Edda (26 page)

“Oh. It terminates here.”

“What does that mean?” Ghost had climbed up the ruined wall to stand beside Cindella.

“I don’t know for sure. It’s like the start or finish of a path. This must have been an important place once. Do you know anything about it, Gunnar?”

The handsome trooper shook his head. “My Epic character was never powerful enough to access the ethereal plane.”

“Want to come up and see inside?” Cindella leaned down and offered her hand to help pull Gunnar up. Athena, however, sat at the base of the wall. She glanced up at Erik.

“I’ll wait until you’ve figured it out. I’m exhausted.”

The sun had set, and although there was still a little color in the sky, the bright silver thread—seen with the aid of the magic ring—burnished the stones and grass around it, turning them a metallic gray.

“Well, we would normally need a witch to cast a spell for us, but Cindella has a Potion of Ethereal Travel. If we stand in a chain, holding hands, we can all cross to the ethereal realm together.”

Ghost looked resolute. “And we will be invisible to the army, right?”

“Invisible to anything that cannot see into the ethereal plane, which seems to be the case for our opponents. But . . .”

“But . . .” Athena, deep in shadow, gestured for him to continue.

“But there are Epic creatures that travel these paths, too. Monsters. Although all the farms we’ve walked through seem to have been stripped of any threatening creatures, we can’t assume the same for the ethereal plane.”

“No,” Gunnar agreed. “And anything that can travel in the ethereal plane will be very powerful, very dangerous.”

“Like what?”

Cindella turned to Ghost. “It’s a dark and magic realm. It’s a place of ghosts, of wicked fairies, of hunters that ride nightmares. At special times, and in certain rare places—like ancient graves, or this hill fort, I’d guess—these creatures of the ethereal plane can cross over to the material plane, and if you have the right spells or items, you can cross over to them.”

Seeing that their faces, so cheerful when they greeted him, had become solemn, Erik put some enthusiasm into his voice. “Look, there’s a very good chance that as we are just traveling down to the valley, we’ll get there before any ethereal creature notices us.”

“Good.” Ghost nodded. “And where exactly are we going then?”

“We’ll have to follow the path and see what our choices are. If it’s safe, I’ll bring us out at the portal. If not, we might just come back here after seeing what lies farther down the path.”

“All right,” said Ghost. “Let’s give it a try. After all, we’re not going to be able to sneak through that army any other way.”

Everyone was up now, packing their kits, and after helping Athena over the wall, they gathered in a circle around a large stone slab—sea and cliff edge behind them, stone wall in front, and the early evening stars far above.

Chapter 26

SING AGAIN, SIREN

“All set?” Cindella
was holding Gunnar’s hand and Erik had her lean forward to see down the line and check that everyone else was joined up: Gunnar to Athena, Athena to Jodocus, and Jodocus to Ghost. A Potion of Ethereal Travel was in Cindella’s left hand. She raised it to her mouth and the metallic liquid emptied from the crystal bottle. “Here goes.”

As Erik looked about for signs of change, the windswept hill fort appeared as bleak as ever; bleaker, in fact, with the sighing waves below hidden by night and the sky above black but for the faint glimmering of stars. All at once, though, they were no longer standing but floating, and the cold emptiness of the night had been replaced by an opalescent luminosity. The ground began to fade and seemed as soft and malleable as a sheet of cotton, and the less substantial the earth, the more real became the silvery cord that Erik had followed along the ridge of hills earlier in the day. It expanded to become a grainy path, about two meters wide, that glittered and shone as though made of moonlight. The path was firm under Cindella’s boot, and she let go of Gunnar’s hand to set off on it. After a moment’s hesitation, everyone dropped their hands and followed her.

There was no wind anymore, or at least not enough to stir the ends of Cindella’s long red hair. Nor was there any sound from the restless sea. All Erik could hear were the noises of their group walking along the silver pathway: the regular but sharp clip of their feet upon the hard ground and a soft rustle of clothes and bags. On either side of them the view was twisting, as though the horizon was melting. The path, however, remained sharply in focus.

Although he had assured them that a short journey would most likely be safe, Erik kept everyone moving forward at a swift pace. As Gunnar said, any creature they encountered in such a region would be very dangerous.

Already, the path meandered enough that Erik only had a rough idea of the direction he needed to go to reach the portal. He stopped in confusion at the first junction they came to. It was a crossroads and any of the three options might be the right one to take. One problem was that the world beyond the silver walkways was an eerie and ghostly one that was twisting and turning even while everyone stood still. The other difficulty was distance; it seemed to Erik that at times they had crossed entire hills with one step and they could already have passed the great army in the valley.

Apart from Erik’s own brief experience in the Ethereal Tower of Nightmare, no one he knew of had traveled the ethereal paths of Epic and he doubted that anyone had ever done so. When your family’s income and status depended on the survival of your character, it was reckless to explore anywhere for fun, let alone the dangerous ethereal realm.

Having chosen a route that seemed to be heading in the right direction, Cindella led the others on down the silver path. With every step, though, the edge of a forest seemed to draw closer, until their route was a tunnel through gnarled and oddly distorted tree trunks, whose branches reached up as if making gestures of supplication.

“Creepy,” muttered Athena, but no one else spoke. Perhaps, like Erik, they felt that in the darkness between the trees there were malevolent creatures and that it was best not to disturb them.

Several more strides brought them to a clearing where moonlight picked out a woman sitting on the edge of a well. She was bent forward over a washing board, dark and shining hair covering her face and shoulders. Cindella halted.

“Oh dear,” Erik whispered.

“What is it?” Jodocus was immediately behind him.

“I’m not sure, but let’s go back.”

“We can’t.”

Erik turned to see that the path behind them had been taken over completely by the menacing trees.

“This is terrible,” he said aloud.

“She knows we are here, doesn’t she?” Ghost had come up alongside Cindella. Erik looked again at the woman and although she seemed to be concentrating on her washing board, scrubbing hard at a leather tunic, he felt that she was staring at him, and hungering for him. It was like looking into the eyes of a jaguar.

“It might be wise to summon a powerful elemental,” suggested Erik.

“If I can. Let me try with a small one first.” Jodocus raised his sturdy left arm and his cloak fell back to reveal his tattoos. “Malisobhin, come forth and serve me.”

A light spray of blood burst from the elementalist’s flesh and for a moment an earthen figure stepped in front of them. But it faltered and crumbled into a pile of dirt that quickly turned silver and sank into the ground. Erik saw the ethereal creature twitch at the edge of his vision.

“I’m sorry. I’m of no use to you in this realm. There are no elements here from which my servants can draw the sustenance they need to maintain their forms.”

“Then let’s see if our Higgs pistols work.” But as Ghost drew her gun, the creature moved into action. Something flashed across the space between them, and Ghost was jerked off her feet, her shots flying wildly in the air. Then Ghost was gone. It took far too long for Erik to find out where and understand why. The weapon that the creature had thrown was a silver comb, which had caught Ghost’s dreadlocks and dragged her backward into a tree whose branches had immediately whipped around its prisoner.

Cindella drew her swords and sprang at the ghostly woman, but Erik felt he was probably too late, for the creature had tipped her head back, her hair parting like a black wave sliding from a pale boulder to reveal her face. She had no eyes or nose, only a round hole from which a wild, undulating cry was gathering volume.

“Banshee! Cover your ears!” Erik cried as he lunged at the monster. Already the magic in the creature’s voice was affecting Cindella.

Very rarely when playing Epic you experienced “lag.” Your character would freeze for a moment, then, as you synchronized with the game once more, you’d catch up as if in fast-forward and all the commands you’d issued while stuck would be acted on at once. The effect of the banshee’s keen was to induce a similar interruption in Erik’s control over Cindella.

Everything stopped. Then it rushed ahead. Then stopped. By the time Cindella’s blades slashed at the banshee, the evil spirit had skipped away and her shriek was louder, an agonizing screech in his ears. Even when Cindella froze again, the awful sound continued.

Gunnar was trying to shoot the banshee with his pistol, but he, too, was lagging badly. His shots came in bursts and always too late to find their target.

The sound was so awful now—a venomous roar—that Erik’s hands automatically reached toward the unclip commands and it took all his willpower to stay in the game, steering Cindella in a hopeless chase after the howling creature.

Then, suddenly, it was over, although a ringing sound continued to run painfully through his head. The banshee had been silenced. Erik caught up with events after Cindella unfroze, when another sudden rush of motion took place in which Athena ran up to the banshee and shot her in the mouth at close range. The creature jerked back and was now lying on the ground, her long, glittering hair strewn across her white dress.

“How did you resist her magic?” Erik asked Athena.

Athena took a small pair of headphones from her ears. “Milan’s punk compilation, at high volume.”

“Nice.” And a bittersweet memory of Milan’s enthusiasm for ferociously loud and fast bands swept over him. Milan would have been delighted that his music was so effective against the banshee.

Simultaneously, the two of them remembered that Ghost was in danger, and they turned toward the tree that held her. It was a relief to see that she was still moving, struggling against the wooden limbs that bound her.

“Tree,” said Erik, as Cindella ran back down the path. “I take it you have some kind of ability to communicate.” There were no features in the tree to suggest it could hear or speak, but Erik nevertheless got the impression it was listening.

“Your mistress is dead. Let go of this woman and leave, or we’ll set you on fire.”

There was a short pause, before a creaking sound indicated that the tree was responding. It slowly drew back its branches to reveal a gasping and red-faced Ghost, pinned to the trunk by the silver comb. Athena reached up to pull it out.

“Wait!” cried Erik. “Don’t touch it. The comb of a banshee is cursed. Whoever touches it will die.”

“What then?”

“Cut her out.”

“Cut off her dreadlocks? No way!”

“Do it!” Ghost had recovered enough to gasp out a plea to them.

Shaking her head ruefully and careful not to touch the comb that nailed Ghost to the bark of the tree, Athena drew the edge of her serrated knife across Ghost’s hair.

“It must have taken you ten years to grow these,” she said mournfully.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to be alive; I’ve never been so frightened—not even when I was in jail after that mall raid. I just wasn’t able to deflect that comb; its magic was too strong for me.”

Once Ghost was clear, the tree that had captured her receded into the darkness, without ever seeming to move. Although still composed of silver and shadow, the whole glade seemed a little lighter now than when they had entered it.

“What now?” asked Gunnar.

“Let’s press on down the path and hope we get out of this forest soon.”

“I concur. Lead us on, please.” Gunnar’s youthful avatar was scanning the dark places all around them, the anxiety in his voice at variance with the impassive expression of his face.

After a few hundred yards, during which time the ringing in Erik’s ears finally dropped to a bearable hiss, they came to a crossroads. There were five paths before them. One by one, Erik scrutinized them, looking along the paths for what sometimes seemed only a few meters and other times seemed to be for miles.

“Are we lost?” asked Gunnar.

“Possibly. But I’m looking for something that should help us.”

“Indeed?”

“I once stood in a tower that acted as a nexus for hundreds of ethereal paths. One of these has to lead to it, since it stood on a hill near Newhaven. There!”

The left-hand path disappeared into darkness that was alleviated by a distant glow coming from what looked to be a structure made of blocks of moonlight.

“That column of silver light might well be the tower.” Erik pointed the way.

As they walked on, additional paths came into view; these new ethereal walkways were running nearly parallel to theirs, not only to either side but also above and below them. It was as though they were following the many limbs of a silver sea anemone toward the body of the creature itself. Then suddenly the path ended at a dark rectangle surrounded by dazzling white moonlight.

“Where are we?” asked Athena.

“The Ethereal Tower of Nightmare, I think.”

“Oh. Is that good?”

“Well, it is not too far from the portal. And from here we can get our bearings and see where the other paths go.”

Erik had Cindella look over her shoulder. The others were watching him expectantly, so he turned Cindella back to the doorway and walked through it.

Once again, he was at the center of things. The last time Cindella reached the Ethereal Tower of Nightmare, it had been to complete the greatest quest of all, the one that led to the conclusion of the game and the collapse of the world of Epic. At the time it had seemed essential that he do so, in order to destroy Central Allocations, the once all-powerful ruling circle of New Earth. But since that extraordinary experience, Erik had been troubled by the thought that in ending Epic he had also destroyed something very precious, a consciousness that had emerged from the complexity of the game. And so it was with a sense of guilt and loss that he found himself entering the tower again, almost two years after that crisis.

The interior of the building was bare; it was an enormous hollow cone into which ran thousands of pathways. There were walkways that circled around each level; they were on one now, about a third of the way off the ground. To reach the floor meant descending a series of ramps and as Erik looked down, he was surprised to see that in the center of the huge circular floor was a chair. It was a high-backed throne of black wood or stone and even from here it appeared massive.

“Interesting.” Athena was looking through openings to the other ethereal paths. From inside the tower you could see the far destinations of each silver walkway as though looking through a telescope.

“That’s odd,” said Erik aloud. “That throne wasn’t there last time.”

Cautiously, he led them down to the base of the tower. The ground floor was as he remembered it: a huge expanse of gray stone paving with a dizzying view upward to where the cone narrowed far overhead.

The throne was facing away from them, but even from behind it was magnificent. The carved back of the chair rose to twice Cindella’s height and was crowned with a sensuous curve that flowed to a decorated orb on each of the top corners. It was made from ebony or some equally dark wood and the craftsmanship was extraordinary; the whole back was covered in panels, bordered with engravings of ivy, in which some kind of tale was depicted. The story portrayed a delicate-looking young man parting in sorrow from a princess and making his way to an ominous castle. Cindella walked closer; Erik was curious, drawn in by the tale. And it was there, just a foot away from the throne, that Erik was struck with the overwhelming certainty that inches away from him was wickedness, hunger, and malevolence. Cindella leaped back as though stricken, dragging Erik’s friends with her.

“What is it?” cried Gunnar. “What’s the matter?”

“Get away from it!” Cindella continued to retreat.

Ghost pulled out her gun. “Should I shoot?”

“I don’t know.” All of Erik’s attention was fixed on the throne.

If anyone else was going to ask him why he was so troubled, their words were silenced by a distinct footfall echoing around the chamber from the far side of the throne. Then another one. A hand gripped the back of the chair, its long pale fingers wrapping around the side with the delicate touch of a lover.