Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  When they eventually moved on, Behnam’s left leg was cramping spectacularly.

  The creatures were heading back towards Aratta, the direction Behnam and Ghobad had come from. No longer did they dwell in the bottomless lake of their ancestors. Ramaask had re-engineered them, upgrading the existing species. He’d turned them into killing machines and made the old city their home.

  ‘Master dead. Demon come’, they’d said, confirming what he’d already suspected. That the girl had crossed the seal, Ramaask had perished and the Ahriman had been unleashed. Did that mean Hami had died too? He surely would’ve stopped the girl if he’d been able to. Behnam had made the consequences clear.

  With difficulty, he worked his way through the vegetation to where he and Ghobad had left the horses. He contemplated heading straight to New Ecbatana. Grand Master Aegis had been heading there, and he could do with some of his friend’s sage advice right now. But Aegis wouldn’t condone how Behnam had taken over this guard’s mind. Even though it had been out of necessity to save his own life, and even if it meant learning the crabman language too.

  The most sensible plan would be to head to the garrison for treatment. Ghobad had cleaned Behnam’s eye sockets with alcohol, but he needed proper medical attention. He needed Ramaask’s shadow exorcised from his mind too. But first he needed to use what he’d learned when he and Ramaask had joined minds. He knew things now. Things that no one else did.

  Ramaask had planned to go to the Cataclysm to kill the girl. Then from there he was going to the portal in the mountains. But that hadn’t happened. The most likely set of events was that Ramaask’s brother had betrayed him, as he’d suspected, by orchestrating the release of their master. Both master and servant would be well on their way to the portal by now.

  Behnam couldn’t communicate any of this to his brothers, he couldn’t risk some trace of Ramaask spreading across the network. He had tried several times to purge Ramaask from his head himself, but always some part remained. During sleepless nights, dark and twisted visions would fill his head. Tortured and mutilated bodies sewing themselves together. He’d spend each night drowning in dead bodies and black liquid. And then there were the eyes. Two burning spheres of hellfire that found him wherever he hid. The Ahriman was coming and it was going to take him with it.

  Behnam had seen the snow base in his visions. He’d seen the sprawling buildings on the mountaintop, the dark castle in the centre. Every night at the point where dream met consciousness, he would be running. Escaping the smoke and dead bodies that threatened to smother him. Always towards the snow base. A perceived safe haven. Is that what Ramaask had believed? Would the portal have saved him from the girl breaking the seal that ended his life?

  Behnam needed to find Hami, to ensure his safety and to put things right between them. His health would have to wait.

  He felt his way up onto his horse. Then controlled Ghobad onto the other.

  The snow base was his new destination. Ramaask’s memory had been pushing him there, but the crabmen had confirmed his worst suspicions. If Hami had survived the battle, he’d be heading there too. He knew how important it was to shut down the portal. Even more so now that the Ahriman had been released. If the worst case scenario had come true and Hami had perished, then Behnam would need to shut down the portal himself.

  He didn’t truly believe Hami had died, though. He’d be okay, he had to be. Behnam would find him and release him from the burden of his sister’s death. Then they’d destroy the portal together.

  Behnam kicked his horse on, but turned it from the road they’d been travelling, picking a new path through the mushrooms. One that led towards the mountains in the north.

  –THIRTY-FIVE–

  EVADING THE LAW

  Hami had remained on the front balcony all day. Sammy spent some time with him when they’d first made the detour, but with Louis’s headlight lanterns extinguished so as not to alert the magi, there wasn’t a lot to see. Not a problem for Louis with his echo location, or apparently Hami, as he seemed to know exactly where they were going, but a big problem for Sammy. Sightseeing in pitch blackness got old fast. It wasn’t like there was any conversation to be had, either. Hami said nothing, other than when he whispered directions down to Louis.

  The rest of the day Sammy spent downstairs with Mehrak, Leiss and Calven. And Leiss and Calven said nothing to each other.

  Calven had initially acted civil towards Leiss, but Leiss had pretty much ignored him from the beginning. Now neither spoke to the other. Calven eventually made an excuse to go upstairs and left them.

  Mehrak, on the other hand, moved about his kitchen with a spring in his step. He boiled water for tea, chopped vegetables for a large batch of soup. He seemed to genuinely relish cooking and looking after everyone. Sammy could literally think of no other guy in their early twenties that was as comfortable as Mehrak was in the kitchen or carrying out domestic duties. It was weird, but there was something about it she liked. The guy showed no pretence to masculinity. He seemed completely at ease with who he was and she liked that.

  As he busied himself with the soup, he asked Sammy all about what she’d been up to since she’d left. About what had brought her back here. Why she’d left her mum and why she didn’t like her mum’s boyfriend, Jerry.

  Sammy mumbled that her mum and Jerry weren’t really interested in her. She explained how she couldn’t talk to anyone about Perseopia because of how crazy it sounded. Her mum, the only person she had told, didn’t even believe her. She also told Mehrak of how embarrassing Jerry was and how he often wore a cravat and that made her want to slap the moustache off his face.

  “None of those are valid reasons why you chose to come back here,” he replied.

  Sammy shrugged. “Can I have another cup of tea, please?”

  “What have you got here that you haven’t got back in the Mother World?”

  She looked up and saw him staring at her. “It’s not that life is bad back home. I’ve been in trouble a few times for fighting. But nothing terrible has happened. I guess I’m just bored.”

  “You’ve been fighting like your dad?”

  “How do you know about my dad’s fighting?”

  “You told me about him a few days ago … sorry, two years ago to you. You told me he never let anyone disrespect him and got in fights because of it.”

  Sammy stared into her tea. Had she really become like her father? The thought of it disgusted her.

  “I’m sorry.” Mehrak was backtracking now. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Sammy sighed. “It’s a fair comment. My dad was a thug. And it took me way too long to realise it. I do get in fights, but I’m always defending myself, not initiating them. I guess I can be quick to take the bait, though. I should probably learn to chill.”

  “You aren’t like him at all … I assume. Obviously, I’ve never met him. But I’ve never seen you aggressive. You’re a lovely person.” Mehrak cleared his throat and turned away to make Sammy’s tea. “You don’t see him anymore?”

  Sammy shook her head. “My dad turned up drunk at one of my matches and punched the father of an opposing player. The boy had been hassling me all game, then he fouled me in the box. The ref missed it so I didn’t get the penalty I deserved.” She sighed. “My dad took matters into his own hands. Or rather, fists.”

  “That’s that football game, isn’t it? The one we played in the forest with a chunk of mushroom?”

  Sammy couldn’t help smiling as she recalled the game they’d played so long ago. “Yeah. That’s it.”

  “Punching an opposing player’s father sounds bad.”

  “It was. He got in a lot of trouble for it. I never invited him to watch me again. He barely ever came as it was, and I had to beg him to come that one time, so it wasn’t hard to keep him away. He did that himself.”

  “You didn’t come back here to escape your dad?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him in month
s. I don’t know why I came back, in all honesty. I think I just like the idea of being here. My life back in the Mother World is uneventful.”

  “Uneventful?”

  “Dull, boring, I have to go to school, next year I’ll have to either do more learning or get a job. I want a more exciting life than that.”

  “And there’s no occupation of magus back in the Mother World?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you’re dead set on becoming a magus?”

  “What else would I be? I have magi skills. I can shoot a lightning staff. I can talk to Hami without opening my mouth.”

  Mehrak flinched. “You can communicate with him telepathically?”

  “Yup. It’s great. He showed me yesterday when you were packing up camp. Shall I show you? I’ll ask him something now.”

  “No! I don’t want you talking …” Mehrak’s jaw tightened. “I mean, I believe you.”

  The room fell silent and Mehrak returned to chopping vegetables.

  “You don’t want me to become a magus?” Sammy asked after a time.

  Mehrak stopped chopping. “It’s probably my grandfather’s prejudices coming out in me. The magi are … well, I suppose they’re trying to help the realm, and their ethics are admirable. I just think they wield too much power. They’re only human, and they make mistakes.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’d make a fine magus, though. It’s about time there was another female magus. The first in decades.”

  “Assuming I didn’t become a magus, what would you prefer I did instead? I can’t travel with you in Golden Egg Cottage after you get your wife back.”

  “Why not? You’re part of our Golden Egg family now. I can’t just kick you out.”

  He stopped as Hami arrived at the top of the stairs. Louis was slowing down. Apparently they’d reached their destination.

  Baxter caught up to Aegis as he marched through the parliament building.

  Aegis gave no indication of acknowledgement, but said, “It’s Sammy, the same girl as before.”

  “How? You mean she didn’t leave?”

  “She did. But she came back.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “She arrived back at the exact moment she previously did. An older Sammy arriving in Perseopia and overlapping with her younger self.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The fluctuation in the fabric of our realm when Sammy arrived was three times the size as when Lord VorMask arrived. Indicating someone either three times as powerful …”

  “Or three people.”

  “Exactly. But there was a missing piece of the puzzle. How did the second visitor from the Mother World happen to be in the centre of the Fungi Forest one moment, then all the way over near the Cataclysm the next? Hami said that he told Victa where he was going. But I wasn’t convinced of that. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk anyone stopping him. He only informed the brotherhood of what had happened after the event.”

  “You’re saying the girl found him.”

  “She figured out she’d returned to the same moment she was here last time. Probably after talking to some of the Marzban at the outpost. Knowing she’d returned to the same point in time, she knew exactly where Hami was going to be. Think about it. It was a coincidence Hami stumbling across the first visitor. A second visitor travelling hundreds of miles across Perseopia so that Hami could stumble across them too?”

  “I can’t deny there’s some logic to your hypothesis,” Baxter said. “What about the third person?”

  “We don’t know. We hope to know more when we apprehend Hami.”

  “You haven’t found them yet, then?”

  “No. Magi Hogir and Fuad have backtracked to pick them up but they aren’t where they should’ve been. My brothers have discovered gastrosaur and karkadann footprints, which means that the girl is back with the traveller in the golden caravan.”

  “One big happy reunion.”

  “Indeed. My magi are following their tracks. And it appears that Hami has figured out I’m onto him. I contacted the girl after she connected to the magi network, she acted like she didn’t know who Hami was and then disconnected from me. I think Hami had her connect to the network in order to block it so she doesn’t connect again by accident or while she’s asleep. And when my magi reached the location they would’ve been at when I’d spoken to her, they found that the tracks changed direction shortly after.”

  Baxter nodded. “They know. Hami must’ve had the girl speak to you to send out a location marker, then he had her disconnect and took a detour.”

  “Yes. But we’re following their tracks now. My magi will track them down. The net is closing around them.”

  –THIRTY-SIX–

  THE LAKE

  They spent the night on the banks of the Kuchak Sea.

  Mehrak had been out collecting drinking water before Sammy woke. Apparently the Kuchak Sea wasn’t really a sea at all, but an enormous freshwater lake.

  Breakfast consisted of tea brewed with Kuchak seawater and eyeless fish courtesy of Rougetta’s mad fishing skills.

  When Sammy had helped Mehrak clear up, she followed everyone outside where they congregated near the water’s edge. Everyone except Harz and Jokram, who were absent along with their chariot, tent and possessions.

  Hami was further down the shore looking out across the gently undulating surface of the lake. Dark water stretched out ahead, the horizon barely visible as a dim glow in the distance.

  “I’m guessing you already have a plan,” Mehrak called to him.

  “I do,” he said without turning. “We’re splitting up.”

  Mehrak shook his head and smiled. “Let me guess, you and Sammy head off one way around the lake, while the rest of us act as decoys and head the other.”

  “You’re mostly right,” Hami said, without a hint of sarcasm. “You’ll all head west around the lake. Sammy and I are taking a karkadann across it.”

  Mehrak lost his smile. “Funny. What are you actually doing?”

  “Exactly what I just told you.”

  “You can’t cross the lake on the back of a karkadann,” Narok said. “It’s too far. Even here at the narrowest part. It’s still faster to go around than to cross.”

  “I know you’re a desperate man, Hami,” Mehrak said. “But this time you’ve gone too far.”

  Hami remained calm. “We aren’t at the narrowest point,” he said. “We’re slightly further west. You don’t recognise that faint glow out in the water?”

  Mehrak moved down the bank, away from the campfire and towards Hami, where the water was lapping against the shore. “Is that …?”

  “Archipelago City.”

  Mehrak snorted out a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sammy said.

  “The lights on the horizon are from Archipelago City,” Hami said. “It’s a city made up of interconnected islands. Islands that are connected to the mainland on the far side by Marvo’s bridge. If we can reach the southern-most point – Jonubi Island – we can island hop our way to the other side.”

  Mehrak only shook his head.

  “We need to gain some ground,” Hami said, “Sammy and I need to get to the snow base ahead of the magi. We can’t allow them to close the portal before we get a chance to use it.”

  “You can use it,” Sammy said. “But I’m not.”

  Hami pinched his lips together. “We still need to get there before the demon and we’re running out of options.”

  “You’re insane,” Narok said.

  “If you have any other suggestions then I’d like to hear them,” Hami said. “We’re way behind the demon and the magi, but they have to travel around the lake. This is our only chance of getting to the snow base before anyone else gets there.”

  Narok sighed heavily and stared out across the lake.

  “Louis and I are coming too,” Mehrak said.
>
  “Me too,” Leiss said.

  Hami frowned. “How will that work?”

  “Louis can swim.”

  “With Golden Egg Cottage?”

  “It floats. My parents had the hatch at the bottom built to be watertight. In case they needed to cross a river or lake. I’ve never put it to the test, because of the sort of creatures you generally encounter in large bodies of water …” Mehrak stopped. “Oh wait.” He paced away, several steps back from the shore. “Are there lake monsters like the ones you get in the Fungi Forest?”

  “One lake monster,” Hami said. He gritted his teeth. “A big one.”

  Mehrak’s head fell to his chest. “The biggest, right? The leviathan? I remember now. The Kuchak Sea is commonly known as Leviathan Lake.” He exhaled loudly and watched the water. “Is the leviathan even real?”

  “Let’s hope we don’t find out.”

  Mehrak raised his eyebrows. “At least be honest.”

  Hami shrugged. “Okay, yes,” he said. “It’s real. But there’s only one of him, or her, and it’s a vast body of water so our chances of avoiding it are good. And you don’t have to come.”

  Mehrak looked at Sammy. He smiled. “I’m coming.” He puffed out his chest. “Someone has to look after our Mother Worlder.”

  Sammy smiled back. Mehrak always had her back. Or liked to think he did. “You know it’ll be me looking after you, don’t you?” she said. “Against this …” Sammy stopped. “What is a leviathan?”

  Hami had returned to staring out across the water and didn’t volunteer an answer.

  “I don’t know,” Mehrak said, answering for him. “The stories I’ve heard depict it as a giant fish, reptile creature, and that it’s gigantic and filled with teeth.”

  “That’s all you really need to know about it,” Hami said. “Other than the lake is a thousand stadia long and the leviathan is the only one of its kind, allegedly. So our chances of running into it are slim.”

  “I don’t think I can allow you to take this risk with my Marzbans’ lives,” Narok said. “I’ll come. Not for you, but to save the realm for my children. My Marzban must be free to make their own choices.”