He could pick up that sharp-edged trowel from the table and push it into her body and nothing would happen. In this universe created by her mind he was impotent. It was only inside the portal that he’d be able to wreak destruction and turn this palace of the memory to ruin. That is, if he survived.

  A feeling of futility swept over him. Maybe he should simply stay here. Stay with Minnaloushe. He was never going to be able to escape this labyrinth anyway.

  Come. Impatient now.

  ‘No.’

  Come.

  He shrank back.

  Something nudged at his feet. He looked down.

  The entire floor was covered by rats. A heaving seething mass of squealing, shuddering bodies, evil eyes, whiskers, teeth sharp as razors. His shoes were covered with rats, the rodents jostling against his ankles.

  He looked up. Morrighan had disappeared. She had left him alone with his nightmare.

  This is not real, he told himself despairingly. This is just a memory image. Just something conjured up by Morrighan’s mind. Not real. But the next moment one of the rats fell down on him from one of the trusses in the ceiling space. He could feel the plump weight of the rodent as it slapped onto his shoulder, the claws scrabbling and then hooking into his skin. The next moment the animal had sunk its yellow teeth into his neck. The pain was intense. He tugged the rat off his neck and threw it away from him, shuddering with revulsion. He stumbled towards the door, kicking at the fat bodies crowding his feet. The door. Escape.

  He fell out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  She was waiting for him outside. Come.

  He followed.

  • • •

  In the bed inside the loft apartment Frankie moved restlessly, her head moving from side to side on the pillow. Vaguely she realised that her heartbeat had speeded up enormously. She was suspended in a twilight world where her mind was interfacing with that of the man who was lying beside her, now oblivious of her presence. The link was tenuous; she was receiving only fragments of images and emotions. And a few moments ago, she had received a burst of emotion so violent that the link had almost severed completely, the turbulent static of his thoughts just about wiping the scan clean.

  It was better now. She was picking up the pattern again. A corridor silvered by moonlight. Quick steps. The shadow of a woman sliding sinuously along a curving wall…

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  He was following her shadow. She moved quickly, always staying a few steps ahead of him. Once or twice he had lost sight of her completely as they sped down a long winding corridor, but each time her shadow had stretched behind her, a dark shape on the moon-stained wall, lengthening and contracting, showing the way.

  They were now once more travelling through a populated section of the memory palace, the unfinished building site of Minnaloushe’s imagination swallowed up somewhere far behind them.

  The rooms through which they travelled at present were all filled with mystical objects. A man with the head of a baboon stared at him dispassionately. A white horse neighed madly and tossed its blood-soaked mane. In one room his astonished eyes saw that he was walking on water. Deep down below him were millions of drowned books, some closed, some twirling slowly with pages spread open in fanlike beauty.

  He knew that these were talismanic images—magical images—but he had no comprehension of what information they represented. He was walking through these halls of knowledge without any understanding. It was simply a disturbing, alien world.

  And he was lost. He had no idea how many doors she had opened, how many rooms they had traversed. He had lost track of the number of images they had encountered. He didn’t care. He would never be able to remember the way back. All he was interested in now was reaching the portal. And he had no doubt that was where she was leading him.

  He kept his eyes on her moving form. She had a lovely way of carrying herself, every step graceful but hinting at the power and strength gathered in the fine muscles. Her hair was upswept, allowing him to see the slender stalk of her neck. Her profile was pure. She was a beautiful creature.

  And she was a warrior. Strong. Sleek. On guard. Ready to go into battle. Mhor Rioghain. Great Queen of war and death. He was no match for her. Even Minnaloushe had miscalculated her sister’s ruthlessness.

  Why had Morrighan in the end decided to kill Minnaloushe? An accident, she had said. Not planned. Only Morrighan knew if that were true. Morrighan had needed Minnaloushe to help her build the palace. But maybe jealousy and paranoia had come together in one devastating moment of lethal rage.

  Two warriors. Minnaloushe’s mind had been the subtler, Morrighan’s the more ferocious. Minnaloushe had delighted in practising mental judo, using her adversary’s strength against her. Morrighan’s mind cut like a katana. A few well placed sword strokes demolishing the whole with ruthless precision. No ambiguity.

  And in the end ruthlessness had prevailed. Or had it? If he could reach the portal and release Minnaloushe’s spell, she might well be the final victor.

  He was aware of a hum in the air. He had heard this sound before. He knew what it signalled. A tremor ran through his spine.

  In front of him, Morrighan had stopped. She placed her palm against an uneven stone set into the smoothness of the wall.

  The wall slid to one side.

  The vast room was as he remembered it. As he had dreamed it.

  The portal. It had haunted his sleep for so long. Now that he had reached it he felt strangely calm.

  • • •

  Her link with Gabriel was fragile. At times Frankie would see clearly and the emotions she picked up from him would be true, but then the scan would break up and she’d see only fragments, incoherent images. But as he entered the portal her first impression was as detailed as an etching: a vast space with slowly revolving stone walls densely encrusted with mysterious sigils and fantastic signs. She had never been inside this space before but she recognised it immediately. G
abriel had talked about it so often.

  All these symbols, she knew, could be combined and recombined into infinite patterns of code. This was the heart of the memory palace; the power station driving the entire structure. Above the massive circular walls the dome-like ceiling floated insubstantially, bathed in light.

  And then there were the thirty doors. They formed a semicircle and looked innocuous. But behind one of those doors lay pain and insanity. Open it and an information overload would burst through your brain like savage water breaking through the wall of a dam.

  For a brief moment she remembered the aneurism nestling inside the soft tissue of Gabriel’s brain; a live grenade waiting to explode.

  She sensed the awe, the fear now starting to coat Gabriel’s thoughts. It seeped into her own consciousness like ink absorbed by blotting paper. But part of her mind was cool, an outsider looking in. And she was concerned: where was Morrighan? She wanted Gabriel to find Morrighan, but his focus had slipped away from the woman. He was fully absorbed by the idea of the portal itself. And with the horror lurking behind one of those doors.

  Gabriel was looking up at the ceiling high above him. He turned on his heel. The illuminated dome spun with him. It made Frankie dizzy.

  The scan was breaking up again. One moment the spinning ceiling, then a distorted glimpse of the phantasmagorical symbols on one of the walls rushing past her uncomprehending eyes like an animated frieze.

  Where was Morrighan?

  • • •

  What secrets did this chamber hold? What magic?

  Gabriel looked up and the dome of the ceiling above his head was filled with celestial light.

  You had your chance to understand. You did not take it.

  He whipped round. He had forgotten about Morrighan. She was standing barely a foot away. Her signature was suddenly overpowering. Musk. Frangipani. Curiosity. Intense excitement. Powerful chemicals rushing through her brain sparking a reaction inside his own mind as well.