The Slanted Worlds (19 page)

Below them, on the slope of the mountain, was a dark cube. It looked like a building poking up out of the deep drifts. Some ancient construction, roofless, its doorway an empty arch.

“I don't know.” His voice was dulled. “Does it even matter?”

She pushed past him. “As you said, at least it's there. Nothing else is.”

This time she led. As they descended the long flank of the mountain, the snow thickened; it was waist-high now and she was forcing her body through it, and she knew they were leaving a great scar down the white slope that anyone might see.

The building waited for them. Its empty windows watched them come. It was small, no more than a stone sheepfold, she thought, something like the ones you found up on the moor, centuries old, rebuilt and mended over the generations.

It was certainly not the palace of the Queen of the Shee.

When they reached it, something made her stop.

A vibration trembled deep in the earth; Gideon glanced back in alarm. “The snow's moving!”

Still she didn't move.

“Go inside.” He shoved her on. “At least there'll be some shelter.”

“Is it safe?”

“Safer than out here, surely.” He glanced back again, screwing his eyes up against the brilliant light, the reflective snow. “Sarah, someone's up there. Following us. I can hear their breathing.”

She turned, and stepped between the black stones of the empty doorway, and vanished.

Gideon stared in dismay. “Sarah?”

The doorway yawned, empty. He could see the snow through it.

But he dared not follow her.

Jake and Rebecca stood together at the mirror. He was wearing the same dark suit as before, now with a cloth cap. Rebecca's hair was caught up in a swirly chignon; she wore a long skirt, a white blouse with a brooch at the neck, a coat with fur trim. She fidgeted with the hat. “Do I have to wear this?”

“Totally necessary.” Piers stood back. “Every respectable girl wore a hat. Suits you.”

Jake checked the clasp on the silver bracelet.

“Nervous?” he muttered.

“Absolutely terrified.” She glanced at Maskelyne, who was adjusting the small monitor he had made. “Why me? I mean, I have no desire to go traveling in time.”

“He may need you.” It was Maskelyne who answered, but he didn't look up at her, so she left Jake and walked over there, and grabbed his fingers. “Don't you need me?”

Piers rolled his eyes at Jake.

Maskelyne looked up. He seemed startled, his dark eyes wide. He said, “Rebecca, you know . . .”

“I don't know anything about you. I thought I did, because you've been here all my life, but for you it's different, isn't it. For you it was just a few seconds here and there, a flickering into existence, seconds and then minutes that were really years apart. This is all you care about. The mirror. The wretched mirror.”

Maskelyne held her gaze. The scar that marked his face stood out against the whiteness of his skin. He said, “That's not true. You are . . . very special to me.”

“Special.”

“Yes. But I am older than you, Rebecca, centuries older, and more different than you could know. Don't trust me, don't rest your life on me. Because one day you might wake up and find me gone.”

She stared at him, bleak.

Jake said, “We need to go. Becky?”

She didn't look at him or answer. But she turned and walked to the mirror and looked in, at the early twentieth-century girl that stared back at her. He thought there were tears in her eyes, but her voice was clear and steady. “Well then, let's go. What's keeping us.”

Jake glanced at Maskelyne. “What will be the date?”

“We'll try for 1910. Around the time she films David.”

He nodded, grim. “Okay. Do it now.”

The mirror hummed.

The labyrinth whipped tight.

The mirror opened, and he saw again the vacancy at its heart, the terrible emptiness that snatched him and devoured him, and for a moment he knew all the anguish that was in it, that it had swallowed his father and would swallow him, and that there was no escape from that.

The mirror howled.

Its cry made Piers crouch and clap his hands over his ears, and gasp; it made the cats flee like seven streaks of darkness.

Only Maskelyne was unmoved, his hands steady on the monitor until the blackness collapsed with a snap and the glass was whole and Rebecca and Jake were gone.

Piers lowered his hands and breathed out. He shook his head and hauled himself up.

“That thing is getting worse. And are you sure you can control it?”

Maskelyne looked up. “No one controls the mirror. Not even Janus. But at least I can monitor it now I've sorted out Symmes's dial.”

Piers wiped his hands on his apron. “I don't know how you sleep at night. If ghosts sleep.”

He stopped.

Maskelyne was staring at the monitor with a fixed fear.

Piers hurried over. “What's wrong?” He looked at the numbers on the dial, flicking back and back and back. 1900.

1800

1700

1600

He put both hands over his eyes. “Stop it. Stop it!”

“I can't.”

1500

1400

“Hell,”
Piers whispered.

My dark devyse is the portal into which my soule hath journeyed. I fear I have given myself up to its mercies as to a demon. As to a dark angel.

From
The Scrutiny of Secrets
by Mortimer Dee

H
E ONLY REALIZED
he was standing in the middle of a road when the donkey reared up in his face and whinnied; in an instant Rebecca had hauled him aside, and they both fell into the gutter, crashing against the hot stone curb.

Jake gasped. “Are you all right?”

“Bruised.” She was rubbing her elbow, there was dirt smudged on her cheek. Then she looked up.

“Oh my God,”
she said.
“Jake.”

The heat.

The heat struck him like a blow.

He saw a street too narrow, the houses too high. The bricks were tawny, the roofs red tile. Above them scorched a sky bluer than ever possible in London.

The smell of sewage, of olives, of incense, burst onto his senses. And the donkey cart had a driver, who had leaped down and was kneeling now, crossing himself with terror, screaming out “Demons! Fiends of hell!” in a dialect so garbled Jake could barely recognize it.

Rebecca clutched at him. “Jake.”

“Don't talk. Keep quiet. That's Italian.”

“You know what he's saying?”

“Dad worked in Rome. We lived there when I was small.”

He could not believe this.
This was all wrong—and, early, so early! The people who came running from the silent buildings, who flung open shutters and stared down at him, were dark-eyed and olive-skinned. He knew, with a rush of joy and terror, that the mirror had betrayed him again.

“Demons!” the driver screamed.

“No. Please.” Jake summoned his Italian. “We are merely visitors. We startled you. Please.”

It was no use. He realized that as he saw Rebecca turn and face the crowd that was gathering fast as rumor, as he looked at her ridiculous Edwardian clothes, his own dark suit. Slipping the bracelet as far up his arm as it would go, he said, “Run!”

They turned, dashed two women aside, hurtled around a cobbled corner.

Into a line of armed men.

Jake hit the ground; Rebecca screamed. Scrambling up he saw that one of the men had hold of her, and was laughing at her struggles. Her hat was off, her long red hair whipping free.

The men stared and whistled. They seemed amazed. One made a sign with his hand, against evil.

Jake leaped up. “Leave her alone. Let her go!”

Almost casually, a man dealt him a blow with the flat of his weapon that sent Jake sprawling, astonished with pain. He gasped for breath, got on hands and knees, was kicked flat again.

The crowd roared. Rebecca screeched, “Jake!”

As if her voice had released it, silence fell. Someone spoke, a sharp bark of command. At once the crowd fell back, slipped away, fled. The line of soldiers parted, and through them came a man on horseback, wearing a gown of black and gold and a hat of some red velvet wound elaborately about his head. His hair was dark and glossy; his nose curved like a hawk's beak. He looked as though he had ridden out of some pre-Renaissance painting.

He drew rein and said, “Fall back. Disperse the citizens.”

Breathless and aching, Jake scrambled up. Rebecca grabbed him. She looked terrified, but kept silent.

As the soldiers cleared the streets Jake tried to think. They were in trouble here. Dire trouble.

“Who are you?”

The question was calm, but this man was clearly used to getting all the answers he wanted. For a crazy moment Jake was reminded of Inspector Allenby.

“My name is Jake Wilde, signore. This is my . . . wife. Rebecca.”

He registered her tiny gasp but ignored it. “We are travelers from a far country.”

“Where? Your speech is most barbaric.”

“England.”

“Ah. That is a distant island.” The man clicked his fingers. “Is the climate there really a constant fog so that the sun is never seen but on the morning of Easter Day?”

Jake risked a small smile. “Almost, signore.”

Behind the man now were others, a group on foot. He saw priests, a cardinal in red, a gather of well-dressed men. No women anywhere.

He said, “May I ask whom I address?”

The horseman said, “I am Federico Altamana, condottiere of the army of this city. Why are you here? To trade?”

Jake swallowed. Then he said, “In a sense. We heard of a sickness that has come to this place. We've heard how it spreads.”

The men murmured. He heard the words
il morto negro.
Rebecca squeezed his hand in a desperate warning. But he ignored her.

“In my land we have knowledge of many medicines and cures, many cordials and tinctures. I have come to bring this knowledge to you, and the friendship of my king . . .”

“Edward the Third,” Rebecca breathed.

“Edward, King of England and France.”

He was exhilarated. He was making this up out of half-forgotten history lessons and both their lives hung on it, and yet the danger, the threat, as always, filled him with a wild, reckless excitement.

The horseman turned his head and beckoned.

Rebecca gasped.

Out of the crowd came a man in the strangest mask either of them had ever seen. Of loose gray fabric, it hooded the face, was slitted for the eyes. Out of it hooked a great beak like some vulture, dark as a crow, sinister and bizarre.

“Where are your medicines?” the signore demanded. “Where are your king's gifts? Your entourage?”

“At Pisa, unloading from the ships. We came at once, before them. We hear that many are dying here already.”

He flicked a glance at the masked man. A pair of bright eyes stared back at him.

The Man with the Eyes of a Crow.

The signore nodded. “That is unfortunately true.” He considered, then said, “Il dottore will take you to the monastery. I hope you will be able to help us. But this sickness is not so great. It affects only the poor and sinful. It will pass, as all sickness does.”

Jake frowned. “It may become a great plague.”

The signore leaned from his saddle. “Let us hope not. I await your king's gifts. If they do not arrive, you will pay for your lies.”

He smiled amiably, jerked his head to his men, and rode on. The armed men fell in behind and followed, gazing at Jake and especially Rebecca with curiosity. She tucked her hair up into her hat hurriedly.

Only the masked man remained. He beckoned, and turned into a dark narrow alleyway stained with pools of ordure. There he unlocked a small door and bowed; they went through before him, uneasy.

Inside was a dark room, lit by one candle. The bird mask turned to face them, was lifted off, and they saw a gray-haired man with an open, weary face staring at them with undisguised terror.

Jake could hardly breath. He whispered, one word, one syllable, and it was like a light coming back on in his heart.

“Dad.”

When Wharton finally slid and floundered as far as the buried sheepfold, he found Venn standing with folded arms looking at it with suspicion.

“Come out,” he snapped.

For a moment Wharton thought the man had really gone mad. Then Gideon stepped from the shelter of the dark stone. The changeling was pallid and shivering. His forest-green clothes seemed to have faded; they were gray here, becoming white, like a stoat's fur changes in winter. And there was something fading in the boy too, Wharton thought. As if in some way he was becoming transparent, less solid.

Wharton said at once, “Where's Sarah?”

Gideon pointed at the ruin. “She went in there. She vanished.”

Venn said, “What's wrong with you? What's Summer done to you?”

“Stolen my sleep. Stolen my dreams.” Gideon sat in the snow and dragged his hands through his tangle of hair. “The only place I could go to get away.”

Venn nodded. “She's a mistress of torment.” He looked at the ruined byre, touched its black stone, trudged a complete furrow around it in the snow. Then he said, “Why didn't you go in?”

Gideon looked up. “I . . . was going to. Then I saw you.”

“Liar.” Venn crouched and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “You know where she is because you led her here. Summer wants the bracelet, doesn't she?”

“What bracelet?”

“The one Sarah stole from me.”

Gideon's blank stare was only too convincing. “She doesn't have it.”

Wharton said, “But . . . Are you sure? . . . Then who could possibly . . .”

The silence rumbled. It shivered and shook under his feet. As he and Venn glanced at each other it was as if the earth groaned, the mountain was ready to collapse on them.

“Jake,”
Venn breathed.

Did the word start the avalanche? Was the weight of that knowledge the tiny trigger? Because as they all turned as one, the white wall of snow was already crashing toward them, coming like a line of foam, like a wave that would flatten and destroy anything in its path.

Venn seemed frozen. Wharton heard him whisper, “Not again.” Then he spread his arms wide, as if he would stand there before it, defy it, die.

“Oh no!” Wharton grabbed him and shoved him with all his strength toward the doorway of the ruin. Venn toppled in backward and was gone as if through a plane of light.

Wharton yelled at Gideon, “In!”

They had no choice. As the white mass hit, it filled the world with a roar that smashed them against each other, a tangle of limbs, and clutching of hands, a suffocation of snow as hard as marble. Just before it hit him Wharton felt the momentum alone fling him head over heels.

Into blackness.

My father stirred his tea
.

He sipped it and then leaned back in the armchair with a sigh of pleasure.

“Cake?” I said.

“Oh my dear.”

“Éclair? Or Battenburg?”

“Éclair please. All that lovely squishy cream.”

I lifted one with the silver tongs and placed it on his plate. As he munched it and the cream fell on the napkin tucked under his chin, I sat back in my chair with as much satisfaction as I ever remember feeling in my life.

“And so this Moll lived with you for ten years?”

“She did. Little terror that she was. She ate my food and drank my whisky and developed into quite a beauty, if all be told. And she was up to every scrape and trick and strategy under the sun.”

I felt a squirm of jealousy, but suppressed it. “And all the time I was buried in that house in Yorkshire.”

“Your mother took you away. She didn't trust me, I'm afraid. And then we were so busy searching London for the silver bracelet. We were so sure it must be there! Moll—poor girl—was also convinced that Jake Wilde would come back and take her to the future. But he never returned.”

“Did it break her heart?” I said, I must confess, hopefully.

“Perhaps. After a year or so she stopped looking out for him. But I don't think she ever forgot. And then one spring morning she slipped out of my house and never came back.”

I sniffed. “Once a street girl, always a street girl.”

“Maybe.” My father looked thoughtful. “But maybe not. Six months later I received a letter with a roll of banknotes tucked inside it. Three hundred pounds sterling—a mighty sum. The note said simply TO JHS: FOR ALL WHAT YOU GIVE ME. It must have been her. I dare not think how she got it.”

“She could write?”

“I taught her. She was a remarkably able little thing.”

I had heard enough about Moll. I dismissed her from my mind and said, “I wish you could tell me more about the future.”

He seemed uneasy. “I understand now the reluctance of David, when he worked with me, to speak of it. I saw little—Janus kept me in the same room, and I was only there for a few hours. Even so, it was a cold, bleak place.” He leaned forward. “Do you know, I do not believe they eat?”