Manx

by Greg Curtis

  It was as though someone had rearranged all the different dimensions. Tied them up in knots. But that was impossible. Even the gods couldn't rearrange the dimensions. That was simply beyond any being. So they'd obviously done the next best thing. They'd changed the rules that determined how the various dimensions connected to one another. Though even that was just barely possible. It wasn't possible for a mere walker like her. Not on this scale. But for someone with almost godlike power it was just barely possible. And maybe fixing it was possible too. But it wouldn't be quick or easy. And her first task wasn't to do that. It was to rescue the other prisoners.

  Pulling the people out of the actual prison dimension at the heart of the trap was going to be difficult. Because that dimension, already one that had no time or space, didn't border the dimension she was in any more. Instead it bordered half a dozen other dimensions and each of those bordered more. She was going to have to stretch out the boundaries between dimensions where she could, straighten them if such a thing was possible, and then create a road map through what remained of the tangle to peer into the dimension she wanted. Then maybe she could bring the prisoners out across the tangled maze of dimensions by a simple summoning. Maybe.

  To add to her woes, there were spells of illusion everywhere. Illusions of both the mind and the light. To her regular eyes what was in front of her was nothing but a river and some gardens and a few houses. But that was a lie. Somewhere in front of her was an estate. A huge fortified manor house with a gigantic courtyard. Hidden in plain sight by untold layers of illusion and spells to displace the space around it.

  She needed a Smythe. A thief would be able to penetrate that maze of magics. To see through what she couldn't. And with their natural ability to solve puzzles and crack locks, one might even be able to help her fix what had been done. But there were no thieves here. At least not the magical sort she needed. And even if there had been, she wouldn't have had the coin to pay one with anyway. They didn't work for free. Not even in a good cause.

  But she did have one thing on her side, she realised as she sat there. The spell was failing. Or at least the dimensional part of it. That was why she'd been able to escape. Such spells had to be maintained. Dimensions, otherworldly realms, had a tendency to slip a little in and out of alignment as time went by. And somewhere in that movement, the prison she'd been held in had shifted far enough that a little of the passing of time had crept into it. Enough for her to understand that she was trapped and to crawl her way to freedom.

  Sorsha didn't know why that had happened. Why it had been allowed to happen. Though she suspected it had something to do with the Silver Order. Or the lack of them. There was only one member of the order in the city that she'd heard of. This Lady Jayla Marshendale who was mentioned in the papers. But there should have been many more, including among their number, some who would have been there to maintain the spells.

  But none of that mattered. The spell was failing. Eventually it would fail completely. And whoever was locked away in that prison might finally discover that they were trapped in an alien realm. But unless they were walkers like her, they wouldn't be able to free themselves. She had to help them before that happened.

  Sorsha took a moment to centre her thoughts and then closed her eyes as she let her magic flow into that mass of dimensional confusion somewhere in front of her, and began unpicking the various threads of time and space that someone had knotted together as best she could.

  It would take time, she knew. Especially considering how unsteady her thoughts were, and how weak her magic seemed to be. Maybe a lot of time when she also had to adjust herself to the fact that she couldn't use her third eye to show her the different dimensions in front of her. At least not yet. Not during the day when she could be seen.

  But she would succeed. This complex knot of interwoven realities in front of her would be straightened out in time, whether she could see it or not. And she would free her fellow spell-casters. And after that there would be a reckoning for what had been done. The guilty would be found – and punished.

  For the moment, she concentrated on simply trying to understand the complex knot of dimensions in front of her, and one by one, breaking a few of the links between them. The ones that were obviously not meant to be there. And as the hours passed a few of the strands seemed to loosen. Enough that eventually she could see her way through to the prison dimension.

  After a few more hours, and just as the sun was setting, she could finally see into it. Not far, which was ironic when the dimension had no actual space, but far enough that she knew she could cast her summoning spell. It would be like fishing the ocean with a net, a very small one at that, but she could do it. She could catch some fish.

  But she knew she had to wait. The small park where she'd found herself a seat, still had visitors. And she needed to wait until they'd left before she began. She didn't want to be seen. Nor did she want those she helped escape to be seen. And she needed to wait until she'd recovered her strength as well.

  What had they done to her that even days later she was kitten weak? She didn't understand that. Had they poisoned her? Because she felt sick enough to have been poisoned. Maybe, she hoped, among those she managed to rescue, there would be a healer or two. Maybe a druid – they could manage some basic healing. Even a crake could do what she needed at a pinch. It was something to think about as the sky darkened and the air around her chilled.

  Then finally the last of the little park's patrons left, a man and a woman walking arm in arm, and she knew it was time.

  Sorsha lifted her hat so she could see more clearly and then created her line, really just a strand of magic that could cross the dimensions, and wove it through the tangle of realities until it found the right dimension, and then sent it in. After that it was just a matter of waiting. It really was almost like fishing.

  The prison dimension had no space inside it. There was no distance between anything. But the line itself once it was inside the dimension also had no spatial existence. Stranger still there was no time inside the dimension, so unlike fishing no fish would have the time to see the line and bite at the hook. But her line carried time within it. She had crafted it with that specific feature. Which meant that anything it touched, experienced time. Or anyone. And when they did, she hoped, they would instinctively grab for it.

  It really was just like fishing – if the fish were people, the line itself was the worm on the end of the hook, and there was no pole or string, just a strand of magic. But it was different in one very important way. She couldn't tell if anyone was biting. All she could do was sit there and hope.

  Sorsha waited for a full hour before she decided to pull in her line. It was long enough she hoped. And then when she did she realised she had a new problem. She couldn't see what she'd caught – if she'd caught anyone. They were lost in that region of spells of illusion. Somewhere she guessed, inside that hidden fortress. So whether she'd pulled a thousand people out or no one at all, she had no way of knowing.

  And she was tired. The effort involved in just sending that magical line into the prison dimension and pulling it out, had exhausted her. But that didn't matter. She summoned another line and sent it back in to draw out the prisoners, and then waited.

  Unexpectedly she didn't have to wait long. Because even as she was sitting there beginning again she heard the sound of cannons firing. She couldn't see them. She couldn't see who was shooting or what they were firing at. But she could hear them, and that gave her hope. Because she knew they could only be firing at the people she'd freed.

  And then the noise grew as she heard trumpeting. But not the sound of horns. The sound of elephants.

  “Bollocks!” She knew immediately what must have happened. One of those she'd rescued had to be a druid. And faced with a threat to his or her life, he'd summoned some animals to defend himself. A lot of animals. Because even as she strained her eyes to see what was happening in the hidden fortress, great flocks of birds suddenly burst into
the sky from out of nowhere.

  Then the elephants burst free, appearing in the open on the other side of the river, and stampeding along the open area. And while they did that, the cannons fell silent. There was still a lot of small arms fire. She could hear the rifle cracks echoing all around her. But obviously one threat had been eliminated.

  A few minutes later the night sky erupted into fury and she knew immediately that it wasn't just a druid that was loose. The storm of wind and lightning and rain was the work of a weather witch as people called them. Or a crake as they called themselves. The winged people of the skies. They called themselves after the little secretive marsh birds because that was what they wanted to believe they were. But really they were powerful spell-casters. Few would be foolish enough to bother a crake. Most would walk away the moment they saw their wings. Many would run.

  From then on the chaos only grew wilder. She saw troops of monkeys with long curly tails, racing across the grass, trying to escape the noise. More birds took to the sky. And the rifles never stopped firing.

  Soon there was fire. Great balls of it climbing up into the night sky, and she was certain there was at least one sorcerer among their number. They were powerful elemental wizards, something that became obvious when each time one of those fire balls touched down somewhere, the ground shook and the city burned. Drakes also bent fire, but it wasn't the same.

  “Shite!” What had she done, Sorsha asked herself when she saw the city burning once again? But she also knew the answer. She had rescued her people. Some of them anyway. And she had to keep going.

  So despite the fact that an hour hadn't passed, she pulled the line out a second time, and hoped that more spell-casters would be freed. That maybe her family would be among them.

  Then she gathered all her concentration and sent it in a third time.

  Hours passed like that as she sent her line into the prison and pulled out all the people she could, while somewhere in front of her a war raged out of control, completely hidden behind endless spells of illusion. And as the rifles finally fell silent, she guessed that it was a war her people were winning. She hoped.

  Soon she would see them. She wouldn't be alone any longer in this strange new world.

  But by the early hours of the morning a new problem had struck. Exhaustion. She was simply too tired to keep going. But why? The spell she was using shouldn't drain her strength this greatly. And she was young and healthy. She should be able to cast all night. But it was apparent that she couldn't. And so, after pulling out the line one final time, she lay down on the bench and let her eyes close. She still didn't know how many she'd rescued. Or how many had been killed. And she didn't understand why she was so weak. But she thought she had done enough. Her people, some at least, were free. They would come and find her.

  But before she let the world of dreams finally claim her, she pulled down her hat so it covered her third eye. Just in case someone mundane came across her as she slept. Tomorrow night, she told herself, she could try again. Assuming something didn't eat her during the night!

  Chapter Seven

  The morning had dawned bright and sunny for once, and Manx was happy for that as he opened the door and prepared to leave for the day. The night had been a long one. There had been explosions and fire in the sky. But whatever it was it had been over the other side of the city and nothing had come near him. He was happy about that. But not so happy that it seemed the hell beasts had returned.

  He was happy too that three days had passed since his attempt at freeing Walken from the city gaol had gone so horribly wrong. Three days in which no one, especially no woman in silver armour, had come to annoy him despite the fact that his plans had gone badly awry.

  The papers had been full of information about the escape. About the fog which was thicker than normal, and the drunken guards on duty, all of whom it seemed were blaming one another and the various weather gods. But there was no mention of magic. Of anyone breaking into the city gaol to free the prisoners. It seemed that luck had finally been on his side and he had escaped suspicion. For the moment anyway.

  But then just as he was about to set off he heard grunting somewhere in front of him, and stopped dead. A moment later he spotted movement in his front garden, before a giant pig trotted out from behind his bushes.

  “Shite!”

  It wasn't a pig he realised as he stood there on his front stoop, staring. Pigs didn't have tusks. This beast did. Big sharp looking ones. And it had hair – black hair. There was a giant ridge of it, sticking up above the top of his head and running back down all the way along its spine to its tail. This was a boar. A razorback boar. And it was in his front yard, apparently rooting around for food. Food which for some reason, seemed to consist of his azaleas, some of which were dangling from its mouth. Meanwhile there was lavender all over its trotters which he guessed meant it had been trampling his flower beds.

  “Dung!” He swore some more. The damned beast was eating his garden! And he worked so hard to make them pretty, a spot of colour in this dreary city. Then finally he took a step back into his house and closed the front door behind him.

  There was a wild boar in his garden! Just when he had been beginning to think that the madness had ended! Manx didn't know what to make of that. Why would there be any boars in the city at all? There weren't supposed to be. But as he went to the front window and looked out, he realised the beast wasn't alone. Not when he spotted a second boar wandering happily along the street.

  “This isn't happening!” He whispered the denial to himself.

  “What isn't happening?” Whitey asked, lifting her head up from the couch cushions which she was using as a bed. “And why aren't you on your way to that dullish place you spend your days? Because I'd like some peace and quiet please!”

  “There's a pig in the front yard!”

  “So?” She stared at him, apparently unimpressed by his explanation. “There's an annoying fool in my home! What's that got to do with you bothering me while I'm trying to sleep?!”

  “Oh be quiet you mangy rat!” Manx returned to his staring out of the window and did his best to ignore the cat. It wasn't that hard when he had a giant boar to stare at. And especially when it seemed to be staring back at him! “And this isn't your house! It's mine!”

  But really he was already starting to doubt that. She'd left his slippers alone at least. But the rug in the living room was already starting to look tattered. She liked to pull at it with her claws. And every time he told her off about it she just rolled on to her back, flashed those huge green eyes at him, waved her feet in the air like a little kitten and told him she'd do better. None of which was as bad as the fact that he kept falling for her lies.

  “Oh you monkeys!” The cat chuckled. “Always saying foolish things! As if you were in charge of anything!” Then, apparently satisfied with herself, she put her head back down and tried to return to sleep.

  Luckily the boar didn't seem to be in the mood for charging him. He wasn't sure just what sort of damage the three hundred or more pounds of piggy violence could do to the front of his home, but he didn't want to find out. But it didn't do that. Instead it lowered its head and continued rooting around in the garden and making snuffling and grunting noises as it tore his plants out.

  Why his flower gardens?! He could understand the vegetable garden in the back. But not this. And he had spent a lot of time and coin having his garden tended to!

  Where had the damned beast come from? Manx asked himself that as he watched it working. Tearing his garden apart. But then he watched a small herd of sheep wander up the street, and forgot that question.

  They were strange looking sheep. Or at least they had strange horns. Their horns didn't simply curl around in great circles. Instead they bent forwards so that the points were aimed in front of them like spears. If they charged someone, these sheep could do some nasty damage. They could even kill someone!

  So now he had wild boars and killer sheep! The world was beco
ming stranger by the day. But how in all the blood soaked hells did he get to work? Because he had to go. Mr. Merryweather was due back today and he would not tolerate tardiness.

  In the end he realised as he sat on a dining chair in front of the window, staring at the boar and occasionally trading insults with his cat, it was obvious that he couldn't. He wasn't going out there to face a wild boar. He just had to wait until the beast went away. And that took a good half hour or more as the beast had found plenty of things to eat in his front yard.

  Eventually though, it moved on to other gardens and he managed to escape his house. Then, after studying the wreckage that had once been his front garden, he set off for the library, cudgel in hand. He doubted that it would be a lot of use against a wild boar though. Or even a sheep with spears for horns. It just felt good in his hands. His best protection he decided was to stay away from the beasts. They would leave him alone, he thought, if he didn't approach them.