by John Kerry
Mantis had incinerated a great number of the Ahriman’s troops as they entered the hall behind him, yet even now they continued to force their way through the narrow doorway, clambering over the burning remains of their comrades.
Mantis pulled another fireball from the air with his spare hand and held it aloft. This one was for Hami. And that gave him a target. He aimed the beam high, hitting the smoking ball before Mantis could release it.
The explosion floored the sorcerer. He was only down a moment, but that was enough for the grey-faced men and women of the Ahriman’s army to reach him and descend on his prone body.
Hami didn’t wait to see what happened next.
A gargled scream chased him along the corridor and continued into the black cathedral as he ran after Sammy.
Sammy took the stairs two at a time. She heard Hami call out behind her, from the other end of the hall, but she kept going.
The General is heading to the portal, she communicated as she dashed into the tunnel.
There was a brief pause, where she assumed he was processing what she’d told him and coming to terms with the fact that the General was still alive, and heading for the portal.
We’ve got to stop him, he responded. At any cost. See if you can slow him down until I get there.
Sammy emerged from the tunnel, squinting into the blue light of the portal. The gentle, swirling wisps that had danced between the metal prongs the last time she’d been there had multiplied to become an expanding and contracting maelstrom of blue and turquoise plasma.
Mehrak and his aunt were below, working on the machine that fed the portal. Mehrak was turning a wheel on the side releasing steam. His aunt was alternatively pouring liquids from two separate test tubes into a funnel while calling out instructions.
Wifey wasn’t doing anything.
She spotted Sammy then. Their eyes locked and she narrowed hers.
Sammy didn’t have time to analyse what that meant, as Azertash had reached the gantry above the portal. She ran for the top terraces taking two stairs at a time.
The General was halfway down the walkway when she reached the ceiling.
He paused, dark ooze dripping off his chin. The blue portal light had turned his blood mask black while its swirling patterns danced in his eyes.
He hefted his sword back.
Sammy lit her staff as the General threw.
She side-stepped as the blade spiralled past her. It was a clumsy throw, but its purpose didn’t require accuracy. It only needed to buy its owner time.
Sammy shot at the General, but too late. The lightning bolt sailed over his head as he dropped through the hole where the walkways met.
Sammy reached the doughnut-shaped opening over the portal as the General’s body dispersed into millions of individual glowing blue particles and disappeared.
Hami stumbled into the amphitheatre at ground level. His chest was pumping, his eyes were wild. “Where’s the General?” he shouted, barely audible over the portal machinery. “Where’s Sammy?”
I’m up here, she communicated. The General’s already gone through the portal. I’m going after him.
Hami looked up. Saw her. It’s too dangerous. Let me go.
Mehrak spotted her then. “Sammy!” he called out. “What are you doing up there?”
I know the Mother World, she spoke to Hami. I understand its workings. It’s where I’m from … and where I belong. She didn’t believe any of it, but at least it sounded heroic. And it was what Hami wanted to hear. It would give him peace.
“Sammy?” Mehrak called again. “What are you doing?”
“Stop the portal!” Mantis shouted as he entered the amphitheatre. He shoved his way past Hami and reached out towards Sammy.
Say goodbye to everyone for me. Sammy pulled back her hood. She smiled and held up a hand to Mehrak.
“Sammy!” Mantis screamed. He tore a burning orb of flame from the air.
And she jumped.
–FIFTY-EIGHT–
ESCAPE
Watching Sammy drop into the light was the longest moment of Mehrak’s life. Infinitely slower and more painful than that last time she’d left him.
He never saw her disappear. Mantis’s fireball hit the machinery beside him and the world around him became one of light and noise.
He came round facing the portal, momentarily captivated by the shrinking blue vortex. It sputtered, sparked, died, then ignited into a burning orange fireball.
“Evacuate the base!” Kimia’s voice. Arms under his lifted him to his feet and another hand took his. Gisouie. She pulled him along, coaxing him into a jog.
Sammy? His brain was slow. They were running in the wrong direction. They should be going after her. He looked back at the portal-turned-fireball. There was no going after her now.
Mantis was on his knees by the burning portal. He howled as if in agony and did nothing to stop them fleeing.
They left him where he remained, bundling into Hami and shoving him back out through the doors.
They found Leiss in the hall kneeling over Eva, stroking her hair back from her face. She was unmoving, but had no wounds that Mehrak could see.
Calven hadn’t been so fortunate. He lay in a pool of his own blood, his eyes wide and skin pale. Mehrak turned away, not wanting to believe the fate of the gentle human being that had kept him company while Hami was off teaching Sammy the ways of the magi. The companion that had helped him clear dishes after supper and talked at length about his nieces and the games he’d play with them when he got home.
A crash rang out across the hall. Mehrak wiped the tears from his eyes. The grey-faced army of the dead streamed in through the doorway on the far side.
“There’s another way!” Kimia yelled. “Follow us!”
The scientists broke into a sprint, leading the way around the curved wall of the portal chamber. Hami helped lift Eva over Leiss’s shoulder. Mehrak collected Eva’s sword, took Gisouie’s hand and ran after them.
They left Calven’s body. It seemed a despicable act to leave him to whatever dark forces would be making a puppet of his flesh, but they couldn’t carry him. They only had one Leiss and his hands were full with Eva. The only consolation was that when the portal blew, he’d be cremated in an explosion worthy of a man with a heart as big as his.
A narrow door further round the hall led to an adjoining utility room and then out into the snow.
Grey men, women and crabmen were everywhere.
Hami blazed a trail through, dropping them with snaps of light from his staff. Leiss transferred Eva to his left shoulder, unsheathed his sword with his right hand and waded in one-armed.
Mehrak held out Eva’s sword and swung it loosely in an arc back and forth to keep the dead at bay.
Crabmen and humans alike were ice-covered and walked stiffly, and most wandered directly in front of Hami’s staff or Leiss’s sword. Death had evidently stripped them of their self-preservation and none wore more than what they’d have been wearing when they’d begun marching. No furs, layers, nothing.
Black smoke rushed in along the ground, between the buildings and over their feet as they ran.
Hami shot a dark crabman that rose up stiffly from the crowd. Its carapace cracked, its frozen limbs fractured, and it dropped, lost beneath the horde of dead bodies that moved towards them.
“Put me down!” Eva shifted herself off Leiss’s shoulder. She landed on her feet, then dropped to her knees.
“Eva!” Leiss tried to pick her up again.
“I’m fine. Where’s my sword?”
Mehrak tossed it to her. Thankful he hadn’t had to use it properly. The army may have been dead already but he still didn’t want to stab anyone.
They reached the outskirts of the complex and began climbing the ridge that Mehrak hoped Louis was still safely tucked behind. The grey people had fallen behind. Too slow to keep up, but persistent enough to keep dragging their stiff bodies o
nward.
Then one grey-faced dead man burst through the shambling bodies and came at them. Calven. And he was screaming like an animal.
He launched himself at Eva, thrusting his sword at her stomach. Eva batted him away and kicked him backwards.
Leiss lunged in, putting himself between them. He swung his sword across Calven, opening a gash across his chest. But Calven didn’t stop, didn’t flinch, as he kept coming. Leiss hacked at the guy’s arms and legs, until enough tendons had been severed to halt Calven’s progress. The guard slumped down in a heap, twitching and squealing.
Leiss brought down his sword one last time, silencing Calven by severing his head.
Eva stared at him, tears in her eyes. Then she turned and stumbled after Kimia and the scientists.
“Eva?” Leiss called after her, but she didn’t turn around. “Wait!”
Hami remained behind, blasting back the fastest of the dead as they staggered up the slope after them.
Mehrak glanced back at the snow base. The entire complex was shrouded in smoke. Thousands of men, women, crabmen, even some karkadann, horses and silverskins, crowded in around the black castle in the centre. And in the smoke, a shape, an indistinct monster that dwarfed both Louis and Eggie together, moved up to the castle. Two great arms emerged. Each took hold of a castle spire, and with a rending crunch pulled both down.
Black smoke obscured the damage from view. The remaining spires remained above smoke level as the beast moved forward, wading into the building.
The explosion was immense. The entire mountain shook beneath them as the skies lit up. Mehrak slipped on the unstable surface and sliding snow. He held on to Gisouie and she helped drag him up the slope.
“Keep going!” Hami shouted, as fragments of stone hit the mountain around them, burying themselves deep in the snow.
Their climbing became frantic, they stumbled, tripped, scrambled on all fours. Hands going numb in the snow.
They moved higher, eventually out of the radius of falling rubble. Panic levels receded and the remaining climb to the summit slowed.
Mehrak paused to catch his breath at the top. He took one last look at the place he’d lost Sammy.
The base was in ruins. The castle in the centre had been replaced by a growing mushroom cloud. The surrounding buildings were flattened. And nothing on the plateau stirred. No Ahriman, no dead. The bodies that had comprised his army remained, but unmoving. Ants against the scorched mountaintop beneath them.
Had the demon been destroyed? Nothing living could’ve survived that explosion.
And none of his aunt’s equipment would be salvageable. There was no going after Sammy now. If he’d been quicker, he could’ve run for the portal and dived in after her. Maybe. Or perhaps if he’d only said the right thing, she might’ve stayed.
She’d gone because of Gisouie. If they hadn’t rescued her, then Sammy would still be with him. And now he’d never see her again, unless she re-used the Midnight Emerald Dial, which he already knew she wouldn’t.
The fluctuation when she’d entered the realm had indicated three people. Two instances of her arriving. The third was the boy.
Sammy was gone. This time for good.
–FIFTY-NINE–
AFTER SAMMY
The mushrooms appeared high in the fog, their wide canopies reaching out above their heads as they drew near.
The man hadn’t come this close to the Fungi Forest for many years, and even then it had been in the company of a Marzban envoy.
The forest was still. Imagined danger lurked in the vegetation, stalking ever closer, preparing to pounce. He shivered and pulled his furs tightly about him as he eased his horse to a stop.
The boy climbed down from the cart and came around to the front where the man was sitting. “Thank you,” he said simply, then turned to leave.
“Wait.”
The boy turned back to face him. Icy blue eyes locked on his. There was something wrong about this yellow-haired child. A bold fearlessness uncommon in someone so young, and disconcerting to be in the presence of when made the focus of his gaze.
“Are you sure your father told you to meet him here?” the man mumbled. “At the edge of the Moat? There could be anything hiding out there in those ’shrooms.”
“This is where I am to meet him.”
“What does he do? Is he a Marzban?”
“I paid you well,” the boy said. His eyes never broke contact. “You have fulfilled your end of the bargain. You may leave.”
The man looked away first, ashamed he’d been stared down by the boy. He wanted nothing more than to leave the freaky child out here to whatever fate befell him, but what kind of man would he be if he did that?
“I’ll wait until he arrives.”
“Your presence here is no longer necessary.”
“I insist.” It was the man’s turn to assert himself this time. He was expecting a protest, yet that wasn’t what he got.
The boy grinned, teeth clenched behind a wicked smile. He extended the index finger on his right hand. His eyes flashed and he bared more teeth as he raised his arm, pointing first at the man’s foot, then tracing a line up his body. A burning sensation followed the focus of the boy’s finger until it reached the man’s chest. He was getting hot, sweating. He fumbled with the clasp at the top of his furs as his clothing caught light, and he went up in flames.
Back at the rendezvous point, Gisouie ran for Louis and fell on his head, wrapping her arms around him.
Mehrak hung back, imagining she was Sammy, watching the woman he’d traded his best friend for. Gisouie noticed him then, smiled, and came over to put her arms around him. He sighed as he inhaled her familiar scent. He’d missed it. Missed her even, and the comfort of her presence in his life. A knot tightened in his chest. He still cared for the woman a great deal, loved her even, but there was no spark. Gisouie deserved better than that. The guilt gnawed at him, but he couldn’t summon feelings of excitement when he looked at her. But should there be? Wasn’t desire something that faded with the passing of time? Thinking back, he wasn’t sure if there ever had been any. Perhaps it was only her company he’d enjoyed.
The hug was brief, as was Gisouie’s way. She looked up at him.
Even though they’d been apart, she still possessed that uncanny ability to know what was on his mind. “She’s gone to a better place,” she said smiling, but there was no warmth in her eyes.
Baxter arrived early for his meeting with Aegis at the magi embassy, and was promptly taken to the grand master’s suite.
Aegis was slumped forward at the desk with his head in his hands. The room around him was utilitarian, lacking in any material possessions or decoration. The place seemed almost deliberately stripped of embellishment, like a magus. A thing of pure function and purpose.
He looked up when Baxter knocked on the door frame. His eyes were bloodshot and his forehead was lined with worry.
“Hami is back on the network,” the Grand Master said.
Baxter nodded solemnly, but excitement prickled his skin. “And?” he asked, keeping his voice even and measured.
“The portal was destroyed. The resulting explosion took the demon and much of the mountain with it.”
“So we’ve rid ourselves of the portal and the demon?”
Aegis shrugged. “Hami returned to the site afterwards. He found no sign of the demon, and the reanimated corpses that had been following in its wake have not reawakened.”
“But that’s excellent news, is it not? Both Ramaask and the demon vanquished?”
“We lost the girl. She left Perseopia through the portal before it was destroyed.”
“Is that a problem now that the demon has gone?”
“I think it could be. Do you recall me telling you about the three rifts that appeared in the fabric of our realm? Two of them we know to have been caused by Sammy.”
“There’s someone else?”
“
A boy.”
“Have we found him?”
“No. And that is what concerns me. He was first found by a Marzban out in the Fungi Forest close to where Sammy arrived. The guard took the boy into his home, was going to adopt him as his son.”
“Was going to adopt the boy?”
“Until he was burnt to death by Ramaask’s servant, the lesser demon that betrayed him to release the Ahriman. The one that burns everything he touches.”
“And now the boy is missing?”
“We found the burned remains of a wagon on the edge of the Moat. We think the boy’s skipped town, possibly with this other demon.”
Neither of them spoke for a time.
It was the Grand Master that broke the silence. “Legend tells of two children returning to Perseopia. One good, one evil. One lives, one dies. No one knows which is which.”
“The chosen children.” Baxter frowned.
“You think me a senile old man, Baxter? Lending credence to the myth?”
Baxter smiled. “You may be many things, but senile is not a word I would choose to describe you.”
“I never believed in them. The chosen children. Part of me still doesn’t. But these two have been brought to Perseopia, to this specific time, for a reason. Something significant is happening. And Ramaask’s demon has the boy.”
Baxter waited for Aegis to go on, but the Grand Master lapsed into silence. When it seemed like he had nothing further to say, Baxter dipped his head and turned to leave.
“I don’t believe the Ahriman has truly gone,” Aegis said. “I think it’s still here somewhere, forced to remain in Perseopia because the portal’s gone. And now that we’ve lost the girl, we no longer have the means to stop it.”
–EPILOGUE–
They’d travelled through the night and didn’t make camp until the early hours of the following morning. Gisouie had taken herself upstairs and fallen asleep sprawled out across the bed. Mehrak left her where she lay, put on a thick coat and crept downstairs. His aunt was at the stove heating water for a cup of tea. Her scientist buddies were sat around the table. Mehrak nodded on his way past, then continued down to the back door hatch.