Thaumatology 10 - The Other Side of Hell

by Teasdale, Niall

  There was a pause, and then David’s voice. ‘That was… odd.’

  ‘It was an odd thing to say to a child who doesn’t understand Welsh yet,’ Marion replied. They had been speaking Welsh? My Welsh was never that good.

  ‘No, not that. That was odd, yes, but I meant what she said about our family trees. We never did get an explanation of exactly why that trisomy thing turns up in every child we have.’ He paused. ‘It’s us. Our bloodlines.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘But why?’

  Marion’s face appeared in Ceri’s field of view, smiling. ‘We’ll just have to find out. Won’t we Ceridwyn.’ The face disappeared again. ‘I think we should spell it with a “y” instead of an “e.” Just a little different.’

  David chuckled. ‘Well she’s not actually going to be a sorceress, so I don’t think the Lady will mind.’

  Kennington, London, October 31st, 1988

  ‘David?’ Marion’s voice sounded concerned and little Ceri turned around to look at her.

  Her father’s voice came from behind her. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Her back, look at her back?’

  Ceri felt David’s hand on her shoulder, and then his fingers tracing over her right hip. ‘That’s… it looks like a tattoo. A dragon?’

  ‘It’s getting worse, David. We’re going to have to do it soon.’

  ‘I know. I’ve found everything we need. Professor Perry was very helpful.’ Ceri turned and looked at her father. He looked just as concerned as her mother. ‘Don’t worry, Ceri. We’re going to keep you safe.’

  Battersea, November 1st, 2012

  There were a lot of faces looking down at her when Ceri opened her eyes. She blinked. ‘I, uh, I blacked out again?’ She reached up to her chest, finding the silver pendant and running a finger over the carving. Lily had to have put it there and it had done its job very effectively.

  ‘You sound more yourself now,’ Alexandra said.

  Ceri pushed herself upright. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever been myself. I remember… everything.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Michael said from behind her, and she twisted around to look at him, smiling weakly. He was a handsome young man with a firm, muscled body and tanned skin. His face was narrow and a little flat with a narrow nose and a slight cleft to his chin. His black, shoulder-length hair was even more unkempt than usual. He looked so young, and Ceri felt so much older…

  ‘It’s this necklace. It’s done it before, remember? I had this weird dream that I was Brenhines, thousands of years ago, in the White City. It lets me see memories of my ancestors, and it can help me remember things that I experienced more clearly. The dragons have been… They split my mother and Carter up so that she would be with my father. I think they helped stop me being another miscarriage. Ed Perry helped them craft the enchantment that was put on me to hide my power, and I’m pretty damn sure that they killed my parents because they were trying to contact Brenhines. They died near Anglesey, and that’s where she was living. They’ve twisted my life, even before I was born. All leading up to this.’

  ‘You haven’t been wearing that necklace recently,’ Michael said to her.

  ‘No. No, I should have. Lily must have put it on me when she… uh…’

  ‘Where is Lily?’ Michael said, sounding wary. ‘No one wants to say…’

  Ceri swallowed. ‘She… She’s dead.’

  Kennington, November 21st

  Mei Long stepped into the huge hall of High Towers and stood just inside the threshold, feet together, hands clasped in front of her, eyes cast downward. She was wearing a simple tank-dress which flared from her hips and stopped just above her knees, and flat shoes, all in white which contrasted with the wave of black hair falling down her back. The ex-ambassador of the Dragon Empire had always been elegant, poised, the perfect example of a diplomat who belonged to a culture spanning millennia, but never excessively proud. Now, while she kept her poise, she looked like a whipped dog.

  Gwyn had basically forced Ceri to stand up and invite the woman in. Ceri was mistress of the house, no matter how she might feel, and Mei would be enormously uncomfortable if she were not invited in by her. It was a matter of form. Ceri had privately thought that she did not really mind a little discomfort on Mei’s part, but she had agreed to inviting her through the doors because Gwyn had insisted.

  Ceri was about to invite Mei to the lounge and break the slightly uncomfortable silence which had developed, when Mei spoke. ‘There is no way to apologise to you for my part in what has happened, Mistress Brent. I can offer only my most humble apologies and…’ She gracefully slipped onto her knees, placed her palms flat on the floor, and bent forward, lowering her head. Ceri heard Gwyn stifle a gasp. ‘…I can offer you my life should you wish to take it.’

  ‘Get up!’ Ceri hissed. Mei clambered to her feet, shocked and confused. She had expected a lot of emotions, but the terrified rage she saw on Ceri’s face was not one of them. ‘I never want to see another person kneeling in front of me,’ Ceri told her, forcing herself to calm down. ‘I accept your apology. You did the best you could with a bad situation. You tried to warn me in the only way you could, and you got out rather than take part in the battle. There is absolutely no way I am going to kill you, so just stop it.’ She smoothed the front of her T-shirt, which did not need smoothing. ‘If I were going to kill someone, it wouldn’t be you. You didn’t set me up to be a tool for Huanglong.’

  Aberystwyth, Wales, October 24th, 2012

  The lab was on the top floor of the university’s thaumatology building, hidden away in one corner. The windows were blacked out and the lighting, such as it was, was subdued. The centre of the floor was marked out with a carefully drawn magic circle; a containment circle, but it would serve their purpose. Cheryl Tennant, Ceri’s boss and friend, was missing. Ceri believed she was in the demons’ dimension and this was the only way they could find her. She had spent days working with Ed to produce the spell which would let her search another world.

  ‘We have the room for as long as we need it,’ Ed told Ceri as she began to prepare the circle; tracing over the marked lines with salt. ‘The Dean was a little iffy about it until I mentioned you did work for the Greycoats.’ Ceri smiled slightly and nodded. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s going to take a lot of energy.’

  ‘I know. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’ll be opening up your mind. Something could…’

  Ceri stopped working and looked up at him, and Ed stopped. ‘I need to find Cheryl, Ed. I’m going to do this. Now step back and let me work.’

  Ed nodded. He seemed more worried than she would expect. He had trained her, he knew what she was capable of. Why was he so… nervous? She finished the circle and settled into the middle of it, cross-legged, settling her mind ready to work the complex magic she had worked out with Ed. The circle flashed into life around her, a column of magic which occupied only their reality. Its purpose was safety; if she used too much power, the circle would stop her irradiating the entire building before she died from internal injuries.

  She gave a last look to Ed, standing on the circle’s edge. He had an odd expression on his face. Something like resignation. Shrugging, she drew in her power, set the equations in place in her mind, and opened herself to another reality. There was a brief instant when she felt she was floating, and then her body stiffened.

  ~~~

  The pain was so extreme she knew she should have passed out, but something kept her conscious. Every nerve screamed in agony. Her body was on fire, but did not burn. She was icy cold, but she did not freeze. Light so bright she knew she should be blind seared her eyes, but she could not close her eyes and the light never dimmed. A voice roared in her ears, screamed in her mind. It told her to, ‘Submit!’ She thought she was screaming out that she did, but the pain continued.

  Then it was gone and she was left gasping on a floor so dark that she could
not see it. She could see herself, but there was no light around her, nothing to see but the darkness. Climbing to her feet, Ceri began to walk. The pain had felt real, very real, but there seemed to be no lasting damage. So why do it?

  How long she walked, she had no idea. There was nothing and no one, and nowhere to go. Just the darkness and the never ending, smooth floor. She could not really feel it under her feet, but it had to be there because she was not falling. Or maybe she was and she could not feel the air rushing past. Except that that made no more sense than the frictionless, featureless ground.

  Why did I come here? She had been looking for something. No, someone. She had been looking for someone. Who? She had come here… No, she had been going somewhere to look for someone… It felt likes years ago. How long had she been walking? Why was there no one else here? Why am I even trying?

  She stopped and sat down. She would wait. That was the best thing to do. Sit down and wait for something to happen.

  It did. The pain began again.

  ~~~

  She did not know when the pain stopped and the chanting began. She could not move, or feel, or see, but she could hear the voices. They chanted the same set of phrases in a language she did not understand, over and over again.

  ‘What do you want?’ she yelled.

  The chanting continued.

  ‘Speak to me!’

  The same words, over and over.

  ‘Someone tell me what’s going on!’

  Chanting. The same words. Always the same.

  ‘Stop it!’

  The voices just got louder.

  ~~~

  Something shifted in the darkness, all around her. Something serpentine and black was uncurling, moving around her. The chanting faded away, but she knew the words by heart now and they continued resounding in her head.

  A face appeared in front of her, huge and black. A long snout, a lot of sharp, white teeth. Two black eyes the size of dinner plates. ‘You are almost ready, Ethilion Kephesit.’ The voice sounded familiar. She had met this creature before. ‘The words will hide within you until it is time. When it is done, you will rule all, under our command. Now sleep, and forget.’

  October 28th

  ‘Did you find her?’ Ceri blinked, looking toward the voice. Ed Perry was still standing at the edge of the circle. He looked like he already knew the answer, his expression one of worry to the point of nausea.

  ‘No,’ Ceri replied after a second. Her head felt as though it was full of fog. She could not seem to think straight.

  ‘You’ve been at it for days, Ceridwyn. You need to stop, at least for a little while.’

  She climbed to her feet, dismissing the circle around her. ‘I need… I need to go home. There’s something I have to do there.’

  ‘What?’ he asked, though again he seemed to know.

  ‘I… I don’t know, but it’s not here.’

  She was gone, vanished into thin air, before he could form a reply.

  Kennington, November 21st

  ‘Edward had little choice in the matter too, you know?’ Gwyn said. ‘The others had been planning this for centuries, millennia. Ever since Hunaglong was born. If he had gone against them, they would have destroyed him.’

  ‘He could have run, like Mei,’ Ceri replied. She was sitting in her usual chair in the lounge; a large, leather, wing-back. Michael sat on the floor at her feet, which was his usual place. There was a footstool on her right, which was where Lily always sat, and Ceri felt the absence there like a physical thing.

  ‘He lacks my talent for remaining hidden,’ Mei said. She was sat on a straight-backed chair beside the other wing-back. Gwyn occupied that seat. ‘He has not Gwyn’s power to keep the others at bay through fear.’

  Gwyn gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘They found a way to keep me out of the picture anyway.’ It had apparently taken ten dragons forming a constantly powered magic circle around the entire village she had called home, but they had ensured that she could not interfere at the important moment. ‘They isolated you, made you distrust your friends, or took them out of the picture entirely.’ Her gaze flicked to Michael. ‘Dragons are very good at planning for the long term.’

  ‘And they had a very strong motive,’ Mei added. ‘Even a noble one if they had not chosen to implement it the way they did.’

  Ceri grunted. Even if she hated everything about it, she had to admit that the dragons had been trying to save their species. Their entire universe was dying. The magic which had created them was causing their reality to expand at an enormous rate. They had little time before the very matter they were made from began to spread out into subatomic particles, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Escape was the only option, but they had chosen to enslave the occupants of the world they were escaping to rather than moving on in peace.

  ‘Brenin gave Edward the knowledge to survive the aftershock,’ Mei said. ‘That must indicate something.’

  ‘I’m a little too young to be that forgiving,’ Ceri replied sourly. ‘Give me a few thousand years and maybe I’ll feel differently.’

  Michael shifted against her leg, one hand sliding over her shin in a gentle, almost caressing, motion. ‘I’m not sure we have quite that long to wait.’

  She shrugged. ‘Right now, that’s the best I can do.’

  November 22nd

  Ceri sat on her bed, still naked, wrapped in a blanket. Downstairs in the study various officials from the Home Office were interviewing Mei and there was no way she wanted to be around that many people. Especially not people like that. Gwyn was standing by in case there were problems; no one else knew who or what she was, and she had been explained away as an old family friend who was looking after Ceri. Not far from the truth.

  Michael sat at the foot of the bed, dressed and ready to do something, if Ceri were actually likely to decide there was something to do. He was not giving it much hope. Right now he was watching as she played with the chain around her right ankle. She did that quite a lot when she was thinking about Lily, so she was almost certainly thinking about Lily.

  The chain was fairy-silver, an enchanted metal mined in the Otherworld. It had been a present from Twill and Lily wore an identical one around her ankle. Twill had told them that so long as they loved each other, and they both lived, the chains could never be removed. Michael looked at the chain, closed his eyes, and said, ‘Why don’t you take that off?’

  Ceri’s fingers stopped moving. She did not look at him, or at anything in particular. ‘Because if I take it off she’ll really be gone.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time you started accepting that.’

  ‘I know she’s dead, Michael…’ Her tone had an edge of irritation to it.

  ‘You know, but you don’t want to believe it… and I’m here.’

  Her fists clenched and she turned on him, her face twisted in anger… And she stopped, the anger turning to pain in an instant. She was being unfair to him. In some ways she always had been. He had taken her as his mate, and she loved him, but he had always been second to Lily because Lily had been there first, and her friend before they were lovers. Now that Lily was gone she was pushing Michael away because he reminded her of all the times the three of them had shared and… ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, not understanding. ‘She was too young and she was the most wonderful, beautiful person I’ve ever met, but…’

  ‘No. It’s not fair to you.’ She looked down at her ankle and the chain around it. ‘I can’t take it off. Would you do it?’

  He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure it should be me…’

  ‘I won’t hold it against you. If it comes off then she’s dead and I’ll try to move on. I’ll… look the other way. It won’t be you taking it.’

  Michael moved closer to her looking distinctly uncertain. She started to turn her head, but he reached out, touching her cheek and stopping her. He leaned closer and pressed his lips softly to hers. She gave him a timid smile, and then looked away as
he reached for her ankle. She felt his fingers brush her skin, felt the chain lifted. Her eyes closed, squeezing a tear from the corner of her right eye, and she bit back a sob, and…

  ‘It… um… It won’t open.’

  Ceri’s head snapped back fast enough to make her slightly dizzy. ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t open the catch. Maybe it has to be you.’

  Her fingers fumbled for the chain. ‘Anyone should be able to do it.’ Her thumb found the lever on the catch and she pressed it hard enough to be painful, but it would not move. She pulled at it, trying to break the silver and then tried the catch again, almost frantically. She felt irrationally angry. What the Hell was going on? If Lily was dead it should open. She could no longer feel Lily through the binding spell she had worked, but the chain refused to budge.

  ‘She’s alive,’ Michael said. Ceri kept trying to open the chain. ‘Ceri, stop it. Lily’s alive.’

  ‘She can’t be. I can’t feel her. She can’t be… If she is I’ve wasted three weeks when I could have been finding… She can’t…’

  He grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from the chain, and her eyes met his. ‘She’s alive,’ he said softly, but firmly.

  ‘Then where is she?’

  ~~~

  ‘Alexandra said there was a war between the demons and the dragons,’ Ceri said, looking across at Gwyn in the opposite chair.

  ‘That was thousands of years ago,’ Gwyn replied. She was happy that Ceri was looking a lot more animated, but not so happy about the way that animation was going. ‘It’s long before even my time.’

  ‘But if the demons still held a grudge about it, and they can really hold grudges, they could have decided to step in when the dragons decided to take this world.’

  ‘It’s a working theory. It would have taken something highly advanced to cause the bridge to collapse, especially in such a destructive manner. Someone, and not a dragon, understood the nature of the magic enough to short circuit the Earth’s entire magic field through that bridge, and we know it was Lily who did it because you saw her.’