by Jon Jacks
Its large, double doors were so warped they were permanently closed.
There was only a low, narrow gap that could be squeezed through, should anyone be desperate enough to try.
Beth and Gerry were desperate enough.
Beth slid through easily. She helped pull a complaining, cursing Gerry though.
The acrid breath of old, damp hay hit them.
Yet they threw themselves down upon the mouldy layers as if it were the most welcoming, softest bed in the world.
Their landing threw up clouds of dust and pollen that had lain undisturbed for years.
They coughed, choked, laughed with relief, the clouds growing around them.
Beth blinked.
Just how much dust was there in here?
The pounding of crashing spells continued outside, only slightly muffled by the dilapidated barn’s walls. Beth even felt a burst of heat as, she presumed, a cascade of flames struck along the building’s entire length.
The air around her crackled.
Her hair, like Gerry’s, was standing on end. It seemed to be charged with an immense amount of static.
The dust clouds rolled, accumulated, rising up now towards the ceiling.
They expanded entirely across its width.
They were thick, impenetrable.
From their very centre, a deep, low voice boomed out.
‘So you finally brought her to me. Well done.’
*
Beth leapt to her feet.
Instinctively, she withdrew Hew from the scabbard strapped to her back.
She eyed the churning clouds ominously, searching for any clue that might indicate what might be waiting for her in there.
‘Gerry,’ she hissed. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘Me?’ Gerry was affronted. ‘You brought me here!’
Some of the clouds appeared to be clearing.
Beth splayed her feet, preparing herself for any attack.
Suddenly, something small darted directly towards her from the midst of the clouds.
Automatically, Beth swung Hew up in a graceful, slicing curve.
But she missed.
A hawk whisked past her ear, so close that her skin tingled.
The clouds evaporated in an instant.
And the barn was abruptly plunged into darkness.
*
Chapter 68
A light flared, flickered, then steadied.
Galilee was holding a magically-created ball of light in his hands.
‘Galilee!’ Beth exclaimed in relief.
‘I followed you.’
Frowning uneasily, he held the light higher so it could illuminate more of the barn.
But the barn had disappeared. It had been replaced by a small, low room, with walls constructed of massive stone blocks.
‘Where are we?’ Looking about her in bewilderment, Gerry ungainly rose to her feet.
‘Taking an educated guess – the lair of Horus.’
Galilee slowly turned, lighting up other areas of the room.
‘A pyramid; it’s like being in a pyramid.’
Beth touched the walls to prove to herself that they really existed. That they weren’t an illusion.
‘Horus? That the guy with the weird eye?’ Gerry was the most unnerved of them all. ‘Where’s the way out of here?’
‘Over there, I think.’ Galilee stretched out his arm so that the light fell on an oblong of darkness tucked away in one of the corners. ‘It looks like it could be a corridor.’
The corridor was even more claustrophobic than the room. It was narrow, and ridiculously low.
‘So, this educated guess,’ Beth said as they cautiously made their way down the corridor, Galilee leading the way. ‘What makes you think it’s Horus’s lair? – apart from it looking a lot like a pyramid, of course.’
‘The hawk. That was Horus himself, I’ll bet. Then, of course, there’s the reason why I followed you; because I noticed Gerry lost her shadow just before you scrambled into the barn.’
‘Oh, not this nonsense again!’ Glancing back, Gerry was reassured to see their merging, quivering shadows. ‘How many – ohh no!’
Gerry gasped in horror as Galilee, whirling around and stepping towards her, held the light close to her. The shadow behind her vanished.
The only shadows now lay ahead of them, cast by Galilee and Beth alone.
‘But that’s impossible!’ Gerry wailed. ‘What’s happening Beth?’
Beth angrily turned on Galilee. ‘The hawk flew past me while Gerry was with me. So I really don’t think she–’
‘Me neither,’ Galilee said, taking his place at their head once more.
They continued to wind their way along a corridor that dipped, curved, and turned at sharp angles. It was undoubtedly taking them ever lower into the ground.
‘Horus is her shadow, Beth.’
‘Her shadow? How can he be in a shadow?’
‘That would have been my thoughts exactly, dearie, if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve no longer got a shadow!’
Despite her attempts to sound assured, Gerry’s voice quivered with a hint of panic.
‘I should have thought of it before. But I didn’t, until I saw all this–’ with a wave of the light, Galilee indicated the stone corridor – ‘and put it together with seeing Gerry without her shadow. See, Horus’s wife, Iusaaset, was his own shadow. I reckon he’s just somehow reversed that relationship. So that now he’s the one who’s the shadow.’
‘You’re saying I’m his wife!’
Gerry was more affronted by this than any previous accusation, including the one that she might have been implicated in Foley’s death.
‘And, could I just add – are we doing the right thing heading deeper into this crypt, or whatever it is?’
‘What choice do we have?’
Galilee stopped as they arrived at a wide, oak door set back into the wall on one side of the corridor. He glanced back at the others.
‘Shhussh!’ he whispered, tentatively reaching for the handle. ‘This looks to be the only way out of the room we set off from, right?’
He said it as if he were asking for their permission to try the door. He tried it anyway.
For a moment, they were each dazzled by the light that flooded from the room into the corridor. It was a room far bigger than the one they had left behind them.
It was crammed to the ceiling with treasure of every kind, from gold plates to sparkling jewellery. The light emanated from glorious, multi-coloured gems containing their own inner light.
Amongst it all, disturbed by the opening of the door, a dragon stirred. His shimmering scales were every bit as beautiful as the horde he guarded.
‘Now, getting back to what you were saying about you being Horus’s wife…’
Quickly closing the door, Galilee set off down the corridor again, obviously expecting the others to follow.
‘See, a bit like me and Beth here, I reckon that one of your ancestors unfortunately ended up being host to a magical spirit. One who was a whole lot more wicked and powerful than most.’
As he came to another door, Galilee once again took a peek inside.
He only gave himself enough time to check for any exits, but it gave Beth and Gerry a chance to peer inside. This room was even more remarkable than the last, as it easily extended over a number of acres.
Even more incredibly, it was not only a beautiful, living, breathing landscape, but also a landscape in miniature. There were fields, trees, lakes, seas, farms, ships, towns, and scudding clouds.
The miniature world even had its own rapidly rising and setting sun.
‘As Horus’s wife was st
ill a part of him, it may be he kind of – who knows how gradually? – switched places. It would allow him more freedom to use his powers.’
‘How can anybody be a shadow?’ Gerry scoffed.
‘Well, what about your friend, Barry Cheung? He could be nothing more than a wisp of smoke, when it suited him. And that’s probably why Horus decided he had to get rid of him. Barry was getting close to you, from what I could see. And Barry, of course, was perfectly aware that a magical spirit can be far more insubstantial than we’d tend to assume.’
They were approaching another door. It was much smaller than the others, being slim and low.
‘But why Canola?’ Beth asked. ‘Did he do that to her just to get us to use up energy?’
Galilee approached the third door far more cautiously than the others.
‘He saw how he could get himself an extra advantage out of it, sure.’
Placing his hand on the door’s handle, he held it for a moment as if unsure about opening it.
‘But he really wanted Canola out of the way because of what she’d seen while hooked up to Gerry.’
He opened the door surprisingly quickly, and by less than a hand span.
He swung his light forward swiftly, craning his neck to look inside. Beth also quickly glanced inside.
She was disappointed. Unlike the other rooms, this was little more than a broom cupboard.
And an empty one at that.
She could see the light from Galilee’s outstretched hands reflecting back from the walls.
‘But she didn’t see anything!’ Beth insisted.
Galilee abruptly slammed the door shut, as if stopping some fearsome beast from escaping.
Relief flooded his face.
‘It’s strange; we’ve not really seen anything more dangerous than the dragon so far,’ Beth observed, hoping to draw an explanation out him.
Galilee chuckled bitterly
‘Don’t be fooled by how innocent all these rooms appear Beth.’ He saw the curiosity in her eyes. ‘And this room is the most dangerous of all!’
He set off walking again, offering no further explanation regarding the rooms. Instead, he returned to their discussion of Horus’s treatment of Canola.
‘Of course, Canola didn’t see anything! It was an emptiness, right?’
He fleetingly turned to Gerry.
‘Canola actually said you were just a shadow of what you could be. It was just a coincidence, her choice of words, but I blame myself for not spotting what that could mean.’
‘Of course!’ Beth almost slapped her head for not noticing the similarities earlier. ‘Mum suffered the same thing when I was born. Lynese became a part of me, rather than her, leaving her feeling – well, sort of empty too!’
‘Ahh!’
Beth presumed Galilee was agreeing with her until she noticed he was standing next to a solid wall.
They had come to a dead end.
He held his light up. He swung it around, in the hope of finding some way of continuing their journey.
He spun on his heels.
‘I suppose we’ll just have to – ahh!’
Not far behind Gerry, another wall had appeared from nowhere, completely blocking the corridor.
They were walled in, no matter which way they turned.
*
Chapter 69
‘The door–’
‘No, not the door!’
Urgently reaching forward, Galilee grabbed hold of Beth. He pulled her back towards him.
The small, slim door had been left inside what was now a thin, imprisoning room.
‘But–’
‘No! We need to think of some other way of getting out. Any other way!’
Letting go of Beth, he raised the hand holding the light and began to carefully inspect the walls.
He seemed to Beth to be seeking the secret, moving stone that always allowed a movie hero to escape similar traps.
Beth couldn’t take her eyes off the door.
‘But what’s the point of looking for–’
‘Because it’s not just a normal door, okay?’ he interrupted tersely.
Why’s he always denying you your right to know what things like this door really are? Does he really think he’s the only one entitled to know?
‘What’s so bad about a broom cupboard?’
Beth still couldn’t stop staring at the door.
What would such a small room be doing here?
The other two doors had opened onto enormous rooms.
Perhaps she hadn’t seen the third room right.
She had only had a glimpse, after all.
Galilee had slammed the door shut before she could see anything more.
Who’s to say it didn’t lead somewhere else?
‘Beth, please, trust me!’ Galilee was still searching for the hidden handle that only ever existed in movies and books. ‘We can’t use the door!’
Trust him? You’re always being asked to trust him! Yet when you ask him anything, he seems to think it’s perfectly all right to refuse you any answers!
Beth started to head towards the door once again.
‘Why won’t you let me just–’
Galilee leapt towards Beth, grabbing and pulling her back once more.
‘I said no, Beth!’
‘How come you get to say “no” to me all the time?’ Beth irritably shrugged him off.
‘Because it’s a room that–’
He froze.
The door had opened slightly.
Invitingly.
Galilee shook his head.
‘I can’t explain what’s in there Beth.’ He watched the door with relief as it slowly shut. ‘Please trust me!’
‘Won’t you mean; not can’t,’ Beth spat bitterly. ‘There’s a difference!’
‘Wouldn’t you guys just be better off using magic to get us out of here rather than arguing?’
Gerry had at last shook off her bemused daze. She also seemed to have regained some of her natural authority too.
‘Isn’t that what magic’s supposed to do? Help you out of situations like this?’
‘Looks real, solid doesn’t it?’
Galilee drew her attention to the stonework by resting a hand against the wall.
‘And yes, it’s solid sure enough – but it’s a magic construct in its own right. An incredibly complex, powerful one. And in our present form, we’ve very little chance of combating it.’
He went back to closely searching the walls, as if seeking that secret compartment once more.
‘Unless, that is, we can discover something in its own construction – possibly a flaw, but more likely what could be called a necessary weakness.’
‘Necessary weakness?’
Intrigued, Beth also began to scrutinise the wall. Even though she wasn’t sure what she was really looking for.
‘Every construction, either in the way it’s built, or in the way it was built, contains a perhaps minor, and usually concealed, weakness. Like the way the process for sealing the Titanic’s hull plates weakened the rivets and actually sealed its fate.’
‘So what are we looking for?’ Gerry asked, having joined the search.
‘We won’t know until we find it,’ Galilee answered with a wry grin.
Beth grimaced.
‘Which means we might not find it, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
*
‘Nothing; there’s nothing here,’ Gerry grumbled after a few minutes fruitless searching.
She glanced over at the door.
‘I’m not sure what you think’s in that room, Gal old boy, but it’s looking more inviting by the minute.’
‘The door’s out of bounds.’ Galilee continued to delicately feel and probe at the walls. ‘Chances are, there’s something here we can use.’
‘Yeah, but chance isn’t what it used to be, remember?’
Beth couldn’t help recalling the slaps she had received from Donna every time the flipped coin had come up tails.
‘Magic’s not what it used to be either,’ Gerry mumbled tetchily, even though she had gone back to closely studying the walls. ‘Trapping poor, innocent people like us in pyramids conjured up from nowhere. Magic used to be some idiot on TV fooling you into looking the other way while he slipped a coin into his palm.’
Fortunately, she didn’t notice Beth and Galilee swapping amused glances as she kept up her grumbling.
‘It wasn’t fooling poor young soldiers into killing each other, neither!’
‘Wait a minute; you’ve got something there Gerry!’
Beth stood back from the wall she had been patiently running her hands over.
‘Those poor soldiers had been fooled into looking the wrong way!’
She glanced around the thin, blocked-off corridor with a new intensity.
‘They saw and shot at an army that didn’t exist, that probably couldn’t even harm them. The harm came from their own bullets; from others like themselves shooting at phantoms.’
Galilee bristled anxiously as Beth once again stared at the door.
‘The door – that’s drawing our attention.’ She looked about her. ‘But drawing our attention away from what?’
‘The ceiling.’ Galilee gazed up at the ceiling. ‘The door made sure we couldn’t break out of thinking the way out of here had to be something like another door, or another corridor.’
Spinning around, he went into a crouch, saying, ‘Beth – climb up on my back.’
As Beth made herself as comfortable as she could on Galilee’s back, he rose to his feet once more. Stretching up, Beth began to feel along the ceiling.
‘Move over more towards the door,’ Beth suggested, continuing to run her hands over the sandy stone even as he made his way there.
‘Hang on; how about just above the door itself?’
Galilee twirled lightly on his feet so that he was close to and facing the door.
‘No, not the ceiling. The thin bit of wall between the top and the ceiling. Isn’t that the place we’d be least likely to check?’
Beth brought her hands down to the narrow section of wall running across the top of the door’s frame.
‘No, nothing here th– no, wait!’
She felt the stone move under her fingers. It was malleable, more like soft clay than stone.
Then her hand slipped inside as if the stone were nothing more substantial than a virtual image.
‘Try and reach up,’ Galilee exclaimed excitedly, having seen the way Beth’s hand had disappeared into what seemed to be a solid wall. ‘Try and bend it around the ceiling, as if it were a door!’
