by Lorna Reid
‘Battle? Battle with who?’ demanded Danny, leaping up. ‘Did she get hurt?’ His father shifted in his seat and Danny recognised the signs of evasion. Thom jumped in before things could explode.
‘Sympathisers of the Darklanders – the people we defeated during the final battle at Crowmount in the last Darkland war. We told you. There’s so much you don’t know and you’ve walked smack into the middle of things.’ Thom sighed and scratched at the long scar on his neck. ‘Anyway. Now it’s a possibility that Blake and Niri, or one of them, at least, is trying to get a message to us.’
‘The distress beacon – you think it was from them?’ Russell said.
‘It’s possible,’ said Danny’s father. ‘Years ago, we all belonged to one of the military companies, led by John, for the Allied Lands in the war against the Darklanders. Every company commander has a company beacon. Bound into it are the life tags of every company member, who show as lights in the Great Watchtower of Dreyling Tor.’
‘A few days ago, around fourteen years after the last time it was used, which was during the final battle, Company Thirteen’s beacon lit up. The last person to have used it was John.’
‘So who has it now?’ Poppy said. Her voice was hushed and strained and it suddenly dawned on Danny why. Her father. Had he … Was this the place where he had died?
‘We don’t know. It was never found after John …’ Thom trailed off and looked at Poppy. ‘After Crowmount,’ he finished. Danny’s stomach sank. He imagined Poppy’s was a million times worse.
‘Mum only told me that he was a soldier and died on duty overseas. It was that battle, in this world, wasn’t it?’ Poppy said.
Thom’s gaze moved to Pete and then Jen. Both looked down with flooded eyes. He nodded at Poppy. ‘It was. I’m more sorry than I can ever say. I know you’ll want to talk about it. Josie will be back soon.’ His voice was soft, pained. It seemed to Danny that he wanted to say so much more but couldn’t.
Poppy allowed herself to be pulled into Jen’s arms, and Danny wished for her that her mother was there. Hearing stuff like that while on your own wasn’t nice, even if Katrina’s mum was comforting her.
‘Can anyone use the beacon?’ wondered Russell.
‘Technically, only a member of Company Thirteen can use it – but the company doesn’t formally exist anymore. It was disbanded after Crowmount. After everything.’ Thom looked down at his hands. ‘Someone from the company had to have lit that beacon. Most of the old company is dead, or alive and accounted for, so no one would have cause to use it.’
‘Except Mum,’ Danny said.
‘And Blake,’ said Thom. ‘Josie is on her way to Dreyling Tor to find out more – if she can.’
‘So.’ Poppy took a breath. ‘We’ve found our way into this … Bridging Land.’
‘The Gateway,’ said Thom.
‘Connected to a load of fragments of an old world. Magic is real, and my father died in some war I don’t even know about, before I was born.’ Poppy’s voice had wavered, but she’d refused to let it slip.
Thom shared another look with Jen and Danny’s dad but stayed silent. ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know,’ Thom said eventually. ‘You’re so much like him, you know?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the trouble.’ Bitterness seeped out of the cracks in her voice.
‘When John introduced me to all this, I was about four, maybe five, I think. I lived in the house you’re in now.’ Thom smiled. ‘I had a hard time believing him, as charming as he was, even then. But he convinced me. He became my closest friend.’
It raised a ghost of a smile from Poppy.
‘This isn’t some fairy, floaty world you’ve found your way into, which is why there was an agreement to keep you all away from it for all this time. It’s dangerous,’ he said. ‘Like Pete said: magic, blades, blood. And you may not get discriminated against because of your skin colour, gender, or the sex of the person or persons you sleep with, but just being born a mage in some Lands can see you hunted, imprisoned, or worse.’
‘Magic’s illegal? What’s the point in having it?’ muttered Danny. What good was magic if you couldn’t move through walls and blow stuff up?
‘No. Well, not in most civilised Lands,’ Thom said. ‘It’s pretty normal, but not everyone has magical ability. It’s something you’re either born with or not. People develop at different rates. Some Lands are far less tolerant of magic.’
‘Every Land uses it though,’ said Jen. ‘Well, as much as their background level of magic will allow; not all Lands have much organic magic to draw from, which can hamper them.’
‘Bet that’s something to fight over then,’ said Russell.
Jen snorted. ‘Oh yeah. The magically rich Lands, like Lallienns – one of the major Lands – are more developed. Some of the magically weaker Lands … They’re poorer, economically, defensively.’ Jen shifted in her seat.
‘Others have massive chips on their shoulders and conduct themselves in such a reprehensible way that the Allied Lands won’t entertain their entry and restrict their business dealings with them. Magical slavery, registers, torture, imprisonment, and exile – all fates mages can suffer in some of those Lands.’
The shine had suddenly come off having magic, Danny decided. Judging by Katrina’s face, she thought the same. ‘So, all those business trips away that Dad goes on,’ said Russell, ‘and when he looks after Danny or Poppy when Peter or Josie go away … you’ve all been here. These Lands.’
Danny and the others looked at him and then at Pete, Jen, and Thom.
‘Yes. Jen’s still attached to one of the allied companies as a Drift Mage; Thom’s semi-retired, but stays on drift, the lazy bastard,’ his father said, jabbing Thom in the ribs and getting punched in the leg in return. ‘Jack and Josie and some of our other friends are still serving officers.’
‘He goes and fights? With magic?’ Russell said.
‘Magic, swords …’
‘Sarcasm.’
Danny was close enough to catch Thom’s mutter, but thankfully Russell wasn’t. Jen shot Thom a warning look and he slouched down in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
Everyone had fallen silent, trying to absorb and process. There was just the occasional swish of denim or scuffle of cushion as someone shifted position.
*
Poppy twisted the hem of her t-shirt round her fingers, winding and stretching the fabric as everything churned in her mind. Anger, frustration, and sadness combatted curiosity and excitement. She had always wanted to know more about her father, but her mother had always been vague. Now she knew why. Some stupid pact had kept the truth from her, kept her father from her, her whole life. He had died in some battle in a strange land. Why? What had been worth dying for? Why hadn’t her mother just told her? Why, if magic existed, wasn’t he here now. That was what it was for, wasn’t it?
*
Russell folded, unfolded, and refolded the hand towel he’d used to dry his hair, unable to process everything. His mother had gone, and now his father risked his life as a soldier for a Land, a world, that Russell knew nothing about? If it was as dangerous as they had made out, then why was he doing it? Were these Lands where his mother had gone? Had she loved the Lands more than she had loved Russell? Was that why she had never come back? What good was magic if it caused wars, rather than prevented them? If it stole lives instead of restoring them? Was it their flatline world that was really better off?
*
Katrina rested her head on her mother’s shoulder and let the gentle rise and fall of her breathing soothe her mind. For everything she had secretly dreamed of, an escape from the mundanity and pettiness of everyday existence, she didn’t understand why she was suddenly not as excited as she had thought.
Danny’s mother had gone missing here. Poppy’s father had been killed. Was this where her own father had gone when he left? Had something in the Lands made him become the person Katrina hated and missed all at once – changed him from the man sh
e had loved growing up? What about Russell’s mum?
If you have something as powerful as magic in your life, why isn’t everything better? she thought. Why are other things taken away or ruined to compensate? Why take some bigotry away and replace it with another kind? She frowned and plucked at a loose thread on the badge of her school blazer draped across her lap. Was what they had found any better than what they had just left behind?
Chapter 5
◊
DANNY SWUNG HIS LEGS, kicking the base of the sofa. For once, it didn’t seem to be annoying Russell – he was in a trance, playing with the towels. This is where she was. His mother. And with their so-called magic, they hadn’t found her. What was the fucking point of it then? What if she really was dead? What then? Could they turn back time? Jen had said that time magic, although rare, existed, hadn’t she?
Panic and worry gnawed at Danny’s nerves, blending with his anger and frustration to make an uneasy cocktail. The sofa was taking more and more of a beating until an impeccably aimed cushion whomped him in the face.
‘You break it, you buy it,’ his father quipped. For a flash of a moment, Danny’s instinctive reaction was to erupt and hurl it back, but it was his dad, and that cheeky grin, however brief, was enough to make him dissolve into a short laugh. He flung himself across the room, trying to keep the nasty circling thoughts out of his head about what fate had befallen his mother.
Danny wriggled into his dad’s arms, trying to smother away the bad thoughts, leeching comfort from his father and the whispered reassurances and teasing plucks of his hair.
The smell of peach shampoo, deodorant, aftershave, and fresh clothes mingled together, creating the comforting smell he associated with his father. Danny wished he could stop crying, but he couldn’t. And for a moment, he wished that he hadn’t found out. Instead of his mother being hurt by a crazed axe-murderer or pervert, now he had to be scared about magic, armies, and land-wiping cataclysms.
A hand ruffled through his hair and he turned his head to eye Thom. ‘What?’ he muttered.
‘You okay, Dan?’ His soft voice was like a balm. Danny sniffed and gave a miniscule shrug, receiving a humourless smile in return. ‘That’s what I thought.’ Thom slid down in his seat a little to match Pete’s height and flicked Danny’s ear, earning a grudging smile.
‘You know we’ve not given up. We never will,’ Thom said. ‘We don’t know what Josie will find out, but it’s one of the best leads we’ve had in a while. Anyway, hey, your mother could take on a fucking army, you know? And Blake …?’ He trailed off.
Danny’s father gave an amused snort. ‘Fuck help them,’ he finished. ‘If they haven’t killed him, they’ll wish they had.’
Thom’s hand leapt to his throat, making Danny jump, and the man pulled a mirrored disc on a silver chain from beneath his dark blue shirt and studied it. It was pulsing with a smoky silver light, a tinge of blue wisping across its face.
‘It’s Josie.’
Danny was nearly pitched off the chair as his father jerked around.
Thom ran to the low mantle above the fireplace, where an old, gilt-edged mirror hung, whipped off his chain and slotted the disc into a discreet notch in the bottom centre of the frame. ‘Jo?’ His voice carried so much tension it was in danger of fracturing.
Everyone was on the edge of their seats, silent. Smoky light spread swiftly over the mirror’s glass and then there was a brief flash before Poppy’s mother’s face appeared, her long blonde hair framing her strong slender face and setting off her blue eyes. ‘Thom, I called as quickly as …’ She tailed off and looked over his shoulder at the room full of faces. Faces that shouldn’t be there. Poppy stood up, opened her mouth and, for perhaps the first time since Danny could remember, closed it again without a word.
‘Fuck,’ Josie hissed, burying her head in her hands.
Thom grinned. ‘Yeah, our thoughts exactly,’ he said.
Josie peered through her fingers, absorbing the scene, and then dropped her hands with a thud onto what Danny guessed must have been a tabletop.
‘We tried to get you after they first hit the portal, but couldn’t get through.’ Thom sounded apologetic. ‘We’ve barely got started on the juicy stuff: murderous armies, lethal assassins, crappy Aquattrox teams who’ve lost every night game this season.’ He shot Jen a sly grin. Before Danny could blink, she’d flicked out a tiny sliver of silver light that stung Thom on the backside, making him yelp. Pete snorted, but was evidently too tense to laugh.
‘I … Poppy … I know you’ll have questions …’
‘It’s okay.’ Poppy flicked her hair back. ‘This is more important right now.’
Danny shared a surprised look with Katrina and Russell and shrugged.
‘But I want to talk to you. About everything. About Dad,’ she said.
Josie pushed her hair back over her ears, the exact same way Poppy did, and nodded. ‘I understand.’
Poppy curled up back in her chair and Danny’s father joined Thom in front of the mirror. ‘Jo?’ he said. Danny wanted to grab his father’s trembling hands, to smother the worry away, but he couldn’t even vanish his own. He balled his fists and focussed on the conversation.
‘The watchers say the beacon lit yesterday. Some of them were watching the tags of a Mountain Ranger patrol who were routing a big drainer network in the Oakshore Mountains; they were siphoning magic from the Land Shield. One of the watchers saw it from the corner of her eye.’
‘It was the primary beacon? Did anyone’s individual tag light up?’ Jen probed, having joined his dad and Thom at the mirror. ‘Could it be Niri or Blake?’
‘It was the primary company beacon. No tags – they’re all dark now that the company is gone.’
Pete sighed and rubbed his head. ‘John was the last one to have that beacon.’
‘I know,’ Josie said in a quiet voice. ‘According to the scribes who checked the archives, the last time Company Thirteen’s beacon went bright was during the Battle of Crowmount.’
‘We never found it after that,’ Thom said.
‘It was assumed that it had been lost,’ Josie replied.
‘After the Land was sealed, trapping the Darklanders inside, could one of them have used it? Or anyone else, somehow?’ asked Jen.
‘It has to have been a member of that company. And only John could have removed the beacon from around his neck – that’s one of the magical fail-safes. They were very firm about that.’ Josie shook her head and frowned.
Danny scowled. Where did this leave his mother? Was it her?
‘So where was it? They have to know where it lit up?’ his father said, fidgeting. Danny didn’t like the look that passed over Josie’s face – it was the pulled, cautious look of someone about to deliver bad news.
‘There’s a problem.’
‘What kind of problem?’ His dad’s taut response snapped through the thick atmosphere and Danny’s blood turned to ice.
‘They don’t know.’ Josie sat back a little, perhaps anticipating his dad’s reaction.
‘What do they mean, they don’t know? It’s their fucking job to know. It’s all they do. All fucking day. They sit on their arses and watch people’s lives blink out.’ Jen and Thom placed hands on his dad’s back, but Danny could see the tension in his face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were blazing. It wasn’t good.
‘Pete, this is unprecedented,’ Josie said. ‘I spoke to the Chief Watcher. For them to not be able to locate the beacon means that it has to be somewhere beyond the reach of the tower’s magic.’
Danny caught Katrina, Poppy, and Russell glancing at him and he looked away, wishing his stomach would stop churning, wishing someone would say something positive, that it was all a mistake and that they had found her.
‘She’s talking bollocks, Jo,’ his dad said. ‘Nothing’s beyond the tower’s reach – that’s why it’s there.’
‘I said it was unprecedented.’ Josie fell quiet and her long, slender fingers c
urled around the blue pendant around her neck, the crystal catching the light. She opened her mouth to speak and then thought better of it. Danny had a nasty feeling that she wasn’t done, and so, evidently, did the others.
‘Jo, what else?’ Thom said.
‘I questioned the scribes and the older watchers. Asked what would block the beacon, where it could be that even the tower couldn’t locate it.’
‘And?’ Pete demanded, his voice twisting as he struggled to control the emotion in his voice.
‘They said there were only maybe five or so places in all the Lands: Ianua, the Fringe Lands …’ His dad’s exclamation echoed Jen and Thom’s, and Danny stopped breathing, his eyes snapping between Josie and the others. She continued.
‘… Bicornis, the Darklands, and maybe the Black Pass.’
His dad raked his hands through his hair and clawed down the back of his neck, gouging red trails. Danny felt bile start to boil up his throat.
‘So only the worst possible fucking places that we know of. I don’t even know how to pick a winner.’ His voice wavered and broke.
Danny could feel the others’ eyes on him, feel their helplessness and their pity, and tried not to cry. He wanted to know all about it, what this all meant, but he also didn’t, because every time he asked things, it got worse.
‘Aside from the Black Pass and the Fringe Lands, which are all screwed up, every other place is magically sealed. No one in, no one out,’ said Jen.
‘That’s why they think the beacon can’t be tracked,’ said Josie. ‘The tower can’t see into a sealed-off Land and the Black Pass is so magically twisted up as to make it impossible, according to them. So if a member of Company Thirteen activated it, and it had to have been one of us – then that’s where they are,’ finished Josie.
‘In one of the places that, for the most part, we can’t even access, let alone explore,’ said Thom.