“Right, that’s me,” I said. “Have a safe—what are you doing?”
I’d started on my way, and Carson had followed, half a step behind.
“What is that thing?” he asked, utterly oblivious of what I’d said, as well as the flat look on my face. “That … that pendant thing. And how does it work?”
“Talisman,” I corrected. “And it … just works. I dunno.” I lifted it to brandish at as I lied to him. It wasn’t malicious; I just didn’t want to get into a long discussion of how my world worked. “Never thought about it, I guess.”
“Does it always go through to that world?”
“It, uh … no, it doesn’t. I mean, if we went back through in the same places, then we’d come out there again, but …” I blinked, confused. I was trying to get rid of him, yet the rug seemed to have been pulled out from under me. Suddenly—whether through fatigue or just the ghost of loneliness—I couldn’t help but answer.
“There are other places?” Carson breathed. “Other worlds?”
“Lots of them, yeah. One’s where I got this.” I indicated the umbrella. It swayed against my leg as we walked … together, which wasn’t what I intended, but—
“And they’re all here, attached to London?”
“Not just London. They connect everywhere.” I frowned, a moment away from shooing him off—then I detached the compass, and lifted it to show him. “See this?”
Carson squinted. “Looks like water.”
“It is. If I were to cut through a gateway here—” I pointed at a bulletin board at a bus stop “—we’d pass through and probably end up drowning somewhere. Whereas if we come a little farther …” Sure enough, just over the road, the compass image transitioned. A small pyramid on a squarish base loomed, coated in vines and nestled between trees with vast, dark trunks. “A gateway here would lead to this temple.”
“We should go,” Carson breathed.
We? I frowned at him. “No.” Stowing the compass, the urge to tell him to leave resurfaced.
Before I could open my mouth to admonish him, he went on. “So how does it work, then? How are so many bunched up so close?”
“It’s …” I stopped, needing to think. How was it Dad had first explained it? “Right,” I said, turning to face Carson. “Imagine you’ve got two pieces of paper. One’s a map of London, and the other one … it’s filled with squares, okay? Really, really small ones. And each of those squares is its own world.”
“So those sheets are laid over each other,” Carson put in.
“Kind of, yeah, but not quite. It’s more like … like that bottom sheet is crumpled up. So now, instead of orderly, it’s all a big jumble. And actually, I guess there are like a hundred little crumpled-up balls of worlds, all together. London sits on top of those. And any place where part of the crumpled-up sheet connects, that’s where we can travel through. Like here.” I tapped the compass.
“What about the empty spaces?”
“Boundaries,” I said. “The compass mists up when there’s one of those. It doesn’t connect—to anything. Go into a gateway there, you’re gone. Poof. Finito.”
Carson suppressed a grimace. Laughing nervously, he said, “Good thing you’ve got that compass then, right?”
“Right.”
I set off again.
Carson followed.
I didn’t complain.
For now.
“So where did you get the pendan—the talisman?” Carson asked.
Remembering Constable Heyman’s faked concern—Have you been nicking things?—my lips tightened.
“My parents. I stole it.”
“Yeah, but where did it come from originally? Who made it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, when—
Up ahead, passing through a small throng that was arranged on a crossing, waiting for the light to change, I saw black.
Cloaks.
Carson saw them just a moment later. He squeaked, “They’re back!”
“Quiet,” I muttered. “I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
But they had, of course they had—because the first jabbed a fist at us, raising his cinquedea with his free hand—
“GO!”
And yet again, trailed by Carson and three men in cloaks, some two dozen meters behind, I broke into a run.
9
“Down here!” I ordered Carson, hooking a right down an alley.
Just a step behind, he followed, one hand furiously clamped on his satchel.
“What do we do?” he cried.
“This.” I stopped. I was not in the mood to hold those guys off again. Also not particularly convinced of my chances if we needed to. Gripping the talisman, I shot a brief look at the compass—enough to know it was safe, not enough to fully take in what I saw in its face—I pointed at the nearest wall, and cut, a fast swiping motion.
The gateway widened …
At the mouth of the alley, three figures in cloaks and cowls burst into view.
“GO!”
I grabbed Carson—he squealed, eyes almost entirely whites—and pulled him sideways through the gateway.
For a dreadful moment I thought our pursuers would barrel through too. But the gateway shuddered closed, so it was only the two of us, floating in a sea of swirling dye—
Then we were upended, falling out sideways, through empty air—
And then, CRASH! We hit stone.
“Ow,” I moaned, pushing up. “Ow.” I felt like I’d run headfirst into a door, or maybe leapt from a car speeding down the motorway, spanging into a road sign with enough force to leave a real Wile E. Coyote hole behind me.
Going by the noises Carson was making, he hadn’t fared much better.
We’d landed on cobblestones, spaced well apart. They were lit by soft copper light. Dark spaces curved around them, the frail light unable to reach the bottom of the trenches. The butt of what looked like a cigarette lay in one of the troughs, only it was not quite the same as the ones you picked up from any of the million off-licenses spread across London’s busy streets. No filter, for a start, and the tobacco hadn’t been rolled in paper, but a pale, fibrous leaf.
I levered up, squinting.
We’d dropped into some kind of square. There was a tavern next to us, but the lights were out inside. Except for a door twice my size and three times my width, it might’ve been wrenched straight out of a fairytale: lots of wooden beams crisscrossing, thatched roof, and a sign hanging from the roof’s peak. A name I couldn’t pronounce was boasted across it: KZ’GA’NTHZ. Still, my lips tried.
“I think I broke something,” Carson moaned. He pressed himself up awkwardly, looking for a moment like a nerd trying (and hopelessly failing) at a press-up. Then, on his knees, he gasped, “My glasses!” and patted them.
“They’re fine,” I told him, “just lopsided.” Which was a shame, really. If Gok Wan rolled up to give him a makeover, those stupidly delicate frames would be the first to go—followed by pretty much everything else.
Carson took them off to check anyway. He barely scrutinized the lenses, which struck me as odd, instead focusing all his attention on the rims, the arms, checking the hinges were still intact. I didn’t ask, and in any case they seemed to pass his test, because he put them back on his nose, though he didn’t look the least bit happy.
“Why’d we fall like that?” he asked.
I pointed at the tavern’s sign. “Gateway opened there, I reckon.”
He squinted. “Kaz—kuz-gah … N-n …”
I left him to it, rising to my feet. Quick checks over my compass, talisman, and Decidian’s Spear, then it was time to get the measure of where we’d ended up and figure out where the next connection to London might be.
I surveyed the square. Draped in crescent moonlight, it was lit by a single torch atop a post, some fifteen feet high. Folk were tall here, it looked like. Probably not an orc city—the unpronounceable string of letters on the tavern’s sign didn’t quite gel with them, even if the
height thing hadn’t been a mismatch—but I still didn’t much fancy our luck if we should run into whoever might inhabit this realm of semi-giants.
Other buildings were arranged opposite a fountain that was wide and deep enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Most were dwellings, not unlike the tavern, with beams and stone and thatch, but there was also an open structure with an anvil and a fire pit, and beside that what I assumed was a shop, a crude helmet painted on its sign.
This place had definitely come out of a fairytale.
No one was around. The thin toenail moon was low. Going by the tavern’s emptiness, I figured these were probably the early hours of the morning rather than the waxing night. So we were probably safe, for a while. A single chimney softly breathing smoke was a minor concern, but no lights were on inside, so it was probably the remains of a fire rather than anyone (or anything) up and about.
The compass showed a glimpse of the O2 seen from the alley where we’d made our escape.
Not for the first time, I lamented that it didn’t double as a live camera feed. If the other side were visible in real-time, we could just wait, and pop back through once danger had passed.
Or not. I thought back to Alain Borrick and his orcs. They’d come for Decidian’s Spear too. Was he on the same quest as me? If so, every second spent dodging in and out of other worlds was burning precious time.
“Up,” I commanded Carson. “We’re moving.”
He obeyed, mouth open in dumb wonder.
I started a stride, eyes on my compass.
London vanished just six steps down the street, replaced with a view of orange outback. A boulder crested the very edge of the compass face, its curve begun and almost immediately cut off. Ayers Rock? Maybe. Or just a boulder.
It wavered to blue sky and nothing but after another thirteen steps—and then, just two after that, two images battled: rainforest on the left, and another, darker rainforest on the right. If I turned one way or the other I could pinpoint where the safe transition points were, but what was the point in that? Last I checked, London hadn’t grown a little Amazon of its own, and that was still where I needed to be.
At a crossroads, I decided to take us left. Totally arbitrary choice, might come back to bite me in the backside, but never mind. Had to go somewhere.
After the compass had shown a beach, then total darkness, which might have been the bottom of the ocean or just the inside of a box, Carson started up.
“So … that umbrella …”
I pursed my lips. “What about it?”
“What is it, exactly?”
“A spear.” Then, before I could help myself: “Decidian’s Spear. Ancient relic. It got lost in the eleventh century, or thereabouts.” I squinted as the compass flashed with yellow, images shifting too fast to take in, and backtracked just to confirm it was sand. “Now it’s mine,” I muttered when I resumed walking.
“Why’s it an umbrella, though?”
“Glamour.”
“Huh?”
“A disguise. It’s masking itself.”
“Right.” He didn’t quite take that in stride, which was good, because people in the real world didn’t typically see spears turn into umbrellas and vice versa. If he had taken it in stride, he’d probably be well on his way to being a nutter.
Desert again. I huffed, and decided to cross the street. It was almost wide enough for three cars side by side, although I wasn’t convinced the people here had figured out the internal combustion engine just yet. Probably still on horse-drawn carriages—and could you imagine the size of the things? Maybe elephant-drawn carriages.
“So what now?” Carson asked.
“‘What now’ what? I’m finding us a route back to London.”
“I mean what now you’ve got Di—Decid—”
“Decidian’s Spear.”
“Right. What are you searching for next?”
An eyebrow rose on my face. “I didn’t say I was searching for anything.”
“You must be though, right?”
Buzz off, I was tempted to tell him. But I tamped it down in spite of myself and conceded after a moment, “Yes, I’m looking for something else.”
“So—what is it?”
I caught myself before I spat something biting at him—What, like you can help?—and paused. Carson stopped almost too late, a split second from walking into my back.
I eyed him, lips tight, looking for—what? Confirmation that he was harmless, I guessed. And he gave it, shuffling his satchel and nervously clearing his throat. Always with the throat.
Starting up again, a little slower, I said, “I’m seeking the Chalice Gloria.”
“The what?”
“Chalice Gloria. It’s Latin.” I tacked on, “Ish,” before Carson could correct me; “But there’s no ‘chalice’ in Latin. There’s ‘cup,’ but that’s ‘calicem’, so shouldn’t it be …?” Yada, yada, yada. He was a pedant even in my imagination.
I continued, “It means ‘Cup of Glory.’ And it’s been lost for thousands of years, so anyone who finds it is going to get a certain measure of respect in my world.”
“Your world’s not this one,” Carson said, not a question, and then quickly amended, “I mean—London. Uh, Earth. Right?”
“I don’t mean a real world. A metaphorical one; you know, my ‘people’. Seekers of treasure. People who do what I do. That’s what I mean.”
Carson was quiet for a moment.
The compass flickered. I’d found an edge, and two images vied for the face. On the left was a bayou—and on the right, London, announced by the familiar angle of the Shard. I paused, twisting to find which direction I needed to go—left, which made no sense whatsoever, but fine—and then pointed.
“This way.”
“We can get back to London here?”
“Somewhere around here, yeah.”
We slowed. I watched, eyes mostly on the compass, as the Shard bloomed, pushing out the bayou with every step …
“So … these people,” Carson began.
“Uh huh.”
“Why does it matter that you get respect from them? They’re strangers, right?”
I swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “Most, yeah.”
“So why do you need the respect of people you don’t even know?”
His eyes were on the back of my head, and I could feel them, boring a hole. I was glad not to be facing him; I’d never be able to meet his eyes.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I muttered.
“So … explain it. Is it a kind of fame thing?”
The Shard dominated, the bordering world pushed entirely from the compass’s face.
Grateful for the conversational escape route, I said, “We can pass through here.” I stowed my compass again. Carson looked like he wanted to say something, but I ignored him, gripping the talisman in one hand, and cutting a gateway beside the window of the adjacent house.
I nodded once it was open. “Through.”
Carson obeyed after a moment’s hesitation.
I followed.
When we were out, it was daytime.
Carson blinked in confusion. “What the—?” He looked at me, flabbergasted. “But—it was evening—”
“Time doesn’t always pass the same in the other worlds.” Which sucked, because yesterday had pretty much wrecked me. I’d been looking forward to getting back to my bed and enjoying some shut-eye. Now, going by the color of the sky and the absence of the sun’s disc, we were more or less right at the beginning of the day again.
Unless I wanted to totally screw up my sleep, there was no choice but to power through.
Fortunately shops and off-licenses were about as plentiful as litter, so I could stop in and grab a few cans of 5-Hour Energy, and I’d be all set.
Now just the matter of cutting Carson loose—
He gripped his satchel by the strap, holding it close, eyes on me. “Where to now?”
“Where to—? I am going to Charing Cross. And you
—”
“Can I come?” he asked. After a second’s pause: “Please?”
I couldn’t get words out for a moment, my brain apparently too tangled to keep up. But my feelings must’ve been clear on my face, because Carson continued, words coming fast like when he’d been under Sourpuss’s penetrating glare, “Just until the city gets busier? Those guys might still be around, and—and I guess I don’t want to be by myself. Please?”
“Why not call the police?”
“I … I mean, I could …”
He fumbled for words, looking … pathetic, no other word for it, even without the stupid glasses.
But though I longed to kick him to the curb now, get him out of my hair, guilt niggled at the back of my head. He was wrapped up in this now, whether I liked it or not—and whereas I had Decidian’s Spear and my talisman, he had nothing. If Skyrim guy and his mates set upon Carson, he was done. I at least owed him what he asked: company until the streets were fuller, affording him better opportunities to blend in and make an escape.
“Fine,” I conceded wearily. “But later today, after my next stops, you’re going back to—where is it you’re staying?”
“Russell Square,” he said quickly. “It’s a, err, hostel.” And then, I guess because he had seen something in my face that didn’t exist, he said, “It’s only one-star, but it’s not really that bad …”
Nice.
“Right. You can stick with me for now. But like I said: before today is out, I’m taking you back there, got it?”
Carson nodded, cleared his throat. “Got it.”
I turned tail and marched off.
We stopped for an energy drink. I didn’t quite have the change to make up one 5-Hour Energy, so I cheaped out, scavenging just enough for two generic blueberry-flavored cans. Nowhere near the amount of caffeine I was looking for, but beggars can’t be choosers.
We rode the tube in silence, exiting at Charing Cross.
London was just beginning to pick up. The sun had risen enough to crest the buildings previously obscuring it. Before long, nothing would be able to blot it—and I’d be rid of Carson for good.
“Where are we going now?” Carson asked.
The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1) Page 7