Excerpt: Ways of the Worlds

“You have to shut up the creature,” said Lucas, wincing as Caspar howled again.

Maris stepped across to the dog, slipped her arms around his neck. He buried his cold, wet nose in her shoulder.

The woman sighed then crossed the floor to kneel beside her. “we come from… another place. A different world. We have been searching for you. You have powers, powers which I am guessing you know nothing about. You should have come to us many years ago, wehne you were young to be trained as a Gatekeeper.

“We can not explain fully just now. It is… complicated. But we need you to come with us.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Maris shouted.

Casper tensed at her anger. The dog raised his head and growled at the woman. She took a pace back from Maris.

“Child,” the woman said. “You should have come to us many years ago, when you were young. This would have been so much easier to understand. And we do not have much time now. Whoever has killed your friend here is obviously looking for you – we have found other young girls in our search for you. All of them killed like this." She gestured towards the dark shadows where Tig's body lay. "Something has come and it wants you.”

Maris resisted the urge to look at Tig’s poor mutilated body. She remembered the tales of other girls, all mostly her age, who had gone missing in recent weeks. “What do they want with me?”

“You have something. A powerful thing, that it wants and it will do anything it can to take that from you. We wish to protect you from that, but to do so, you must trust us. You must come with us.” She reached out her hand to touch Maris’ arm but Maris’ drew back from her. Caspar drew his muzzle back in a snarl.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then they will find you and they will take what they want from you. Please…”

“Why should I trust you?” Maris asked. “For all I know you might have killed Tig.”

The woman lowered her head. “I cannot answer all your questions now. Indeed, I have many myself, like why has it taken us so long to track you down and find you. But for your own safety you must come with us.”

Maris placed her hand on Caspar’s head, soothing the dogs ears. His head twitched and suddenly the focus of his attention switched to a spot behind the two strange people who stood in front of her. Maris tried to peer around them. A low humming sound filled the room and both man and woman turned, a look of horror on both their faces. ABehind them in the wide space of the room hung a dark ball of mist, perfectly circular it bobbed in the air, revolving slowly.

“A caller,” Freya said, her voice grim. Lucas nodded. The woman raised her hands and a white light shot from her fingers at the dark ball. With a high pitched whine it puffed away like a vaporous cloud. Maris drew Caspar tighter to her. “What did you do? What was that?” She sobbed.

The woman came towards her ignoring the dog who snarled at her. Her voice, when she spoke, was filled with urgency. “We must go Maris. That was a caller. We have been found and now the thing that wants you knows we are here. Come, please.” She held out her hand to Maris. “It will take me sometime to get us out of here, I need your power to enhance mine for you are far stronger than I. With your help we can go now.” The woman’s dark eyes pleaded, filled with fear. Hesitantly Maris reached out and took her hand and was pulled to her feet.

“But I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“Freya smiled again. “You need do nothing more than concentrate your mind on me. I can draw what I need from you as long as you are willing.”

The words made no sense to Maris, but she could feel tension rising in the air, a low static feel like the electricity before a thunder storm broke. Caspar huddled against her legs, whining fearfully, his head twisting and turning as though the noise assaulted his ears. Suddenly he flipped onto his back, his front paws swiping at his ears whimpering in pain.

“Help him,” Maris cried. Tears sprang in her eyes as she watched the dog thrash on the floor at her feet, his body turning into impossible contortions as though to rid his ears of the sound she could faintly hear, but knew must be so much worse for his acutely sensitive hearing. Freya grabbed her hand by the upper arms, her long, slender fingers digging sharply into Maris’ flesh.

“If you wish to help your creature, then help me Maris.” Freya called above the rising noise in the room. “Look at me.”

The man Lucas had come towards them, his cloak blowing in the wind that now filled the room. “Hurry Freya,” he muttered, his gaze flicking this way and that around the room. “It’s almost here.”

Maris focused on the woman’s eyes. Freya still held her, gripped tight by the arms. The woman’s eyes were dark and deep and Maris felt as though she was being drawn into them. The room around them fell away and suddenly she was in the air, overlooking a hot arid plain. In the middle of the plain stood a beautiful oasis. Palm trees waved lazily in the breeze, giant flowers of scarlet and orange dotted the green and at the midst of it, beside a wide pool of the darkest blue, squatted a long low collection of sandstone buildings, their domed roofs reflecting the sun which beat down on everything.

“That is the School,” Freya’s voice reached her. “A gateway is opening and we will pass through shortly. Keep this picture in your mind.”

The howling wind in the room behind her had receded and now she could feel the heat of this new place beating at her, smell the scent of those gaudy flowers, feel the cool breeze from beneath the date palms. There came a huge jolt and she felt Freya’s body recoil as though from a blow. Suddenly, dark figures were crawling across the sand, men in black turbans and cloaks and she felt the menace in their minds. One of them was passing near to her and Freya. His head turned and black eyes stared up at her above the covering across his face. The man drew his sword and slashed and she heard the woman scream, felt a warm wet liquid against her hands and Freya slumped against her. (okay, so perhaps we need this to be a circle some how of the three of them – Lucas needs to be here too or they cannot all pass through the gateway and also the dog.)
Maris could feel the woman fading from her. Now it was Lucas’ mind that was the stronger and she felt him grab at them both. “Keep the picture of the School in your mind Maris,” Lucas yelled above the storm. For a moment the desert oasis wavered. Maris found herself back in the warehouse, with Caspar at her feet still writhing on the floor and Tig’s body behind her. The howling wind had risen. She could smell it now, rank and dead and ancient. It was solidifying around them. Dread and fear roiled over her. She screamed and Lucas grabbed her. Faintly, Maris heard Freya’s voice, far off as though she was a million miles away.

“Lucas! Help me. I cannot maintain the School… It is slipping.”

Freya’s grip slipped from her arms and instinctively Maris grabbed at her, reaching at the same time for Caspar’s collar. Her fingers closed around the leather studs and she gripped it tightly as suddenly the picture before her, the vast desert oasis and the strange man faded to black and suddenly the room with its howling wind had disappeared and she was lying on soft ground, under a grey and heavy sky, her nostrils filled with the damp smell of earth and grass.

She lay for a moment, gasping as the vertigo faded. Caspar’s warm weight was across her legs, she could feel the dog panting and here his soft whine. Anothr weight lay across her legs and she knew without looking that it was the woman, Freya. Her arm had twisted awkwardly as she had landed and she turned her head with some difficultly to ascertain why. It was the man, Lucas, he held her arm tightly, his face white, his breathing shallow. For a moment she thought him unconscious, but then he raised his head and gazed and her. His eyes looked dazed as he pushed himself up and dragged himself across to Freya. He turned the woman over, but Maris knew from the way the woman’s head flopped back uselessly that she was already dead.

“No!” The word came from Lucas so softly, she thought she might have imagined it. He bent his head and leant it against the woman’s chest. Maris waited a moment then gently moved her legs away from under Freya’s dead weight. Casper struggled to his feet and she gripped him against her, tangling her fingers in the long, rough fur at his neck. He thrust his own face against hers, his hot breath tickling her face and she ran her hands over him to make sure he was not hurt. He seemed fine, although he shook slightly under her touch.

Lucas gathered the woman in his arms and drew her against him. Maris watched as he raised a gentle hand and brushed the long dark hair back from the pale face, then bent to gently kiss her forehead. Gently, he lowered the woman’s body to the ground.
“Where are we?” Maris asked at last, her voice oddly loud in this silent place. Lucas lifted his head to look at her, then shifted his gaze about him as though taking in their surroundings for the first time. She caught the glint of tears in his eyes.

“We should be at the school,” he answered, his voice gravelly with emotion.

“The school was the place I saw with Freya? In the desert?”

He nodded.

Maris gazed around her at the misty landscape of low hills, covered with scrubland. “This is not the place.”

“No,” Lucas said. “We are not at that place. We are in the Marsh lands. Something must have gone wrong with the gateway – what happened? What did you see?”

Maris shook her head, doubting to herself that she had seen anything. It was all so unreal. This talk of gateways to another world, gatekeepers, these strangely dressed people, odd landscapes like those she’d only ever seen in pictures.

“What did you see, girl?” Lucas’ voice whip cracked at her. She felt Casper flinch at the sound of his voice.

”I’m not sure…” she stuttered. “A desert and an oasis and we were heading towards it as though we were flying through the air above it.”

“Something else though,” he rasped. “There was something more there.”

Maris recalled the dark shapes crawling across the ground towards the oasis, the liquid black eyes of the man who had turned towards her as they had appeared to swoop low over his head.
“Men,” she said. “In dark clothes. I couldn’t see their faces, they were covered by scarves or cloth.”

Lucas’ hand whipped out and grabbed at her arm, his grip none too gentle. “Describe them to me.”

As best she could, she described the man she had seen. The curved sword at his waist, the bejeweled dagger with which he had slashed at herself and Freya. His dark liquid eyes had filled with surprise and then a triumphant gleam as he had grabbed at them.

“Assassins,” muttered Lucas, the word more a hiss of breath. “They must have been attacking the School.”

She shrugged out of his grip, but he did not seem to notice, lost in some thought train of his own.

“This is not good,” he muttered beneath his breath. He gazed across the bleak moorland around them. “And now we find ourselves here,” he murmured. His gaze returned to the dead woman. “Freya,” he whispered, his voice tinged with grief. “I need your counsel now more than ever. I do not understand what has passed.”

Gently he lowered the woman to the ground and eased his body away from her to stand and survey the countryside around them. The grey sky glowered over them, heavy with rain, although the air was warm. Lucas walked a few paces, easing his feet over the ground slowly, then turned and walked a few paces to his left. He gave a satisfied nod and returned, lifting Freya into his arms and carrying her across to the last place that he stood. Maris rose with him, pushing the dog from her lap, terrified of being left here in this place, of being left alon in this strange country. Where had London gone with its familiar stench of cars and rubbish and people? She had moments before been in the middle of a vast metropolis, but now there were no signs that men inhabited this land. Casper stuck close to her heels, almost stepping on them as he walked. She did not push him away. The dog was as lost and frightened as she and he might yet prove a protector. He had leapt to her defense when these strange people had accosted her.

The man was treading gingerly now and she halted as the ground beneath her gave. She lifted her foot with a soft sucking sound and watched water fill the hole her shoe had left behind.

“Have a care,” the man threw back at her over his shoulder. “We are at the edges of a bog. It will suck you under without trace.” He had halted, his ankles deep in the ooze. At his words Maris took a few hurried steps backwards almost tripping oveer Casper as he slunk behind her. Lucas knelt and she saw that his feet sank even further into the mud. He brushed the woman’s dark hair from her forehead and placed his lips against her skin in a gentle kiss, then he tipped her forwards into the mud.

“No!” Maris cried. “What are you doing?”

Lucas did not answer, but raised himself up again and took a few steps back, pulling each foot from the bog with some difficulty. Maris tried to approach him, but it was like walking through treacle. Every footstep dragged her deeper into the mire.
“For Corin’s sake girl, saty where you are!” He ordered with a dark glance in her direction.

“But we can’t leave her here,” Maris protested. “She must have a proper burial!”

“What do you know of our rituals, outlander!” Lucas returned his eyes to the body of the woman. Already she had sunk deeper into the mud, her dress stained with the dark ooze. As Maris watched, the mud seemed to lap at her, as though the woman was slipping below its surface. Deeper, deeper until only her head was visible and finally that too sunk out of sight. Maris stared at the place where she had lain as the the mud moved restlessly.

“How could you leave her here?” she asked in horror. Lucas waved his hand over the spot the woman had disappeared into, his lips moving soundlessly as though uttering a prayer. Then he turned and made his way back over to the dry ground where Maris stood, his boots slurping in the mud as it squelched and sucked at his feet. He stood for a long moment and stared down at her.

“How could I take her with me?” he demanded. “You know nothing!” His tone held disgust.

“You tell me nothing,” she retorted. “You kidnap me and bring me to this awful place… how the hell did we get here? Where has my home gone? Is this some bizarre experiment? I don’t understand.”

Lucas pointed his finger at the bog where Freya’s body had just disappeared. His arm shook with fury as did his voice. “She died to bring you to us. Now she is safe. Now nothing can find her, nothing can hurt her. One day, when the threat is over I shall return for her.”

He pushed past Maris, his head swinging this way and that as though searching the ground for something. “But I have no time for explanations now. If what you saw whilst opening the gateway is the truth, then the School is under attack and we must head there with all speed.”

Maris saw again the dark men, swarming like spiders over the desert. “But will it be safe there?”

“We’d better hope it is, or all hope is lost,” Lucas threw back at her. He straightened up. “Come on, our path lies this way. Follow on my heels and do not deviate from the path I follow, or the bog will have you and Freya will have died for nothing.”

Maris hurried to do as he bid as the memory of Freya’s descent into the mud stayed clear in her head. Caspar kept his body low to the ground, whining feebly, his ears laid back flat against his angular skull, his tail kept firmly between his legs. Whatever this place was he didn’t like it one and bit and Maris trusted his instincts.

The ground they walked on oozed water under their weight, but she could feel the firmness beneath it. She followed Lucas as carefully as she could. His heavy boots left imprints in the mossy soil that took a few moments to spring back and she was careful to tread in his exact footsteps. Several times she had to speed up to catch up with his longer legged stride and the pace soon began to exhaust her.

“Can we stop for a moment,” she asked, hating her voice for sounding so plaintive.

“No,” came the terse reply. “We keep on. We must get as near to the edges of the bog as we can before nightfall.”

The thought of passing a night in this eerie place spurred her on. She hastened to catch up with him, Caspar at her heels whilst all around them mud bubbled and belched and water trickled and sang its way beneath the ground they walked on. A light sprinkling of rain fell from the clouds accompanied by a rise in the wind. At first, as the light drops settled on her clothes, Maris thought it only a brief shower, but the water settled on her hair and face in fine misty drops and she soon found her clothes were dampening and the moisture passing through to the next layer. (need to describe earlier what is she wearing)
After a while it stopped, but a wind had sprung up and chilled the water on her face. Lucas’ pace became faster and she stumbled over the tussocky grass to keep up with him. At last he paused as the sky had begun to darken from grey to blue. A hand shaded his eye and she heard a sigh come from him.

“Hurry,” he said as she caught him up. “We’re almost there.”

Relief coursed through her as she imagined warm and welcoming fires. Hot food and drinks and companionable faces. Any company other than this dour and angry man. At last the strangling grass gave way to turf and she felt the ground harden, then her trainers were stepping onto solid ground. Night had almost descended and the air had chilled even more as it had come on. In the distant the sky was lighter where dusk brushed the clouds away for a moment and she found herself standing on a stone escarpment. High craggy pillars of granite rose above her, cracked and ancient. Lucas grabbed her arm. “Hurry,” he said, urgency filling his tone. “Night is almost here and we must climb to the highest point before they come.”

With her feet almost frozen, Maris stumbled after him as they started to climb upwards to the tallest of the stone towers.