Passages (Alternate Worlds Book 1)

by Taylor Leigh

  Victoria gazed back at Andrew. He gestured for her to take a seat. She sighed in defeat and plopped down on the floor at the base of his chair. Without another word he flipped the book over so she could read. The page was filled with the Scrabian alphabet with the Scottorrian translation and pronunciations under it. He didn’t remove the book, waiting for her approval.

  ‘You know it’s right,’ she sighed.

  Andrew had memorised the alphabet in five minutes. Ten minutes later he could speak with such a convincing Scrabian dialect even the shrewdest of Scrabians would have trouble catching it. If it wasn’t for his pale skin, he could certainly pass for one.

  Andrew pulled the book away from her without another word. Victoria rested her head against the chair and raised her eyes to him.

  Since she had spent the majority of her days with him for the past months, the sight of him scribbling away had become a familiar one. They had worked feverishly over the book, often late into the night with only each other and a sputtering candle for company. She imaged it would almost be romantic if it were anyone but him. In the beginning it had simply been Andrew’s obsession, his desire to create a work that would astound the academic council of Scottorr’s capital. But as they worked, Victoria began to feel the same pull for perfection as he did. She often spent her own time in her room drawing out images of the palace or going back and editing what Andrew had written. She was shocked by the amount of information they had compiled, and the book, she had to admit, looked stunning. They were still far from finished, however. If Andrew was anything, he was thorough.

  Thunder shook the windows of the library.

  ‘Does anyone know where Tollin has gotten to?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Why?’ Thedric crooned. ‘You miss him?’

  ‘No. It just doesn’t seem safe if he’s out in all of that.’

  ‘Bet you’re depressed he didn’t take you with him,’ Thedric said, getting eyelevel with the game board. ‘You two have been inseparable these past months. It’s so cute.’

  Molly glowered. ‘What business is it of yours? I’m just worried that he’s out there in all of that! He said he wouldn’t be long, but it’s been hours!’

  ‘Hear that?’ Thedric sighed. ‘That’s the sound of a heart breaking.’

  ‘Oh, boil your head, Thedric. Checkmate.’

  Thedric shouted and stared at the set in horror. ‘How did you—?’

  With another loud peal of thunder the doors to the library were thrown open and a soaking Tollin staggered inside. He was draped in a black leather raincoat and had a miserable leather hat dripping down the sides of his head. He let out a breath and shed the raincoat in a sweep. ‘Bit wet out there!’ he observed cheerily. Victoria caught a glimpse of several limp flowers stuck in his pocket.

  Molly eyed Thedric. ‘Be right back. Don’t touch that board.’ She dashed up from the game and grabbed his hand, leading him over to the fire. ‘You see anything? You’ve been gone for hours!’

  Thedric watched her go, and then went to quietly adjusting the pieces in his favour.

  ‘Well, if by “see anything” you mean did I find what I was looking for, then no. Did I see things I didn’t expect to?’ he shrugged.

  He pulled out several flowers and gave her a questioning look.

  Molly sighed and shook her head no.

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’ He patted her on the head. ‘Well, not yet anyway. But rain is washing in other things than just warmer weather.’ He pulled a small glass phial out of his coat pocket and held it up adoringly to the room. ‘Look at this? Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘It’s full of water,’ Victoria said.

  ‘I know!’ Tollin grinned. His smile dropped a notch when he realised no-one else was. ‘Water from the stream!’

  ‘Looks a bit murky,’ Molly said.

  ‘Yes—well, it is raining buckets out there. Might be worth a look, however.’ He held it up to the light. Victoria stifled a laugh as she saw his magnified, wild eyes through the glass. ‘Never know if there might be something interesting in it…’ Tollin’s eyes shifted past the phial and down to Victoria. His left eyebrow had a habit of arching up almost comically and it was attempting to do so now.

  Victoria shifted under his stare, confused by what he was implying. Andrew pulled her out of her thoughts.

  ‘I think we need to go back over your descriptions of the gladiators,’ he mused, as if Tollin had not even entered the room. ‘You seem to be leaving out a few key pieces of information regarding them.’

  ‘What’s to cover?’ Victoria muttered. ‘They fight, we cheer, they die, we cheer. Rich people pay to spend time with them. Nothing exciting there.’

  ‘I like them,’ Thedric said, slamming his rook down on the chess board with a little too much force. ‘Only thing that’s interesting in that blasted book you two are writing.’

  ‘That move’s wrong,’ Molly said jadedly, walking back to the game. ‘Rooks can’t do that. Only bishops can.’

  Andrew ignored his brother. ‘Do these people volunteer to fight?’

  Victoria rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not. Who would volunteer for that? They’re…basically slaves to the ruling class.’ She winced, it was the first time she’d thought of it.

  ‘Like you,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Huh? Oh, yeah, like me.’

  ‘So, where do these gladiators come from?’ Andrew pressed.

  ‘Well, I’ve never really thought about it. Kidnapped, I guess. Any of the tribes outside the city gates are fair game. Denizens go out there from time to time and steal them. Denizens are in charge of all of that.’

  Andrew flipped his book back a few pages to a drawing of a Denizen that Victoria had done. He studied the domed head and curved tusks in distant fascination. ‘In charge of what all, exactly?’

  ‘You know,’ Victoria shrugged. ‘Gathering slaves, picking people for sacrifices, rounding up gladiators. Pretty much anything regarding religious ceremonies. That stuff.’

  Molly stared at her. ‘You have human sacrifices? Why, why that’s barbaric!’

  Andrew made a note. ‘These religious ceremonies. You’ve been very quiet about them. I think it’s finally time you talked about it. It’s rather important.’

  Victoria shifted. ‘I’d rather not.’

  Andrew’s eyebrows went up. He wasn’t used to her—or Victoria knew by now, anyone—saying no to him. ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘Because…’ Victoria realised everyone in the room was looking at her, except for Tollin, who was still fascinated with his phial of water. ‘It makes me uncomfortable…and it’s forbidden.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a very dark process. I guess I’m rather wicked; I avoid them at all cost.’ She felt an uncomfortable prickling feeling, as if insects had started to crawl inside of her blouse.

  ‘Come now, no-one on Scrabia is going to know about this, I promise.’ Funny, his voice almost sounded tender.

  Fear closed its hand around her throat. She’d seen what happened to those who spoke against the Darkness. ‘Of course they will! They see everything!’ she gasped, feeling panic rising within her. They would call the Darkness…Victoria had heard of it happening. People simply vanishing. ‘They’re all-powerful!’

  Tollin was aware of what was going on now. He crossed the room and put his hands on her shoulders, somewhat jolting Victoria out of her growing hysterics. ‘Victoria, listen to me.’ There was something in the way he said it. The way his brown eyes were so steady. His words so sure. He had such a commanding sense about him that chased the dark ghosts away. His strong fingers gripping her shoulders brought some warmth back to her. ‘Denizens are not omnipotent, no matter what they say, they are nothing more than creatures, like you and me. You don’t have to fear them. Whatever power they have is what you give them. Do you understand?’

  Victoria stared into his eyes and nodded, fighting down tears. ‘Yeah, I understand…but…if that’s true, then everything we’ve believed
as long as I can remember is a lie!’

  Tollin let his hands fall from her shoulders and stood back to his feet. ‘The best way to defeat a myth is to talk about it, discuss it, question it, debate it! It’s the only way you can find the truth!’

  Victoria rubbed her arms. She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Well, from what I remember, for a typical ceremony, you’re brought into a dark room with the Denizens and priestesses. It’s hard to breathe in there. It’s so hot and stuffy…And they make you drink.’

  ‘You’ll need to be more specific than that,’ Andrew said in a detached voice, un-phased by her meltdown. ‘What do they make you drink?’

  ‘The Desert’s Eye. It’s a mixture. It gives you visions. It’s from the sacred cavern water and the spores.’

  Tollin lowered down to a squat, eyes locked on Victoria with a new light. ‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere…’ His eyes darted over to Molly and his left eyebrow raised a couple of degrees. ‘Tell me about these spores.’

  Andrew had also grown more attentive. His bored attitude was replaced with growing interest as well.

  ‘They’re the most important part,’ Victoria said. ‘The Denizens have slaves mining deep underground for them constantly. The shrooms only grow down there in the caverns. No-one knows what they’re for except the people privileged enough to get a taste of them in the ceremonies. Once you get your first drink of them, that shows you if you’ve got what it takes or not…’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Thunder rumbled outside. Victoria looked round the room. Everyone was staring at her. She felt strange, like she was telling a ghost story. Perhaps she was, the way everyone was fixed on her, looks of repulsed fascination on their faces, save for Andrew, who simply wanted the facts.

  ‘Some people respond badly to it; become violent, insane, or have reactions…my cousin, Reginald, he tried them once when he was a kid. It almost killed him, took a horrible turn.’ Victoria trailed off. She thought about the spores Andrew had found in Chance’s room. ‘Other people, they get the visions. They see things, sometimes horrible things. It can make people go crazy, if they get too much of it. It starts…messing with your head. And they get addicted. They need more and more and can’t stop…that’s what happened to the Queen.’ She winced, thinking about her mother. For all the long years her mother had been sucking them down, losing herself to the spores, it was one thing she could never forgive. ‘It’s not supposed to be that way. For most people it just makes you complacent. You’re up for anything. Feel confident about yourself, like you can take on the world. Nothing scares you anymore.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Tollin said. ‘These spores, for people who take them long enough, do they leave any other side-effects? Anything else noticeable?’

  Victoria started to shake her head, then stopped. ‘Wait, yes…I’ve only seen glimpses of it…something wrong. They’re…dead inside…’ Her eyes rose to meet Tollin’s. She knew what he was getting at. ‘Yellow eyes.’

  Tollin jumped to his feet. ‘Ah! Brilliant! Really, it is brilliant! Can’t believe it took me so long to figure out! Stupid! I’m so thick sometimes! Of course, it all makes sense now! Desert’s Eye? Proper name: Spotted Cavern Mycelium!’ He turned round in a circle, face beaming. ‘That explains why the Blaiden have yellow eyes; that’s the distinguishing characteristic! It stains the veins and eyes! That explained why the body we found had such an odd look to it! And it can be ingested by inhaling or mixed with water! Oooh, they’re clever, very clever! Not as clever as me, but they’re trying!’

  ‘What in sanity are you going on about?’ Thedric shouted.

  Tollin stopped mid-spin and stared at them, as if shocked they weren’t joining in on his celebrations. ‘The Denizens!’ He turned his eyes to Victoria. ‘They’re the ones sending up pods of Spotted Cavern Mycelium. Now I know what it is!’

  ‘Pods? What pods?’ Thedric demanded. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Tollin clenched his teeth together, thinking. ‘Like I said, these planets share; most plants and animal life are similar so the Scrabians would have similar podplants to the ones that grow here. Obviously. That’s how they propagate! So, the Denizens, what do they do when the planets cross? They send up loads of spores to you all as a nice present! They can see, obviously, that Scottorr is mostly water, everyone can see that, so easy enough. They’ve probably been doing that for years! Well, three years, to be exact.’

  ‘If they’re sending up poison to our water supplies, well, that’s war!’ Thedric shouted.

  ‘Oh, calm down,’ Tollin said, hardly glancing Thedric’s direction. ‘It’s not Scrabia that’s doing it. It’s the Denizens, and if they didn’t have the ruling class completely addicted to the spores then I highly doubt it would be happening. Which brings me to the question,’ he turned to Victoria again, ‘why aren’t you affected?’

  Victoria shifted her position on the floor. ‘I’m not ruling class, remember? Just a slave.’

  Tollin’s eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘Right,’ he said slowly.

  ‘But,’ Victoria said quickly. ‘I did try it once. Just snuck a bit. Made me ill. Never wanted it again.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Thedric said. ‘If they’re dumping all of this onto our planet, why aren’t we feeling the effects of it?’

  ‘It’s a giant planet, brother,’ Andrew spoke up for the first time. ‘The amount they would have to send would be enormous for us to begin to feel the effects. Unless it was landing in a concentrated area in our own backyard I doubt we’d ever know. Of course, people surrounding us have access to the dry spores; that’s why we’ve been seeing some concentrated cases. But as a whole we’re not ingesting them, so I doubt we’ll ever have to worry about it.’

  Tollin looked to Andrew. ‘Maybe you all are feeling the effects. Maybe you are but the effects are so slight you don’t realise it.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘And I have learned that if you’re clever enough and if you’ve got someone to guide it, you can pick where something is going to land.’

  ‘Someone is guiding it down to the stream?’ Molly breathed.

  ‘Exactly. That stream dumping into Elk Lake is different from the others, it’s dead.’ He held up his phial of water. ‘I think the Denizens know exactly where they’re dumping their drug. And the Blaiden know exactly where they’re going to fall.’

  ‘At the source of that stream…’ Victoria sighed. ‘But we don’t know how far that goes! Where it begins!’

  Tollin smiled. ‘No.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘And I have a feeling that if we find out, we’ll be in for a rather nasty surprise. It is on Blaiden land, after all. And I’ll bet you they’re somehow connected with this. The Denizens are smart, smart enough to somehow know to send the spores here, but they’ll need someone here to make sure things are running smoothly. Going as planned. Once we find where they’ve stockpiled them all, we’ll be one huge step closer to solving this problem.’

  ‘Well,’ Andrew said, ‘no-one is going, especially not tonight. A journey like that would be extremely dangerous. It’s Blaiden territory, and any attempt to go there would be suicide.’

  ‘Oh!’ Tollin whirled on Andrew. ‘Come on, you! You’re the brilliant one here—well, besides me! Aren’t you curious? This should be the type of thing that really flips your switch!’

  ‘As intriguing as it is, Traveller,’ Andrew said in a tight voice, ‘and as much as I want to go dashing off to find out the root of the problem, you have to think of it logically.’

  Tollin let out an irritated breath.

  ‘An army! That’s what we need!’ Thedric suggested.

  Andrew paid him no mind. ‘This rain is making it impossible and if this stream does indeed lead into the Wolf territory, then going there would accomplish nothing. You’d never make it back alive.’

  ‘But that’s what people do! You have to risk your life sometimes if you want to live!’

  Andrew closed the book. ‘The poison will only get more diluted with time, especia
lly with this rain. And what will going out there prove? You’ve already figured out that the spores are coming from that source. If you want to get to the heart of the problem, I say you left it behind. It’s back on Scrabia. The real question is, where are the villagers getting it from, since you’re not the ones distributing it. It’s obscene that they’ve managed to figure out where the spores come from and we haven’t. But, ah, they can’t fool us for long and I’ll get to the bottom of it soon enough.’

  Tollin studied Andrew’s face for a long time. Neither of them spoke, but something seemed to pass between them that Victoria would never understand. An intellectual battle of wills that could crush worlds. Finally, Tollin nodded. He glanced down to Victoria, expression an angry storm. ‘Keep talking about those ceremonies.’ He looked back up to Andrew. ‘I’ll want to see it all once it’s done.’ With that he left the room without another glance.

  Thunder crashed again, shaking the entire structure, and Victoria wondered again just what she had gotten into.

  It was the third night of their visit to the keep and it had finally stopped raining. Not only that, but the sky was remarkably clear. For that reason, everyone had taken advantage of the giant tower that seemed to almost randomly stick up from the building. The entrance to the tower had been through a very dark room full of humming machinery and blinking lights, the likes of which Victoria had never before seen. An incredibly long metal spiral staircase wound its way up the inside of the tower like a worm. It was a rickety, exhausting climb in almost pitch darkness, but the arrival had been worth it.