The Slanted Worlds

by Catherine Fisher

  He smiled his dragging smile. “Don’t hate me, Becky.”

  “Then don’t make me. You can help them, work with them. You can wait. The threat to the mirror comes first. From Summer. And from Janus.” She stepped forward, almost touching him. “Because who can save us from Janus if not you? I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re more powerful than any of us, maybe even than Summer herself. And I trust you.”

  A gurgle behind them. She turned and saw the marmoset, Horatio, and the baby face-to-face, staring at each other in mutual fascination.

  When she turned back, Maskelyne was watching her, his eyes dark as the glass.

  “I think only you keep me human, Becky,” he murmured.

  Sarah and Wharton scrambled through the Wood, torn by thorns.

  “Can you see it?” she screamed.

  He couldn’t. The bird was lost in the misty cloud that hung low over the treetops. And the Shee were coming now, swooping down from the rain, a dark birdfall onto the gnarled and lichened branches.

  “Be careful!”

  Her yell warned him just in time. The Wood fell away at his feet into a deep ravine; in its depths the river roared over stones hurtling toward the gray shimmer of the Abbey through the trees.

  He skidded to a stop, sending soil and pebbles rattling down. Ancient gravestones rose from the saturated soil; leaning crosses and a languid angel with folded wings.

  “Where is this?” he gasped.

  “The green chapel. Some ancient part of the Abbey.” Sarah stared up hopelessly at the gray sky. The bird had fled, but Summer would surely find it, fall on it, tear it to bits with her fierce beak and talons.

  And take the coin.

  She wanted to howl with fury and despair. Instead she said icily, “I suppose you’re pleased.”

  Wharton backed from the crumbling edge. He said, “Of course not. Not if Summer knows the power of the coin. What a weapon against Venn.”

  They looked at each other, while the Shee fluttered down around them in a glittering flock. As each starling alighted, the trees were weighed with wings, rows of bright eyes, beaks pecking and squawking and fighting each other.

  “And now you know it too,” he said. “Who told you? That changeling?”

  “You did, George. I . . . overheard you and Jake talking.”

  He grimaced. “Oh great.”

  The soil slid. She turned, to cover her odd feeling of shame, then stared. “The whole hillside is moving.”

  The graveyard shuddered. It slipped down toward the Abbey as if the weighted trees would crush the building, as if it would scatter stones and bones into the raging river.

  Sarah gave a yell of fear. With a flicker of green coattails Gideon had risen up from the water and was being hurtled along down there, slammed against boulders and snagged timbers, then up again, gasping.

  “We have to get to him!” A tiny trail running with rainwater led over the edge; without hesitation she was slithering down, grabbing brambles and gorse, ignoring the stings and scratches.

  “Wait! Sarah!” Wharton scrambled after her, desperate at being so clumsy and breathless. As his feet slipped he looked up. And saw Venn. The man’s blond hair was slicked by the current; he was swimming strongly. As Sarah reached the shore and raced along it, leaping flood debris, he slid under the brown waters and dived for Gideon.

  For a moment there was nothing but foam.

  Wharton crashed down beside her. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t see . . . There!”

  Venn surfaced and he had Gideon with him. In a tangle of limbs they hit a half-drowned tree and hung on. In moments Sarah was there; she grabbed Gideon and hauled at him and he scrambled quickly out, collapsing on hands and knees on the bank, spitting water.

  Sarah turned back to Venn. Their hands gripped, his eyes, blue as ice, met hers. But he was heavy, the current dragging at him, and she knew as his hand slid from hers she didn’t have the strength to hold him. She screamed.

  Instantly Wharton was there, pushing her aside, solid as a rock in the water; Venn grabbed him and Wharton dragged, and through the terrible suck of the water hauled him out, sleek and soaked as an otter, and quite abruptly she knew he was safe, and sat down, weak with relief.

  Beside her came a bitter, soft laughter. Gideon was pushing his long hair from his face.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Did he think They would let me die? No chance.”

  “Maybe for a moment she forgot about you,” Sarah snapped. “Maybe other things are more important.” She watched Venn and Wharton climbing up the rocks. All at once her failure came and crushed her; all her energy seemed gone, all her hopes lost.

  Gideon stared at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Her voice was numb. “I didn’t get the coin. And Summer knows. It’s all over.” The words seemed too weak for the weight of her despair; judging by his silence, Gideon was appalled too.

  “At least you still have your dreams,” he muttered.

  Before she could say any more Venn was there, water dripping from his hands and clothes. She saw at once that something had changed in him. His skin was pale, his hair held a strange new silvery shimmer.

  He stood and turned and yelled in an explosion of fury that shook the Wood. “Go! All of you! Leave my house alone!”

  The starlings screeched. They rose in a mighty flock, so many of them, thousands upon thousands, that they darkened the sky, and Sarah felt the relief of the trees, the weight lifted from them, the slow, sliding arrest of their descent.

  Janus watched as plaster crashed from my ceiling. Then, as if deliberately enjoying my obvious terror, he walked straight through the bars of the cage!!

  He stood face-to-face with David.

  “Give me the bracelet,” he said calmly. “Only I can save you now.”

  “Dad! No!” Through the ache of the stab wound, Jake watched his father anxiously.

  David stared Janus down. But I saw he was quite defeated. He said, “We have no choice, son. None at all.”

  His fingers unclicked the silver snake.

  But in that second the mirror pulsed, and out of it stepped a stranger, a dark scarred man. He too wore a bracelet, and carried a most peculiar weapon, made of glass. He leveled it straight at Janus.

  “Yes you do,” he said quietly.

  All down the street, the bombs began to fall, one by one. And now I knew that under one of them, I would die.

  25

  . . . And since that day, in every generation, the eldest male of the Venn family has faced the fearsome choice. Some have died in strange circumstances, others have fled the land, others have marched recklessly to war and been killed in the front line. As if each had a terror of what awaited him in Wintercombe Wood.

  But one day, a Venn will re-enter that dark forest forever.

  And its Queen will be waiting.

  Chronicle of Wintercombe

  PIERS RAN INTO them as they straggled back to the house; Venn striding ahead, Gideon at his heels, Wharton trailing behind with Sarah.

  “Oh Excellency!” Breathless, he clasped his hands to his hips, doubled up. “So glad I’ve found you . . . message . . . Sarah . . . she’s after the coin . . . knows about it.”

  “Message from who?” Venn stared at him. “Piers, who the hell have you left looking after the mirror?”

  “The cats. And Maskelyne.”

  “Are you insane!”

  Piers looked uneasy. Venn swung on Sarah. “You promised to help me,” he said quietly. “Instead you went after the one thing that will destroy me. How can I ever trust you now, Sarah? If my own family betray me, how can I trust anyone?”

  She was silent. She wanted to say something to ease his pain, but no words came.

  “So where is the broken coin?” His voice w
as bleak. “Did you get it back? Did you let Summer know the one thing she should never know?”

  She was all at once too tired and dismayed to care what he thought. “I tried to get it and failed. Summer kept it in a red box that seemed to hold the whole universe. And though I didn’t tell her what it could do, I think she’s beginning to guess.”

  Venn snorted, looking straight ahead through the trees. “My greatest enemy owns half of the device that can destroy everything I’ve worked for. And you gave it to her.”

  Sarah was silent. She felt Wharton’s hand squeeze hers, a reassuring warmth. He said, “Look, hadn’t we better get to the Abbey? If Maskelyne takes the mirror . . .”

  Venn was already running. They raced after him, through the tangled undergrowth of the bare wood, along paths muddy with rain, leaping fallen branches. Ducking out onto the overgrown lawns, Venn stopped, amazed.

  The hillside at the back of the house had moved. Now the wooded cliff and its overgrown graves hung at a new angle, the ancient chapel up there broken in strange formation, on the edge of the ravine.

  He seemed struck by it; he whispered, “An avalanche of earth,” and Gideon raised an eyebrow at Sarah.

  She said, “Like on Katra Simba?”

  Venn turned his winter stare on her. “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing. Except that you survived, and the others didn’t.”

  He nodded. “And how I wept for them, Sarah. Deep below the ground, buried in that terror of whiteness, digging my way out with my own hands, how I cried out for them. But the mountain was inexorable. The mountain spat me out and ordered me away. There was nothing I could do.”

  He looked away, then said, “The rain has stopped.”

  She nodded. Far away, up beyond the gray lid of cloud, the sky was lightening.

  As they hurried through the cloister, she felt as if something around them, something in him, was dissolving, cracking, opening wide. It scared her.

  At the Monk’s Walk all seven cats were sitting outside the lab.

  “What’s this?” Piers ran among them in dismay; he opened the door of the lab and tumbled in.

  Rebecca turned. “Thank God!” she said.

  Venn hauled her roughly back from the mirror. “What on earth has he done to it?”

  For the mirror was not black. It was clear as ice, and through it they saw Jake.

  And David.

  And Janus.

  Janus gazed at the weapon. The he raised the blue discs of his spectacles to Maskelyne. “I am beginning to suspect you made that especially to kill me over and over. Because of course I am just a replicant. A copy of myself.”

  Maskelyne nodded. “For now. But one day I’ll find my way back to you. You took my mirror and used it for such evil.”

  “We.” Janus’s blue glasses caught the light. “We used it. You yourself experimented with darkness, my friend. You taught me everything I know. You were Blaize to my Merlin. I am simply the pupil who surpasses the master.”

  Maskelyne’s aim did not flicker.

  “Fire!” Jake growled.

  “No need.” The scarred man jerked the weapon toward the mirror. “Leave now. Leave us alone. There’s nothing for you here.”

  Janus shrugged, a piqued distaste in his face. He bowed sarcastically to Alicia, who drew herself up stiff with dislike.

  “Are you just going to let this man go?” she demanded.

  “He’s nothing.” Maskelyne stepped aside. “The original is a thing far in the future. Ask Sarah.”

  Janus turned to David. “Tell Venn he will never succeed. Time is too much for any mortal. It will destroy him.”

  He turned to the mirror, and to his astonishment, Jake saw that it was a window now, completely transparent, and that they were all in there, Piers, Sarah, Wharton, Venn. And Rebecca, her gaze on Maskelyne, dark and troubled.

  Venn came close to the silver frame. “No, it won’t.”

  “Oh, you think you’re so different, Venn.” Janus nodded. “And maybe you are. Maybe you can evade time. But that will have its price. And one day soon, you’ll really have to choose. Between being human, or being something other. Between bone or bramble, flesh or feather, love or liberty.” He smiled, coming close to the mirror. “Who knows. Maybe you’ll forget your beloved Leah. Maybe you’re forgetting her even now.”

  Venn’s eyes narrowed. But before he could snap out an answer, Janus was gone, walking into the clarity of the mirror. For Jake it was if the man strode quickly down a long tunnel of square rooms, diminishing into the vanishing point like a figure in some optical illusion, but for Sarah, just behind Venn, it was as if Janus walked toward her, growing huger and huger, so that she wanted to step aside, out of his way, but he passed through her, through the room, widening over ceiling and walls, becoming a gray shadow, a cobweb, a smudge.

  And, following at his heels, three small shadows of himself, three small grubby schoolboys, who grinned at Jake as they passed, the last one swinging a yo-yo like a pendulum from his outstretched finger.

  “Bye, Jake.”

  “See you, Jake.”

  “Soon, Jake.”

  Until they too walked into the shadows and were gone.

  Jake’s face was set with that brittle, angry look he often had.

  But Venn stayed staring into the mirror. He said, “David?”

  Sarah saw Jake’s father. He looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed, his face dirty and ill-shaven. He said, “Yes its me, O. I’m coming back to you. It’s just . . .” He looked up quickly at something she couldn’t see. “There might be a tiny delay, that’s all. Is Lorenzo safe?”

  “Who?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said, behind him. “We’re both safe.”

  “What do you mean? What delay?” Venn gripped the silver frame. “David?”

  Somewhere a deep boom sent a ripple through the mirror.

  “What’s that? David! What’s happening there?”

  Jake looked up, anxious. “We’re under . . .”

  An explosion. It sent an enormous shockwave of red-hot air across the lab. Glassware shattered. The mirror went black. Venn was blown backward, Wharton sent staggering into Piers, all the cats’ fur flattened. The baby screamed, and even as she crashed against the bench, Sarah turned to stare at it in astonishment.

  Piers picked himself up from the ruins of the workbench. “What was that?”

  Wharton looked at Venn. “It sounded like a bomb,” he whispered.

  The ceiling imploded, plaster smashing down. Glass from the windows sliced in like shards of light, one catching Jake on the cheek with a splinter of blood. Maskelyne ducked, muttered something and grabbed him. “Come, Jake. We have to go.”

  “No!” He squirmed away. “Dad! Listen to me. We can’t leave Alicia here. She’ll die.” His mind was weary with fear and pain; he struggled to make sense of it. “When I come . . . when I arrive, in a few minutes, I speak to her, but then . . . later . . . nothing. I thought she was dead. But what if . . . what if she goes with you.”

  Alicia, crouching by the broken sofa, looked up at him. For a moment their eyes met. She said, “You mean for me to journey? Through time? Oh, how absolutely marvelous!”

  David caught her hand. “All right. But go! We’ll be right behind you.”

  Maskelyne grabbed Jake. He looked at David and said, “First, listen to me now. We found Dee’s manuscript. What it says is important. He says Time is defeated only by love. You must remember that! And the snake’s eye on the bracelet. It opens. Use what you find inside.”

  “I will. But go!”

  Alicia looked flustered. “Wait! Jake, I have to give you the ticket to the left luggage office. Now, where did I put that? Ah yes, the tea caddy.”

  Pressure in the air.

  Jake gasped. He felt the scream of the
bomb as it fell. He felt it hurtle down through smoke and tiles and rafters. Maskelyne was a darkness pulling him. The touch of the silver bracelet was spilled blood on his arm, the throbbing opening of the mirror his death. Terrible desolation fell on him. “No! Wait!” he yelled. “Wait!”

  Too late.

  He was dead, in the darkness, in the mirror.

  It opened for him, he crossed the invisible threshold and fell out into Wharton’s arms.

  “Dad!” he screamed.

  But George held him too tight and there was no going back.

  Hours later it might have been, he heard Sarah creep into his room.

  He lay with his face to the wall, and she sat on the end of the bed for a long moment before he spoke. “He hasn’t come, has he?”

  She said softly, “No. But . . .”

  “They must have got away.” He didn’t turn; she wondered if it was her he was trying to convince or himself. “When I spoke to Alicia first in the rubble, she was still alive. They never found her body.” He rolled over and his eyes were wet and furious. “They must have journeyed, Sarah, mustn’t they? They must have got out?”

  She had never seen him like this. “They had every chance.”

  “But where? And it was my fault, that he stayed with her! I needn’t have told him. We could just have gone together.”

  “You did the right thing, Jake. You saved her life. And . . . your father . . . he wasn’t . . . he’s not the sort of man to abandon anyone in trouble. You knew that.”

  “You think he’s dead.”

  She sat without looking at him, her bleak gaze on the scuffed carpet. At last she said, “I don’t know what I think, Jake, not anymore.”

  “I found him, Sarah. Just for a few minutes . . . an hour. He was there, with me. And now he’s gone again.”

  There was nothing she could say. How could she say that she knew that loss? Because for a few moments the golden crescent of the Zeus coin had been in her hands, and now it was gone, and maybe her parents’ lives and all hope of saving them were gone with it.