Ramses looked down at the man peevishly, stopping at the yawning mouth of the branching tunnel. ‘Those two pieces shall come easily enough. Now, enough fretting. Until you see for yourself what we have accomplished, you cannot understand our true power. We are capable of anything now. Our dear messenger from the stars is already proving his great worth. How long would we have been ignorant to the true nature of this temple till he came along?’
They had turned down the branching passageway and their footsteps echoed away.
Andrew stayed where he was a moment longer, debating, before retrieving his torch and crawling from his hiding. He glanced down the hall and scowled. It was tempting to follow, see just what they had for themselves. Yet if that tunnel was as barren as this, he would have no place to hide if trouble came.
From deep within a peculiar, mechanical noise droned out, along with some faint glow which did not flicker. It sent his curiosity raging but something in him told him it was very unwise to venture any farther.
Reluctantly, Andrew turned away and continued on. Gradually, he was blindly aware of leaving the desert and entering the city and the tunnel began to rise. The sounds of people and life began to drift through the walls. It was impossible to know for sure, yet Andrew supposed he must be passing through the mountain bordering the city. He could walk the entire journey through the mountains! Oh, Noel was a clever one.
Here and there he thought there were doors and little ways, twisting off beneath the city. Yet he was tired and growing quite weak; expending excessive energy would not be wise. There would be time to explore just how many ways this warren ran, but not if he collapsed and was lost in one.
It was several hours later when Andrew pushed against the abrupt end of the tunnel and stumbled out—pleased and mildly surprised—to the passage in the palace where Noel had disappeared. He felt rather smug about it now, yet it was still a mystery as to how to open the way from the opposite side, which wasn’t entirely helpful.
He swept his torch across the surface, muttering to himself. The image from the other door was still etched in his mind, but this wall was much smoother, worn. And as he searched, his frustration grew, for there did not seem to be any indentation or crack that could possibly lead to an opening.
‘Come on, you bastard, where are you?’ Andrew growled.
If any answer would have come to him, he didn’t have time to acknowledge it. An animalistic snarl broke from a heavy throat behind him and before he could react, he was knocked forwards. Andrew let out a hiss and whipped back; his cane slashing for any connection with something solid and flesh.
Unfortunately, his already weakened state let him down spectacularly. The momentum from his one attempt at attack threw him far off balance and Andrew’s shoulder hit the wall, flaring his side with pain. His attacker pressed forward, grinding Andrew’s body into the stone till he felt his bones grating beneath his skin.
As difficult as it was, Andrew managed to twist his head back to confirm what he already knew. The smell had been enough, and the shifts of the body. It was Noel. He’d finally slunk out of his hole, wherever that had been, and apparently gone mad.
‘Sneaking about are you? I think it’s time for you to start showing your worth, Traveller,’ Noel was rambling. Andrew’s brain struggled to put the words in their proper order. ‘They say you can’t be forced but I think not.’ He smashed Andrew harder against the wall. ‘You’re nothing but an empty shell. I can feel it. Smell it on you.’ His body was crushed, spine straining. ‘And anything that is empty can have something forced inside!’
Andrew’s feet scrabbled against the floor, back pressed against his attacker’s stomach. It was a compromising position to be sure. Noel was strong, but beating Andrew to death didn’t seem to be his intention. He was struggling frenziedly, groping for some hold on Andrew.
‘Go on,’ Noel snarled. ‘Open up, let it in.’ He banged Andrew’s head forward against the wall. ‘Then you and I are going for a little ride! Everyone is talking so highly of you. Time to impress me.’
Andrew’s head was spinning. He choked, gasping around a glut of blood from his bashed nose. Noel’s words blanked in his head till a fragile, wobbly string of understanding thought connected them. Noel didn’t want some physical contact. He wanted him to do what he’d done for the Myrmidons. Why?
He didn’t have time to question it. Noel cracked Andrew’s head against the stone again and a gap of black; a gap of terrifying nothing where he knew that menace lurked, blinked to life. Could he possibly be forced to take that thing back in to him? Another impact threw him deeper down, like he was dangling over the edge of a black pit, dangling by only a thread.
Something below was stirring. That thing on the beach, that thing in the dark. He let out a hoarse cry and struggled back, casting about for the light. Up, somewhere…somewhere above where Noel kept knocking him back from.
He could feel Noel. Feel his being, his soul perhaps, like some hot coal above him. He could only hope that’s what it was. Andrew clenched his teeth and swung up towards it. He was empty, wasn’t he? Well, he’d much rather grab hold of that ugly bastard’s soul than have that thing grab hold of him.
Andrew lunged towards it, launching out of the crushing blackness, shoving against the heat with all the force he could. He mentally hooked his fingers through it like he was breaking into the skin of a piece of fruit. It was an incredibly invasive, intimate action and he was hit immediately with how wrong it was. One did not cling to another being’s soul. But he did now. And he didn’t give a damn. The sacred and unspoken natural order of the world was just another rule to break. So he sank his fingers into it and held on tight.
There was something gross about Noel’s soul, something warped, something twisted and monstrous and not really right. Like those lake creatures he’d seen trapped in the spore polluted water, yet it was still there.
And it pulled him upwards, away from the black.
He was free.
Noel was screaming, backpeddling, hands brushing at his skin. Andrew bristled, vision more or less swimming back into something near focus.
‘You abomination!’
Andrew swung his cane hard, smacking Noel across the face, and satisfactorily drawing blood. Noel let out a snarl and Andrew stepped back, surprised. Even in the dim light he could see the coppery glitter snaking down from Noel’s nose. That wasn’t natural. That wasn’t human.
Nerves clenched his stomach tight. He wasn’t prepared for that. Neither of them seemed to be. They regarded each other warily. Noel sniffed heavily, doing little to stop the fascinating, glittering gush.
‘I’m not going to help you,’ Andrew felt worth mentioning. ‘And you won’t be able to force me. Try that again and I will tear that thin, quivering soul from that useless frame of yours.’ He felt fairly confident he could do, too.
Noel sniffed again, eyes shining. He bared his teeth and let out a stressed snarl. ‘I will make you! Just you wait!’
Andrew managed to twitch his lips into a grim smile. ‘I invite you to try.’
Noel shifted backwards, puffing his breath. ‘These people think me a god. They think I can give them power. You’re nothing to them but a rusty, old name. Useless.’ He pointed a shaking finger at Andrew. ‘I’ll make you regret this.’
Andrew straightened his tunic. ‘Go on, then.’
Noel snarled one last time and then marched off down the hall, dabbing at his nose as he went. Andrew watched his retreat, feeling a nervousness snake through his belly. He didn’t like the way that sounded.
* * * * *
The electricity around his floating island was strong, and Tollin was force to leave the relative safety of his tiny refuge. The lightning had started half an hour ago and hadn’t let up since. He’d have been fried alive if he’d stayed any longer.
If anything, the storm did break up the maddening quiet of the Realm. He couldn’t complain about that. This place had a way of crawling inside of him, eroding at
his senses, making him all the more stupid, sleepy. Sleeping was still just about all he did these days.
He turned round to watch the lightning flash, illuminating the clouds. The air was so sharp today it sent his hair prickling along his skin. At least he told himself that was what it was. With stiff limbs he picked himself up and strode into the darkness of the palace.
He almost hated exploring here. Every turn he took, there was that disturbing sense of something slinking away ahead of him, back into the dark. He could never quite put his finger on it, never quite prove it, but there was still that feeling. That hidden, massive presence that was both there and not. Sometimes Tollin wasn’t so certain he and Craven were alone in this place.
He cast one last wary glance around him before ducking down the narrow stairs.
It smelt wrong down this way. Perhaps due to the fact it was a way that Craven would frequent. He didn’t sense the fellow now and close as this place was, he felt fairly confident if the creature was nearby, either sleeping or lurking, he’d know.
Still, his nerves were set on edge as he moved. This wasn’t his territory, and for as weak as the creature was, Tollin wasn’t so sure he trusted that assessment in a possible fight.
As he wound his way down the narrow ledge he sent his mind back to Samantha Turner, to the Time Realm, to what she was going through. She was just a kid and he’d abandoned her. Left her all alone with no way to give her any instructions. He knew what he’d tell her when he could. He’d worked that bit out mostly on memory: Contact Andrew O’Neill five-hundred years in the past.
Time was confusing. And he didn’t know where he fit into all of it.
The first Myrmidon War.
Odd to think on it now, considering not so long ago that very group had been hunting he and Sam down. Some things never changed. It was more than a little aggravating, knowing that at this very moment, some time in the past, things were happening that would in the future cause Sam so much trouble. Of course, if it hadn’t happened, then everything else wouldn’t have happened, and he wasn’t so sure he was willing to give that up.
Perhaps besides being trapped here. This he could live without.
He wrinkled his nose as an unpleasant smell wafted up from deeper down the tunnel. It was disorienting, with only the glowing crystals for light. With his senses already dulled, he was easy prey.
Tollin dropped down the last step and froze in the warm stillness, ears perked for anything out of the ordinary. Craven wasn’t here. How long that would last, Tollin wasn’t so certain, and with only one way out, it wasn’t exactly desirable.
Ah, well, nothing to do about it now. He was already here, and his curiosity had gotten the better of him long ago. He slunk forward, nerves stretched taut, and peered around the room.
It was a circular chamber, hollowed in the centre, which stretched both down and up. He couldn’t see above into the darkness, but below was the great, tossing sea of the sun. The top of this shaft, lost in the dark, was where he’d had his awful surprise and fall. Just across from him, rotating in the very centre of the pit, was the largest crystal Tollin had seen. Twice as tall as he and glowing blue and beautiful. His skin vibrated with the power that radiated off of it.
Tollin’s lips twitched up into a grin. Incredible! This thing had to be the very centre of the power on this island! He looked down and watched as a flare from the sun went drifting upwards, kissing the bottom of the island and the crystal in a fine mist.
The stone lit up with a great hum and then, all around him, the other crystals glowed brighter in turn. The whole bloody island was being charged from this spot. From the sun below! Power like that…Tollin’s brain spun. He could possibly have enough to repair the broken transmitter on his island.
He hadn’t been able to see the phenomenon thanks to way his tiny island orbited the rest of the Realm, but he still felt like a complete idiot now. Honestly, as long as he’d been here, searching for something, and here it was all along; the one place he’d been hesitant to look.
Tollin turned round, scanning the rest of the chamber. Nest would have been a better word, for that was what Craven had created. Tollin didn’t blame Craven for picking the spot. It was incredibly warm and comfortable compared to the rest of the island. The weather was blocked and something about the crystals soothed his nerves.
What had been done to the place, however, was not so nice. Huge parallel grooves marred the walls. Any bit of art or carved surface had long ago been torn to pieces. Great black splotches, like scorches, darkened the glittering stone and Tollin wondered if perhaps this place was as safe from flares as it seemed.
Tollin edged closer to the wall, letting his fingers trail along the deep furrows, glancing among the bits of debris strewn along the floor. His fingers bumped over something. Tollin looked up. Something was there, carved on the wall, behind the grooves. Something that had been raked over.
Writing.
Very old writing. Craved crudely and sloppily into the stone.
Tollin scowled at it, tried to make anything out in the mess.
“…get out…”
He darted along, going faster now, looking for more. Someone had created some sort of chronicle. Perhaps something that could actually explain what had happened here!
“Betrayed by my own…”
He tried to rub at some of the scarring. Whoever had done this certainly wanted no memory of whatever had transpired.
“Always watching…”
It was too quiet here. A sudden click of a stone dislodging and falling down a step brought his attention to it.
“…oel will save…”
Some paranoia snaked through him. Tollin’s eyes darted over his shoulder. Craven? Something else? The thing in the shadows?
“I am the Father…”
Tollin stepped back and stared at the words. A distant echo of memory. Father of what? He turned round. He’d come full circle in the space. If there was more writing, it was out of his reach, or so damaged he’d overlooked it in his haste.
His skin tingled. He’d been here too long as it was. Wherever Craven had hidden, he would come back, and he would not be happy. Tollin glanced again to the crystal, mind working. It would take time. It would take work, but he could do it. He could connect his island to this power.
He could go home.
He licked his dry, cracked lips and nodded his head once, curtly.
Whatever account had been written here, it was long ago and it was no longer his problem. He had work to do.
With one last glance round, Tollin squared his jaw and swept back up the stairs.
Chapter Seventeen
Andrew had wasted too much of his energy fighting off Noel’s attack. He was still reeling from the disturbing possibility he could be forced to open his mind to that dark plane—not to mention confused as to why. What Noel and the Myrmidons were wanting from him was an absolute mystery. As far as he was concerned, it could be just about anything under the sun.
He needed rest. He needed to think, to focus on Noel’s desire.
Yet he hadn’t managed to take a dozen of tottering steps the direction of Victoria’s room before spidery hands were clasping his shoulders and veering him off course. There wasn’t much room for him to protest in the state he was in, so with a weary sigh, Andrew let Lucinda push him into her room.
Once she’d released him, he leant heavily on his cane. His vision was blurring and it took a good deal of his concentration to ignore what his brain kept babbling to him: He was losing his sight.
As concerned as he was about how quickly his body was shutting down, Andrew kept his expression blank. It was, unfortunately, growing increasingly more difficult as the painful spasms clamped at his stomach. He felt sweat bead at his brow. He needed to get out of this place and back to his room before something truly bad happened.
Lucinda’s eyes slid over him lazily. He bristled beneath the searching gaze. His only comfort was he knew her powers of observation w
ere considerably weaker than his own.
He sniffed. Something about the air…Noel had been here. Very recently. The rumpled look to her clothing and the haphazardly tossed pillows from the chaise somewhat confirmed that.
‘Ramses and the prophet, Noel, have done nothing but praise your abilities.’
Andrew narrowed his eyes; she was watching him in a way that was not so much smug as hungry. It was disturbingly familiar. Noel had looked at him that way not so long ago. ‘What exactly,’ he asked slowly, ‘are my abilities?’
Lucinda’s thick lips twisted up into a nasty smile. ‘You can communicate with the dead. You can communicate with…great power.’
‘And what power is it that you are all so keen on?’ Andrew focused on keeping his voice under control. There was no time for this. He wanted to lie down. The queen’s impression of him was one of the last things his health required.
Lucinda walked towards him, hips swaying dramatically. She touched his arm, and though he jerked away, it didn’t stop her from dragging her fingernails across his back as she circled round him. ‘The ultimate kind. Ultimate knowledge, ultimate…worlds. All you can imagine.’
‘Ah,’ Andrew fought to keep a calm demeanour. ‘It always comes back to that for you, doesn’t it? It’s all you think on. Some faerie story that has no basis in truth. Simply empty promises and drug inspired frenzies.’
The queen whirled on him sharply. ‘Have you truly deluded yourself into thinking that? After all you’ve done? You know you have power! If you would only abandon your childish games with Victoria and take your place beside Ramses and Noel!’
‘Perhaps I prefer my place beside Victoria to that of those you hold in so high esteem.’ Andrew breathed deeply, losing his sight. His left hand had begun to shake and he gripped his cane tighter in an attempt to disguise it.
Lucinda leant in close. ‘You are just as entwined in the Myrmidon’s goals as Noel is. You cannot ignore that.’
Welcome Home (Alternate Worlds Book 3) Page 22