by Kim Falconer
‘This is another reason why we need those maps,’ Jarrod had said. ‘There would be a portal on Lemur, surely.’
‘If there is, it’s hiding,’ Rosette had said.
They’d slipped into the portal above Bastis Point, trusting the Entity to take them where they were needed. Now Gaela was far behind, and what lay ahead, Rosette had no idea. Jarrod had been right in front of her. It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t there now.
She kept one hand on the rock wall, the other on her sword hilt, and squinted into the distance. ‘Is that the light up ahead that you’re talking about, Dray?’
You can see it?
‘I can. It must be the way out.’
I certainly hope so, Maudi.
A pinprick of light showed in the distance. The ground rumbled beneath her and she tripped over the uneven rocks. Drayco waited for her to scramble up again before breaking into a jog.
‘Jarrod must be waiting for us at the entrance.’
If he is, he’s not answering me.
The mouth of the cave widened as they approached.
Something’s not right, Maudi.
She slowed, dropping her hand from the wall and drawing her sword. It sang as it cut through the air, glinting in the increasing light. Holding it in a guard position, she rested her other hand on Drayco, feeling the tension in his neck.
I don’t think the sword’s going to be of much use, though.
‘Why not?’
You can’t fight a mountain with it, and right now, the mountain is the problem.
A tremor shook, the ground rolling like a wave.
‘What was that?’ she whispered, gripping the hilt with both hands.
Feels like an earthquake to me. A big one.
Rocks tumbled around them.
‘Run!’ she screamed.
The ground churned as she bolted towards the opening. Pebbles and dirt rushed down the walls, turning into torrents that piled in mounds of debris. Dust billowed and she choked, the taste of chalk in her mouth. The ground opened up behind them, and they raced to stay ahead of the rifts. The acrid smell of sulphur filled the air.
The entrance was only a breath away. It framed a landscape of twisted trees and swamp. Tangles of branches were draped with sea-green moss, hanging like tattered kelp at low tide. A murder of crows took flight from bare limbs as they approached, their squawks and caws drowning out all but the tearing ground.
‘Keep going!’ Rosette yelled as the roar of the cracking mountain hammered her ears.
They burst through the entrance onto a narrow track and skirted the cliff face. There was no sign of Jarrod, and no time to investigate. She sheathed her sword, then raced down the trail to the edge of the marsh. They hit the swamp running, muck sucking at Rosette’s boots and caking her bare legs. The hem of her skirt and cloak were heavy with ooze, forcing her to a slow-motion trudge. Drayco moved in a series of leaps, mud up to his belly fur. He kept his chin high, his long black whiskers brushing the surface as he sank deeper into the mire. He grumbled obscenities in her mind. The stench was nauseating.
What do you think died here, Maudi?
The hoary trees quivered and shook, branches crumbling as they fell.
‘Everything,’ she answered, shouting to be heard.
We’re going to add to it if it gets any deeper. We can’t swim in this sludge.
‘There’s higher ground this way.’ She motioned for him to follow, touching his neck as she veered out of the depths. Not far ahead stood a large oak, branches spread wide over a knoll—an oasis in an endless black mire.
The ground firmed as they reached the roots of the tree. It was still alive, judging by its olive-coloured leaves and the odd acorn among the twist of branches. Rosette turned, her sides heaving, mud dripping down her legs. A deafening sound boomed from the cave, the mouth now obscured by boulders, rock and rubble. Dust clouds shot towards the summit, slowly settling like a mist on the newly reshaped rock face.
‘Jarrod?’ she whispered.
The entrance to the cave, and to the portal, was gone. Save for their breathing and the squelch of mud, everything was silent.
Drayco narrowed his orange eyes, staring back the way they’d come. That portal’s lost, I imagine.
Rosette grimaced. The mire was seeping in between the laces of her boots, saturating her socks like noisome glue. She wiped her hands on an edge of her cloak before brushing back wisps of hair that had escaped her long braids. ‘If the portal is lost, Drayco, so are we.’
The temple cat didn’t answer. He bristled, staring up into the tree.
‘What, Dray? What do you see?’
A low growl emanated from his throat.
Jarrod sat cross-legged by the mouth of the cave, his back against the rock wall. He closed his eyes, wishing he could do the same to his nose. The smell of decay made him sick to his stomach, a feeling he was not accustomed to. There were definite disadvantages to being in a human body, tulpa or no. This was another to add to his list. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks, though. He smiled at the thought.
A picnic scene came immediately to mind—particularly the blooming cherry trees in the courtyard of Timbali Temple’s main library. Rosette’s long black hair was covered with pink flower petals, filled with the scent of early spring. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Not long after the picnic had been packed away and they were back in the library, they’d heard the call. Looking into each other’s eyes, they’d closed their books and were out the door in moments, heading for the Gulf of Tasisia and the portal on Bastis Point. But the picnic had been lovely, he mused.
There would be other picnics, surely, but never exactly like that one, with the cherry blossoms in her hair and the figbirds chattering overhead. He’d been going to broach a topic—one that had been on his mind for some time—but never quite got to it. Now it would have to wait. He wrinkled his nose. What’s taking her so long? They were right behind me.
He’d been on the edge of the mountain for three days—their longest separation yet—and still there was no sign of Rosette and Drayco. This wasn’t the first time they’d travelled to an unknown world, responding to the call of the Entities—guardians of the portals. So far, he and Rosette, and her enigmatic familiar, had come through together, seconds apart. Time had been on their side. But not any more. He flicked dust from his leggings and stared at the swamp.
He understood the physics of it, the slowing down of dimensional space perception. It was an illusion, though an extremely convincing one. It had happened to him and Janis Richter all those hundreds of years ago when they stumbled onto Gaela and hid his CPU in the gorge above Corsanon. His eyebrows narrowed at the memory. Just like then, he had no idea where he was now. As far as he could tell, this world was his own, thousands of years ago. Or perhaps it was really another world altogether, thousands of light years away. There was no knowing. Not yet. Not until he had a look around, and that wasn’t going to happen until Rosette arrived.
A snapping twig cut short his thoughts. He didn’t move, didn’t shift his eyes, but heightened his awareness, stretching it out in all directions like an invisible web. He kept his hands resting together in his lap, his shoulders relaxed, eyes soft behind closed lids. Soon he could hear branches giving way to bipedal travellers, two of them by the sound of it. Their boots slogged through the mud, the low buzz of their voices mellifluous in his head. The language was unrecognisable. He guessed they were about a mile off and would take some time to arrive, if they were coming this way at all. Jarrod suspected they were.
He waited, unmoving, sinking deeper into meditation, letting the sounds and smells of his immediate environment fade away. When he opened his eyes, a man and a woman stood before him, fixing him with dark stares and drawn swords. He assessed them both and turned to the female. ‘Greetings,’ Jarrod said, his lips lifting into a smile. The tone of his voice was like sunshine.
‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ the woman asked. Her sword
remained directed at him, like an extension of her arm. The dull light that filtered through the clouds bounced off the edge of her blade and hit his eyes, making him squint. Clever.
The woman spoke with confidence and assertion. There was a sternness to her that suggested she would not hesitate to maim—or kill. Jarrod suspected she was not much older than Rosette, perhaps in her late twenties. Her body was wiry with long limbs, clad in leather pants and vest. Her hair was a short, spiky brown, her eyes green like Gaela’s North Sea—quite a contrast to the drab background of this world. She wore a black cloak flung back from her shoulders and clasped at the neck with a silver image of the moon. Her long fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword like vines around a branch. What a focused soul, he thought. She’ll have to meet Rosette.
‘Answer me,’ the woman said. Her voice became more challenging as she raised her sword slightly, moving the refracted light back into his eyes. The hem of her sleeve fell back as her arm lifted, revealing the edges of a dark tattoo. It looked like the head of a serpent or a reptile, its mouth open, hissing.
Jarrod processed the words she spoke, considering her syntax and inflections, creating a new database for the language. It had vaguely familiar components. Ancient Babylonian Earth? He would have to research that. ‘I’m a traveller, waiting for my companion,’ he answered back in her own tongue. ‘Who are you?’
She lowered her sword enough to drop the glare from his eyes. ‘I am Selene, first marshal of the border scouts.’
Jarrod nodded his head, about to speak.
‘State your name and placement,’ the man cut in, holding the tip of his sword an arm’s length from Jarrod’s throat. He was taller than Selene—just—with a lithe, muscular build. His arms were bare from the shoulders down, and both were etched in tattoos of flames that licked up towards his face. His eyes were vivid blue, a colour beyond anything in this murky world. His sandy hair was cropped short except for a long thin braid that fell from the nape of his neck to his waist.
Drayco! Are you through the portal?
There was no reply.
‘Name and placement?’ the man repeated, stepping a fraction closer.
‘My name’s Jarrod Cossica. I’m not from around here, so the “placement” query is unanswerable.’ He watched as the two of them seemed to confer without sound or gesture, wondering if they were telepathic. He tuned in, but couldn’t hear their thoughts. Interesting…
‘Where are you from, Jarrod Cossica, and how did you learn our language if you are, as you say, “not from around here”?’ Selene asked, her voice more curious now than challenging. He could imagine it being quite lilting, if she wanted it to be. She shifted her stance.
‘If you speak our dialect, you have a placement,’ the man said, interrupting her again. ‘Answer.’
There was no hint of a lilt in his voice. The man’s irritation was transparent, though Jarrod couldn’t work out if it was towards him or Selene. He seemed to be scowling at them both. Jarrod’s eyes went soft, focused on nothing and everything at once. As he took a deep breath, he turned to the man, expanding his energy field towards him. He held him immobile until the other finally lowered his sword, a quizzical expression on his face.
‘My name is Shane,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ Jarrod turned back to Selene. ‘I’m recently from Gaela, a long way away. I came here to…’
‘Did you come from there?’ she asked, nodding towards the mouth of the cave.
A race of interrupters, it seems.
‘Yes, I came to…’
‘Then I know why you’re here,’ she said, looking past him into the depths of the mountain. She sheathed her sword and nodded for Shane to do the same. ‘It’s him.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Who else could he be? Besides, you felt it, didn’t you?’
The man grimaced at her for some time before finally nodding.
‘We called you,’ she said, bringing her attention back to Jarrod.
He kept his face expressionless. Something wasn’t right. She couldn’t have been the one that called them. She wasn’t telepathic.
‘You need to come with me,’ Selene said. The words were not an invitation.
‘As I mentioned earlier,’ Jarrod replied, slowly standing up as he spoke. He brushed the dust from his hands while looking her in the eye. ‘I’m waiting for my friends. I don’t want to abandon them.’
‘You said you had one companion.’
‘Yes, I did, but it’s actually one, plus one other.’ Jarrod shot another mental thought to Drayco. Where are you two? Again there was no reply. They’d either not arrived yet, or had arrived elsewhere. Accept it, Cossica, and move on. It’s not going to solve itself in this moment.
‘He’ll wait for them,’ Selene said, tilting her head towards Shane. The other man stiffened, his face contorting as he stared back at her. It was obvious he didn’t like the idea at all, but the look in Selene’s eyes didn’t change. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long,’ she added.
‘What if it is?’ Shane asked.
‘You can practise one of those instruments you always have with you.’ Her tone was dismissive.
‘How long have you been waiting?’ he asked Jarrod.
‘A few days.’
‘So it couldn’t be much longer,’ she said. ‘Good news.’
Shane stood firm for a moment before sheathing his sword. The scowl on his face didn’t lift. He was not Jarrod’s first pick for Rosette’s welcoming party.
‘We need you now,’ Selene said to Jarrod. ‘Follow me.’
Jarrod had no desire to leave this man waiting for Rosette. She’d probably carve him to shreds before they’d exchanged two words—not that she would understand his language, or he hers. Still, he did look like he could handle himself, and Selene had a sense of urgency. He made a decision instantly from an infinite array of possibilities. ‘I’d like to leave a token for my companion, unless either of you have a notepad and pen?’
Neither did.
‘Her name is Rosette and she’ll be coming out of that cave some time soon. Her, and her familiar.’
Shane looked quizzical. ‘Familiar?’ He said the word as if it prickled his mouth. ‘What’s that?’
‘A temple cat…a large one.’
Shane shook his head.
‘I think he means tabby cat,’ Selene replied, her voice softening with the last word.
Jarrod smiled. ‘Yes, a tabby, more or less. More, really. He has no stripes, though. All black,’ Jarrod said. He held his hand hip-high. ‘And larger.’
‘Larger?’
‘A big beast.’
Shane wrinkled his nose.
‘Not a cat lover?’ Jarrod rubbed the back of his neck. Good luck. ‘Take this. It’ll help,’ Jarrod said, untying his pendant. He looked at it briefly. It was a silver falcon, wings outstretched and inlaid with turquoise. The wingtips curved upward, forming a semicircle topped by a brilliant ruby sun.
Handing it to Shane, he said, ‘It will persuade her to come with you, assuring her that you’ll know where I am. I don’t think you’ll be able to communicate, unless she can hit your frequency.’
‘Frequency?’ Shane said, looking at the small falcon and rubbing his thumb over the face of the sun.
‘Your mind speech.’
Shane shrugged before slipping the charm into his breast pocket. ‘I don’t have a mind speech.’
‘Then the pendant will help, as long as she doesn’t think you took it from me by force.’
Shane spun around to Selene, about to speak.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, avoiding eye contact with either of them. She adjusted her belt and headed out into the swamp, not looking to see if Jarrod followed.
Shane stared after them as they waded into the fog. It hovered knee-deep above the swamp, rising in wisps that dissipated before touching the misshapen branches and clouds of gnats and flies. If he could bore holes into them with his eyes, he would. He didn�
�t look away until they’d disappeared.
Perfect. Now I’m to be doorman to some foreigner who’s most likely going to attack before I speak my name. And what did he mean, ‘larger’ tabby? He brushed the flies away from his face—a futile exercise. This day was not going as planned. Nothing close.
Early that morning, he’d volunteered to walk the borders with Selene. He regularly jumped at any chance for her company, love having that insatiable urge towards proximity that cannot otherwise be explained. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience, being with the woman. She was sharp, like fine-cut glass, and she used her wit as a barrier against his desires, his suggestions, his lust. There was no way in. Not for him. Every day he awoke hoping she might open up, and every night he fell asleep disappointed, miserable. He hated it and loved it in equal measure—a demon forever swallowing its tail.
Today Selene had proved aloof, as always, her proficient, detached manner impossible to penetrate with any kind of warmth or meaningful exchange. The more she deflected his efforts, the more sullen he’d become, until he’d finally given up his overtures reduced to glares and grumbles. Inevitably he found himself wishing he was far from the stinking border marshes, far from his ice-cold Selene, in a warm pub, drinking beer and playing tunes with other bards. Now that she was gone, it seemed he had been granted half his wish. He was far from her, but it didn’t help. Nothing did.
He turned his back to the cave and slid down the granite face until he sat on the ground, his head resting against the wall. There was no warmth in the rock, and no comfort in the view. A flock of crows circled above. They alighted in several of the trees, their squawks and caws filling the foul air with earsplitting noise.
He rummaged in his pack and brought out his flute. The creases in his forehead softened as he began to play, the music wafting sweet and brisk over the bog, drowning out the incessant hum of insects and competing with the crows. As he played, the pinch in his heart began to lessen and his spirits lightened, just a little.
