Quintessence Sky (36 page)

The massive rock above them shifted and
leaned toward them. "Run!" Marcheford said. They ran out from under
it just as it crashed down, exploding into shards. The whole
mountain shook under them. Boulders sheared off from cliffs higher
up the mountain, starting avalanches of uprooted trees and
rubble.

It started to rain. Sheets of water pelted
down on them from above, and lightning split the sky. They ran, the
ground uncertain beneath their feet, looking for shelter.

"Matthew!" said a voice. "Are you there?"

It wasn't his father or Parris talking, and
there wasn't anyone else around. Besides, the force of the rain was
so loud he wouldn't have been able to hear anyone who wasn't right
next to him. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from his
pocket.

He snatched out the stick that Blanca had
given him. "Ramos?"

"Let's do it," Ramos's voice said from the
stick. "Just like we talked about."

"Not right now," Matthew said, tripping over
a root, and then regaining his balance. "We're a bit busy at the
moment."

"It's now or never," Ramos said.

"We're running away from an earthquake. If we
survive the next five minutes, I'll give it a try."

"If we don't do it this instant, it'll be too
late, and I'll be dead," Ramos said.

"I can't. I don't even have any vitriol,"
Matthew said.

"You said you'd be ready for us." Ramos's
voice was angry, despairing.

"There!" Parris shouted. There was a
depression in the mountainside, not a cave, exactly, but a
indentation with a narrow rock ledge. They huddled underneath it,
out of the rain, but it was barely enough to fit them.

"We can't stay long," Matthew's father said.
"This whole mountain could come down on top of us."

"Wait," Matthew said to Ramos. "I shouldn't
need the vitriol. The quintessence thread tied to the stick is
holding the void open. It never really closed. That's why we can
hear you whenever you speak through it."

"It doesn't matter," Ramos said. "I've got a
void here, and I have nothing to lose. We'll risk it."

"Who are you talking to?" Parris said.

"Make some room." Matthew set the stick on
the ground in the middle of their little shelter. "We think solid
matter can travel along a quintessence thread, just like sound can.
We saw it happen with smoke, which is just burned particles of
matter. We planned to test the theory with larger things, even
living things, but we haven't had a chance."

The mountainside shuddered. They could feel
it vibrating through their feet.

"We should go on!" Matthew's father
shouted.

"We have to wait, just a little longer."

"Why?"

"This stick is tethered to a quintessence
thread that reaches all the way back to London. We've been talking
to two men there—Spanish by birth, but they're on our side—only
they were afraid they might need to escape London in a hurry."

Parris got it right away. "You mean these men
are going to try to
travel
from London to Horizon through a
void?" The idea obviously excited him, but there was horror in his
voice as well. "How do you know it won't kill them? The void is
pure nothing, just the space between the atoms. What if the atoms
of their bodies just fly apart? What if they go into the void and
never come out?"

Matthew spread his hands. "I don't know," he
said. "We were going to test it first, and answer those questions,
but we've been running for our lives."

Around the edges of the stick, a void began
to form, its deep blackness seeming to suck the light out of their
little shelter. Parris gasped. "I've never seen it just form like
that, all by itself."

"It never completely closed," Matthew said.
"They must be coming through right now." He looked at his father.
"There's one more thing you should know."

"What's that?"

"There's someone else with them. Someone who
desperately needs to get away from King Philip and Queen Mary."

His father gave him a wary look. "You don't
mean . . ."

Matthew nodded. "The princess Elizabeth is
coming with them."

THE VOID yawned black and terrifying, taking
up half of the carriage. It had already annihilated a section of
upholstery and some of the floor.

"What is that?" Elizabeth said, terror plain
on her face.

"An escape route. I hope," Ramos said.

The soldiers were gaining on them, shouting
at the driver to stop. They had only seconds, but Ramos hesitated.
Now that he was facing it, it seemed like a terrible idea. The void
was rapacious, growing larger and devouring everything it touched.
It was like throwing oneself into a dragon's mouth.

Just as he was about to jump, the soldiers
shot the driver. Tumbling from his seat atop the carriage, he
dragged the reins with him, and the horses veered, pulling the
carriage up on two wheels around a sharp turn. They were all thrown
to one side of the carriage. They grabbed for handholds, all except
for Antonia, who fell silently out onto the road, disappearing from
view behind them.

"No!" Ramos shouted, reaching out for her,
too late.

The carriage, off-balance, teetered for a
moment, and then crashed to the ground on its side, dragged along
until the horses, terrified and tangled in their harnesses, tripped
over each other and sprawled, neighing in terror.

Ramos scrambled out. Antonia lay on the road,
unmoving. Beyond her, a dozen mounted soldiers thundered toward
them, on a path to trample her. Ramos didn't hesitate. He ran
straight toward the horses, calling Antonia's name.

He reached her first, and lifted her to her
feet. She seemed bruised, but unharmed. He dragged her back toward
the carriage, and she complied as always, but without urgency,
completely unaware of the pounding hooves getting closer every
moment.

The void was destroying the carriage. It
grew, swallowing the wood and enveloping the wheels. Elizabeth
stood nearby, looking helpless in the simple white dress she still
wore. Barrosa ran up to Ramos, dragging the
Ignis Dei
along
behind him. "Run," he said. "I'll buy some time."

Ramos didn't argue. He propelled Antonia as
quickly as he could, back toward what was left of the carriage.
Barrosa poured salt into the device, but Ramos could see he was too
late. The soldiers surrounded him, pointing their weapons and
shouting at him to step away.

It was now or never. Ramos faced the void.
"I'll go first," he said to Elizabeth, swallowing. "If I survive,
you can follow." But he still could not move.

"There's no time for chivalry," Elizabeth
said, and hurled herself into the void. It was as if she had jumped
into a well. He saw her falling, the shape of her dwindling into
the distance far below.

Mortified at her bravery and his own
cowardice, Ramos steeled himself. Whatever she was facing, he
wasn't going let her do it alone. A shot fired. He felt no impact,
no pain, but when he looked at Antonia, blood was running freely
down her neck, bright and red, soaking her dress. He grabbed for
her as she sank to her knees. Her blood ran onto the ground,
staining the dusty road.

There was only one choice. He lifted her in
his arms, stumbling with the weight, and hurled her into the
void.

Before leaping after her, he took one glance
back at Barrosa, and saw something he should have noticed from the
beginning. Barrosa had removed the wooden barrier between the
salt-soaked pearl and the prism and had used it to
block
the
opening through which the invisible light was supposed to pour. He
raised his hands in apparent surrender, but the device was glowing,
increasing in intensity.

"No!" Ramos shouted. But it was too late. The
Ignis Dei
exploded. The flame roared like a living thing,
devouring Barrosa, the soldiers, and their horses together, leaping
high into the air. Ramos felt the heat rush over him like a burning
wind. A few soldiers at the periphery screamed and ran, their
clothing aflame, but the
Ignis Dei
and Juan Barrosa were
simply gone.

Ramos bellowed his grief. The edges of the
void shimmered, about to collapse. He hurled himself into its open
mouth.

He fell for what seemed like miles, deeper
than any hole, farther than a jump off any building or cliff. He
fell, and then, before he could steel himself for it, a light
flashed up from below and swallowed him. He crashed into rocky
ground, hard enough to hurt, but not enough to injure.

The ground heaved under his feet. He was
dizzy, disoriented. Rain was falling so thickly it was hard to see,
and his clothes were soaked through in a moment. The void he had
just fallen through collapsed and popped shut with the finality of
a slamming prison door.

Strangers pulled at him. "Come on!" they
said. "Run!"

He stood and staggered after them. One of the
men was bleeding. No, it was Antonia who was bleeding, and the man
was carrying her. Elizabeth was there, too, apparently unharmed.
Rocks the size of Ramos's head tumbled down the mountainside, one
narrowly missing him as it hurtled past.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by the most
bizarre creatures he had ever seen: crouched monsters with orange
fur, pincers for hands, and hooks where their feet should be. They
just appeared out of the air, all around them in a moment. The
creatures grabbed onto their clothes with their pincers and lifted
them high. Ramos thrashed and screamed for Antonia, but he couldn't
get away. The men he didn't know—presumably Matthew and two other
colonists—weren't fighting their captors, so Ramos allowed himself
to be carried. Where were they going?

It didn't take long to find out. The
creatures brought them into a cave, the opening just a horizontal
crevice where one jutting rock face overlapped another. Ramos
didn't think he would even have noticed the opening, but the
creatures and humans squeezed through. Inside, the rumbling of the
mountain seemed distant, and they were blessedly out of the
sheeting rain.

Inside was a cavern, larger than he expected,
with more of the strange creatures, and two women. The creatures
set them on the ground. One of the women leaned over Antonia,
tilting her head forward and pouring water into her mouth. Ramos
crawled to her. There was a lot of blood, her dress stained red
with it, but he could see no wound. The bullet must have struck her
in the neck, but there was nothing. To his shock, Antonia sat up
and looked around, apparently unharmed.

"She'll be fine," the woman said. "It's the
quintessence water; it's healed her already."

Ramos wiped water out of his face and eyes.
"Barrosa," he said. He could hardly speak. The image of his friend
burning himself to death overwhelmed his mind.

Elizabeth caught his arm. "What happened to
Barrosa? Is he coming?"

Ramos shook his head. "Dead," he managed to
say.

"Ramos?" Elizabeth said. "Where are we?"

CHAPTER 22

ALVARO de Torres was astonished that the
manticore creature could speak. And not only speak, but insist on
discussing the terms of an alliance, as if they were equals. He
hadn't heard of such a thing happening since Baalam's donkey spoke
on the road to Moab. He would catch one of these manticores and
bring it home with him, if he could. A talking animal would cause
quite the stir at court.

Though it was fitting that the language the
creature spoke was English. Torres had always considered the
English people little more than animals themselves, so the language
probably came more naturally to it than Spanish or Latin. In his
one visit to London, Torres had been astonished by the lack of
civilization. The English had no sense of art or sculpture, and
what little they displayed had been imported from Spain or Italy.
Their entertainments were brutal and uncouth. Bathing seemed to
have been a lost art form, if they had ever discovered it. And
their women hadn't the least sense of proper manners or gentility.
In short, they were barely progressed beyond the Celtic savages
they had displaced. If they had found common ground with animals,
Torres was not surprised.