Chaos Quest (9 page)

There was utter silence for a few seconds, then Kate let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and Jamie burst out laughing at her.

‘You should see your face. What on earth were you expecting to happen?’

David and Kate looked at the contents of the cupboard: a jumble of mops and buckets and dusters.

“Ha ha. Very funny.” She pushed her way out of the door and stood pretending to read an information board, her heart still hammering unpleasantly, her head pounding in time with her heart beats. David joined her a few seconds later.

“Ignore him, Kate. Everyone knows he’s an idiot.”

They could hear Jamie, still in the room with the cupboard, imitating Kate in a stupid falsetto voice. “No! Don’t open it. The Bogeyman might be in there.”

“Let’s go in here.” David pointed to another doorway opposite the cupboard room. “Maybe there’s something in it we can use to get our own back.”

It didn’t look promising. It was dimly lit, certainly, but there was nowhere you could hide to jump out on someone. All it held were slatted shelves with bits of masonry displayed on them, and a smallish window with no glass, but a wooden shutter with holes in it, through which narrow beams of sunlight shone on
the dusty stones. Kate went over to it and peered out. There was an iron grille on the outside, and beyond it the window looked straight onto a grassy slope. Although it was just the right height for Kate to look out of, from the outside it must only be a foot or so off the ground.

The cold had become intolerable.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Kate, but as she did so Jamie and his mates pushed past.

“Hiding Kate? Or planning your revenge?” he said, doing a Frankenstein walk across to the window. He peered out of one of the peepholes and jumped back with a yelp.

In spite of herself Kate jumped.

“You’re pathetic, Jamie,” she said in disgust.

“No. I got a fright. There’s someone outside the window. I wasn’t expecting it. Honest. Come and see.” He put his eye back to the peephole.

Kate moved to the window as though the air was as thick as honey, David at her side. She knew it was ridiculous, but she was terribly afraid, even though she could hear Jamie having a perfectly normal conversation with the person on the other side of the shutter.

“Yes, we’re on a school trip. Drawing.” Something the other person said made him smile.

Kate had reached the shutter. She put her eye to one of the holes and looked out, full of dread. A woman’s face looked back at her, lit by a friendly smile. Impossible: the window was almost at ground level. No one could stand and look into it like that.

“Hello. Are you with the school trip too? Your
friend’s been telling me about all your drawings. I’d love to see some of them.” She paused. “It’s very difficult having a conversation like this. Why don’t you open the shutter?”

Kate wanted to yell, tried to make a sound and found she couldn’t.

“All right,” she heard Jamie say. “Hang on.”

Beside her she could see David struggling to move or speak.

“Oh – here it is. There’s a bolt. Just a minute – it’s stiff.”

Kate summoned every particle of strength she had and shouted “Jamie! Don’t!” and heard it come out as a whisper.

Jamie paused to look at her curiously. “What are you on about now, Kate?”

She felt David grab her arm and pull her back from the window with horrible slowness as the bolt finally yielded to Jamie’s efforts and he swung the shutter back against the wall.

Framed head and shoulders was a woman with long twisting black hair and milk-pale skin. What was visible of her clothes was a dark, rusty red. She smiled at them all through the iron grille.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“No!” whispered Kate and David as loudly as they could, still backing away.

For a second she seemed to waver in the air, but then she turned the light of her smile on Jamie and he spoke, his eyes never leaving her face. “Of course. Come in.”

And somehow she was in the room with them. She turned her terrible smile on Kate and David. “I have waited a long time to meet you two face to face.”

Whatever spell had held them broke.

“Run!” yelled David and they turned and scrambled for the stairs, up into the blinding light of the Chapel and out into the sunlight.

They stood on the path outside the Chapel door, panting and shaking, each seeing the fear they felt reflected in the other’s eyes.

“What happened in there? Who –
what
was that?” gabbled Kate. “It was one of
them
wasn’t it? One of the Lords of Chaos?”

David nodded, trying to get his breath back.

“We have to tell someone – warn them.”

“Yes. Right,’ said David, then stopped. ‘Does that mean going back inside?”

They looked at each other, then began to edge back up the path towards the door, ready to run again if the woman appeared, but they didn’t get far. Miss Roberts appeared in the doorway, looking furious and came straight towards them.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing? I told you to behave. This is a
church
you know. Honestly, I expected better of you two.”

“But Miss Roberts, Jamie let someone in through a window down in the basement place and …” Kate’s voice trailed away as she realised how pathetic she sounded.

Just then Jamie and his friends appeared in the doorway.

“What have you been doing, Jamie?”

He looked genuinely puzzled, as did the others. “Me? Nothing. I’ve just been drawing like you said.”

“What’s this about you messing about with a window down in the basement?”

“A
window
? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” If he was acting, it was very convincing.

“Kate?” Miss Roberts turned a cold look on her.

“I … I’m sorry, Miss. I … must have made a mistake.”

“Whatever’s been going on, that’s quite enough. Go and get your things and wait in the bus.”

“Yes Miss.”

They watched glumly as the others went back into the Chapel and forced themselves to follow them and collect their abandoned drawing things. There was no sign of the woman Jamie had let in.

Kate shuddered. “Let’s get away from here.”

They made their way back out through the visitors’ centre and climbed into the unlocked bus, where they huddled in the back seat, looking nervously around for the thing that they had seen.

“We have to warn Morgan and Erda. The Lords of Chaos must be coming for her,” said David. For a moment Kate didn’t reply and he could tell that she was wrestling with her feelings. “Kate?” he said gently.

“I know, I know. They’ve broken through into our world somehow. That’s something Mr Flowerdew said couldn’t happen, but it has. There’s no use me pretending this isn’t happening or that it’s nothing to do with me.
She
knew who we were – whoever she was – and she knew that we would recognise her for what she was. I know I have to try and help; but what if
they 
try to make us do something to help them, like they did last time.”

“But we
didn’t
help them last time, even though they tried.” David’s face had gone remote, as he remembered what he had let go on the shores of Duddingston Loch eighteen months before.

“But we didn’t know then …
what we are
. Part of us is like them. Something of them is in us.”

“But we’re the same people we were before we read that letter,” David almost yelled.

“Are we? I don’t feel as if I’m the same. I feel as if I’… dangerous. I don’t trust myself any more.”

David didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t think of anything that would convince Kate. They were stuck in this bus and there was nothing either of them could do to warn Morgan or Erda until they got back to Edinburgh.

As soon as they got off the bus back at school and were out of earshot of other people, they each phoned home and said they’d been invited to tea by the other, then they raced to the house to try and warn Morgan and Erda. They knew as soon as they opened the door that it was deserted, but they checked all the rooms anyway.

“They could be anywhere. What do we do? How can we find them?” Kate was half frantic. “Tisian! We have to use the Door. She might know where Morgan is, or what we should do.”

They took the stairs two at a time and raced into the
little spare bedroom, shoved the door closed and pulled it open again straight away.

Corridor and stairs.

They tried again, closing the door more gently and counting to ten before they opened it.

Corridor and stairs.

Again. Wait for a whole minute with the door shut.

Again. Five minutes.

Again.

Again.

Again.

They tried to visualise the patchwork hanging that concealed the Door in Tisian’s world, opened their door with their eyes shut, reached out to touch the cloth …

Corridor and stairs.

They sat side by side on the narrow single bed.

“Think,” said Kate. “What did we do to open the Door last time?”

“Nothing. Nothing I can remember anyway.” He got up and opened the door to the corridor again. In front of him hung a patchwork.

They had never truly set foot in the Wildwood when they came through the Door before, but as soon as they were sure Tisian wasn’t in her house, they went outside.

The wood hung about them, ancient, mossy, glossed with dew. Sun slanted through the branches. It seemed to be early morning. They’d been in woods before of
course, but nothing like this. It was sharper, more vivid, more real somehow, than anywhere they had ever been. Even the air had flavour. For precious minutes they stood dumbstruck in the clearing around Tisian’s house. It was not quiet. There was a constant ripple of sound: leaves sliding their palms together, branches creaking, water, birds; you could almost hear the place breathe.

“No wonder he wants to save it,” said Kate quietly.

“There’s a path here,” said David. “Let’s see where it goes.”

“What if we get lost? This wood looks as though it goes on for miles.”

“We’ll stay on the path.”

They walked for perhaps twenty minutes, trees stretching away to uncertainty on either side of them. They heard birds in the branches above their heads without ever seeing them, but once they caught sight of a black rabbit disappearing into a tangle of
pink-blossomed
brambles, then voices came to them carried on the breeze and they quickened their pace.

Tisian and Morgan stood together deep in conversation near a rowan tree with a recently dug patch of earth by its roots. Morgan must have heard them, for he looked up and seeing their faces, ran to meet them.

Words tumbled out of them both at once,
incomprehensible
. Morgan held up a hand.

“Slowly, slowly.”

“Sit down,” added Tisian, arriving at a slower pace, motioning to a fallen trunk a little way off the path.

“One of the Lords of Chaos has got into our world,”
began Kate.

Morgan’s face darkened as they told him what had happened at the Chapel. He waited for them to reach the end of their story before he spoke again.

“Only one of the Great Ones could have done this and only now. They are feeding off Erda’s power. This must have been a place where the barriers between the Worlds are breaking down. What did this woman look like?”

They described all that they could remember of her.

“And you would recognise the Water Witch?”

“Yes. It wasn’t her.”

Morgan’s expression became even more serious.

“What is it?” David asked.

“Morgan?” Tisian was watching his face.

“Your friend opened the gate between the Worlds to the Queen of Darkness. With her in your world, the gate stands open for all the others. It is only one step now for them to force a way through to the Wildwood and the Heart of the Earth. They will try to hunt Erda down and force her into unleashing all her power.

“We must find her and hide her from them, make her understand what is at stake; what we need her to do.”

“I thought,” said Kate cautiously, “that we were going to help her escape; to go back to wherever it is she comes from.”

Morgan’s expression hardened.

“There is no hope for the Worlds now that the Lords have broken through, unless Erda walks into the Heart of the Earth.”

“What about the Guardians? Surely they can fight against the Lords of Chaos?” said David.

“Remember, they brought Erda here so that she would walk into the fire. They will not help her escape.”

There was a heavy silence. Tisian fiddled with whatever held her hair in its untidy knot until it all slipped loose and fell about her shoulders.

“Where is she now?” she said to Morgan.

“In the Wildwood somewhere, but not close; and not human either.”

“How do you know?” asked David.

“I can sense her. We are bound in some way. It has grown stronger ever since Thomas died.”

“Is it the same for her? Can she tell where you are?” said Kate.

“I imagine so. I’m not sure.”

“What should we do?” asked David.

“You must go back to your own world. Keep close to those you know well and be on your guard. Trust your instincts – you can recognise the Lords.

“If you are threatened, take refuge in the house. The Guardians strengthened it to stand against the Lords. I think it would survive even if the Lords triumph. You must not use the Door that brought you here again. If you do, the Lords may be able to follow you into the Wildwood and it will be lost. You should go now. I will come when I can.”

The walk back to Tisian’s house was a silent one. She hugged both the children before she lifted the patchwork aside.

“Good luck,” said Morgan.

“You too,” replied David. He lifted the latch and they stepped back into Mr Flowerdew’s house.

The Queen of Darkness stood at the top of the little grassy meadow on which Kate and David had watched the rabbits hours before. Behind her the iron railing and the stone wall, which surrounded the Chapel, were indistinct in the gathering dusk.

She was satisfied with the afternoon’s events, although it would have been even better if she could have tricked one of the children known to the Lightning King into inviting her to enter their world. The knowledge that they had done so would surely have destroyed them, in every way that mattered.

The King gathered himself from a swirl of dark air beside her and looked about him in silence, fascinated.

“Well?” said the Queen.

“Even better than I remembered. Of course, we have been forced here to do battle all the other times, not invited in.” He smiled his wolf’s smile.

The Queen, gowned tonight in the colour of a thundercloud and crowned with black sapphires strung on copper wire, smiled back at him.

“Where is Tethys?”

He hissed. “Still sulking. She is sure to be plotting something.”

“If
he
finds out…”

“She knows what risks she runs.”

The air stirred behind them and they turned to see the Hunter stepping through into the world. He sniffed the air deeply, nostrils flared, eyes closed. When he opened them he looked around, taking no heed of the growing dark, but looking past it to those things that caught his notice.

“The others?”

“They are gathering,” said the King. “They wait for a signal.”

“Not yet,” said the Queen quickly.

“No,” said the Hunter. “My worthless son has not yet found the Stardreamer.” The others said nothing. “Tethys, I suppose, is planning vengeance?”

“Perhaps,” agreed the King.

“Then it seems we have time to spare. Time for some sport.”

He threw back his head and gave voice like a hound that follows a scent. The ground below them shuddered and out of the hillside poured the Wild Hunt.

No more than a half-remembered legend in this world, until this night, the creatures of the Hunt milled about the Hunter as he walked to its head between scything teeth and murderous claws. He looked back at the Queen of Darkness and the Lightning King.

“Do you ride with us tonight?”

“No,” said the Queen. “There are plans to lay. We must be ready.”

“I am ready now,” said the Hunter with his dreadful smile, turning to go. He paused and looked back. “Tell Tethys that if she makes a move I will let the Hunt have her.” With that, the Hunt leapt into the air and
disappeared into the darkness, its cries trailing higher and higher into the sky.

The King raised an eyebrow as he looked at the Queen. “We cannot protect her, can we?”

“Would you wish to try?”

He shook his head.

Nightmares such as they had never known tore through the sleep of those whose homes lay below the Hunt’s path. Children woke screaming and adults sobbing, from dreams of the wreck and loss of all that they loved. Lights burned through the night and families held each other for comfort from the inexplicable terror that gripped them.

They greeted the morning with relief, red-eyed and haunted and already dreading the night to come, although there was no reason: they were just dreams, that’s all, not so frightful in daylight, everything was fine, hush now.

Deep in the Wildwood, Morgan called to Erda. Sitting, he put aside his bow and closed his eyes. He visualised the connection between them as a shining ribbon and poured his thought into it, making it broader and stronger, until it would carry his thoughts to her. He knew that she was attending to what he did and that, for the moment, she was not retreating from it. He tried
to hold back the knowledge of what he wanted her to do, although he no longer knew if that was possible. Perhaps to her his thoughts were transparent as glass.

The message he poured into and along the ribbon was simple.
Come to me
.
Talk to me
. He repeated it over and over, heedless of the sun moving above him, of the waning of the day. When at last he stopped, too weary to continue, he was surprised to find it was nearly dusk and that Tisian was sitting by a little fire close by, swaddled in blankets.

When she saw him rouse himself she came to where he sat and offered him her hand. He took it gratefully, so stiff and cold that he could hardly get up. She threw a blanket round his shoulders and led him over to the fire and poured him a cup of hot heather beer.

“Do you think she will come?” she said.

He shrugged, hands wrapped round the cup to warm them. “If she wants to. I know she hears me. Perhaps she knows every thought in my head. I can’t tell any more.” He yawned hugely.

“Come back to the house and sleep. I have a feeling there will be few peaceful nights left us before the end comes, whatever it brings.”

He nodded and drank the rest of his beer.

Deep in the night, when there was no light but the glow from the hearth, Morgan woke suddenly from a dreamless sleep. From where he lay on a makeshift mattress near the fire, he could make out the humped
shape of Tisian in the alcove bed, snoring gently. He pulled the blankets closer round his shoulders and turned over.

Erda sat cross legged on the table, the air around her glowing faintly. Morgan caught his breath and stopped moving.

“It’s all right. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” she said. He sat up slowly, glancing round to where Tisian lay. “She won’t hear us,” said Erda and Morgan had no doubt of it. “You never told me what you want from me,” she continued.

He began to speak, to try somehow to explain, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand.

“Not yet. I came to tell you that I will listen to you, but not here and not yet. First I want to speak to Kate and David again. You can find me there. I will not hide from you any longer. I am tired of hiding.”

Before he could say anything in reply she had gone and he was aware, for the first time, of how empty was the space where she had been.

In Kate and David’s world it was already dawn. A small spider crept under the door and into Kate’s bedroom, dim behind drawn curtains, and a moment later Erda stood looking down at the sleeping girl. She moved to the window and twitched the curtains open a little. A bar of light fell across Kate’s face and after a few seconds she stirred and opened her eyes.

At first she thought that the figure silhouetted against
the window was her mother, then she realised with a start that it was Erda.

“Where have you been? How did you get in?”

Erda ignored the questions and came over to sit down on the bed as Kate pushed her sleep-draggled hair out of her eyes. They studied each other closely for a moment.

“What’s happening to you?” asked Kate.

“What is meant to happen, I think. I do not know. Something – I do not know the word for it – grows inside me. Soon I will no longer been able to control it and it will break free. Morgan fears this and longs for it too. I do not understand yet, but soon I will. I see with his mind more clearly each day.”

“Erda,” said Kate more urgently, “you must go. Not just from here; you must go back to wherever you came from – to the stars if that’s where it was. People here are trying to use you. They don’t care about you, just about getting what they want. You can still escape, but I don’t think you have much time.”

“How would I escape?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you know how to get back?”

“Perhaps. I should go. Your brother is waking up. He will come to your room soon.” She paused and looked hard at Kate again. “You still blame yourself. You must let go of that guilt or you will be too weak to help.”

Kate had no idea what she meant. She took her eyes off Erda for a moment and found, when she looked back, that she had gone.

David had woken early. It was often the case in
summer, usually because he forgot to draw his curtains; but this morning he was just awake. He lay in bed reading, watching the hands of his alarm clock crawl round the face. There was a soft knock on the door.

“Yeah?”

Naturally, he was expecting Dad or Christine when the door opened, but instead it was Erda who came in. She smiled at the look of surprise on his face. He put a finger to his lips.

“Someone might hear you,” he hissed.

She shook her head, her gaze wandering around his posters and books and general organised mess.

“They won’t.”

“You have to get out of here quickly. The Lords of Chaos are after you. They want to use you to break the Worlds apart or something.”

“What are the Lords of Chaos?” she asked puzzled, then looked into his mind to find the words that would tell her.

“Ah, those ones. I do not fear them. They cannot hurt me.”

“But they’ll do something. They’ll make you … I don’t know. Morgan knows; he’ll tell you. He’s been trying to find you.”

“I know. I told him I would meet him in your world and listen to him once I had spoken to you and Kate. I went to her before I came here.”

She picked up a shuttlecock, turned it in her fingers for a moment, then put it down.

“I want you and Kate to be there when I meet him. I will go back to the house and call him and wait. When
can you be there?”

“Umm …” He looked at his clock. Six fifteen. “Hang on, I’ll try to phone Kate.” He got out of bed and scrabbled for his phone. After a moment, Kate answered, wide awake. David didn’t waste time.

“Erda’s here. She wants us all to meet at the house. Can you be there by eight?”

There was a pause before Kate said “Okay. I’ll say I’m coming over to your place and meet you there. But David, I’m not promising anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know I don’t want this any more.”

There was no sense trying to argue with her on the phone.

“See you then.”

Erda had gone by the time he put the phone down.

Morgan had followed Erda as best he could as soon as he realised where she had gone. He wondered if he should wait in the house, but time lay too heavy there. When he left its protection he could feel it at once, like a trace of some scent on the air. The Lords were here.

Restlessness kept him moving until he found himself on the edge of a park at the foot of a steep hill, bounded by a gated iron fence. Beyond the fence was a small house with a red-tiled roof, and a green wooden sign that read “Blackford Pond. Local Nature Reserve.” Even before he went in he could hear the sound of ducks and coots.

A path took him to the pond on which the birds sailed, carefree in the morning light. Though it was a popular spot, with benches all around the pond, at this time of morning it was deserted. He walked slowly round the edge, glad to be away from roads and buildings.

About halfway round, he realised he was not alone. There was a little island in the middle of the pond, barely a foot above the water. On it sat a woman, her face in her hands, sobbing. She must have fallen in somehow, for her long brown hair and dress were soaking wet, water streaming off them and disappearing into the earth around her.

“What’s wrong? Do you need help?” Morgan called, but she continued to sob. She seemed quite unaware of his presence.

The water was clear enough for him to see the bottom of the pond and so shallow it would hardly reach his knees. He stepped in and began to walk across to the island.

He was halfway there when the birds went silent. He stopped and looked at where they floated, voiceless. When he turned back to the island the woman was standing, watching him, no longer sobbing, though the water poured ceaselessly from her hair and clothes. She stretched her crimson mouth in a smile and raised her arms.

The world exploded around Morgan just as he realised who it was on the island. The waters of the pond gathered themselves to Tethys’ hands and hurtled at him and the bottom of the pond disappeared from under his feet.

He was submerged, tumbling over and over under
the onslaught of the water. He tried to kick for the surface, but he didn’t even know in which direction it was.

He thought of Erda and Tisian and the Wildwood, and of Thomas, and of how he had failed them all. His breath was running out. He kicked desperately for the surface again, but it wasn’t there.

If only …

If only …