Chapter forty-seven

Where they arrived: first and second

 

Owen touched Celia’s arm and she woke. Now, it seemed, her dreams were like twisted reality and her waking moments were a marvellous fantasy.

She struggled up from sleep and the opened book that had been resting on her chest tumbled to the floor. She fell into his arms.

‘How?’ she asked

‘I did something stupid…’ he replied, but his voice was quietened by her lips. He allowed himself a moment’s joy and then pulled away.

Whatever the world around them had looked like a few moments before it was very different now. It was a swirl of grainy colours, like the tumbling glassy pieces in a kaleidoscope.

‘What have you done?’ she asked.

‘I needed to find you…’ he moaned, ‘...so much…’

There was no clear locale anymore, they seemed to be standing on an uncertain space.  The old pub, the dwarves and the elf spy were at the end of a long tunnel that was shrinking fast. They were sliding out of reality.

‘Let go’ he pleaded, ‘you may still get free…’

Celia laughed and grasped him even tighter.

‘I think I’ll hang on’ she said, ‘now and forever…’

‘I’ve buggered it up’ he whispered

‘Of course you haven’t’ she whispered back, ‘you came to get me. Everything else is just detail…’

The glassy colours all began to fade to white. It looked like they were in a blizzard, the false snow sweeping around them. None of the specks seemed able to touch them, however.  For the time being they were safe.  

She pulled away from him, all except for their interlocked fingers, and gestured around.

‘Where are we?’ she gabbled

He frowned.

‘In some sort of rift… probably… a wound in the body of the universe…’

She shook her head.

‘How did you do that, O?’

Owen swallowed hard.  He knew they had very little time.  His normally calm voice rushed on at breakneck speed.

‘Gwyn had a thing to monitor our life forces… I used it to find your trace, but at the same time I ripped something; very badly.  But, there’s no time for full explanations – you have to help me cast an adail. I need to work out where we can escape… ’

‘I can’t’ she said, holding up the device on her wrist.

Owen looked at it for a moment and then muttered ‘drain’

There was a pop and the bracelet unravelled; bits of raw magic spilled out, like sparks from a sparkler. Relief softened Celia’s face.

‘Thank you’ she whispered, kissing him. This time their embrace lasted no more than a second.

‘Can we escape, though?’ she asked, as the white specks began to flow through their bodies.

‘Yes – I think we can. I just need to find out where the edge of the tear is and then we should be able to get back through it, before it closes up…’

‘And if we’re too late?’

‘I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out.’

Celia closed her eyes and began chanting. Owen felt the spell surge through their linked hands. For him the swirling stopped – that was just the chaff being sloughed off by the wound. Beyond that he could see where the wound had opened up in multiple worlds. The spell visualised the exits to the worlds as grey patches off at the edges of the rent. There should be at the most four exits, but how would he tell them apart? As he watched, the patches began to contract, like a puddle under a hot sun. 

He dragged Celia, enclosed in the prison of the spell, towards the closest patch. It was about as wide as a moderate size house. He stared through it, concentrating with all of his mind. A harsh, strange blue light shone through the patch. He had seen this blue before, months ago in John’s kitchen, and knew exactly where it was. He had no intention of going there and so he moved on as fast as he was able.

 The next patch was now about the size of a garden lawn. Below it all he could see was an endless darkness. Not that one, either he thought.

He hurried along as fast as Celia’s half-comatose body would allow. The next patch shone with an exceptionally bright light. Sunlight, he thought, too bright for our world. He paused for a second, wondering, and then moved on. 

It seemed to take so long to get to the next patch and when he got there he realised that there was not one exit but two, closely aligned, but definitely a pair. They were both now only as wide as a door. There would be no time to find another patch even if there was one. The light from these areas was green, much to his relief – perhaps they both led back to their beloved green world. But which one should he use? He peered for another moment but they seemed identical.

He let go of Celia’s hand and she stopped chanting. She looked up.

‘What now?’ she asked

‘We need to go through one of these’ he explained. ‘I don’t know which one. I want you to decide’

Celia looked for a moment and then gripped his hands with surprising strength. She dragged him on.  She took a few stumbling steps forward, now she was pulling him, and then dived through the narrowing left hand portal. Together they tumbled into yet another green world.

 

***

   

This time, all Kathleen did was stumble. The water only came up to her knees but it was extremely cold. She looked around. Behind her was a grey, flat, treeless land; in front of her a mountain of blue ice.

‘Owen’ she muttered to herself, ‘what have you done?’

She could guess at what had happened. Every time that she found herself immersed in a large body of water she had tried to teleport. She knew she hadn’t intended to blink this time, but here she was dunked again anyway. She must have been thaumically linked to Owen by the adail; when he went, she went.  Either way she now felt very weary – she had been casting too many spells recently.

One of these days she would arrive in very deep water far from land and she would drown. She shivered and thought of Tom: he might never know what had happened to her.

She waded back to the dry land, which was dark and dreary. Her feet crunched on a carpet of lichens. Where was she? Where was Owen? Had he found Celia? She supposed, wearily, that she had better try to find them.  Bron had been right, this was never going to work out well.

The shivering continued after she had walked a long way away from the lake. She had nothing to navigate by and the light was failing. She needed heat and light. She was a witch and so both were fairly easy to provide. Myfanwy had taught her the dwymo, which warmed you inside, and then casting a chyneua was about the easiest spell in the repertoire.

She walked on, now passably warm and illuminated. A mist had now formed over the lake and it seemed to be following her. This didn’t matter particularly as she had no idea where she was going anyway. Perhaps she should stop and see if she could fashion a makeshift pentangle on the ground. She didn’t want to talk to Gwyneth, but she knew that soon she would have to.

A voice blared out of the mist to her right.

‘Oy, wee lass, where’d you come from?’

She peered through the murky air. A small round humanoid creature, who could only be a dwarf, was standing about three feet away from her. He wore a large shaggy coat and carried a long pole. He was clearly itching to poke her with it.

She stepped back.

‘From Eth’ she replied, tentatively.

He took a step closer and stared at her.

‘How?’

‘I’m lost’ she explained

‘You’re lost and then add a league or two…’ he snorted, ‘I think you must be a spy…’

This confused Kathleen. Was she a spy? She assumed not – but every conjecture needed to be given careful thought.

‘Probably not’ she said, as an interim judgement.

The dwarf shook his head.

‘Are you touched?’ he asked

‘Touched?’

‘Bonkers….’ He explained

She considered this too.

‘Not right now…’ she said, ‘but I’m told I have my moments’

He lowered his pole. Kathleeen had no idea how disarming she could be, and the dwarf was literally disarmed. His expression changed to one of gentle concern.

‘You should come with me, lass…’ he said, but it wasn’t a threat, ‘you’ll catch your death out here’.

She nodded – after all she had nowhere else to go.

‘Where are we?’

The dwarf frowned again, but then his eyes wandered down to the pale light that was shining from her hand.

‘Are you a witch?’ he asked, excitedly.

She briefly considered denying it but then noticed what he was staring at. She shrugged.

‘Yes, I am. My name is Kathleen Mannings and I’m looking for my friend…’

The dwarf was almost jumping up and down now. Even in the half-darkness his red face glowed in the air around him.

‘Name of Celia, by any chance?’ he asked, ‘huge tall thing?’

Kathleen was startled. This seemed to her both true and untrue.

‘No… I mean… yes. She’s my dearest friend, but…’ Her voice trailed off ‘but then… Owen…’

‘Not that lucky, then, your pal Celia?’ the dwarf whispered under his breath, ‘you look like a bit of a mixed blessing to me…’

‘What?’

‘Nothing that matters, lass’ he said, ‘I can take you to your friend’

‘Which one…?’ Kathleen asked, and then pulled herself together.

‘Who are you’

He stood to attention and saluted her in the Ethian style. For a second she wondered if they were somewhere in her home country, but she knew that there was nowhere like this there. And she’d never heard of a dwarven Ethian soldier.

‘I am Corporal Jock McTavish, of the free dwarves…’ he said, proudly.

She put her hand out tentatively and he shook it warmly.

‘So not all dwarves are free?’ she asked, as if it were a philosophical proposition.

‘Quite right’ said Jock, ‘most of ‘em are noticeably… umm… unfree…’

‘Shouldn’t you be trying to free them, then?’ she mused

Jock sighed and gestured for her to walk with him. He lit his lamp.

‘That’s the idea…’ he said, turning on his heels, ‘I’ll let Captain Jay explain…’

He walked a few steps forward through the gloom, struggling to see his way, but then had a thought. He turned back to Kathleen.

‘You’ve got those canny magic hands’ he said, ‘you can light the way’