FIFTEEN

 
 
 

They passed through an area where the walls and ceiling were blackened by the fierce passage of now-dead fires and the flooring became bubbled and uneven underfoot, as if it had melted and flowed in the raging heat before resetting in newly irregular patterns upon cooling. The walls remained sound, however, and while a number of the ceiling lights were dead, enough still functioned for them to see where they were going; until, that is, they came to the section where the lighting had failed entirely.

  The three of them stood side by side, staring uneasily into the gathering gloom ahead.

  "If ever there was ever a place that offered the perfect site for an ambush, this is it," Kat observed.

  No one chose to argue.

  "I take it there's no way around, we have to go through this section?" she added.

  Tom nodded. "Afraid so." They hadn't passed any intersecting corridors in a while and the pressure of the core's proximity wouldn't be denied. It had become a growing ache in his head, driving him on.

  "Okay then, I'll go first." Somewhere along the line Kat seemed to have taken charge, but then she'd been doing much the same for pretty much all her life and if her leadership was good enough for the Tattooed Men it was certainly good enough for him.

  "Jayce, you take the rear, with Tom in between us." She drew one of her swords. "We'll stick close to the left side of the corridor, weapons in our right hands, fingers of the left brushing the wall all the while. That way we can be certain one of us won't go stumbling off in the dark and get separated. Listen out for the person in front or behind you, make sure you can always hear them. If at any point you can't, say something, and don't be afraid to answer."

  They proceeded as Kat had described, Tom clutching his knife ferociously, having accepted he was never going to be a swordsman during the trek along the Thair. All the while he worried that he might trip on something in the dark, fall forward and stab Kat. Of even greater concern was the thought that behind him Jayce might do exactly the same and stab him.

  They were tense moments, those spent in total darkness. Tom didn't need Kat's encouragement to listen out for the others. He strained at every step to hear his two companions, to draw comfort from any confirmation of their presence, and he suspected both of them were doing the same. Thankfully, the period was brief. A single light flickered erratically in the ceiling ahead, dispensing irregular pulses of illumination in a stop-start manner that strobed their world with twilight, allowing Tom to glimpse Kat's movements in broken jerks. As they drew nearer, the light grew starker, her presence sharper. She glanced back and grinned reassurance, though none of them spoke. Then they had passed beneath this isolated beacon of light and were walking forward again into greyness and shadow, until the dark swallowed them once more.

  That flickering beacon proved to be a harbinger, however, and their return to total darkness was a brief one. More lights appeared ahead, this time neither isolated nor flickering. First a pair with little space between them, then a continuous line, restored once more as normal service resumed. They abandoned the wall and were able to walk confidently again. Tom saw clearly where the last lick of sooty blackness stained the wall and then stopped. All three of them had made it, they'd come through the pitch black corridors without attack from Rust Warrior, Demon or even rebel kids, though Tom had no idea how they would have coped if any such had materialised. He saw his own relief mirrored in the eyes and smiles of both his companions. Kat even chuckled.

  Her good humour didn't last long. Their nervousness at walking blindly might have passed but the tension of their situation mounted at every turn. Kat's sword had been returned to its scabbard but her hand never seemed to be far from its hilt.

  "Where are they?" she muttered.

  Tom knew how she felt. The lack of recent opposition was growing almost sinister. Perhaps there were no more runaway kids, perhaps they'd passed through the main strength of the Rust Warriors, but where were the Demons? The very future of their race depended on Tom's failure, so why weren't the denizens of the Upper Heights – the core's avatars as the Prime Master had called them – flinging themselves against him in feather-winged droves?

  It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea how many Demons there actually were. More than the few they'd seen to date, surely, but if the primary functions of this elusive race were to defend the city's roof – which hadn't come under attack in centuries, if ever – and to provide a physical manifestation for the core, would there need to be that many? Probably not. So if the Blade had accounted for a few and he'd seen to another – with a little help from the kayjele – these could very well represent significant losses. Perhaps that explained why no more attacks had come. Perhaps the Demons were saving themselves for one final effort at a time and place of their choosing.

  "Your logic is sound," said the goddess, who now walked beside him again. "The specific number of each generation varies, but there are usually around a score and never more than three dozen. You're close to the core now and an attack will come, make no mistake. Stay focussed. Whatever happens, you must stay focussed." With that she vanished, as abruptly as she had appeared, to leave Tom staring at Kat.

  "What?" she asked, noting his attention.

  "Nothing."

  "No, you saw something didn't you. I'm not letting you get away with 'nothing' again. What did you see?"

  "The goddess," he said on impulse, tired of hiding the fact.

  "Sorry? As in Thaiss herself?"

  He nodded, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

  "You mean like a visitation, a religious vision or whatever?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  "Wow, that trip up the Thair really messed with your head, didn't it."

  "Trust me, you don't know the half of it," he assured her.

 

The pounding in Tom's head, the lure of the core, grew to dominate his thoughts. They were right on top of it, he could sense it. The very last he anticipated was a dead end – the first they'd encountered. They were no longer in any of the residential areas – Tom felt certain they'd left those behind a while ago. The corridors had become bleaker, blander and more functional, as had the doorways, which were far fewer and, where present, were simple utilitarian oblongs, lacking any hint of adornment or personalisation. Even so, it came as something of a shock when the corridor simply ended in a blank wall.

  "The core's ahead of us, just the other side of this wall," Tom muttered, unable to keep still. "I know it is."

  Jayce had stepped forward and was feeling the surface of the wall, standing on tiptoes and reaching up to run his fingers along the ceiling join, as if hoping to find a gap that might indicate the presence of a door. It was obvious his search had been in vain even before he stepped back, pursed his lips and shook his head.

  Kat had been staring at the wall intently, as if it might offer some clue under close scrutiny. Clearly it hadn't as she sighed and said, "We'll have to go back, then."

  Tom shook his head. "It would take too long. We're here. Now."

  "With just a solid brick wall to get through," Kat pointed out.

  "Perhaps I can visualise the core enough to take us there," Tom said, almost to himself. He'd caught a vague glimpse from the Prime Master's mind but wouldn't really want to rely on that.

  "Then why have we just traipsed halfway across the brecking city?" Kat exploded.

  "Because I can't really visualise it." He was pacing in circles, the need to get past this wall gnawing at him.

  "What happens if you try to visualise it but can't?"

  "I've no idea," he admitted.

  Kat shook her head. "It's a no go then. We can't take the risk."

  Tom knew she was right. He didn't much fancy the idea of trying only to end up stuck in some limbo because he couldn't see the destination clearly enough, or worse still risk materialising halfway through a brick wall or whatever… but there had to be a way, he simply wasn't seeing it.

  Jayce thumped the wall with the flat of his hand. "It's solid," he said. "This is going to take some knocking down if it comes to that."

  "There must be something…" Tom stepped forward to run his hands across the barrier that was keeping him from his goal, almost as if he doubted Jayce's findings, though in truth he did so merely for want of anything better to do and to stop himself from pacing.

  The moment his fingers touched the surface he felt a surge of energy, which seemed to run rapidly through his arm and ripple outward to encompass his entire body. Right then, he didn't need the goddess's guidance or the homing instinct the Prime Master had stimulated, he could feel the core burning in his mind. It was as if a switch had been flicked somewhere inside him. He, the core, and the wall, they were all connected by a stream of energy, which flowed constantly between them. They were a circuit, which had sat dormant and waiting, broken until his hand touched the wall and closed the loop, enabling the energy to flow.

  "Tom!"

  He barely heard Kat's exclamation and certainly didn't need it to tell him what was happening. He could feel the wall accept him, welcome him even. It was as if this inanimate barrier chose to step aside and usher him within. The wall melted from sight. He felt it fade beneath his fingertips, disappearing as it simply took itself elsewhere. As easily as that they were granted access to the core.

  Tom hadn't known what to expect. The Prime Master had described the core's portal as a "platform", which meant nothing to him. In the event, it proved to be exactly as the name suggested: a large, flat section of disconnected flooring that stood proud of the main floor and seemed to hover in the air unsupported. Quite why it did so, other than as a statement of its import, was beyond Tom.

  He barely noticed the platform however; it was the far wall, from which the dais projected, that demanded his attention.

  "A bit of a let-down, if this is it," Kat said.

  No it wasn't, not for Tom. He couldn't focus on that wall, couldn't decide quite what he was looking at. It was as if he were staring at two different walls, both existing in the same place at the same time, one overlaying the other, flip-flopping in and out of focus constantly. The first was a featureless blank, just another unremarkable wall, but the second was something else entirely. Tom was instantly reminded of a memory absorbed while he was in the immersion tank. He saw again in vivid detail the enormous column of core material being lowered into Thaiburley's heart. This was it. This was what he remembered from those newly acquired memories. Phasing in and out of focus, of existence, as if jostling for attention with the mundane wall it shared space with, was a section of that vibrant, swirling, impossibly bright energy. This time though, it was different. This wasn't someone else's memories – images in which he had no emotional investment – this was physically in front of him, in person. It had instant impact in a way that the planted memories could never convey. The core pulsed with vigour, seeming almost alive.

  It reached out to him and Tom felt his body respond.

  The core's energy touched every part of him simultaneously, seeming to stimulate every cell, evoking a sense of euphoria such as he'd never experienced before. Tom felt a shiver run up the back of his neck and his hair tingled, as if every strand was stretching upward to attention. He wanted to laugh, to sing, to share this exulted state with the world.

  He grabbed Kat's hand, perhaps to dance with her, though afterwards he couldn't be certain. She instantly pulled away, snatching it out of his grip.

  "Tom, what the breck are you doing?"

  "Can't you see, can't you feel it?" How could she not?

  "No, so you're going to have to tell us poor blind folk what's got into you. What are you seeing that we can't?"

  "The light… the colours… the core!" and he was laughing now.

  Suddenly he stopped as a sense of dread washed over him. "Oh no."

  "What?"

  He felt them coming – when he was this alive, this connected, how could he fail to? Streaks of individual sentient core energy zeroing in on his location, racing towards him like arrows loosed by a company of expert archers converging on the same bullseye.

  The Demons. Tom might have anticipated their arrival but to Kat and Jayce it must have seemed as if Thaiburley's most elusive citizens materialised out of nowhere. One instant they were on the threshold of a vacant space, the next a host of winged, serenely smiling, achingly beautiful Adonises filled the room. No women among the lot of them, Tom noted in passing. How could anyone ever have believed in Demons' eggs when the Demons themselves were all male?

  "Thaiss!" Kat exclaimed. "We had trouble enough dealing with just one of these breckers, what are we supposed to do about this lot?"

  Good question, and there would be no kayjele to help them this time.

  The assault began almost immediately. There was no attempt at violence, no physical threat from the assembled host at all; the demons were far too subtle for that. They played to their strengths.

  It was impossible not to be impressed by such physical perfection, the aura of health, of vitality, of goodness that surrounded them. It was only natural to feel a sense of awe at these visions of angelic perfection; and love and devotion were little more than a few quick steps away from awe.

  Why was he trying to destroy them, these wondrous, perfect beings, what was he thinking of? They had a right to live just as much as he did.

  Tom, don't listen to them. The goddess, nagging him again, as she always seemed to be. Why wouldn't she leave him alone? Fight it Tom.

  "Be gone, old woman," said the Demons. "You no longer hold dominion here."

  Tom… But the image of the elderly woman distorted, flickered, and dissolved, like some victim of the Rust Warriors. The Rust Warriors! That memory stirred anger, hatred, and resistance. Tom wriggled free, just a little bit, free of the Demons' insidious influence; enough to remember, enough to question, enough for a seed of free will to take hold. From that seed, clear thinking spread, causing the Demon's hold on him to falter.

  People had died. A lot of people. Directly or indirectly the Demons were responsible; they were in league with the Rust Warriors and the blood of Thaiburley stained their hands. Tom kept telling himself this, running through it again and again as if it were his litany for hiding. He was determined to fight them, to remain free of their will.

  The Demons inevitably sensed his struggles and must have realised that he was slipping away from them, because they switched tactics. Tom felt the change but it took him a while to work out precisely what had changed, because it wasn't directed at him. The Demons were focusing their efforts on his friends.

  "Tom…!" His name emerged from Kat's lips as a strangled gasp.

  He looked to see her drawing one of her short swords and turning towards him, her movements jerked and stuttering in marked contrast to their usual fluid grace. It was as if she were a marionette being operated by some inex pert puppet master. Tom realised immediately what was happening.

  "Fight them, Kat, fight them!"

  "What… the breck… do you think I'm doing?"

  Yet still the sword drew free of its scabbard. Nor was Kat the only tool the Demons were attempting to wield. Jayce, drilled for much of his life in discipline and the honour of duty, reacted to their manipulations somewhat differently. As Tom watched, he stood rigidly for a moment and then convulsed, collapsing to the floor to writhe and twitch. The internal conflict between what he knew he should do and what the Demons were compelling him to do evidently triggering a seizure of some kind.

  Kat's sword was now clenched in both her white-knuckled hands, as she took a stiff-legged step towards him.

  "For Thaiss's sake, Tom, kill me!" she urged.

  "No!"

  "If you don't… I'll kill… myself."

  "No, Kat!" He watched horrified as the sword lifted in her shaking hands to point upwards and then, with agonising slowness, began to turn inwards towards its wielder. He saw this with only part of his awareness, however. The rest of him was elsewhere, skirting around the Demons, not joining with them, not plunging into that vast mass of their combined consciousness, just feeling around its edges, searching for a weakness. He sensed something surprising about them, a nebulous emotion that was wholly unexpected and which he was frantically trying to understand.

  The Demons were afraid, which meant they must be vulnerable. If he could only work out what of, he might yet find a way of saving himself and Kat, of saving everybody.

  "Trust me, Kat," he said. "Don't harm yourself, just concentrate on not harming me."

  "Easy… for you… to say."

  Sweat trickled down her face. The trembling blade continued to reverse, lowering by ponderous degree towards her shoulder.

  It wasn't him. The Demons weren't afraid of his much vaunted talent… so what was it?

  As if sensing his quest, a calm, almost musical voice spoke soothingly, "You can't beat us, Tom. Not this close to the core, the source of our strength. Nothing can touch us here, at the seat of our very being."

  Was it just imagination that dressed his next thoughts in the voice of the goddess, or did some vestige of Thaiss still reside within him? Listen to their words, the voice seemed to whisper. The clue to defeating them is in their own words.

  Tom thought frantically, analysing the Demons' gloating pronouncement, taking individual words and considering their implications, discarding the irrelevancies and unspecifics, concentrating on the truly important ones. They quickly boiled down to just three: Demons, source, core. They were the essence of what was going on here. In the blink of an eye he expanded his thoughts in a manner that would have been impossible before his stay with Thaiss, to consider the relationship between those concepts, and as quickly as that he had it: what the Demons were trying so hard to distract him from; what they were afraid of.

  In order to stop him, the Demons had congregated at the one place where they were at their most powerful, but it was also where they were most vulnerable: yes the core was the source of their strength, but that same core had been calling to them for more than a century, attempting to reclaim them. They were programmed to heed that call, their nature demanded they merge with the core when summoned, yet they had resisted that imperative throughout and continued to resist it even now. Every day since must have been a constant struggle for them, a fight not to succumb; and never would that call be stronger than it was here and now, at its very source.

  Despite their apparent confidence, their air of assumed infallibility, coming here was an act of desperation, a gamble they were driven to take; one in which the odds were stacked in their favour only for as long as he failed to recognise their peril.

  The gamble had just backfired.

  "Hang on, Kat, he yelled. "For Thaiss's sake, hang on!"

  He could feel it immediately once he knew what to look for; that summons: a relentless insistence that tugged at them. Now Tom knew exactly what to do, how to beat them. He didn't attack, he didn't fling his talent impotently against the unyielding might of the Demons' combined magnificence; he simply grasped the bond that tied each individual Demon to Thaiburley's core, the tether that even now sought to reel them in, and held fast while he summoned his talent. Feeling it burn, feeling it swell within every last corner of his being until he could contain it no more. Only then did he let go, pouring everything he had into that link, strengthening it, boosting it, until the summons ripped through the Demon's fragile indifference, battering at their carefully constructed resistance.

  And they did resist. At first. For desperate seconds they clung on. Futilely. First one and then another succumbed, their defences shredding as they were sucked into the vortex of the core. Two more followed immediately and the trickle became a rush. Tom felt them go, each parting scream a testament of despair and frustrated ambition, every single one of them indistinguishable from the last.

  Finally it was over. He came back to himself and discovered he was on his knees, without any recollection of how he came to be there. Kat stood beside him, her sword lying on the ground, both hands held stiffly open at her sides. She looked petrified, her face as white as a freshly starched shirt.

  He climbed shakily to his feet and drew her into his arms, hugging her close, an instinctive act which he would have suppressed if he'd stopped to think about it. She didn't resist but instead hugged him back, clinging to him until the trembling stopped. "It's okay," he said. "They're gone." He said this as much to reassure himself as her.

  After a few ragged breaths exhaled against his shoulder and neck – their warmth a tickle on his throat – she pulled away. There was a little more colour to her cheeks now. "Thaiss, that'll be something to tell folks on a cold dark night!"

  Tom grinned. "Should be worth a drink or two."

  "You're not kidding." She stooped to reclaim her sword.

  Jayce was in the process of pushing himself up from the floor, one hand spread on the ground for support, the other clutching his head, finger and thumb either side of his eyes as if to hold them in place. Flecks of drying spittle marked his cheek and chin. He lowered the hand, blew out his cheeks and gave Tom a shallow nod to indicate he was all right. Tom realised that, bizarrely, he was probably in the best shape of any of them.

  "They've really gone?" Kat asked from beside him.

  He nodded. "Sucked back into the core, where they belong."

  "Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you."

  "Oh I will, don't worry."

  "Now what?"

  "Now we do what we came here for. We replenish the core." Interesting how Kat was deferring to him all of a sudden. He reckoned he could get used to that.

  Despite his confident words, Tom wasn't entirely clear how he was supposed to replenish the core, but there was no point in admitting as much just yet.

  The room was unchanged, which struck Tom as wrong; there should have been some disorder, scorch marks on the floor, a hole, or at least some slight difference to mark the fierce, brief struggle that had just taken place here. But the impassive walls and logic-defying platform remained the same. As did the dual-nature of the core wall, alternating rapidly between functional neutrality and the writhing energy of the city's heart. Even the core looked no different. It had just swallowed an entire generation of Demons without even belching.

  Tom walked slowly forward, mesmerised. He felt that he was being offered a choice of two different realities. Inevitably, he chose the core, concentrating on those shifting energies, until they stabilised and became permanent, the mundane blandness of solid masonry no longer interfering.

  "Wow," Kat said. "Did you do that?"

  "No, not really," he replied. "It was there all the time."

  Tom knew what to do now. It was obvious. He clambered up onto the platform. Kat and Jayce followed, though he was barely paying them any attention now.

  Calmly, almost reverently, he took the rucksack from his back and eased it onto the floor. He lifted the canister free of the bag, his hands tingling at the touch, a sense of pins and needles running in ripples up his arm. He placed the cylinder on the ground and flipped open both catches. Holding it with one hand, he tilted the tube towards the core, as if aiming a stunted canon. With his other hand, he lifted open the lid.

  Tom had braced himself, not knowing what to expect. In the event there was no recoil, no physical reaction from the canister at all, as blinding light erupted from its mouth. Tom cried out, screwing his eyes shut and instinctively lifting his free hand to shield them. In doing so, the edge of his hand – perhaps his little finger – must have brushed the stream of escaping energy. In a panicked instant he was gone, his consciousness sucked from his body and propelled into the core.

  Tom felt abruptly huge – not in a bloated, physical sense, rather it was his mind which seemed to be expanding at exponential speed in every direction at once. He panicked, certain that he was being pulled apart, that his awareness – that element that defined his sense of self – would be stretched to breaking point and simply shred apart to be absorbed by the seething energy around him, but it never happened. There was no collapse, no dissipation of thought or mind. Instead he seemed to be everywhere all at once, and everyone simultaneously. He was

  – a scrawny boy crouching barefoot by a bin, scraping cold beans from a discarded can and sucking greedily at his fingers

  – a Thaistess deep in concentration beside her temple's pond

  – a master cobbler bawling out an apprentice who had stretched the leather too tightly and so ruined a pair of expensive shoes

  – a young woman astride her husband, rocking her hips and groin backwards and forwards, uttering the occasional moan for effect while her thoughts focused on the beautiful pink dress she had bought earlier that day

  – a bank worker dithering over whether or not to report a colleague whom he suspected of thieving, concerned in case the allegations should prove to be unfounded

  – an arkademic worrying about her closest friend who had been missing since the earliest days of the Rust Warriors' attacks

  – a mother boasting proudly to a neighbour of her son's success

  – an elated office worker debating whether to celebrate an unexpected promotion by taking his wife out for an extravagant meal or making a beeline to the nearest whorehouse

  – an old man ruefully reflecting on how swiftly his youth had slipped away

  – a shopkeeper tempted to close up early after a particularly quiet day

  – a healer banishing a child's stomach pain while an anxious mother looked on

  – a bargeman bent over and vomiting into the Thair as his gut rejected the volume of ale he had steadily been pouring into it since lunchtime

  – a young girl laughing as her hands touched the wall, signalling safety in a game of chase

  – a guardsman standing nervously at his post, wondering when rather than if the Rust Warriors would attack again…

  Every Row, every situation, he was there – young, old, male female, rich or poor – he was there. In some ways it was like the immersion tank but taken to the ultimate extreme. Tom knew that he was primarily sensing the talented – those who had a link to Thaiburley's heart, a conduit which allowed his consciousness to flow out through the core to touch the privileged few, even those who were oblivious to their talent. He knew too that the talented formed only a small minority of the population, but in a city of tens of millions they still numbered tens of thousands and, for that moment, he was there, with each and every one of them.

  Somehow, his mind coped. It didn't shut down or collapse, perhaps because of his experience with the immersion tank. That had been nothing compared to this but it had, in a sense, been preparation. The tank had taught him how to let images and impressions wash over him without attempting to grasp and interpret each and every one. Afterwards, he would feel certain that it was only this preparation that enabled him to cling on to his sanity amidst the kaleidoscope of impressions that threatened to overwhelm him. Had the goddess known? Had she suspected that he might find himself here? He wouldn't have put it past her.

  Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, Tom began to regain some coherence and resume a sense of self. He felt a huge sense of energy coursing through him, of vitality and strength, of power and destiny beyond human ken. This was the core, this was so far removed from anything Tom had ever experienced, and yet beneath all that was a hint of something familiar. He isolated that hint and recognised it: Thaiss. The core energy was somehow of her in a way he didn't understand. Did the goddess actually generate the energy? She was linked to it at a fundamental level which she'd never hinted at, had hidden from him. Was it core energy that sustained her, kept her alive?

  Suddenly, all his previous assumptions about the goddess were ripped to shreds. No matter appearances, she and her brother weren't human, he knew that now, could feel it as a certainty. How could he not have seen it before? These two beings had led a civilisation from one world to another, built the mightiest city humankind had ever seen, and they somehow controlled and manipulated this elemental, beautiful yet brutal force known as core energy. How could he ever have dismissed them as merely human?

  Perhaps they truly were gods.

  He could sense something wrong, an anomaly within the core; not rotten as he'd expected, not overtly evil – not wrong in that sense, but unquestionably out of place. Thaiss's brother, it had to be. Tom reached for that presence, attempted to explore this taint of something foreign, but it fled, recoiling from his touch. He pursued it, not with malice or even that specific intent, but in joyous sport, riding the vigorous wave of energy that washed through the core, driving the anomaly before him. It contracted, withdrawing into the farthest fringes of the core, and then it left. He felt the moment the taint departed and knew that it had fled into the City Below. To some degree, in some sense, Thaiss's brother survived. Replenishing the core hadn't killed him as anticipated, the process had merely driven him to a new vessel, a new host.

  Had Tom wanted to, had he possessed the will, he might have followed then, might have seen where the taint had fled to and perhaps even finished it off for good, but the moment the anomalous presence deserted the core he lost interest. Instead he revelled in the vibrancy, the purity of the cleansed core, allowing it to wash around him and through him.

  There was work to be done. A new generation of Demons to prepare and install. The latest group had been fully integrated. Lessons would be learned, improvements made. Slowly, increment by small increment, they were drawing closer to perfection, each new generation of avatars an improvement on the last.

  At that instant, he felt something pulling at him, taking him away. No! This was where he wanted to be, this was where he belonged. But his protests were ineffectual. He was aware of something holding him back, tugging at him. The core seemed to be receding, or he was drawing clear of it. Not uniformly but by ragged degree. The energy still clung to him, like viscous toffee clinging to a slice of apple that had just been pulled through its heart, reluctant to let go.

  Suddenly the world contracted. In one great surge, like water draining into a plughole, everything flowed back into Tom, leaving his mind reeling under the assault of more impressions than most people would experience in a lifetime. As awareness began to seep outward again, he realised he was sitting down. He felt human again; disorientated, but human. Kat was immediately behind him, reaching forward, almost sprawling, with one hand clasping his wrist, and the shoulder of that arm ached as if it had recently been wrenched.

  "What… what happened?" he mumbled, remembering how to speak.

  "Wow." Kat let go of his wrist and rolled into a sitting position, looking a little dazed. "I mean, just wow! I think I caught a glimpse of what you just saw. It was…" and she shook her head.

  "But what happened?" he persisted.

  "I grabbed you," she said. "You started to… I don't know, stretch, as if you were being dragged into that mass of energy, so I grabbed hold of your arm and pulled you back. That was when the world went weird, or at least my head did."

  "I pulled you both out," Jayce said quietly.

  "What?"

  "You were both being pulled in there," Jayce explained.

  Of course, Tom thought. Kat was talented too, so the core would want to absorb both of them if it had the chance. Jayce, though, wasn't. It had no claim on him, so he had been their anchor.

  "I grabbed Kat, then grabbed you, and pulled you both out," Jayce continued.

  "Thank you," Tom said, which was far from adequate, but it was all he could offer just then.

 

Kat frowned. Tom had regained his feet but hadn't otherwise moved. He just stood there, the now-dormant core cylinder lying discarded at his feet, as he stared at the curtain of energy which formed the room's back wall. The pulsing, flowing thing was pretty amazing, no question about that, but Kat had no intention of getting any closer to it. Yet Tom seemed completely lost in the flickering patterns and for a second she was afraid he might dive back in. If he did, she might just let him go this time.

  Kat stood up, wary in case Tom made to move nearer the core. As she straightened, something fluttered from her pocket – a folded sheet of paper. For a moment she stared at it, not able to place what it was. Then she remembered. The apothaker's sketch. It had survived all this and stayed with her throughout. She bent down and picked it up, a little crumpled but still all there. She carefully smoothed the sheet out and opened it. To stare at her own image. Bet I don't look this good right now, she thought. Cute but with attitude. Exactly the look she aimed for but had a feeling she never quite achieved.

  "Can I see that?"

  Kat hadn't realised Jayce was behind her. She clutched the picture defensively to her chest, reluctant to show it to anyone. But he had just saved her life, so she relented and thrust it towards him.

  He took the sheet and stared at it for a second, before saying, "Where did you get this?"

  "A friend gave it to me."

  "Was she the artist? I mean, do you know the woman who drew this?"

  "Hey, I never said it was a woman."

  "You didn't need to," he said. "This told me." He pointed to a small stylised "A" in the corner of the image, so artfully integrated that it could easily have passed as part of the design.

  Kat snatched the picture back, folded the parchment and pocketed it once more. Only then did she reply. "Yeah, like I said, she's a friend of mine."

  For long seconds the young guard didn't say anything. Kat found his expression difficult to fathom, until a single tear leaked from the corner of his eye to trickle down his cheek.