by Gill, J. G.
I glared at him, but before I could actually say anything I suddenly felt something grab hold of my other arm and yank me backwards. I craned my neck to see that Freya was halfway out of the Slipworld and had looped her arm inside mine.
“She’s coming with me, Demarge.”
He snorted dismissively. “Is that so?” he said, wrenching my other arm so I stumbled towards him.
“Let me go!” I screamed.
“You’re staying, Clare,” said Demarge, his eyes locked against Freya’s.
Where are you Daden? I thought, as I desperately scanned the stairwell for him. It took me a couple of seconds to notice the glowing ball of red light hovering a few steps above. I barely had time to whisper his name, when he suddenly came hurtling towards us. Demarge was either going to have to let me go, or have his arm burnt through. It was a risky plan, relying solely on Daden’s ability to call Demarge’s bluff. The ball of red light was now travelling so fast that I doubt Daden could have stopped, even if he’d wanted to. I glanced at Demarge, trying to predict what he was going to do, but his eyes were inscrutable.
“Very well, Daden. Burn the girl alive then.”
I screamed as Demarge stepped backwards sharply, jerking me directly into Daden’s line of fire. The ball of light was now so close I could feel its heat, the glare so blindingly bright that it was impossible for me to keep my eyes open without squinting. Freya pulled back on my arm but it was hopeless. No matter how strong she was, Demarge was stronger.
“Give her to me!” she screamed.
“She’s mine!” Demarge snarled back.
“Let me go!” I screamed again, trying to twist myself free from Demarge with every last bit of strength I had in me. I kicked his shin so hard that I could feel it at the end of my boot, but his hand simply tightened around my wrist like an iron cuff. He didn’t even flinch. The ball of light was now just centimetres away.
“Well, well. It looks as if Daden’s stubbornness knows no bounds.” I could almost detect a note of admiration in Demarge’s voice.
I screwed up my eyes and braced myself for the fiery impact. If I’d ever stopped to think about death before, I’m sure I’d have imagined myself wailing and gnashing my teeth like a mad woman. But it wasn’t like that. For some inexplicable reason I felt weirdly calm. If it had to happen I just hoped it would be quick and painless.
A breeze shifted my fringe from my forehead, blowing my hair from my face. Another second passed, then nothing. As far as I could tell I was still alive, breathing, standing upright. I don’t know exactly what I had thought dying would feel like, but not like that. I opened my eyes a tiny fraction, just enough to let the light in, just enough to see that the red ball was no longer a ball at all, but a narrow oval disc that was standing on its end and hurtling towards me. My eyes sprung open in surprise, as the red light skated across my chest, cutting me free from Demarge. His enraged scream echoed in my ears as my back hit the wall and my body started to melt into the rubbery plaster. Daden was close behind, when all of a sudden I saw his face contort with shock and pain. In the moments before he splintered into a thousand pieces, there was just time for him realise that Demarge’s final bolt of lightning had found its target.
CHAPTER XXXI
Blue, green, blue… Alternating visions of grass and sky flipped in my head. It was only once I was sure I was going to be sick that I finally came to a stop, banking against a clump of flowers. I lay completely still, my eyes closed, wanting to savour the perfect stillness for as long as possible. Somewhere, to the left of my head, someone was speaking.
“Clare, are you all right?”
I groaned unintelligibly, hoping that whoever it was would give up trying to talk and let me sleep for a bit.
“Clare?”
No such luck. I slowly opened my eyes and rolled onto my back. Everything ached. Even my teeth. I glanced up to see Calix kneeling next to me.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, fine. You?” I suddenly remembered her shoulder and sat up abruptly. “Has someone seen to your shoulder? That looked really nasty. Honestly, you should get Min to look at it. Is she around?” I began scanning the Valley for her.
“Hey, it’s okay, I’m fine, really. Turns out it was only skin deep. The bleeding’s stopped and Freya’s going to patch me up properly later.”
For some reason, Calix still looked really worried.
“It’s Troy, isn’t it?” I said.
Calix nodded, the tears welling in her eyes.
“I never should have come without him. It’s not right, he needed me.”
I fidgeted awkwardly with the thick blades of grass, unsure what to say next. As much as I hoped more than anything that Troy was okay, I had no way of knowing what had happened, and I knew Calix would see straight through any feeble attempt to make her feel better. Instead, I reached out and stroked her arm. Calix gave a watery smile and quickly brushed the droplets from her eyes.
“He’s such an idiot,” she said. “Why can’t he, for just once in his life, do what he’s told?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it’s that Y chromosome playing up,” I said.
“Yeah, something like that,” said Calix, smiling wryly.
“Have you seen Bede?” I said.
“I think he’s over there,” said Calix, pointing vaguely towards a clump of daisies.
I glanced over to see my shaggy brother lounging amongst the flowers a few metres away. He gave me one of his lopsided smiles and all of a sudden I felt my eyes start to prickle with tears. After everything, my brother was here and he was safe and right now nothing could get us. I ran to him, the tears streaming down my face. I probably looked like a complete mess but I couldn’t have cared less. Bede got to his feet and we held each other for a long time.
“Aggh, can’t breathe,” he said eventually, unlatching my arms from his neck. I laughed, and wiped my face with the back of my sleeve. “Hey, Just, over here!”
I turned to see Justin walking slowly towards us. I wasn’t sure if he was swaggering, or dragging his feet sheepishly. I hoped it was the latter, given everything that had happened in the Cathedral, but with Justin I never could tell.
Freya was pacing anxiously near the seam, watching the fragments of yellow, blue and red light that were swarming into the Slipworld. Strangely, each piece seemed to know exactly what colour it was and could sense the others that were just like it. Soon there were big piles of blue and yellow and red light, heaped in stacks on the meadow. Their sharp edges seemed to melt into one another, liquefying then moulding into human shapes like molten plastic. Within seconds I could see Min’s face peering out of the blue light, and Thomas’s in the yellow. Freya left them near the seam and started striding towards us.
“Quickly, all of you to the farmhouse. Clare, can you please lead the way?”
Calix shot me a curious, sideways look and I could sense the others were confused by Freya’s abruptness.
“Is something wrong?” said Bede.
“Demarge knows exactly where the Slipworld is now. That makes it extremely dangerous for every, single, one of you. Once Daden is back we will need to move, and move quickly. Now please, Clare, show them the way.”
“Of course,” I said quickly, nodding towards the wood at the edge of the meadow. The others looked at me with a mix of fright and confusion. I smiled, trying my best to keep it together, but I felt exactly the same way. What had, just five minutes ago, felt like euphoria after escaping from Demarge, had suddenly turned horribly, scarily, serious.
But Freya’s warning wasn’t the only thing that was making me feel a bit nauseous. I’d been carrying around a heavy stone of guilt in the pit of my stomach ever since I’d deliberately gone against Daden’s instructions and left the Slipworld. Maybe there was nothing I could do about Demarge, but at least I could try to put things right with the Aeons for all the drama I’d caused. I tugged on Bede’s shirt, interrupting his conversation with Calix.
“Hey,
I just have to go back for a minute. If you keep walking towards the woods and follow the path, I’ll catch you up.”
Bede shrugged. “Yeah, no problem.”
Freya was still watching the disparate pieces of red light filtering through the seam into the Slipworld as I sidled hesitantly up to her. It crossed my mind that my timing might actually be way off; hadn’t she just expressly told me to go to the farmhouse? Now, here I was, apologising for being disobedient. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Come on Daden,” said Freya under her breath, as if willing the light to hurry back.
Meanwhile, the pieces that had returned were busy reassembling themselves. Daden was brushing himself down as Freya placed her hand gently on his arm.
“Are you fully back now?” she asked.
“I…I think so,” he said.
“Good. Close the portal!” she shouted.
Daden turned to see me standing directly behind him and Freya.
“Clare?” he said with surprise.
I swallowed hard. It hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t actually sure how I was going to apologise or what words I should use. To make things worse I could now feel tears starting to creep into the corners of my eyes. Unexpected tears, the type that ambush you when you least expect it. I blinked them back furiously. For once in my life I was determined to say something adult without having a big crying fest about it. I took a deep breath.
“Umm,” I paused awkwardly. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, I should never have gone back to the other world when you told me not to. I was just really worried about Bede and I didn’t want to listen to what you were saying. I’ll totally understand if you don’t want me here anymore.”
To my relief, Daden smiled and put his hand on my arm.
“Yes, it wasn’t the cleverest thing you will ever do. But without mistakes, how can you ever distinguish wise decisions from foolish ones? Your apology is accepted. You will always have a place here, in the Slipworld, Clare.” Freya nodded in agreement.
I gulped. In some ways it would have been easier if they’d both told me what a complete idiot I’d been, but the fact they were so nice about everything meant I had to fend off the tears even more.
“Thanks,” I managed to mumble lamely.
“Now Clare you must join the others. Demarge could burst through that seam at any moment,” said Freya.
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I ran towards the woods as fast as I could. As cliché as it sounds, I honestly felt lighter than I had for days. Bede was walking at the front of the group by the time I caught them up. Calix was following a few paces behind, and Justin was dragging along at the very back. I ran up to Bede and looped my arm through his. There was something I’d been curious about ever since we’d been in the Cathedral.
“So how do you know Justin?” I whispered.
“We were locked up together. Poor guy had been torn up pretty bad by a wolfhound.”
“Really?” I said, making basically no effort to hide my scepticism. “Do you know he was working for Demarge?”
“Yeah, he told me that,” said Bede. “He’s certainly not anymore though.”
“How can you be so sure?” I said. “I know what I saw when he was following us and believe me, he looked more than happy in his job.”
Bede shrugged. “Well maybe it seemed like that at the time, but he’s changed Clare. You should see his back for a start. The scars are horrendous. Plus, Demarge would have only too happily killed him off just now if Daden and Freya hadn’t saved his butt.”
I glanced behind us, at Justin dawdling, seemingly lost in his own world.
“I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s just something not quite right about him,” I said.
Bede ruffled my hair, the way he always did when he knew I was annoyed and was trying to jolt me out of it. It usually just made me more annoyed. Today was no exception.
“Ahh, Clare, it’s good to have my conspiracy theorist sister back again. Look, I know you and Justin haven’t exactly been friends – at school and then in the Cathedral – and I get why you feel like you do, but honestly, give him a chance. You’ll see, he’s a good guy.”
I glanced at Bede and gave him a ‘I don’t really believe you but I’m going to let the subject drop anyway’ look. There was no point arguing about it. Not right now anyway. We were now coming to the end of the path and the warm, red bricks would soon be visible. I turned and called back to the others
“The farmhouse, it’s just up here!”
CHAPTER XXXII
Morana was incandescent as she paced up and down the long narrow room, the candle flames shifting nervously on their wicks. Demarge ignored her, focusing instead on the map that was spread out in front of him.
“How could you let them get away like that?” she hissed. “I can’t believe you’ve been outsmarted by an Aeon, let alone in your own world.”
Demarge looked up, blinked once at Morana, then turned casually to the short, fat, sweating man who was standing in the corner of the room.
“Stanley, Arius needs exercising. Would you see to it please?”
Stanley grimaced and was about to protest, when he saw Demarge’s right eyebrow twitch with irritation.
“Yep, right on it boss,” he muttered, taking the keys down from their hook. He kept muttering under his breath as he left the room. “Boss’s freakin’ pets, why me, why not Morana?” His heavy footsteps echoed in the stairwell outside with a metallic thud, thud, thud.
“He’s certainly no ballerina,” said Demarge, returning to the map.
Morana stared at him in exasperation.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?” Demarge looked up abruptly, his gloved fingertip still stabbing a point on the route he was tracing.
“The Shards, the Aeons. Slipworld. You know, the general debacle of tonight!”
“Debacle? That all depends on your definition of the word. I call it an unprecedented success,” said Demarge.
“An unprecedented success?” Morana threw up her hands and started pacing again. “You’ve been trying to find an entrance into the Slipworld for centuries. Tonight was one of the very few opportunities we have ever had to get in there and you…” she trailed off, partly from frustration but also partly because she realised she may have gone too far.
“I what?” said Demarge, fixing her with a steely glare. “Miscalculated perhaps? Worse? I was stupid?”
“You were unlucky” said Morana quietly.
“Unlucky.” Demarge rolled the syllables like marbles on a playground. “Unlucky.” He started to nod slowly, as if still registering the full impact of the word, the full impact of the insult. “Unlucky!” Demarge slammed his fist against the table. “Luck, Morana, has nothing to do with it. Luck is something that mortals rely on because they have no control. Luck does not come into the equation when you’re the one making all the rules!”
Morana’s eyes flashed with anger but she lowered them quickly. She knew she would never win an argument with Demarge. It was futile to try. Mollification was a much better idea, particularly if she wanted to keep her rank and privilege over the other Archons.
“I guess I just don’t understand what happened,” she said.
“What happened tonight was the perfect execution of my plan,” said Demarge. He got up from his desk, walked slowly to the window, and gazed out over Wiltsdown, his black gloved fingertips pressed together in thought. “Do you really think I was unaware of the precise entrance to the Slipworld before Daden and Freya returned with the Shards? Do you?”
Morana pouted sulkily.
“I knew exactly where that entrance was. I sensed it.”
“You never said anything,” said Morana. “I thought you were still looking.”
“Of course you did,” said Demarge. “More to the point, so did the Aeons.”
“So imprisoning the Shards in the mine, having Stanley drop off food to keep them alive, luring Min-Isis and Thomas the
re…”
“Was all part of a ruse to make the Aeons believe I was struggling to find the entrance,” said Demarge.
“So you could have entered it any time you wanted?” said Morana in amazement.
Demarge shrugged. “More or less. They had the protective shield up for a few hours which would have made it more difficult, but yes, I could be in there right now had I chosen to be.”
“So…so, why aren’t you?” A deep frown line divided Morana’s forehead into two, perfectly even squares. “After all this time, waiting for such an opportunity?”
“Precisely because of the length of time this has taken, Morana. I have waited far too long to simply fall at the final hurdle,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Demarge sighed as if he was a teacher trying to explain something simple to the stupidest kid in the world.
“The Aeons were expecting me to wander into the Slipworld at any moment. They were at least smart enough to realise that I could, at any time, have invaded their sanctuary. But what do you think would have happened if I had? Do you think they would have said ‘Please Demarge, have a seat, we’ll be popping round with tea and cake in a minute?’ I don’t think so.”
Morana could see his point, but even so, it seemed like a hugely wasted opportunity.
“But you’re stronger than the Aeons. Surely you could have defeated them?” she said.
“I’m stronger than the Aeons in my own world, Morana. The Slipworld is another matter. I would have been a fool to have thought I could take on six or more Aeons in the Slipworld and won.” He paused, fixing her with a level gaze. “Besides, I need more time to turn the girl.”
“So is that it then?” said Morana. “We begin the long wait for another opportunity?”
“Yes and no,” he said.
Morana frowned, confused.
“Taking the Slipworld by force was never going to work. Taking it by stealth, on the other hand…”
“What do you mean?” said Morana.
“You’ll see, when the time is right,” said Demarge. He turned away from the window. “And believe me, that time is coming.”