by Tim Lebbon
“Lewis stayed with you,” he said, and Papa seemed to sigh in response. “And so will I.” Papa’s image lowered its head, bending across the room.
Scott refused to let go of Helen’s hand. She had closed her eyes and covered them with her free arm, rejecting the sight. The Wide hung before them, a continuous extension to the room they were in, and Scott felt dwarfed by all around him, a mind without intellect.
Stronger than you know, Papa said, and for the first time it sounded like the voice of the old man he knew and loved. Chord of Souls has to go, Scott. I span the Wide. I know what wrote it. Don’t let Nina . . . don’t let any of them . . . Scott felt the effort there—the pain Papa suffered in projecting his voice in that way—but Papa had done it for him.
“I’ll do it, Papa. I’m not afraid. Nettles don’t sting on Saturdays.”
He felt an overwhelming flow of love then, as though the whole world were smiling at him.
“Come on,” he said to Helen. “You’re staying with me whatever happens.”
“They’re here,” Lewis said. “They’re here!”
Something forged along the tunnel behind them, pushing air before it and projecting screams that crushed Scott and Helen down to the ground.
Shapes emerged from the Wide, coalescing into two humanoid figures that disturbed Papa’s endless image, sending ripples that caused him to add his own silent scream to the room.
Lewis cowered back against a wall, and he and Scott locked eyes.
Now, Lewis’s gaze said. Your only chance.
Scott saw Nina and Tigre form fully from the Wide. Nina’s eyes flickered around until they settled on Scott. They were unreadable.
The Screaming Skulls burst from the tunnel, an eruption of bone and fury.
Shadowy blights flickered into existence around Lewis like negative fireworks.
Scott stood, lifted Helen to her feet, and ran for the only exit available from the crowded room.
Papa’s voice followed him. Don’t wait for me, Scotty, or anyone else. Understand? Go safe.
“How do you know it’s this way?” Helen asked.
“I don’t. Nowhere else to go.”
“But what if we’re—”
“Look.” Scott pointed ahead at swathes of spiderwebs hanging across the tunnel. They were heavy with dust, and dried things hung here and there, wrapped in silken threads. “No one’s been this way for a long time.”
“I don’t like it here,” Helen said. “I really need to go home.” She was struggling to hold in her tears, strong as ever, but a single drop escaped her right eye.
Scott watched it run down her cheek and drip from her chin. “I can’t do anything for us,” he said. “Not right now. I’m as lost as you are, but I need you strong. Are you strong?”
Helen sniffed, nodded. “You know I am.”
“I know you are.” Scott smiled. “You ready for this?”
“Spiders? No. Hate the little fuckers.”
Little? Scott thought, looking at the webs. But he did not want to make matters worse.
He went first, and when he touched them the webs were surprisingly light. He felt the subtle rip as he ran his hand through them, but no spiders scurried from out of sight to bite his hand, and there were no thumps on his shoulders or cries from behind.
Helen still held his other hand. Her grip hurt. Scott squeezed, and she held tighter. It felt good.
Web was collecting around his hand and across his sleeved arm. It was all but weightless, and even the hanging dead things were light to the touch. Sucked dry, perhaps. But he tried to cast that thought aside.
The light still came from somewhere, exuded from the walls or born of the air itself. Perhaps this close to the rip into the Wide—the rent through which Papa’s tortured soul was stretched—the air lit with what was beyond.
Past the webs they found a room. It was still, silent, and there was nothing there that should have felt threatening. Yet upon entering, Scott and Helen moved sideways and pressed themselves back against the cool walls. So old! he thought.
Age itself seemed to have a personality. He could tell that no one had been in this room for . . . ages. Literally ages. He could feel the slick, dank air that had not been breathed, see the layers of dust that consisted of no human skin, sense the impossible age of the things in this room almost exuded as aromas, such was their power. The level light remained, though it seemed darker than anywhere else in the tunnels. Did this room exist before we set eyes on it? he thought. Was it here before I pushed through the last web and we emerged from the tunnel? If so, what was it like? As a child he had often imagined the words of his favorite stories pressed together in closed books, unreadable in the darkness between pages, and unread. He had wondered whether the stories were still there. He’d asked Papa once, and Papa had said that stories are made, created, and understood by the reader. The book is just a collection of words. It had confused him then, and it still did now.
Spread across the floor and leaning casually against the wall were the stone tablets of the Chord of Souls.
“This is it,” Helen whispered, and Scott thought, What is it? It was not a comforting thought. It personalized the impersonal, and he did not like that idea. Had these tablets contained anything before he and Helen appeared? Had they meant anything? He could not know.
“Lewis needs to see something of this to free Papa,” Helen said.
“No,” Scott said. “Papa told me not to wait.”
“But—”
“They have to be broken. Destroyed.”
“It’s amazing,” Helen said. She stepped forward into the miasma of age and history, knelt before one slab and traced a carving with her forefinger. “It’s incredible.”
Scott tried to pick up a slab. He pried his fingers beneath its edge, pushing through a small drift of dust that may have taken thousands of years to build up. The stone lifted with a dry exhalation. “Helen, I need to trust you,” he said.
“Scott . . .”
“Please, Angel. I mean it. I need to trust you.” He took the folded exercise book from his front pocket. The pencil fell out and clattered onto the stone he was trying to lift, rolling into a carved channel.
“What are you doing?”
“Something secret. Will you help?” He plucked the pencil from the stone and leaned the slab against another, bent forward, closed his eyes, and blew. Dust and grit pricked at his face, and he wiped it from his eyes before looking again. The stone was bare, begging to be read. He tore a sheet of paper from the book and pressed it to the stone surface. When he inclined the pencil and rubbed, impressions emerged from the tablet.
“I’ll help you,” Helen whispered. She reached out and he gave her the exercise book. Their fingers touched briefly. She started tearing out its blank pages.
“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” he said.
Helen shook her head. “Maybe with this there is no right and wrong.”
They started taking rubbings of the stones. Scott was crying, and at first he attributed it to the dust. But then he scolded his dishonesty and thought back to that image of Papa, trapped from here and across the Wide by the Screaming Skulls. It had seemed like a faded representation of him, lacking the vitality and intellect of the man and yet still so certainly Papa.
“How dare they?” he said.
Helen did not answer. She was being methodical, clearing dust from slabs, handing paper to Scott, then stacking the traced tablets against the far wall.
There were over forty tablets, but they worked quickly together.
“Nearly done, Papa,” he whispered. He hoped that he was doing the right thing. Even unable to read or translate what was before him, Scott could feel the potential radiating from these pages. Maybe I’m affected by them even as I see them, he thought. Perhaps Helen and I will be changed by this forever.
Helen glanced over, a twinkle in her eye. And he knew that he was right. Every second that passed changed both of them. He only h
oped that when this was over, they could still recognize each other. And themselves.
They worked on. Scott traced; Helen pocketed the finished pages. And time started to fade. In a place this old, perhaps it had little meaning. Scott had a crazy vision of time sprinting onward way above them; cities rising and falling, empires fading to dust and new ones rebuilding themselves from the rubble of the old, people being born, living and dying in endless cycles that sometimes seemed so futile, but actually meant so much.
For a moment he circled a position of such complete understanding that he gasped and fell onto his back. He stared at the ceiling and knew that the truth was there, just beyond his sight. He reached out, almost able to touch it. “Have you ever felt as if you know almost everything?” he said, and Nina was above him, glaring down into his eyes and reaching out to hold his shoulders.
She pressed him down into the stone and leaned in close. “Not yet,” she said. “But soon.”
Helen screamed. Scott turned his head and saw her held back against the wall by Tigre, the man of scars. He looked back up at Nina, her face upside down above his.
“I trusted you,” Scott said. “For a while, at least.”
“I never meant to harm you,” Nina said.
“What do you mean?”
She looked around then, and he saw an animation in her eyes that had been so lacking. It was as if coming into this room of frozen time and painful history had brought her to life. “Things have changed,” she said.
“Let Helen go.”
“Not yet. The book. I need the book, need to read it, and then you and Helen can go free.”
“And what then?”
“Sit up,” Nina said.
She moved her weight from his shoulders and Scott sat up, slipping the pencil beneath his leg, glancing across at Helen. It’ll be okay, he tried to communicate, but she had her eyes closed against the man holding her.
“What?” Scott asked again. “You read the book, remember what you were told, and then eternity becomes a much more attractive place. Is that it? More power, more knowledge?”
“It’s probable that once you leave here, you’ll never see us again,” Nina said. “There’s such power in these pages, but it’s above the knowledge of mere humans.”
“You’re weak,” Scott said, and he could see it. Her eyes were hazy once again, her skin pale and mottled, and even Tigre’s legs were shaking. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Tigre.” Nina uttered his name so casually that at first Scott was not aware of what she had done. But then he heard the sickening snap of breaking bone, and Helen screamed, and Tigre looked at him with something in his eyes that could have been a smile.
“Helen!”
“Just her arm,” Nina said. “Lots more bones left. Or perhaps her eyes next. This isn’t me, Scott; you should know that. It’s not my way. But I’m learning.”
“Just leave her the fuck alone.” He rose to his knees and turned to the next stone tablet. He picked it up, blew dust from it, and then heaved it as hard as he could at the wall.
The effect was staggering. He was hoping for a break, perhaps several cracks, but the tablet shattered into a hundred pieces, dust and grit exploding from it and scraping against his skin, shards ricocheting around the chamber, and even before they had all settled on the ground, Nina was shouting.
“One for one!” Scott said. “Just one page, but there are lots left!” He held his breath. Helen was still whimpering, but there had been no fresh breaks. They won’t really harm her, he thought. Not badly. They kill her, and I have nothing left to live for. But the thought of them torturing her to get to him . . .
“You’re not in control, Scott!” Nina shouted.
“Neither are you. We have a trade to make.”
Nina pursed her lips, looked at the shattered pieces of stone, then nodded. She must be wondering what is lost forever, Scott thought. And then, looking down at the dust and stone shards, so was he.
“Clean them and stack them up,” Nina said. She moved to the slabs Helen had already stacked against the wall, swaying as she stood before them.
They’re weak, Scott thought. They hurt Helen because they’re weak. It’s a pretense. I am the one in control here. Papa? Is that right? Am I in control? Am I responsible?
Scott searched for Papa’s voice, but heard nothing. The tattered soul of the old man was so close, but it was also way beyond him now. Scott could save him from further suffering, but they would never again have one of their talks. I’ll miss you, Scott thought.
He bent and lifted another slab. He sensed Nina tensing behind him as he did so.
“You can’t touch these,” he said. “I know that wasn’t a lie, at least.” He hefted the slab—it was heavy, but still light enough for him to manipulate—and showed it to her. “See anything good?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Scott.” But Nina was leaning forward, looking as if she were going to be sick but still fascinated, unable to help herself, staring at the stone—the page from the Chord of Souls—and grimacing at the pain it caused her.
Her mouth suddenly dropped open in wonder. “I carved that one,” she said.
“Have it back.” Scott threw the stone with all his might. He fell backward, scrabbling on the ground for a heavy chunk of the tablet he had smashed, and as his fingers closed around one the slab struck Nina.
“Helen, down!” he shouted.
Nina screamed.
Helen slumped to the floor with a groan, legs folding beneath her, and Tigre’s grip slipped on her broken arm.
Scott threw the chunk of stone tablet at the scarred man’s back. It sailed high and struck him at the base of the skull.
As Nina’s first scream began to fade, Tigre’s cut in.
Scott had no idea what to expect. It’s a ghost to us, but it’s like poison also, Nina had said about the Chord of Souls. As her second, heavier scream sliced around the enclosed space, Scott realized just how true that was.
The stone page had ghosted right through her. The movement had shoved her back against the wall, and the tablet lay shattered behind her. It had been a lucky throw; the initial impact had hurt Nina, but the stone shattering behind her, peppering her back with rebounded shards, had driven her to her knees. “No!” she wailed again and again, and she seemed to dance as she reached for the places she had been touched.
Tigre’s cry ended abruptly.
This is when he cuts me to pieces, Scott thought. But he was wrong. Tigre was suffering in silence. Where the stone shard had struck him and passed through, an open wound grew. Blood spilled, bone shone grimly through the rent in his scarred flesh, and he hissed as he grabbed Nina’s arms and dragged her from the room.
“I’m not seeing any of this,” Helen said. Her head was turned to the side, broken arm cradled in her lap.
“We have enough,” Scott said. He shoved the crumpled pages into his pockets and lifted another slab. This could be the map to Atlantis, he thought, and he threw it into a corner of the room. It shattered. Perhaps even these stone pages were so old that time had made them brittle. Or maybe it was the forbidden knowledge that had done that. Maybe this unexpected release was giving the Chord of Souls power to aid in its own destruction.
He kicked another slab and it cracked in two. Stomped on one half, and that piece turned to shards. Again, and there was only dust beneath his heel. He picked them up, threw them, smashed them to pieces and stomped on the pieces until they were gravel. The dust of the Chord of Souls filled the room, and he wondered what arcane knowledge he and Helen were breathing in. Given forever, perhaps the dust could be re-formed, a jigsaw that would take eternity to complete. But Scott felt such a sense of rightness in what he was doing that he thought the Chord would never allow itself to be discovered again.
Who wrote you? he thought. Who knew you? What gave you away? He was sure he would never know.
There was one slab left. It sat against the wall beside Helen, and she had placed a sheet of paper
against it and traced it. She was crying. “There’s so much here,” she said.
“Maybe, but we’re only human.” He picked up the slab and threw it into the far corner of the room.
And then there was a voice in his mind, so rich and vibrant that he fell to his knees with the shock of recollection. They’ve stopped screaming, and they’re letting me go.
“Papa!” Scott shouted.
You’re a good boy, Scotty.
“Papa, won’t they come for me? Aren’t they the guardians?”
Once. But time can change so much. Now they feel it; they want only release. And Scotty, release feels so good. I’m going. Slipping away. Lewis is with me . . . Lewis, my old friend.
“But he only wanted the book for himself.”
Of course, I know that. He’s only human.
“Papa, don’t go. Not yet. There’s still so much to say!”
Always . . . to say . . . talk to me . . .
“Papa?”
. . . in your dreams . . .
And that was all.
“He’s gone?” Helen said.
Scott nodded. “And Lewis.” He felt suddenly deflated, as though something momentous had refused to happen. “What did I do here?”
“You set Papa free,” Helen said. “He’s proud.”
“Not that. This.” He pointed at the mess of stones and dust around them. “Helen, what have I done?”
“I really don’t know.”
They sat side by side, breathing in the dust as it slowly settled. A spider scuttled in from the tunnel, perhaps upset at finding its web broken. It scurried across the stones, paused here and there, and then found a hollow and disappeared into its shadow.
“The light’s fading,” Helen said.
“We should go. We’ll never find our way—”
“What about them?”
“Papa said the Skulls have gone.”