Welcome Home (Alternate Worlds Book 3)

by Leigh, Taylor

  ‘Have I missed anything interesting?’ he asked brightly, brushing the stuff from his shoulders.

  Marus ignored the question. ‘You took out Noel all on your own?’

  Tollin made a face. ‘To be fair, he was already in rather bad shape.’

  Marus beamed. ‘You can thank me for that.’

  Tollin arched a brow.

  Victoria, now that Tollin had been saved, turned back to Marus. ‘Now, Andrew.’

  He gave Victoria a rather irritated look. ‘You look a bloody mess! He won’t be happy with you—or me, if I just show up with you in the middle of this!’

  Tollin tilted his head. ‘And where is the brooding genius now?’

  Marus shifted.

  Victoria advanced on him. ‘You told me he was fine! Where is he?’

  Marus raised his hands. ‘Hey! Of course he’s fine!’ His voice faltered slightly. ‘I mean, he’s Andrew…’

  ‘Where is he?’ Victoria snapped, fear clawing at her. ‘How could you? How dare you lie to me?’

  Marus snarled dangerously. ‘I will not be spoken to in this way!’

  Victoria wasn’t frightened by the shift in his attitude. Not for a moment did she think he’d actually hurt her. ‘I have every reason to speak to you that way!’ she snapped. ‘Take me to him! You liar…’

  ‘I don’t know he isn’t fine!’ Marus grumbled. ‘And neither do you!’

  Tollin cleared his throat. ‘Well, I for one am grateful you flew all the way out here to dig me out.’

  Victoria nodded with a defeated sigh. Yes, of course. And he would have done the same for her, she was sure.

  Tollin turned back to the device: to all of the levers and dials and buttons. She could see something in his eyes, a longing. ‘Just how far along did you get with this machine?’ he asked in a soft whisper.

  Victoria stepped closer to him over the rubble. ‘Not as far as we’d have liked to. I fear we may have let you…and your friend, down.’

  She fished into her satchel and pulled out the notebook. It never left her side and, perhaps, if anyone could work it out, Tollin could.

  He accepted it from her with a gentle smile and ran his fingers over the worn cover; his dark eyes were distant, lost in some thought, or memory. And then, without pause, Tollin flipped the book open and started scanning. His eyes moved quickly down the page, up the next, he flipped and started again. With a spark he raised his gaze to the panel and let out an enlightened ah! before his fingers went dancing across the controls.

  ‘Tollin?’ Victoria asked timidly.

  ‘I suppose there comes a time in everyone’s life,’ he said slowly, ‘where one must save himself.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Andrew could feel the blackness pulsing around him, trying to penetrate him on all sides, yet he was unaffected. Having no soul offered nothing of satisfying interest for this monster. It gave him an odd excitement, but also a press for time. For his control was steadily fading. He couldn’t hold onto it, even now it was slipping away, flooding back to the rippling cloud above him, still pumping from within him, still called by that stone.

  He moved deeper into the heart of the Dark, guided on by the eagerness of his parasite. He didn’t question it; for once allowing instinct to override his natural suspicion of things. When life became illogical, he had no choice but to follow suit.

  Still, he had enough thought to be acutely aware of just how perfect for the job he was. The Darkness had no hostility towards him. It was simply there, and he was simply here, and as long as nothing violent happened, Andrew had a feeling it could stay that way. Like the time he’d stepped into a swarm of luminous jellyfish in the shallows of the ocean, watching their glowing trail as they stretched out to the horizon.

  How quickly that would change, well, that was another matter entirely.

  The Darkness was growing thicker; no longer that smoky cloud he’d been walking through. This was stronger, physical, real. Now it was near impossible to see, which was alarming, not knowing where he was headed, not knowing where each foot would land. Something in him made that decision for him. Something he had no control over.

  After many turns and stairs, finally, he stopped.

  Andrew turned round in a small circle, lost in complete darkness. Internal direction told him he’d wandered back to where he’d started: the room with the chair. He could feel the thing pulsing, as if part of him; tapping into some instinct inside of him. Once or twice he thought he caught a snatch of red, but as his sight flickered, he feared it may be nothing but his pain he saw. The dark growled above him, like some hungry beast. He hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected it to sound so alive. The last bits he’d been holding to him broke away, drifting up like ashes.

  And then, much to his surprise, the Darkness spoke, and its voice was intelligent.

  ‘You are not the Traveller,’ it boomed above him, almost disappointedly. ‘Why do you wear his mask?’

  Andrew tilted his head up and he felt his throat tighten. ‘And what makes you so certain that I am not?’

  ‘No soul.’

  He smiled in amusement, but his smile froze as something wet hit his cheek. A subtle movement: two legs dangled just above his head, swaying gently. He stepped back, horror starting to seep in. It was Ramses, suspended above him; caught in the blackness. And it was he who was speaking.

  ‘So I’ve been told,’ Andrew said drily, recovering.

  Ramses’s head swung to give him an appraising look. The Darkness rumbled around him, amplifying his voice. Great snaking tentacles of black looped up the walls on all sides of him, writhing, breathing. The glow from the chair was nearly lost in the mess.

  ‘Because it is true.’

  Andrew shrugged indifferently. ‘It is inconsequential. Whether I have a soul or not, it makes no difference to me.’

  ‘Such an attitude for a mortal to have.’

  Andrew shifted. ‘Hell of a lot of good having a soul did you.’

  The Ramses thing smiled, looking as if it would be sick. ‘What are you possibly good for, then? Besides being a puppet for others.’

  Andrew snagged a tendril of the black and gave it a rough tug. ‘I’d say I’m putting it to good use.’

  The Darkness pulled in closer round him. It certainly didn’t like that. All about the atmosphere shifted to a bit more on the hostile side of things.

  Now, the only problem was: what could he possibly do? Any instinctive control he had was there, powerful, and ready, but he was at a loss. And it was draining away with alarming speed. He couldn’t hold onto it. Grasping at the feathers of an escaping bird. He had to act fast or he’d lose his chance.

  And then it hit him. He knew exactly what to do. He was a conductor, wasn’t he? Could he not step between those worlds of spirit and living and drag this with him? What if he could pull the Darkness in, direct it through this opening between worlds that he somehow knew how to create, and stuff it back to where it came from?

  It was his last chance.

  Breaking into the final dash his limbs would allow, he leapt to the seat of the chair and grasped at the stone. It was stuck fast and burning cold, freezing his clawing fingers to its shining ruby surface. Andrew wobbled, mind wheeling as the smog circled over the throne.

  The stone had a way of connecting with him. If this device’s purpose was to connect to worlds, that was lost on him. He didn’t have the ability. But perhaps it could connect with what his ability was, which may not be his ability to jump to other physical dimensions, but at the very least the spiritual aspect to those dimensions. Perhaps he could just as easily travel to other worlds, drifting like a ghost through the same paths the spirits walked.

  Snagging the talons of his consciousness through the black cloud above, he went staggering at the intensity of its power. It alarmed him. Somewhere…inside of him…somewhere was that opening. He needed to find it, and quickly.

  His chest felt as if it would collapse in on itself. The feeling in his bod
y was dissolving.

  Ah, at last! There it was! That giant portal behind his sternum, spinning like a whirlpool, and Andrew felt the uncomfortable awareness that he may be pulled in with it; sucked inwards, buckled backwards, snapping his spine.

  He let out a broken gasp as his legs gave way beneath him. Andrew sank down, arms raised above him, glued to the stone; feeling as if razor wire were pulled through his chest.

  It appeared: that vast, black landscape widening out; that far, distant shore, locked for ever away. He realised almost too late that he did not want to send it there. It was too easily accessible. Too close to the front of his mind. He needed some place new. Some place he would never reach again, when he slipped into sleep or spores or illness.

  There were other worlds. Worlds that radiated with that spiritual power, worlds that were stuffed full of it. A place with no ghosts to be devoured. Nothing but a box to stuff it in.

  At last he found it: a world with a dying sun and a broken castle, hurtling through the blackness; what a strange picture. There was something wrong with that world. That world, full of dark power and some ancient malevolence that radiated through the core of the dimension. Something original lurked there. Something wicked. It was the perfect place to send it. It belonged there. Perhaps he sensed another soul as well: a pure soul, a shining one of gold. But he could sacrifice that one if it meant putting this entity away. He would lose no sleep over it. It had to be done.

  Andrew focused on the image, on the power of the stone, using it as a converter, keeping him focused on that Realm, on the portal through him. Mentally, he tightened his snares in the cloud, grasping at the ribbons that had been weaving out of him since he’d initially let it through.

  The Darkness above him jerked and flashed, like deadly storm clouds, angry and in pain. And then it began to cave inwards, drooping towards the floor, sucking back into his chest, like a snail into its shell. The strands of the black pulled stickily away from Ramses and he crumpled to the floor in a limp heap. In tarlike tendrils it pierced into Andrew’s chest, writhing, struggling, compacting.

  His body jerked, no longer his own; wasn’t even flesh and blood, he was simply a doorway. And as more of the Darkness was drawn through, he could feel himself being thrown wider.

  Past the grey, hazy sheen across his eyes, Andrew could see the massive cloud shrinking, breaking apart, sinking into him and out of sight, out of world, tearing through him as it went in protest. And then, with one last angry thrash, it was gone.

  Andrew fell from the chair to hands and knees, gasping, coughing. Stringy trails of saliva roped to the floor from his bloodied lips. He was completely drained, completely empty. All of the Darkness was gone, but he felt he was, as well. His muscles burned. His hands bled.

  His vision blackened and he thought for a brief, mad moment the Darkness might have come back. But as his arms wobbled then finally collapsed beneath him and he fell to the cool stone he knew he was alone, and blacked out into nothingness.

  * * * * *

  A violent shudder rocked the ground and Tollin braced himself for the worst. His eyes shot along the shadowy walls, searching for the monstrous form of Craven. There was movement—the drifting of small satellites, but that was all.

  ‘Hullo?’

  Things felt final now. He’d spoken to Samantha Turner. Though the damn crystal had shorted and split their time, he’d told her what he could. He’d given her his instruction to contact Andrew, and he’d managed a few friendly words. If that was the last he’d ever have, well, it wasn’t ideal, but no-one could pick one’s final moments.

  It settled some sense of dread in his stomach. This was the end of two sharing this prison. He hadn’t wanted it to come, but it had. Craven was insane, and if Tollin didn’t…do something about it, then he would never see Sam again.

  Some small part of him wondered if that was fair. Craven had lived in these halls of stone for generations longer than Tollin—perhaps this prison had even been created for him—and now Tollin was simply going to rob him of that? For what? Enough time to go home?

  He swallowed down the twinge in his consciousness. It was the natural way of things. Kill or be killed. And even if it wasn’t fair, he had to justify it. Craven was a monster—a criminal. Tollin still had a chance to do good. He wasn’t sure if killing still made him good but, well, he’d have to ask those questions later.

  Cautiously, he swung himself up to a jutting ledge and went hopping from crystal to outcropping, up out of the well he’d been lurking in, and up into the once grand hall of the palace. It was deathly still, only turned to life as lightning flashed across one of the windows, flickering blue along the floor.

  His ears pricked up as a howling groan echoed from beyond the walls, sending chills down his spine. That was new…and that was never good here. With that thought he went racing down the broken hallway, following the noise, to finally skid to a stop as the path ended at open space.

  He caught his breath at the sight.

  The sun.

  It had gone.

  Or, to be more accurate, a good portion of it had. As he watched, great, cloudy tentacles of black were busily wrapping themselves round the orb, cutting off its light.

  The sight forced him to take a step back in horror. The sky flashed again and Tollin caught a glimpse of some shadow against the already dark sky: a massive, yawning hole. A hole in the sky. A hole that cut through the dark, flashing with light like angry lightning. And more black stuff was pouring through it into this world, mountains of it: piling up and bleeding into the pitch black that surrounded the island. Where was it coming from? Sent from another Realm? Just what was it? It stirred vague familiarity in his mind, somewhere, pushed far to the back, forgotten.

  The island shook again. Tollin turned round, gripping his knife to the point of pain and felt his stomach drop. The hallway he’d just come down was now thrown into new shadows.

  And everything had gone eerily quiet.

  Tollin dodged away from the hall and went edging along the outer wall of the island. Any confrontation with Craven no longer felt that pressing; that dark was much, much worse.

  After some dangerous climbing, he at last found one of the broken sets of stairs, dropping down to the lower level, and took it. There was one spot on the island which should remain bright. The core. And he had to reach it before that cloudy dark did.

  The back of his neck prickled hot with nerves; he didn’t much appreciate how loudly his footsteps echoed down the cracked steps.

  From somewhere in the dark came an animalistic, terrified howl. It froze Tollin dead in his tracks; a chill slicing through him. Craven. Gone? Dead? Tollin had no way of knowing. He wasn’t about to step into the dark to investigate.

  For Tollin did know something was out there. He could sense it, some animal sense that was beginning to override his human side. He was being hunted. And for once—perhaps because he knew his Guide was not with him—he was concerned. Each step he took felt uncertain, leading him deeper towards some unhappy fate.

  When he reached the bottom of the darkening stairs he broke into a run towards the core. The blue glow was cold and distant, nothing warm, like fire. And yet, now in the darkness, it was all he had. Around him was utter silence.

  His foot hit a broken rock in the dark, hurling him forward. When he stopped rolling, his head was spinning. And by the time he lifted his head up from the ground the atmosphere had once again altered. Even the crystal light at the end of the hall seemed to have dimmed in the brief moments it had been lost from his sight.

  He pushed himself up and sniffed. More than that, the air was changing: growing heavier, hotter as well. Whatever was behind him was closing in, and with alarming speed.

  Tollin dove for the glow, just managing to slide to a stop at the edge of the pit before his momentum threw him in. The damage Craven had wreaked around him was crushing; the carved crystals, all so carefully tuned, were now smashed to fragments. He looked up. Nothing but bla
ck.

  Yet here, at least, some light remained.

  There was a violent tremble and the floor buckled. Tollin scrabbled for a hold as he felt, rather than saw, the island shift in its orbit; as if he were on a raft, bumped by a shark. It listed wildly, knocked from its setting. When it settled, Tollin unsteadily made it to the pit and peeked down. Something had knocked the palace out of its normal balance. Below he could now see his little island, nearly lost in the dark. Well, that was something, at least.

  He tapped the nearest crystal with a finger.

  ‘If ever there was a time for you to consider doing something spectacular…now would be it.’

  A whispering sigh was all he could hear. A possible crack. Stone falling. Something—some daemonic thing—was closing in.

  Tollin yanked one of the cables he’d grounded to the wall, pulling it free. The sun was dying, he hadn’t had time to calibrate, he didn’t know how to keep the power from overloading—or increasing at all, but he had to do something. Now.

  The cable jerked free from his hand and to his alarm, went whizzing through the air, pulled to the giant rotating crystal, as if magnetised. There it stayed, vibrating violently. Soon the entire cable was hot and shaking with power. But without a sun flare, was it enough?

  No time to worry.

  Grasping the other end of the burning cable, he took a deep breath and dropped. There was a terrifying moment where the thought he would simply fall. That the cable pinned to the crystal would pull free, that he’d be trapped on his island, but, miraculously, it held.

  Without pausing for breath he shot to the damaged transmitter and wrapped the cable about it till the device made a sickly hum from the energy.

  Then he was scuttling back up the cable to the core, hissing in pain as the metal burnt his hands.