The Speed of Darkness, page 6
It appalled him. She saw that and she was glad, because it was what she had brought him here for. She had begun to forget how weak colour was in this time – the drained faintness of washed-out blues, the barely perceptible reds. All the middle of the spectrum had long gone – orange and yellow and green were grey now. Her own hands were grey as she looked at them, Venn’s face and hair bleached pale.
And in her nerves now, she felt the terrible tug of the mirror.
‘It’s a dark heart,’ she said sourly. ‘Everything in the world points to it.’
He turned. ‘This was where you lived?’
‘Near here. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He hesitated. ‘What about Jake?’
‘Jake will find us. Everything will drag him there. He won’t be able even to walk away from it. The mirror is on the point of swallowing the world, Venn, and that means us too, everything. Unless of course you let me destroy it.’
He pushed past her, but she saw his disquiet. ‘Show me more.’
The street led to what had been a square of houses. Now it was a squeezed diamond, and as they walked through it they felt themselves warp too, as if deep in their bodies cells rearranged. Venn swore. ‘This is bizarre. Even in the Summerland there’s nothing so—’
‘This isn’t the Summerland. This is real.’
He shook his head, following her down the pavement.
At the corner they passed a metal bench, so attenuated it looked like some cartoon image of arrested speed.
‘How long has it . . . ?’
‘Years. It started slowly. We didn’t notice for a while. Then people – those left – started to get scared. Colours faded, light dimmed. We began to understand what Janus had done. Soon, there won’t be anything left but darkness, and then not even that.’ She shot him a glance. ‘What is there when even darkness is gone? You see why I needed you to come.’
He said, ‘I’m beginning to.’ But he didn’t look at her.
Beyond the square was a broken embankment; they clambered up on to it. It took Venn a moment just to understand what he was looking down at and when he did a small gasp escaped him.
It had been the Thames. Now the very course of the river was dragged from its bed. The opposite bank was gone; he saw flooded streets of water, alleys of mud, a swamp of sunken shipping and wrecked barges.
The bridges were contorted, torn from their foundations. And everything – office blocks, cranes, palaces, windows, pillars, every branch on every tree – pointed like compass needles to one impossible structure, rearing into the sky.
Venn stared. ‘Isn’t that—?’
‘That’s the Lab,’ she said. ‘Janus’s HQ.’
He stared at it, baffled. It defied gravity and sanity. At its base was the ancient Tower of London, familiar, four-towered. But piled on top of that, built and propped and engineered above it, were the fragments of a multitude of structures, a patchwork pastiche of London’s lost monuments.
He saw Nelson, still on his column, built into a glittering wall of office windows. He saw the façade of the British Museum and the windows of Selfridges; above that a Wren spire sprouted from the glass roof of a great railway station, and the unmistakeable chimneys and Tudor brick of Hampton Court were crowned by the dome of St Paul’s. One on another, brick and stone and tile, the remnants of the city had been piled, high into the clouds, disappearing from sight.
After a moment Venn said, ‘He’s insane.’
‘Of course he is! We – ZEUS, I mean – have known that for a long time.’
‘And the mirror is in there?’
‘Right at the heart, heavily guarded. Immediately below it are Janus’s private apartments. Below that the laboratories and admin rooms, tech suites and galleries. The whole tower is roamed by time wolves and staffed by the Replicants of Janus. We don’t know how many of those there are – hundreds, at least. There are no other people in there. You don’t need staff when you can do everything yourself.’
He dragged his eyes from the building to her. Her face was drawn, her eyes almost white in the dim light. ‘You know it well?’
‘Well enough. We . . . the ones he called the children . . . we . . .’
She stopped.
A cry broke from the sky. A howl so terrible in its raw sorrow that for a moment all Venn wanted to do was crouch to the ground, hands over his ears, do anything to stop it.
He forced himself to stand still.
The sound rang again. When it stopped he knew he was breathing hard, his heart racing, as if after some exertion.
‘What in God’s name was that?’
Sarah did not look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the top of the tower, lost in mist.
‘That was the mirror,’ she said softly. ‘The agony of the mirror.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
I command spirits.
I am the sun.
I am storm.
I am the web of the spider.
Be bound.
Be bound tightly.
Be held tightly.
Be held by the strength of my hand.
Shamanic spell of the Katka tribe
Rebecca walked into one of the shuttered rooms and sat on a gilded chair, very upright, watching him. She tried to look regal. Divine, even.
She said, ‘I know about you. I know who you are and why you’re here.’
Close up, his skin was pale, his hair glossy black. ‘The lady of the mirror will know all things,’ he said. Then, to her astonishment he knelt and then lay flat, his arms spread out, his forehead on the dusty carpet. For a moment there was silence. She had no idea what to do; his reverence touched and troubled her. She said, ‘Get up. You may look at me.’
He drew himself up. His eyes were dark in the dim room; the strange marks on his face seemed to twist and whirl. Did he believe her? She had to show power.
‘You come from a land of snow,’ she said. ‘Your people are troubled by a creature of darkness.’
His eyes flickered. His fear, if that’s what it was, came and went like a glimmer of lightning.
‘You need my help.’
He nodded. ‘The lady knows all things.’
‘Do you know what place this is? Do you know where you are?’
‘The Otherworld,’ he said. ‘The home of the high people, the Ancestors. Of He-who-Climbs-the-Holy-Tree, and She-who-Stole-the-Sun. The Wolves of Ice and the Fire Woman who Punished Arran.’
Rebecca drew a breath of awe. The whole of a lost mythology was there; forgotten stories of an ancient past. She longed to ask more. But she dared not.
Instead she said, ‘That’s right. You came in a ship over the sea.’
She leaned back, casually. She had to make him think she was calm, that she was in control, even though her heart was thumping and all she could think of was yelling for Wharton. ‘I also know you spoke to the elf-queen. And what she asked you to do.’
He said nothing. Then he took a step closer. His eyes were shrewd. ‘The Ancestors are wise. You know about the creature. Perhaps you sent it, as a punishment. What have we done to offend you?’
She let the silence linger, fighting panic. Drips in the corridor plinked into buckets.
‘That’s secret. Don’t defy us. We have powers that could crush you like an ant under a finger.’
For a moment she was proud of that; then she realized how she sounded like Summer, and hated it.
He bowed his head. ‘I am less than dust.’
She said. ‘Now . . . I’ll take you to the other . . . er . . . Ancestors. And we will send you home safely.’
He looked up quickly. ‘Without a hero to destroy the creature? I can’t go back without that. My people would kill me and drink from my skull. My wife would be taken, and my children, and it would be right, because I would have failed them.’
She stared, horrified. She hadn’t thought about that. It was what would happen in such a primitive society. Mesolithic, maybe?
She rose, as tall and gracefully as she could. ‘Follow behind me.’
He nodded. Then, sharp as a bird’s, his eyes fixed.
She looked down.
The small cut on her hand. From it seeped a red trickle.
The shaman stared in disbelief.
He muttered something, astonished, and Rebecca said hastily, ‘Wait. Listen to me—’ but it was too late. He snatched the flint knife from his belt, grabbed her arm, and before she could shriek or scream the blade had sliced a tiny slash in the flesh at the base of her thumb.
A bright bead of blood welled and broke.
Rebecca snatched her hand away. ‘What are you doing! Are you nuts!’
The shaman’s face was dark with rage. ‘Gods do many things. But they do not bleed. You’re as mortal as I am.’ He lifted the blade to her face. ‘You’re just a girl. Shall I seek more proof?’
‘No!’ She tried to jerk away but he grabbed her hair, dragging her head back.
She screamed in pain.
‘You mocked the Ancestors. I should kill you for that.’
She gasped. ‘If you do you’ll never get back to your world. We can help. OK we may not be gods but we have power. We can do things you’d never dream of.’
For a moment she thought he didn’t believe her. Then he took a ragged breath, and the pain in her head released. She tried to tear away, but he held her tight. ‘You’ll take me to the real master of the mirror. The man Venn.’
She frowned, sucking her sore palm. ‘Venn’s not here. He’s journeyed. He’s in some other time. Do you understand that? And even if he was here, there’s no way he’d be interested in your problems. He has too many of his own.’
The boy stared, his eyes hard. He was probably about her age. She tried to think of him like one of the students at uni, talking endlessly about assignments and techy stuff and girls, but she couldn’t. He seemed ages older. Somewhere she had read the odd fact that it had probably been teenagers who had built Stonehenge, because most people died young then – looking at this stranger she understood his strange speed, his urge to act quickly, to do everything now because there was no tomorrow. For him, the darkness would come quickly.
She said, ‘What’s your name?’
He laughed in scorn. ‘You think I’ll give you that power over me? Only the woman who gave me birth knows my name. Where has Venn gone?’
‘To the future.’
He looked at her sideways, like an alert animal.
‘The time yet to happen.’ She wondered if he had any understanding of time. No clocks or watches. Time was for him the great circling of the sun and moon.
He said, ‘These others – I’ll speak to them. You will be held here until they listen to me.’
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘What do you mean, held?’
‘Like this.’ He stood, and he had the tasselled rope from the curtains in his hand.
She moved but he was faster. In minutes her hands were tied behind her back and her feet to the chair legs. Furious, she squirmed. ‘Are you mad? I’ll scream and they’ll come running.’
‘Maybe. But no one will dare to touch you.’
‘What do you mean?’
He crouched close, and his eyes were bright and clear. ‘There will be a spell of fading on you.’
‘Fading?’
He smiled, reached out and took her hand, firmly in his, turned it over, took something from his belt. She saw it was a feather, small and black. With his finger he touched the blood on her palm, and anointed the feather, singing soft words she didn’t catch. He walked round her three times, anticlockwise. Then he said:
‘Listen to me, red girl.
You are a girl of cobweb now.
A girl of dry leaf now.
You are frail.
A puff of wind will unravel you.
A touch will sink through you.
You will fade and be grey.
You will fall to pieces slowly.’
He stepped back, surveyed her, made one final gesture with both hands, closing the fists tight and crossing his arms at the wrist. Then he tossed the feather to the floor, went to the door, opened it and went out, without even looking back.
She was so amazed she just stared after him.
Silent.
For a second Jake lay frozen in fear; then he realized the face was an image.
Janus gazed down at him, grave, and powerful. The same round blue spectacles, the neat dark uniform, the lank hair, the calm, superior look, but enormous now, dominating the entire wall of the corridor. Jake stared up at it, almost wanting to laugh, because Janus was a small man, and yet here he looked like a giant, airbrushed into a handsome prince.
Voices.
Instantly Jake leaped up. The corridor ran in both directions, a twisting, white place with no doors.
The voices rang nearer; he ran hastily along the featureless wall. No rooms. There was a side turning; he peered round it, found another corridor and darted down. On the left a shallow alcove opened; he flattened himself into it.
Just as he did so two men passed the opening of the corridor. They were talking together; one of them laughed, a sly chuckle he recognized at once. Carefully, he leaned out enough to see.
They were both Janus.
Jake slammed back, his heart thudding. Eyes wide, he stared at the blank wall opposite, hearing the voices – the identical voices – pause and laugh and hurry on.
Even when they had died away he didn’t move.
Both Janus! Replicants then. Sarah had said there were many; that Janus had experimented with the mirror too often, creating more and more copies of himself. The place must be crawling with them. Getting out of here would be almost impossible.
He eased out, and walked softly down the new corridor. At its end was a stair leading both up and down; he leaned over the bannister and looked up, and saw a square of treads rising high into darkness. From somewhere a hum of machinery echoed.
The staircase puzzled him. It didn’t fit. It was old, even worm-eaten, its rail carved with foliage and fruit, plump mahogany columns with wooden grapes hanging from them. Yet the corridor behind him was white and strip-lit, boring as a government office.
He stared to climb up. But after a few steps stopped, startled. Why up? The way out must be down. He turned, descended the steps again.
Something was wrong. His breath came hard. Each step was an effort, as if he was pushing against some invisible force. As if every bone and muscle in him protested.
He turned round and went up.
Immediately, walking was easy.
Jake leaned against the wall. Whatever this was it scared him more than anything here yet, because it was inside him. In his body. His mind.
It had to be the mirror. If the mirror was a black hole it was devouring everything. That must be the pull he felt. It would get worse, he was sure, the further away he tried to go from it. But what use was the mirror to him without the bracelet. He had to find Venn first! Venn and Sarah.
He tried to think clearly. Then a wild idea struck him. He took out the mobile phone. Piers had muttered something about internal time contact. Did he mean . . . ?
Jake touched the numbers rapidly. Surely . . .
The screen lit.
Sarah was staring at him.
Jake gasped in relief.
‘Where are you?’ they both said in unison.
‘In some sort of high building – really high.’ Jake kept his voice low, but even whispering echoed here. ‘I’ve seen Janus Replicants – two of them.’
‘You’re inside the tower. We’re outside.’ She looked strangely pale, her skin grey. ‘Listen. You have to get out of there, Jake. Without the bracelet you’re . . .’
‘How did we get separated?’
‘I don’t know. This is crazy! We were supposed to just come and look and go back. If he catches us . . .’
A voice said, ‘Give me that.’ The screen jiggled; Venn’s sharp blue eyes appeared, then it pulled back to show his face ‘Jake, listen to me. Get down here. Before . . .’
A bell. Softly chiming, insistent, far off in the building.
‘What’s that?’
Sarah said, ‘They know you’re there! They’ve picked up the signal. We—’
The phone went blank. He cursed, shoved it in his pocket and ran. Down and down, turn after turn, but even as he ran he gasped for breath, his heart slamming. Every part of him wanted to turn around, but even as he fought his way on Jake scowled in fury. There was no way this would happen. He would never be drawn into the mirror.
But he was barely walking now.
Every step was an ordeal. He forced his way through air that seemed thick, down steps that yawned like deep chasms. The walls loomed in. Shadows rose against him. He limped like an old man, like a dying man.
Finally he had to stop.
He slid down and sat, gasping for breath. Far above him the bells sent out their sinister urgent chime, then, as suddenly as if someone had turned them off, they were silent.
Jake looked up. He couldn’t hear anything, but fear made him stand. There was a broad wooden landing two steps below; he forced himself down to it. In one wall was a stone arch, small, hardly higher than his waist. He ducked under it.
On the other side was a vast space of darkness. He was on a balcony looking down inside the gutted keep of some ancient castle; the rooms and floors were long gone, so that now it was empty as a lift shaft, green lichens sprouting from its walls. Every stone was stretched upwards, grotesquely warped by the mirror’s pull. From what Sarah had said he was inside Janus’s own HQ, the place called the Lab. Would he ever be able to drag himself out?
Something rustled underfoot. He knelt and groped and his hand touched crisp, light things; he gathered a handful and stood, bringing them close to his eyes.
Dead leaves.
Where had they come from? How could there be leaves this high, without any trees? Oak and ash and thorn? He let them sift and fall between his fingers.
For a moment he thought of Summer.
Where were the Shee in this world? From the Summerlands they could travel anywhere – why not here?
He turned, and saw, set crazily in the medieval wall, a switch; he reached out and his finger hesitated over it. Then, with a sudden decision, he flicked it down.
