The Blurred Lands

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  The sound it made was, perhaps, the most frightening aspect of all. There was something horribly musical about its roar. A broken accordion, its bellows rotted and tattered, played by a lunatic. John remembered seeing Concorde take off as a child, clutching his father's hand as the roar of the jet engines grew louder and louder. Just when he had thought his ears would explode, even through the protectors his dad had placed on his head, the roar had increased again in volume before the graceful aircraft accelerated along the runway. The horrendous wheezing he heard now was even louder, and the fact that John knew he was not in his physical body was of little comfort. As the monolithic beast made its way past them, oblivious to their presence, John felt as if his skull and skeleton were vibrating inside his skin.

  A minute after the monstrosity had gone, its progress continuing through the whiteness, Ashtoreth withdrew her hand and began to walk again. John hurried to catch up.

  "What the hell was that?"

  He worked out what was different about her voice in the Between. It wasn't louder, or deeper, it certainly wasn't the voice a Hollywood blockbuster would have assigned to a god, but it was unnerving. The sound no longer came from Ashtoreth's mouth. It was more like a hundred women whispering simultaneously, each of them standing next to John. The voice surrounded him.

  "How much did your noone teach you about this place?"

  John thought of Gai, injured but hidden, and felt a stab of guilt. He stopped walking.

  Ashtoreth's laugh sounded out of place, inappropriate in the hush left after the roar of the giant beast. "He will live, and he is free to go. What did he tell you about the Between?"

  They resumed their walk. John could see nothing ahead. He was neither cold nor tired, and he could not tell if they had been walking for minutes or hours.

  "He told me my sanctum was safe. But he said there were dangers out here."

  Underneath the hood, Ashtoreth nodded. "The Between is the only place every realm has in common." John felt his skin crawl at the unwanted intimacy of the voice. "Unlike the Blurred Lands, where the realms overlap, the Between is no-place and no-time. Those who allow themselves to adapt too closely to the ways of this place may find themselves trapped here. It has happened to some of the most powerful magicians over the eons. That,"—Ashtoreth lifted her hand to point at the retreating monster—"is one such magician. You will find its story in the myths of Shambhala. It has forgotten what it is and where it comes from. Thus it is doomed to wander this landscape forever. You will see more of these creatures if you spend much time here. They are a warning to us all."

  She turned towards John again. When he looked up into the darkness of that hood, he could see a glittering where her eyes were and a hint of blue-white skin. "You cannot return here from the time cage. I can only come now because you brought me."

  Something in her posture changed. Ashtoreth had seen something. A dozen steps later, and he saw it too; a silvered dome, vast and mysterious, waiting in the snow ahead. It took a while before John worked out the scale of what he was seeing. It wasn't the size of a building, it was more like a small town. Its metallic surface reflected the falling snow, giving the impression that a second, gravity-defying snowfall had begun from the ground, and was meeting the first in mid-air.

  When they were closer still, John looked in vain for any kind of entrance. The surface of the dome was unbroken. There was no door, no path leading to it, no sign of any entrance or exit. Ashtoreth's pace did not slow as they came to the mirrored surface. John, half a step behind her, hesitated as he approached it. When he was five paces away, the surface revealed itself to be not metal, but water, held, somehow, in stasis in the shape of a dome.

  There was no resistance as they stepped through. A momentary feeling of moisture and cold, and they were inside.

  Forty-Seven

  John's mind had slowed since making his decision. Once he had chosen a second life with Sarah, he had stopped thinking about anything that might deflect him from his task. He had spent no time wondering what the interior of the dome would look like. But even if he had used all of his imaginative powers, he would not have guessed at what lay within that silvered surface.

  John knew, roughly, the size of the space he had walked into, and estimated it would take hours to cross it. But, as he looked around him, he knew only a fool would try. The entire, vast space inside the dome was filled with fog. It had the grey-silver sheen of heavy rain, or of mist from the base of the waterfall when tens of thousands of gallons hit the rocks. Ashtoreth's upper body was hazy and undefined in the silver mist.

  The god spoke again, and John flinched at that strange, yet familiar, voice coming at him from every angle.

  "Although the dome can't be said to exist in any traditional sense of the word, it can always be found by those who look for it in the Between. The mist is a representation of magic, made physical to enable us to manipulate it. Thousands of magicians are here crafting spells, enchantments, and charms."

  John looked around in alarm. He could see and hear nothing, and it unnerved him. In this dense silver fog, the nearest Adept or sorcerer might be within touching distance without him knowing.

  As if hearing his thoughts, Ashtoreth answered him. "No one here will encounter any other magician unless they have chosen to do so before entering the dome. We came here with a common purpose, and we will remain until we are finished. The magic we will craft is too volatile for a single magician to handle. Even I would not risk trying it alone."

  This was as close as John had ever heard Ash admit to being afraid. Ironic then that it should happen while she was twelve feet tall and intimidatingly powerful.

  Ashtoreth turned towards him and lifted her left hand. Floating just above her reflective skin was an identical wisp of material to the one that had appeared in John's hand. It was still there.

  "Take my hand." It was a command, not a request.

  John thought of Sarah, then placed his hand, as tiny as a child's in comparison with Ashtoreth's, above her fingers. As soon as he did so, whatever they had brought of the stone from the cottage merged and rose above them. There, it separated into strands of darker thread, as if someone was drawing a design on the mist with a fine nib. Within seconds, a pattern had formed, but the lines were still moving. It was a drawing, in three dimensions, of a geometrical shape. John could never have reproduced the shape on Earth - he was sure it couldn't exist there. He suspected he wouldn't even be able to see it if he wasn't in the Between. Here in the dome, his perception was not limited to his human senses.

  "It's beautiful," he said, watching the lines move, the whole complicated shape revolving, contorting, twisting, moving in ways John could not comprehend.

  "It's the time cage," said Ashtoreth. Her voice held an element of awe. She was looking at a representation of the spell buried in the stone, the spell that had kept her captive for thousands of years.

  John thought of Sarah. "What do we do?"

  "It is a matter of consent, commitment, and surrender."

  "Surrender?"

  "When two or more magicians create magic as powerful as this, it is necessary for them to submit to their own creation, each laying aside their will."

  John had no idea what that meant in practice, but he had come too far to turn back now. Soon, he knew, he could be back with Sarah, kissing her for the first time, hearing her say she loved him, her voice full of joy and surprise. He could be with her again.

  "I'm ready," he said.

  Ashtoreth made no arcane gestures, drew no symbols in the air. She did not chant, make any proclamations, or ask if there were any spirits present. She simply looked up at the unfolding spell above them and allowed her mind to merge with it. John felt it happen and heard the invitation inherent in that moment. As he looked up again, the shape was changing, unravelling itself, a thousand pairs of invisible hands undoing a thousand knots. The whole design grew in size, and gaps appeared. At the centre, one such gap, widening and lengthening as he watched
, became a doorway.

  This was the moment. He knew it. Ashtoreth knew it. The dome itself seemed to respond with a tension in the silver fog, a hushed expectancy.

  A movement to the right drew John's attention. He glanced over, returned to the spell, then froze and turned his body to face the source of the movement.

  It was Sarah.

  He could only just make out the faintest outline of her face, but those eyes, those grey eyes that had plumbed his depths, found his weakness and his pain, and still loved him, were looking back at him.

  "Sarah?" He took half a step towards her. Something was wrong with the perspective Sarah had been only a few inches shorter than him, but now he was looking down at a child. Beside him, Ashtoreth had noticed that something was wrong, and was trying, with difficulty, to wrench her gaze away from the spell unravelling above her.

  The eyes, Sarah's eyes, widened, and the face became clearer. John stared in confusion. Then his mind put the pieces together, and he gasped with a mixture of surprise, shock, delight, and sudden, terrible shame at what he had been about to do.

  It wasn't Sarah. It was Evie.

  Forty-Eight

  Later, when John looked back on the events inside the dome, he couldn't remember who, if anyone, had spoken, or precisely what they had said. He knew the confrontation between Evie and Ashtoreth had turned into something dangerous, but in his memory, it all seemed to happen in one elongated second. He had to apply a linear timeline retrospectively to make sense of it.

  It must have been Ashtoreth who spoke first. "You cannot be here."

  "My grandfather invited me." John felt Evie's hand take his own and squeeze it. "He needs me, so I came."

  The fury in Ashtoreth's voice was obvious, and terrifying beyond measure, but she made no move towards John and his granddaughter. Certain things were known in this place, and John was aware that it would be impossible for any being inside the dome to kill another. If Ashtoreth had been free to do so, there was no doubt she would have torn Evie apart with her bare hands, but the power of this place prevented it.

  What is that?" Evie pointed at the spell which was still turning in the mist above them, the threads untying, unravelling, and moving into new patterns.

  "It's the spell that kept her in the cottage," said John, wondering how he could explain this to a child. How old was Evie, anyway? He couldn't remember if she was eleven or twelve. He looked at her face again, seeing Sarah in her grey eyes and blonde hair, but also seeing Harry in the line of her chin and her freckled nose.

  "The time cage," she said.

  John was astonished. Evie grinned, and the uncanny resemblance to her grandmother disappeared for a moment. "I have visited my sanctum, Granddad. Mae taught me how to get there."

  John could not begin to understand what was going on, but he knew the danger was far from over. Ashtoreth was chuckling now, the sound of her laughter both chilling and strange.

  "Whatever you hoped to achieve, child, you're too late. Your grandfather has already agreed to take my place when the cage is ready for him. Once changed, the spell cannot return to what it was. It must take a new form."

  Evie looked up at her grandfather. "She's right," she said. "And the time cage is the most powerful spell ever cast in our realm. It's linked to both of you now, but it's still incomplete. A new spell must be forged here, otherwise the cage might imprison you both. Or kill you both."

  Ashtoreth was nodding. "The child is right," she said. "Only you can stop this happening, John. If you break your promise, you will lose your wife forever."

  John looked from the dance of dark threads above him to Ashtoreth, then to Evie. His granddaughter spoke with the assurance of a woman. At that moment, she reminded John of his mother.

  "There is another way," she said, her voice quiet but strong. "We can change the spell again, adapt it further."

  "Change it to what?"

  "I don't know yet. I'm thinking. But we can't let it complete its transformation. We have to hold it in place until we find a way to stop her."

  Evie looked up, and the threads above responded, changing course, slowing down.

  Ashtoreth reached her hands up to her hood and pulled it back. John saw the god's true face for the first time.

  Astarte's face was the blue-white colour of stripped bark in moonlight, the green eyes darker than the weed at the bottom of a deep lake. There were no other features, no nose or mouth, and the face was longer and thinner than any human's, suggesting a different bone structure beneath. The copper hair was not hair at all. It was a haze of energy like an aura surrounding that alien visage, sparking and glowing in the silver fog of the dome. When the god spoke again, there was no change to the impassive features. John could hardly bring himself to look at her eyes. "I cannot let you do that, child."

  Ashtoreth raised one hand, and the threads moved sluggishly as two opposing wills tried to manipulate them. "I will be free," said the god. "You will not stop me. Not now. Not ever." She pointed her other hand at Evie.

  Evie grunted in surprise and pain, doubling over and gasping. She released her hold on the spell, and the threads obeyed Ashtoreth once again. The god was working faster now.

  John crouched down and put his hand on his granddaughter's back. "Are you all right?"

  Evie coughed and wheezed, then looked up with such an expression of horror and loss that John stepped backwards in consternation. An instant later, and the moment had passed.

  "She's trying to distract us. We have to finish this. I don't know what to do, Granddad."

  Tears ran down her face. She stood upright, but kept one hand on her belly.

  It was at that moment that John remembered what Gai had said to him and realised the noone hadn't misspoken. It was just that John had misunderstood. He turned to Evie. "Can we send her back? Send her back to when she came from?"

  Evie looked at him, but something else was happening behind those familiar grey eyes. Although it made no sense, John felt as if he wasn't just seeing Evie, but a crowd of wise, powerful women, all considering his words. At the front of the group, her hand on Evie's shoulder, her intelligent face full of sadness and resolve, was his mother. Then Evie spoke, and they all evaporated into the silver mist.

  "Yes," she said. She squeezed John's hand more tightly and looked away from him up towards the spell. John did the same, and just as he had been aware of Ashtoreth's mind linking to the threads above him, he and Evie now did the same.

  There was no more speaking after that. What happened next passed in silence and in the no-time of the Between. The battle was undramatic, invisible, the combatants staring up as their minds manipulated the spell. As still as three statues, there were no outward signs of the ferocity of the struggle between them.

  Evie showed John the shape she wanted the spell to take, faint ghost threads appearing showing what she wanted. John followed her lead. Together, their minds pulled at the threads, re-knotting, unlocking, nudging some in a new direction, forcing others to turn back on themselves.

  Ashtoreth reacted to what was happening, undoing their actions, trying to bring the spell back to her design. For a long time, the battle ebbed and flowed. What John and Evie attempted to create, Ashtoreth undid, and a dance of energy chased through the fog above them at incredible speed. But, slowly at first, then picking up momentum, the dance changed, becoming more coordinated as grandfather and granddaughter worked together more effectively, their intention becoming one. Ashtoreth's body hummed with power as she tried to keep up with the speed and grace of their movements. Above them, the spell evolved and morphed.

  It was the dome itself that provided the tipping point. All three of them sensed it, a focused attention from the mist, as if some massive creature found a gnat on its skin and was considering crushing it. Ashtoreth's act of aggression towards Evie, although not deadly, had been noticed. A mage breaking the rules of this place had nowhere to hide, even if they were a god elsewhere.

  John could not have pinpoin
ted the moment at which the balance of power shifted, but it was clear that Ashtoreth's countermeasures were failing. He and Evie could move faster than she could keep up, and the god was becoming overwhelmed. The sense of incipient violence became stronger as Ashtoreth's fury grew.

  A new shape was taking form now. Unlike the impossible geometric representation John had first seen, this was more like a net, or a web, strands of which unfolded and moved towards Ashtoreth, as if to embrace her. Her reaction was swift and decisive. As the nearest strands touched her, she screamed with frustration, spun around, and left the dome the way she had entered it.

  The threads of the spell stretched through the silver surface of the dome, but Ashtoreth was gone.

  John turned to Evie in dismay. "She's escaped!"

  Evie shook her head. "She can't. The cage was built to hold Ashtoreth. Her attempts to reconfigure it would have worked if you had taken her place, but as it is, the cage is still patterned on her." Evie reached up and put her small hand on John's upper arm. "We must finish this."

  Without Ashtoreth there to resist them, completing the spell was straightforward. The hard work had already been accomplished, and it was as if the cage worked with them as they eased the final threads of power into their new position. When it was done, energy and life filled the shape above them, and there was tension in its strands as if they were being pulled by something out of sight. John was reminded of the float on a river dipping below the surface as a fish takes the bait.