Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  “So we finally get to meet this chosen child.”

  Sammy turned towards the voice.

  A magus strode towards them from one of the tents. He’d lost part of his cheek on the left-hand side and his teeth were bared through the gap. His facial disfigurement made him look both maniacal and furious at the same time.

  Hami’s eyes dipped, his shoulders slumped, and all the fight went out of him. “Master Piruzan,” he said.

  “Principal!” Piruzan sucked saliva in through his teeth and smiled a sadistic smile. “You thought you could lose us?”

  “Master, I …”

  “I’m not interested. Use the time you’ll be in the cell to work out your excuses. You can tell them to the Aegis when you’re brought to trial in New Ecbatana.”

  “I thought I’d be tried at the garrison.”

  Piruzan ignored him and turned to the magi that had brought them. “Your team has done well, Zand, but I’ll take the fugitives from here. I’m heading up to the citadel shortly to speak with the Air Chief Marshal. I’ll take them to the cells there where they can wait out the battle.”

  Hami stepped closer. “Let me help.”

  “With what?” Piruzan held his arms out and turned a slow circle. “I have an army.”

  “I’ll fight alongside you. Take Sammy up to the citadel. Let me stay and regain your trust.”

  “My trust for you has long since waned,” Piruzan said. “You had your chance.” He raised his staff above his head and illuminated the orb, pulsing the light on and off several times.

  At first nothing happened. A few of the magi glanced up, but Sammy couldn’t tell what they were looking at. Then she noticed that several of the birds that had been circling the top of the column were closer than they had been. They were coming down, spiralling lazily in the light of the citadel, growing larger as they descended.

  Piruzan led everyone to a wide space, away from the greenbucks, where the magi lit their staffs and spread out to create a circle.

  Broad shadows swept over the camp, eclipsing the light above as gigantic birds passed over. Their vast wings beat air down as the creatures came in to land, whipping up dirt and flinging Sammy’s hair and clothes into disarray. She shielded her eyes against the airborne debris as canvas flapped against tent poles and guy ropes were pulled from the earth.

  Four of the gigantic creatures stood in the settling dust, shaking out their feathers, screeching and rolling their shoulders. They were more dinosaur than bird. Similar in appearance to the lava pterodactyls but covered in white feathers on their heads, backs and wings. Pale pink and grey scales lined their throats and bellies, and their yellow beaks were filled with triangular teeth. Crests adorned the back of the animals’ heads, like the lava pterodactyls but shorter and rounded at the end like hockey sticks.

  The men and women riding them were dark-skinned, dressed in white, and wore leather flying hats and goggles like Biggles.

  Sammy was led to one of the pterodactyl birds, helped up onto the saddle behind the rider and strapped in.

  “Hold on tight,” said the woman holding the reins, and they leapt into the air.

  Sammy snatched hold of the woman’s billowing shirt as the dino-bird heaved its wings and they surged into the sky. The rapid acceleration was more violent than that of the greenbuck’s, and for a moment Sammy’s stomach turned. But as they climbed higher, the breathless joy of flight took over. The rush of air in her face, the effortlessness of riding the thermals. They banked, cut in close to the tower and then soared out over the camp.

  Hami followed behind on the next bird down. She glimpsed him as they banked and a moment later had lost him. Further below, the campfires spread out around the base of the column for miles in all directions. A vast shimmering tapestry of twinkling lights. Only from this height could Sammy truly appreciate the number of people invested in the battle. There had to be tens of thousands of people down there. Surely enough to be able to stop the demon. They’d win out. Surely.

  Above her, the light of the citadel projected from the column like a lighthouse of the gods, blazing into the darkness that hung low over the realm.

  They turned then, sliced back across the tower, and out in the other direction.

  Each time they banked they rose higher, zigzagging up the tower and putting more distance between them and the ground. Other dino-birds were patrolling the skies nearby. A few were out by the fringes of the camp, but most were congregated around the top of the column.

  Sammy’s bird took them higher still, to the occupied section of the monument.

  Citizens of the citadel were carrying out their daily duties on the other side of the circular windows in the column’s façade. The residents, like the dino riders, appeared to be predominantly dark-skinned, and dressed in white. On each pass of the column, Sammy got a snapshot of them working, then the bird would beat its wings and carry them up and away to the next level where she’d see a different set of people performing different tasks.

  The top was dino-bird central.

  A row of long runways projected from wide arches in the column and dino-birds were taking off from and coming in to land on them. Sammy’s rider sent her dino-bird out and round in a wide arc, then it swept back to join the back of a queue coming in to land.

  They touched down on the protruding platform and moved along to free up the runway for those coming in behind. Sammy’s rider climbed down and led the dino-bird forward by the reins. Behind them, another bird landed, then the one carrying Hami, and lastly the one carrying Piruzan.

  They entered the citadel through the arch. Sammy climbed down off the saddle and was, for a moment, light-headed. She wavered while her rider departed with the bird towards some stables near the entrance.

  Sammy bent over, bracing her arms against her knees.

  “Breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth,” Hami said as he came over accompanied by Piruzan. “We’re high up. You’ll need to acclimatise to the altitude.”

  Sammy nodded, but remained in the leapfrog stance. She breathed deeply, emptying and refilling her lungs.

  It didn’t take long for the dizziness to pass and for her to regain a posture vertical enough to take in her surroundings.

  The interior of the citadel was hollow and vast. Wide walkways and staircases joined opposite sides of the column, crisscrossing each other above and below. Pod-like dwellings hung from the walls, walkways and staircases. They were bulbous and smooth like they’d grown organically from the column itself and was what Sammy imagined the inside of an alien spaceship might look like.

  “I want one of those dino-birds,” she said, nodding back towards the stables, where the bird that had carried her up was getting preened by a stable boy while a girl threw it meat scraps from a bucket.

  “A rook?” Hami replied.

  “Aren’t rooks black?” Sammy said. “And a lot smaller?”

  “Not here they aren’t.”

  “Can magi ride them? Could I get one if I became a magus?”

  “You’re not a magus,” Piruzan said. “And you aren’t likely to become one –” He trailed off as his gaze focused on something behind her. He smiled. “Here they are.”

  Ten armed guards dressed in white arrived. Their uniforms were trimmed in gold and at their waists hung hook-shaped swords that possessed Sheffield stainless steel levels of shininess.

  “Lead the way,” Piruzan said to the guards. “But not too fast. Our guests are still acclimatising to the altitude.”

  The guards spread out, encircled them in a neat, swift movement, and led them from the entrance archway and into the citadel proper.

  The place was a throng of activity. Carts were getting loaded with supplies brought up by the rooks, street vendors were touting their wares, and other assorted tradespeople were generally rushing about. Many stopped to watch the visitors in their midst, but none stopped for long and each one dashed off soon after.


  The guards forged ahead, clearing a path through the crowds as they led Sammy and the two magi onto the first walkway.

  Hami hung back with Piruzan. “You know about the portal at the snow base?”

  “No thanks to you, Principal.”

  “Ramaask was going to use it to get to the Mother World. I think the Ahriman … this demon, is trying to do the same thing.”

  “We figured that out for ourselves,” Piruzan said without looking back.

  Hami grabbed him by the shoulder. “Aren’t you interested in knowing what I have to say?”

  Piruzan stopped. “Do you expect us to believe any of it? You only tell us what suits you in order to further your own machinations.”

  “I’m captured. What good will it do me to lie now?”

  “I don’t know, Principal. I’m not familiar with the game you’ve been playing and, as I’ve already told you, I’m past caring. I know what my orders are. Master Aegis can decide what’s to be done with you.”

  Hami paused. “I can’t access him.”

  Piruzan sneered. “You can’t access anyone. I’ve had you blocked from the network.”

  Sammy?

  I can still hear you.

  Piruzan smiled at Sammy. She turned away. “I assume you’ve just figured out that you can still communicate with each other. The girl’s never been properly registered so we can’t block her, but you can forget trying to convince anyone else to set you free. They can’t hear you.”

  “You’ve sent magi to the mountains, haven’t you?”

  “Of course. Ankar and Morris.”

  “Just those two?”

  “They’ll be reporting back when they find out what’s there.”

  “They don’t need to find out what’s there. They need to destroy the portal!”

  “Perhaps you could’ve divulged what information you had back at the Cataclysm when there was still a chance I might’ve believed you.”

  Hami took a long breath. “Are you taking me to see Queen Jorj?”

  “The Air Chief Marshal isn’t interested in every petty criminal that enters the citadel. You’re headed for the cells.”

  The guards led them over a second walkway, ascended two flights of stairs, across a wide bridge lined by market stalls and up a final staircase to a large bubble of a building clinging to the inside of the column.

  They entered a foyer area filled with mushroom-green chairs, and at the far end, a desk also fashioned from mushroom. The furniture looked strangely out of place in the white, almost futuristic environment of the citadel.

  A man was sat behind the desk. He looked up from the parchment he was reading as they approached.

  “Two prisoners,” Piruzan said. “And one of them a magus so you’ll need to be careful. No entering the cell. No visitors.” When the man failed to reply, Piruzan followed up with, “Let’s go.”

  The man nodded hurriedly, got up from his chair and beckoned them to follow. Piruzan ordered the guards to wait in the foyer, then nudged Hami and Sammy after the man as he led them down a corridor.

  There were iron cell doors spaced out along the corridor with a significant distance between each. Behind the third door, something was screaming and crashing around.

  “What’s wrong with that person?” Sammy asked as they passed the door.

  “That was the head of the citadel guard,” the prison warden said. “When the purple smog disappeared and the sky went black, he climbed the stairs through the ceiling to see if the path to the Next World had been reopened.”

  “Path to the Next World,” Sammy turned to Hami.

  “And had it?” Hami asked without looking at her.

  The prison guard shook his head. “Let’s just say the black stuff is worse than the purple stuff. He came running back down the stairs with glowing red eyes and chewed out the throat of the first person he saw. It took ten men to restrain him and drag him here to be locked away. He hasn’t eaten anything for seven days and he’s still as ferocious as when he turned into whatever he is now.”

  Sammy experienced what she imagined was the feeling movie characters experience when they say, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  At the fifth door, the warden paused and peered through a narrow letterbox-sized aperture. Evidently satisfied, he fished a hoop of keys out of his pocket, slowly picked through them until he found the right one, then unlocked and opened the door.

  It was a large room, split across the centre by a fence of vertical metal bars. On the far side were two beds, in between which sat a box with a hole in the top. Sammy guessed it was the loo. A narrow horizontal window filled with yet more bars sat in the wall near the toilet.

  “I’ve got a present for you, Principal,” Piruzan said. He flashed one of his wicked smiles as he fished in the pouch at his belt and drew out a pair of glass handcuffs.

  “Magi-cuffs?” Hami said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Brought these all the way from the garrison for you. Picked them up when I got the call from Aegis.” He held them out to Hami. “Somehow I knew you’d be needing them.”

  Hami took them. Held them in his hands. “You don’t need to …”

  “Put them on.”

  Hami’s eyes were dark as he clicked the cuffs into place around his wrists.

  What are they? Sammy asked.

  Hand cuffs made of a special tetra-silicate, a glass-like material with a semi-crystalline structure that’s really hard to latch on to or manipulate because of its unusual arrangement of molecules. Supposedly developed by ancient sorcerers to restrain magi.

  Sammy tried to concentrate on the cuffs but couldn’t. The molecules on the surface of Hami’s wrists were there, the proteins in the hairs of his arms. But the hand cuffs didn’t seem to exist, like there was an area void of matter where matter should be. She glanced at Piruzan.

  Piruzan smiled. “Magic,” he said, and licked his exposed teeth. He nodded to the prison warden.

  The man unlocked a door in the centre of the bars. He let Hami and Sammy inside, then locked it behind them.

  “Stand back,” Piruzan said. He lit his staff and concentrated a beam of light on the lock in the cell door. The metal sparked, turned red, then quickly transitioned through orange to fiery yellow. The heat coming off the metal was incredible. Sammy took several steps back and looked away to stop the heat drying her eyes.

  When Sammy dared to look back again, the lock had returned to a dull red, but was still radiating a significant amount of heat.

  “Just in case you think about picking the lock with your powers,” Piruzan said.

  “What happens if the Ahriman reaches the tower?” Hami asked. “What happens to Sammy?”

  Piruzan turned to leave. “You better hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “I need to speak with Master Aegis.”

  “You had ample opportunity, Principal.”

  “Master …”

  “Anything you need to say to him you can say to me. But make it quick, the demon is approaching and I need to help rally the army.”

  “Close the portal.”

  “You’ve said that already.”

  “I’m serious. That thing can’t be allowed to get within a hundred stadia of the snow base. There’s no point fighting for the people of Ameretat if that portal remains open. If the Ahriman gets through, it could destroy the realm.”

  “My men will find the portal.”

  “It’s on the northern slopes of Dev’s Peak.”

  Piruzan paused. “Honestly?”

  “I swear it on my life. Please, Piruzan.”

  “Master Piruzan,” the magi master said. He sneered. “Wish us luck. Your lives depend on it.” Then he turned and led the prison warden out of the room.

  –FORTY-SIX–

  BANGED UP

  Hami went to the window. He remained there for some time, staring out into space. Eventually he stepped back and went to sit on hi
s bed. He fiddled listlessly with the cuffs at his wrists, gave up, then looked over at Sammy.

  “I had to tell them to close the portal,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t want to go home. I told you.” Her voice cracked slightly as she said it and wondered if she was coming across as indifferent as she hoped.

  “I’m not sure you fully understand the alternative,” Hami said. “Look out of the window.”

  Sammy stared back at him. He didn’t look away, so she got up from her bed and looked out of the thin letterbox window. Outside, a black stormfront was approaching. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but she was just about able to see movement in the swirling smoke drifting towards them.

  It was a menacing sight, but still a long way off.

  “I can’t risk the Ahriman escaping to the outer Mother World,” Hami said. “We need to contain it.”

  “It’s fine.” Why did he keep going on about it? Sammy wasn’t entirely comfortable about losing her way back to the Mother World, but everyone had reservations when it came to major decisions. If she really had to go home one day, there’d be an amulet, a potion or some kind of magic hat.

  “This isn’t it though, is it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got a plan. We aren’t really stuck in this cell until the demon gets here and attacks us?”

  Hami shrugged. He lay down on the bed, resting his cuffed hands on his stomach, and stared at the ceiling.

  Sammy remained at the window. The creeping smoke rolled ever closer, behind it the faint glow of the cataclysm on the horizon. Above, dino-birds circled the citadel, below, the campfires twinkled. Everything was quiet. The world ostensibly at peace. How far removed Sammy was from everything. From the battle below. From Mehrak. And from her family in Sheffield.

  She could shrug off all responsibilities now she was imprisoned. There was nothing she could do about anything. They were all someone else’s problem.

  When Sammy turned back, Hami was asleep. It was one of the few times she’d seen him in that state. He was usually awake when she fell asleep and was always up when she woke. Perhaps being forced into incarceration and handing over responsibility to Piruzan had eased some of the stress he’d been suffering. A frown fleetingly distorted his expression, then he returned to peace.