On the other side of the glass wall, the carriage swapped its wooden decorations for raw hardened Dust, plain and grey. No windows, no doors, and the only furniture was an armchair upholstered with a colourful floral design. The deep humming I could hear was coming from a thick metal beam that ran up the right-side wall, arched across the ceiling and went down the other wall with a second beam. The arch was generating some form of energy, and beneath it was an old acquaintance.
The pyramid of clear ether, standing five feet from base to tip. The rose light of its magic was vague and weak, as was the spell it radiated: the looped incantation which had once been strong enough to imprison me. I could hear its coarse frequency, feel it in my mind; a light babble of ancient Salabese which inspired memories of my tomb in the graveforest with uneasy clarity. The pyramid contained the pale corpse of a Salahbeem woman wearing the armour of the Order of Glass and Words. Idgian Korinth. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, big colourless eyes staring into nothing.
Within the hum of the metal arch and the babble of the spell, I could hear the Song of the Dead. Many voices, distant and despairing, and they came from a large oval standing beside the ether pyramid. Black like watery shadow, a hole punched through Urdezha’s reality, it stood taller than any human. From its rippling surface, a line of darkness coiled like an umbilical cord and connected to the tip of the pyramid. My eyes wouldn’t leave the oval. It was the gateway into my realm, where the dead were singing for my return.
The entrance in the glass wall was left open, and while Lana Khem took up a position between me and the gateway, holding the information node in her hands threateningly, Mrs Blackstone approached the pyramid.
‘This isn’t the first knight of the Order of Glass and Words to be found preserved on the wasteland,’ she said. ‘Their armour taught us much about ether technology and weaponry. But despite the obvious differences in their physical appearance, the anatomy of the Salahbeem is remarkably similar to humans. Somewhat disappointingly so, actually.’
She considered the corpse encased in ether for a moment. ‘To begin with, we wondered if the pyramid was the coffin for your physical remains. Then we discovered that, no, you must be something altogether other. The pyramid is a prison and this knight is the last person you possessed. The serial killer you mentioned, who ran amok among the Salahbeem ten thousand years ago.’
‘Close enough,’ I said, uninterested in her conclusions. But what did interest me was how the Song of the Dead coming from the gateway was infusing my being with energy, a raw power greater than the humans’. The bonds holding me and Wendal Finn together were breaking down. Only Lana Khem and her little box of tricks stood between me and my freedom.
‘Through that peculiar fusion of death and magic that the Salahbeem perfected,’ Mrs Blackstone continued, ‘they created not only a prison but also a power source to keep your gateway preserved and tame.’
Yes, but only because my ancient captors had been unable to close the gateway, and the same spells which had kept me and my host imprisoned ensured that nothing else could follow me out of it. However, there was something wrong with the black oval in the carriage. ‘This is not the gateway I created to enter this world.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Blackstone. ‘That one remained in Alexria, while the pyramid and corpse were brought to Old Castle following the death of August Jakob.’
‘You’ve had these things in the city for over three months?’
‘Yes. Studying them, unlocking their secrets. We shared our research with chapters of the Quantum all over Urdezha, collaborating, theorising. It was hoped that we could learn enough to engineer a second gateway, even though the Shepherd, the … navigator of the realm beyond was missing.’
‘Obviously you succeeded.’
‘Yes and no.’
I frowned at the gateway. ‘I’m curious. I’ve been told that you wish to contact the Salahbeem, use the gateway to bring them back to Urdezha. The Salem didn’t capture me as part of some petty power play, did they?’
‘Bloody fools.’ Mrs Blackstone eased her bulk into the colourful armchair with a groan. ‘Yes, they got it into their heads that we would attempt to find the Salahbeem and captured you to stop us. The Magicians might revere the myths and legends of their gods, but the Salem know as well as we do that any artefact of the Gardeners ever found has been surrounded by death. Why anyone would think that we’d want to bring such a dangerous race back to Urdezha is beyond me, but the Grand Adepts wouldn’t be swayed. They thought we’d try anyway, simply because we could.’
I could see the Salem’s point. It was probably something the Quantum would attempt at some time in the future.
I couldn’t deny that I was impressed by how the Scientists had managed to create a gateway into my realm – though I did not like it one bit – but this was not the technology they thought it was.
‘Surely you must understand that only the dead may enter my realm.’
‘Oh, we understand that now,’ Mrs Blackstone said. ‘But so many experiments ended in tragedy first.’ She sighed. ‘Your original gateway was preserved by the spells in the pyramid, but they were fading. We learned to replicate the magic, augment it, stretch it over great distances.’
She waved a hand towards the wooden box in Lana’s hands, as if I needed reminding of the evidence. ‘Even though there are leagues of wasteland between here and Alexria, our augmentations managed to keep your gateway open. When we succeeded in engineering the second gateway, we thought we stood on the cusp of discovering a mode of transport which hasn’t been seen on Urdezha since the days of the Salahbeem. We truly believed the face of this world was about to change.’
Mode of transport … I had guessed what the Quantum might dream of achieving on the day they found my tomb: a future in which every city of this world was literally brought within stepping distance of each other. Gateways, a fast, efficient form of travel that could reach any point on the wasteland, across the seas. But what then? The end of war? The creation of new cities with millions of people, citizens and clansfolk alike, draining resources?
No, no, no. The Quantum were dreaming bigger than that now. Their eyes were turned to the ether in their sky, thoughts lusting after the immense power orbiting their planet, of using it to engineer gateways that could reach out into the beyond, to the far incalculable worlds of … anywhere. They understood so little.
‘Alexria was supposed to be the entrance. Old Castle, the exit,’ Mrs Blackstone said. ‘A beginning and an end, with your realm joining the two.’
‘This is why you were happy for me to be out of your way,’ I said. ‘Absent from my realm, I couldn’t hinder your experiments.’
‘That was our thinking. But when we connected our gateway to the pyramid and synced it with Alexria’s gateway, we discovered how wrong our calculations had been.’
‘You created a second beginning.’
‘And the two clashed violently.’ Mrs Blackstone deflated in the armchair. ‘We underestimated the power of the realm beyond the gateway – your realm, the realm of the dead. Like nothing we’d seen before, magic stronger than ether, more than we could handle. Best theory is our experiments caused your gateway to expand radically and eat Alexria, literally swallowing the city and its people like a plughole in a bath sucking down water. It continued to do so until it touched Alexria’s ether-growth, and then … boom!’
These people truly didn’t understand what they had found in my tomb. The living could not use my gateway and survive. My realm’s exit was only accessible to the dead. It simply could not exist in the corporeal world. The Quantum dreamed of creating gateways like those used by the Salahbeem for travelling from realm to realm, but what August Jakob had delivered to them was not the same technology. In fact, I imagined the Salahbeem took painstaking measures to remove every hint of what the Quantum sought before they left.
I shook my head at Mrs Blackstone. ‘The Salahbeem trapped you on this world with good reason.’
Her violet eyes became as hard-looking as the unnatural skin of her face and the ether crystal in her forehead. ‘It is curious how you continue to believe that you, of all people, have the right to judge us.’
‘Call it an effect of my host.’ An effect which was slipping, draining, while I stood there gathering energy from the Song of the Dead, growing stronger. ‘But please, tell me how you ruptured your sky.’
With more than a little chagrin in her manner, Mrs Blackstone pointed out the shadowy umbilical cord connecting the black oval to the ether pyramid.
‘Whatever we tried, we couldn’t sever our gateway’s link to its power source. It had been devouring spirits from the moment we created it – ghosts and ghouls, drawing them in from the city. But after Alexria, it went into overdrive, like it was hungering for solid matter, too, and the gateway began to grow, swell, like an abscess preparing to burst.
‘We managed to calm it by feeding it a constant supply of energy.’ She looked up at the metal arch. ‘Magnetism. But then we hit a new problem, which was only solved by keeping the gateway moving.’
Hence the reason why we were riding the under-rail, and I could hazard a guess at what would happen should we come to a standstill.
‘The hunger of your original gateway wasn’t sated by Alexria’s destruction,’ Mrs Blackstone said. ‘It was drawn to Old Castle’s gateway and is now hanging above us, trying to get through the city shield.’
Indeed it was. I could hear it whispering to me, encouraging me to drink my fill from my realm.
‘If our gateway stops moving, then within a few hours it will pull that … rift down through the shield. It will devour the city itself, chunk by chunk, person by person, and it won’t stop until it reaches Old Castle’s ether-growth and we suffer the same fate as Alexria. We are a bath full of water, Sycamore, and we are struggling to hold down the plug.’
The Quantum’s experiments had ripped a hole into a place they could never understand, a realm that was not conducive to life.
‘What do you intend to do, Mrs Blackstone? Keeping the gateway moving is a stalling manoeuvre at best.’
‘We have a theory on how to calm the storm.’ She leaned forwards in the armchair. ‘You are not supposed to be here, and that thing in the sky is the realm of the dead trying to steal you back. The Quantum understands that by allowing the Shepherd to return home through the gateway we have created down here, disaster could be averted.’
‘In exchange for my freedom I will heal the rift? That is the accord you wish to reach?’
‘Precisely.’
‘My freedom is coming, whether you would give it to me or not.’
‘Or perhaps we have developed a way to trap you here in the aftermath. The Quantum rules every city on Urdezha.’
She had a strong poker face, this human, and I really couldn’t tell if she was bluffing or genuinely believed that she had me cornered.
The Song of the Dead continued to beckon and energise from the gateway. The spirits were lost, angry, begging their Shepherd to show them the way to the unknown, and I longed to go to them. Yes, I could heal Old Castle’s sky from the other side, in my realm. And yet …
‘I’m confused,’ I said. ‘Releasing me to my realm could solve your problems, yet I am still confined to a host. The Salem decided to unleash Wendal Finn’s moment of death, but they have not done so, and, again, here he still stands. Why?’
‘The Magicians know that we have you,’ Mrs Blackstone said. ‘Several hours ago, there was an emergency meeting between the Quantum and the Salem. All cards were laid on the table. Regarding our current predicament, especially in light of what happened to Alexria, both sides agree that it is time to set you free.’
‘All cards, you say? Including the secrets and lies of Dyonne Obor?’
‘Oh yes.’
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I looked through the doorway in the glass wall at the ghoul of August Jakob still pining for her flesh. The dead deserved vengeance, and so did I.
‘The Salem must be planning to execute Dyonne Obor.’
‘They would if they could. Obor has gone into hiding. She sent that ape of a bodyguard of hers to give Lana here a message. Obor said the Salem were preparing to execute Mr Finn and so it was time to bring our plan to fruition. Hence the emergency meeting.’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Dyonne still believes that you will use me to help her invoke the Lore of Ascension?’
‘Quite so. But she isn’t aware that our plans have changed, and not in her favour. And while she remains the custodian of Mr Finn’s moment of death, the Salem cannot release you. And so it falls to me to remedy the situation.’
Mrs Blackstone shrugged and smoothed out the wrinkles in the floral covering on her armrests. ‘I am a Director of the Quantum, Sycamore. I plan for all potentially useful eventualities, but you are frighteningly beyond my comprehension at this time. I had hoped that we might learn from you.’ She gestured to the pyramid, looked remorseful. ‘Learn of ancient technologies, the Salahbeem, the afterlife – but you are the Shepherd, not a teacher. So, I assume we have reached an accord?’
‘An accord, you say?’ Magic bloomed inside me with a feeling like … What would Wendal call it? Blind fury? ‘By your own dangerous assumptions and gross miscalculations have you brought yourself to the brink of this ruin, Mrs Blackstone. This world holds no bargaining power over me.’
‘No? I’m not certain how one would go about threatening a being such as you, but please remember we have replicated the magic which keeps you incapacitated. Every city stands ready to transmit that signal, across the wasteland, to every corner of Urdezha. If you let Old Castle fall, you won’t be going home. There’ll be nowhere to hide. We’ll keep you trapped here for good.’
‘My realm will follow wherever I go. It will not stop until I am free.’
‘The Quantum excels at learning and adapting, and your storm is only a threat until we understand it. Consider the implications of that, Sycamore.’ She raised a painted eyebrow. ‘Of course, I’m trusting that our coexistence is mutually intolerable and you’re in favour of escaping this world and closing the rift behind you—’
A sudden and violent jolt rocked the carriage. Lana Khem stumbled. The lights went out. The train’s power drained away. With preternatural speed, I smacked the box from Lana’s hand. Before she could counter, I punched her once, twice, three times and she fell to the floor. In the dim rose light of the pyramid, I turned to meet Mrs Blackstone’s look of horror.
‘The shield is failing,’ she whispered as the train came to a full stop. By the sound of it, the metal arch was struggling to feed magnetism to the gateway. ‘Sycamore, help us.’
‘The living could never adapt to what I am, Mrs Blackstone.’
She yelped as I pounced, grabbed hold of her thick neck and hissed into her face.
‘Imagine how small your world is, a speck of life before the endlessness of the other side.’ She clawed at me as I squeezed her throat while the fingers of my free hand probed the ether crystal in her forehead. ‘Now envision, if you can, how insignificant an act it is for me to kill the fucking lot of you.’
With a fresh surge of magic, my fingers found purchase and Mrs Blackstone screamed as I wrenched the ether from her head. She fell silent as the technology which sustained her unnaturally long life slid free. The crystal was long and curved, implanted into her brain like the oversized thorn of a rose plant. There was no blood upon it. The hole in Mrs Blackstone’s forehead was deep and dark but did not bleed.
Lana Khem was back on her feet by this time. She had retrieved the box and once again stood between me and the gateway, thumb poised and ready to activate the node. Lip split and nose bloodied, she darted her gaze to the carriage ceiling, as if worrying for the city above. Had the shield failed completely?
‘You have a choice, Lana Khem,’ I said. ‘Die or get out of my way.’
‘Will you do it?’ She was breathless, her eyes flitting to Mrs Blackstone’s dead body. ‘Will you close the rift?’
‘That is a risk you have no option but to take.’
‘What about Wendal?’
I couldn’t help but spare a smile for her incongruous concern. ‘Was he merely a directive in your life, or did you come to feel more than pity for him? Whatever your feelings, Wendal Finn is no longer your concern.’ I offered her the long and curved ether crystal. ‘Time to choose, Lana Khem. The shield is failing. The storm will come no matter what the Quantum tries.’
She licked blood from her lip, staring at me, before dropping the box to the floor and taking the crystal from my hand.
Lana stood to one side and the Song of the Dead swelled. As I gazed into the gateway, the ghoul of August Jakob crawled up beside me, mewling with a weak plea for vengeance. And perhaps she would get it. In the end, perhaps all the dead of Urdezha would.
‘Am I a Shepherd or a Judge?’ I asked Lana, and then walked into the gateway.