Lessek's Key

BOOK II
The Ash Dream
THE FJORD CAMP

Garec gnawed thoughtfully on one of the bars Steven had taken from Howard’s kitchen. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it sceptically. ‘Why wouldn’t they make them in the shape of something familiar?’ He tried another bite. ‘This doesn’t look like anything that grows naturally – well, almost anything.’

‘People are used to eating things that don’t occur naturally where we come from, so the shape doesn’t bother us.’ Steven paused to consider the cylindrical brown morsel Garec twirled like a miniature baton. ‘Although now that you mention it, it doesn’t look very appetising, does it?’

Despite Garec’s attempt at levity, the mood was grim. Mark told Steven of the Prince Marek’s destruction and of their subsequent failure to find Brynne among the floating wreckage. He had paused several times while telling the tale, but had refused to cry. When he finished, Steven had not known what to say, but looking into his old friend’s eyes, he realised Mark had lost something vital; something had been extinguished inside him, leaving the dry vestiges of Mark Jenkins. No longer the fun-loving sceptic, Mark had shifted into the shadows. For the first time in his life, Steven feared his roommate. There would be no holding him back now; he would be an unchained force, running full-speed into Sandcliff, into Welstar Palace, wherever. Already he looked prepped for battle: his belt tightened snugly against his hips, a hunting knife, a short dagger and a new battle-axe strapped within easy reach of either hand. Mark, who had once joked about hacking off limbs, was ready to do just that. At that moment Steven profoundly regretted ever having found the key to William Higgins’ safe-deposit box.

He passed out a few of the items he had managed to buy or steal on his journey across the country. Garec was especially excited at the idea of Colorado beer and had already placed the cans in the fjord to cool. Gilmour, thrilled to have Howard’s American Civil War book, planned to check into an Orindale inn, bolt the door and steep himself in Gettysburg as soon as the Fold was closed for ever. As he paged through it absentmindedly, he pondered Steven’s story; he was especially interested in how Steven had located the far portal and Lessek’s key.

Pocketing the lighter, he asked Steven, ‘So are you saying you could feel the staff’s magic there in Idaho Springs?’

‘I think it was the portal, or maybe the key,’ Steven answered. ‘I had been going so fast for so long – in such a hurry to get back. When I discovered that our house had burned down-’ Steven glanced over at Mark, ‘sorry about that, by the way-’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mark said, emotionless. ‘Go on, please.’

‘Well, anyway – when I learned that our house had burned down, I figured Nerak had done it. He had beaten me there and had destroyed everything.’ Steven looked across the fjord, allowing the images to take shape in his mind’s eye. ‘But he hadn’t. The house had been gone for a while, long enough for them to come in and bulldoze the lot. There had been time for some real estate agent to put the land up for sale. So I figured the portal and the key must have been hauled up to the city landfill and dumped.’

‘And that’s where you felt the staff?’ Garec pressed.

‘It was more than just there. I guess it happened a few times along the way, but maybe it was my memory, you know, like muscle memory. Maybe I felt I needed the magic, and my body wanted to believe it was there.’

Gilmour nodded.

Steven rubbed his chin. He needed a shave again. Anyway, whatever it was, at the city dump, I felt the magic. It took me. I needed it, and it came in a blast. I think it came from the key. I can’t be sure, but it did knock me down twice.’

‘Why the key?’ Gilmour leaned forward, his brow furrowed.

‘Because the portal was still a good quarter of a mile away.’ Steven saw Garec frown and added, ‘About four hundred paces – and the key was right there, just a few paces away at the time.’

How did it happen?’ Mark joined the interrogation, suddenly interested.

Steven chuckled. ‘I hit a speed bump, the same one, twice.’

Garec tried the words together, ‘Speed bump?’

‘Right. And who would have thought there would be speed bumps at the landfill? I mean, who goes in there but guys in pick-ups and big town dumper-trucks? Are there really enough pedestrians that they need speed bumps?’

‘But it slowed you down just enough?’

‘Knocked me down is more like it, and when I stood up, everything had changed. I knew right where to find the portal – and the key.’

Sensing something, Gilmour asked, ‘But that wasn’t all, was it?’

‘No.’ Steven kept his eyes on the fjord. ‘I saw more than I expected. It was the Fold. It had to be.’

‘And?’

‘And there were rips in it, tears, like you would tear open a paper sack or the wrapping of a present – three tears.’

Gilmour ran a palm across his ribs, a gesture he had repeated several times that morning. He reached inside his tunic, withdrew his pipe and used Mikelson’s lighter to ignite a leafy mound of Falkan tobacco.

‘Great lords, but that’s a handy device.’ Garec was impressed.

Mark said, ‘You should see some of the nonsensical toys we’ve invented, Garec. It would have your head spinning.’

‘Speaking of which-’ Steven tossed Mark the roast beef sandwich from his pocket.

Finally Mark perked up. ‘Ah, thank you,’ he said, heartfelt, and fumbled with the plastic wrapping. ‘What kind is it?’

‘Roast beef with mayo on wheat. It was all Howard had in his kitchen – well, all that looked safe enough to eat.’

‘Thank you,’ Mark repeated, and finally grinned. ‘Try this, Garec.’ He slashed the sandwich in two, offered half to Garec and gestured with the other half towards Gilmour.

‘No thanks, Mark,’ Gilmour indicated his pipe with a shrug. ‘Anyway, Steven, these tears you saw – was anything moving through them?’

‘No, and the funny thing about them is that I think I put them there – at least, at the time I was convinced I put them there.’

‘You?’ Garec took a bite of the sandwich and exclaimed, ‘Great leaping whores! This is the best thing I’ve eaten in ten Twinmoons! Say again what it’s called?’

‘Roast beef with mayo. Mayonnaise.’ Steven was amused.

‘Roast beef with mayo. Gilmour, we have to learn to make mayo.’ Garec wiped off a smear with his finger and licked it. He gave a moan of satisfaction. ‘Great rutters-’

Smiling, Gilmour went back to the subject. ‘How could you have created tears in the Fold?’

‘That’s just it, Gilmour. I don’t know that I did, but I think I could have, or maybe – maybe it was perfectly all right with me that they were there, as if it didn’t matter.’

‘And you say there were three?’

‘Three. Oblong, and standing on end, like narrow entrances to a tunnel or roughly hewn doorways, and when they disappeared – or rather, when I let them go – I knew right where to find the key and the portal.’

‘And the magic came from inside you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Steven said, matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t think so. Why would it? The staff was here, and I didn’t have the key yet.’ He looked across at the hickory staff leaning against the small sailboat. ‘So I suppose the magic was the key. It had hit me hard in the knees, twice, so I wasn’t feeling much of anything except pain – but when I reached out, I felt as though I could grab the air, as if it was there for me to take. That was when I saw the rips. They materialised in front of me, right where the big centre hill at the dump had been, but where the magic came from isn’t actually as important as what began to take shape in my mind.’

‘What’s that?’ Mark swallowed the last of the sandwich.

‘That we can keep evil trapped inside the Fold.’

‘How?’ Gilmour looked bemused.

‘By controlling the Fold itself.’

Garec laughed. ‘Oh, of course. I thought you were going to suggest something difficult.’

‘No, listen. The Fold is not the enemy, the Fold exists; if evil is trapped inside, and evil is our ultimate enemy, then our goal can only be to keep evil inside for ever. Gilmour, you said that the Fold is the absence of perception and therefore the absence of reality. So it’s the place between what is real and what is unreal, the space separating expectations from actualisations. Right?’

‘That’s how I think of it in my mind, yes.’ Gilmour wasn’t sure yet about Steven trying to make his definition of the Fold into a tangible, controllable reality. ‘But that doesn’t make it any easier to grasp.’

‘Yes it does.’ Steven seemed convinced.

‘Again, you have me on cloakpins, Steven. How?’

‘Because if it exists and if we can conceptualise it accurately and if we can reach it via the spell table,’ Steven withdrew Lessek’s key and held it aloft between two fingers, ‘then we can seal it, not by closing the door that the Larion Senate and Nerak and a handful of other travellers have used over the ages, but rather by building a wall around it, a box around it, a-’ Steven laughed, ‘-a safe-deposit box for the whole frigging thing.’

‘Steven, you’re mixing two kinds of thinking,’ Mark protested. ‘You can’t muddle the tangible and the intangible that way. You’re creating a philosophical paradox. It won’t work.’

‘It will work. Everything can make sense if we take time to learn enough about it, about what it values, about what motivates it, about where it came from and why.’ He searched their camp for an example. ‘Look. Over there, that rock. Now, we all agree it’s a rock, right?’

The others nodded, curious.

‘We all agree it’s a rock, but let’s assume Garec is a masonry worker, and I am a geologist, and Mark is a miner, and Gilmour, you are a sculptor.’

‘Wait – I see what you mean,’ Garec interrupted, excitedly.

‘We all might see it a bit differently, but no matter how hard we try, it will always be a rock. Whether it’s a snapshot of Eldarni history, a valuable ore, a cornerstone for a public library, or even a beautiful three-dimensional realisation of a bird in flight, it’s still just a rock. There is no way, even using all our will, that we can make that rock a fish, or a grizzly bear – or a roast beef sandwich.’

Gilmour, looking interested, said, ‘So if I’m understanding your thinking: if we can understand the Fold, however intangible it may be, then we can – what?’

‘Anything we want. We can paint the damned thing yellow if you want to,’ Steven said. ‘Don’t you see? There is no paradox. We can do whatever we want to the Fold, if we are careful and thorough in developing our understanding of exactly what it is and how it works.’

Garec felt the rug come out from under them. ‘How do we do that?’

‘We need to know what Lessek knew. He found it, called it a pinprick in the universe. That’s fine. Whatever. But he found it, and he knew how to get to it, how to arrive at that place where he could reach out and grab it – like the air at the city dump. It was no different than it had ever been, but I held it in my hands, pressed against it and moved it around.’ He looked in turn at each of them. ‘That’s what we have to do.’

Gilmour slipped a hand back inside his tunic. Although his ribs no longer hurt, he could feel where he had mended them. Only hurts when I breathe! The three friends followed his gaze to where the leather-bound book of Lessek’s spells lay waiting for him to come and try again.

‘Once we know what Lessek knew, what will we use?’ Garec broke the silence, making Gilmour jump visibly. ‘The staff? That book?’

Steven replied, ‘That remains to be determined, Garec, but at this point, I am fairly confident we will use compassion-’

Mark looked down, his head shaking.

‘-magic-’

‘And?’

‘-and maths.’ Steven gave him an amiable slap across the back. ‘Mathematics, Garec.’

Garec went off in search of more wood, and Gilmour stood alone, ankle-deep in the fjord, enjoying a pipe and wrestling with his thoughts. They had made the decision to remain there another night, for they had talked until late in the day. Steven had put up a halfhearted fight when Mark told him where they were – he had assumed his friends were already in Praga, not well on their way to Sandcliff Palace. He had argued – for a few moments – then given in gracefully; much as he hated it, he knew that getting to Sandcliff as quickly as possible was more important than finding Hannah. He had known it when he told Jennifer Sorenson to wait two months before bothering to open the far portal again; it would most likely be even longer before he was reunited with Hannah.

Steven and Mark sat together near the fire, alone together for the first time that day.

‘I’m sorry,’ Steven said, leaning against a fallen log and staring into the flames of the campfire.

‘For Brynne? Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. She was over the stern rail and halfway to safety before she decided to climb back up.’ Mark took a long swallow from one of the beer cans. ‘She made her own decisions.’

‘It’s more than that.’ Steven said. ‘I’m sorry for the whole thing, for this whole mess. I never apologised to you. I ruined your life. Everyone thinks we’re lying dead up there on Decatur Peak. I’m sure they’ve filled your job – hell, I might even have been responsible for the damned school burning down yesterday.’

‘The students will hold a parade in your honour. You’ll be the graduation speaker next spring.’ Mark had been reading the newspaper articles Steven stole from Howard’s refrigerator. Many had been ruined when Steven dived into Clear Creek, but enough had survived to give Mark a sense of the extent of the rescue and recovery efforts on the mountain trail west of town.

‘I’m serious.’ Steven tried to make eye contact; Mark avoided looking at him.

‘It doesn’t matter, Steven. I mean, I appreciate you saying it, but we are here. This is who we are and what we have to do with ourselves now. This is much bigger than being a high school teacher or a banker. These people need you and that staff. They need you here thinking the way you were thinking today, figuring things out, deciphering the magic to get the job done.’ He finished the beer and tossed the can over his shoulder into the sailboat. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m figuring out my role.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means until something better comes along, I am going to kill. I am going to learn to fight, to shoot and to defend myself, and I am going to kill them, one at a time until-’

‘Until Brynne comes back?’ Steven challenged.

‘Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just do it until one of them sends me along after her.’ He reached for another beer. ‘Either way, I don’t care.’

‘But there is something else bothering you, I see it now. I saw it before, long before Brynne- before she disappeared.’ This was risky; Steven understood he was putting their friendship in jeopardy by pushing Mark along this emotional razor-high-wire. ‘Isn’t there?’

‘Actually, you’re right,’ Mark said.

Steven was a little shocked – he had expected more resistance.

Mark refolded an article from the Denver Post and tucked it into the pocket of his new coat. ‘I’ve been trying to work through something, and it’s still bothering me. Do me a favour, give me Lessek’s key.’

‘What?’ Steven was taken aback by the curious request, but didn’t hesitate. ‘Sure. Here it is.’ He tossed the stone across to Mark who caught it in one hand. Neither noticed Gilmour turn to eavesdrop.

Mark closed his fist over the stone and went on, ‘You know, I never touched this that night in our house, but when you opened that box, I experienced something strange.’ He furrowed his brow, trying to remember exactly how the evening had unfolded. ‘It’s weird, and the only way I can explain it is like this: when I was a kid I had strange sleeping habits: I’d just pass out – the couch, the floor, wherever. So rather than try to lug me upstairs to my room, my mother would throw a blanket over me and leave me there. I never really woke up, but I could always sense when she’d covered me up. Do you know what I mean?’

Steven grunted in response; he didn’t want to derail Mark’s thoughts by interrupting at this point.

‘Well, that night when you opened the box, that’s what I felt: a warm sensation, like someone reached into our apartment and draped some old blanket over me.’ He laughed, grimly. ‘I know this isn’t making sense, but bear with me. I’d been drinking, so at the time I dismissed it – I was just drunk, or stupid, or needing to pee, whatever.’

‘But it came again?’

‘When I came through onto that beach in Estrad, I was out of my mind. I thought I was going to lose it – and you know what happened?’

‘Someone draped a blanket over you?’ Steven felt gooseflesh rise up on his forearms.

‘I remembered being a kid, out at the beach, Jones Beach, on the island. I was in Eldarn less than five goddamned minutes, losing it, going full-on screwball crazy, and all of a sudden, I got a reprieve.’

‘What do you mean, a reprieve?’

‘It wasn’t permanent; before the end of the night, I did lose it, curled in a ball, crying like a child. I thought I was dead. But for about ten minutes, I was given a break – I’m sure of it. I certainly wasn’t in any condition emotionally to look after myself, and someone came down to that beach and draped that old blanket over me.’

‘Lessek.’

‘And Bingo! You’ve won it all – the new car, the trip to Paris, and the showroom full of beautiful prizes,’ Mark said with mock game-show enthusiasm.

‘Holy shit.’ Steven was stunned.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth, cousin.’ Mark drained his beer and leaned back against the log, shoulder to shoulder with his roommate.

‘So what does it mean?’ Steven pressed.

‘I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be remembering something about some afternoon out at Jones Beach with my family – something about my dad, I think – but our days at the beach were pretty much the same. The only thing I’ve managed to cling to is a Red Sox-Yankees game, the night before, and the Sox won on some late-inning feat by Karl Yazstremski.’

‘And your dad was pissed off about it?’

‘Hell no, you know my father. He’d gladly go to his grave before supporting the “great scourge of the boroughs“ – no, it’s not that: he’s a Sox fan, no matter that he took all kinds of shit for it at work all his life. The game isn’t all of it, though: I think it’s just a point of reference for me to get the day right.’

Steven pulled one of the saddlebags over and rummaged around for something to eat. Finding a block of cheese, he broke off a chunk and offered the rest to Mark. ‘So what else do you remember?’

‘Dad had a cooler full of beer and a couple of sandwiches. He wore a madras bathing suit, something he had bought back in the ’60s, I’m sure, and he carried my mother’s old yellow beach umbrella out there and stabbed it into the sand like Neil Armstrong claiming the moon for Earth.’

‘How do you remember so many details? That was so long ago – how old were you? Six? Eight?’ Mark’s memory astounded Steven.

‘I remember so much because I’ve relived it so often since we came across the Fold. It happened that night on the beach in Estrad. It came again in the cavern the night before we fought those bone-collector things-’

Steven shuddered. Mark had saved his life that day, swimming to the bottom of a subterranean lake to wrench his body from where it was trapped beneath the carcase of a dead monster.

‘It came again today when you stepped through the far portal with the key in your pocket,’ Mark continued. ‘It was just like the other times – and it’s happening right now as I sit here, touching Lessek’s key: It’s as though I’m there – as if part of my mind is there – reliving that day on the beach with my family.’

‘So he’s trying to tell you something. If you’d come up Seer’s Peak, he would have visited you there.’

‘Maybe, but if I’m right, he has already visited me, dropping a warm blanket on me that night in Estrad. He didn’t need to see me at Seer’s Peak: he needs me to figure out what the hell he meant by hauling me all the way back to Long Island twenty-five years ago.’

‘Well?’ Steven could barely contain his excitement.

‘Well what?’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘So, you’ve played it over and over again in your mind. You have the key right now. Talk it out. What looks strange? What are you not seeing that you’re supposed to see?’

‘If we ever get through this, Steven, please remind me to beat the shit out of you,’ Mark said, amused.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you think I’ve done that? Don’t you think I’m doing that now?’

‘Well?’

‘Christ. Don’t start that again.’ Now he was getting irritated.

‘Tell me what you see.’

Mark closed his eyes and began to speak.

‘Have you ever been to my parents’ house?’

The question surprised Steven. He drew a blank for a moment, then said, ‘Um – yeah – that night after the Mets game at Shea, remember? We decided not to fight the traffic back into the city.’

‘You know that hallway that leads down to my sister’s bedroom, across from my parents’ room?’

Steven cast his thoughts back in time and visualised the house. ‘Okay, right. What about it?’

‘Things begin there-’ Mark shook his head in frustration, ‘no, that’s not right. I guess I should say these visions, memories – they begin there.’

‘In the hall?’

‘Yep.’ Mark reached out with one hand and gestured into the air above the fire. ‘My dad comes down that hall. He has on that old madras bathing suit and a T-shirt from a deli in Amityville, something he got for playing softball one weekend, I think. Anyway, he doesn’t come out of his room, and he’s not coming out of Kim’s room. He’s just there, in the hallway until he turns and moves towards me.’

‘What happens then?’

‘Then we’re outside. I’m helping him load everything into the back of the old station wagon.’ Mark grinned and opened his eyes for a moment. ‘I can’t believe my mother ever drove around in that monster. I know time tends to exaggerate our recollection of things, but that old car must have been forty feet long; it was a beached whale. She couldn’t have been getting more than three or four hundred feet to a gallon.’

Steven laughed. ‘Well, gas was cheaper back then! But go on, what’s significant about loading up the car?’

‘Nothing. That’s what’s so damned frustrating. I can’t think of anything. From the house, we’d go out onto route 27, take that west to the Meadowbrook Parkway, and from there, it was just a few miles out to Jones Beach.’

‘Think about more of the details,’ Steven urged. ‘Slow things down. Take your time. What does it smell like, look like?’

Mark leaned back against the fallen log and closed his eyes. Just when Steven thought he would have to prod him awake, Mark said, ‘The pavement was always hot, but I would leave my shoes in the car. My mom invariably yelled at me about it; she didn’t want me cutting my feet on broken glass or getting splinters from the plank walkway.’

He looked at Steven. ‘Jones Beach has this scrubby pine forest that runs along the north edge of the sand. I suppose, thinking about it now, it’s a curious juxtaposition, pines and sand that way, but growing up out there, I never thought about it.’ He closed his eyes again, took a sip from his beer and went on, ‘I hated getting sand in my shoes and socks, so I’d leave them in the back of the whale, make the dash across the macadam – that was like running across molten rock – and leap for the relative safety of the plank walkway. By the time we went home, late afternoon, it never bothered me to walk back to the car.’

‘This is better. Keep going like this,’ Steven said encouragingly. ‘What did your parents do? Were they fighting about anything? Disagreeing? How do you remember them?’

‘Mom was always dealing with Kim and the food. Dad dealt with the umbrella and his chair. After that, I’m not sure they ever had much to say to each other at all – I remember them holding hands sometimes, even hugging out in the surf, but I don’t remember them chatting on and on all day. Mom played with me and Kim – trying to keep us occupied underneath the umbrella, I guess. Dad always sat and watched the planes taking off and landing at Kennedy.’ Mark hesitated. ‘I guess that’s something strange.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He faced west.’

‘Doesn’t the beach run west to east?’

‘Right, but the water is straight south. Who goes to the beach and doesn’t face the ocean?’

‘Maybe your dad wanted to get the most from the sun.’ Steven tossed a log onto the fire, then looked for Garec; the Ronan was taking a long time to collect firewood. He noticed Gilmour and realised the old man had been listening. Catching Steven’s eye, Gilmour twirled one hand, as if to say keep him talking. Steven nodded almost imperceptibly and turned back to Mark, who hadn’t noticed the little byplay. ‘Was your dad a sun guy? Did he like to lie around in the sun?’

‘Dad?’ Mark grimaced. ‘Never. He hated the heat. It was all we could do to get him to the beach in the first place. Mom had to promise him he could bring a cooler full of cold beer just to get him there, and we always made at least one trip up the sand for ice cream. No, Dad wasn’t much for the sun.’

Mark pursed his lips, picturing his father sitting in a folding beach-chair, his long legs stretched out before him, an incongruous image among the hundreds and thousands who turned their full attention to the sea. ‘He’d sit all day like that, except for when he was in the water or playing with Kim and me.’ Mark closed his eyes tighter in an effort to clarify the image, to bring his memory into sharper focus. ‘He always sat that way. It crossed my mind once or twice when we were coming out of the Blackstones, after I dreamed about it in the underground cavern; I thought there had to be some connection between my arrival in Eldarn, half drunk on beer arriving at the beach, and those days out at Jones Beach when I was a kid, my dad drinking beer and-’

‘And facing west towards Jersey,’ Steven finished Mark’s thought.

‘Or further,’ Mark whispered.

‘Say that again.’

‘Further.’ Mark sat up.

Steven felt the connection begin to form in his mind and he raced to keep up with it before it dissipated in the nebulous fringes of his consciousness, the nether region where so many great dreams and ideas disappeared before he could get a firm handle on them. He stood up and started piecing the fragments together. ‘The hallway. I remember that hallway.’

‘Right. It runs from my parents’ living room down to the bedrooms at the back of the house.’

‘And there are pictures, right?’

‘Yup. A whole family gallery. My father calls it the Jenkins Family British Museum, a complete photo-history of our lives.’ Mark was standing now as well, and Gilmour moved through the shallows towards them.

Steven made several leaps in his mind, hoping to move two or three large pieces into place; he would form the outer edges of the puzzle later. It was time to connect the guts of the thing now. ‘I remember those pictures. There are lots of pictures of that trip he’s always talking about.’

‘Sure: it was just about the defining moment of his adult life. He had planned for months, every place he wanted to see, all the parks, all the cities. He had never really been out of New York since he had started working full-time, or since Kim and I had been born.’

‘There were all kinds of shots from out west,’ Steven said, ‘the hills, the Loop Railroad. Didn’t you go to Pikes Peak, too?’

‘We were supposed to be there for a few days and we ended up staying nearly two weeks. Dad absolutely loved the place. We hiked in the national forest, we went rafting. He hauled us down to Royal Gorge. It was as though he felt the need to see the whole state, to experience it all at once, as if he thought he would never get back.’ Mark slowed.

‘Or that he ought to have been there all along,’ Steven said. ‘When you think about it, it’s odd that of all the photos in that hallway – and there have to be two hundred shots up there – why are so many of them…’ As Steven hesitated, Gilmour appeared suddenly at his side.

Mark said, ‘He must have taken twenty-five rolls of film in those two weeks. Everything was worthy of a picture: streams, pine trees, rock formations, Kim and me, in all manner of poses – standing astride the Continental Divide, balancing on the USGS mile high marker – there were so many, and he took them all with that old Instamatic. When he blew them up-’ Mark stopped, seeing confusion in Gilmour’s face, and added tangentially, ‘Most photographs are three-by-five or four-by-six inches – in other words, small’

‘Ah – and your father enlarged a number of these photo pictures?’

Mark nodded.

‘Was he unhappy with them small?’

‘No, they were his favourites, the most cherished photos he had ever taken; that’s why he blew them up to display them.’

Gilmour nodded, understanding, and gestured at Mark to continue.

‘They were in the living room at first, but then my mother wanted to redecorate. Dad didn’t want them moved, but they finally agreed on a compromise: they would stay hanging on display, but he had to move them to the hallway.’

‘He loved this place, your home, Colorado?’

‘He did, Gilmour,’ Mark said, ‘more than I have ever known him to love any place else.’

‘Why did he not live there?’

‘Work. Family commitments. My mom is from the island, so he wanted her to be near her family – a whole barrel of reasons, I suppose.’ Mark looked more like the young man who had arrived in Eldarn; Gilmour was glad he had found a moment’s peace.

‘Did he ever return?’ Gilmour asked, carefully.

‘I went to school there.’

Ah-’ Gilmour nearly leaped across the fire-pit, ‘why? Tell me why you chose that place.’

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Mark said, surprised. ‘I was eighteen; I wanted to get away from New York. I thought Colorado sounded rustic, provincial, wild – a long list of things Long Island is not. But maybe it was those photos.’ Mark screwed up his face, trying to come up with a completely honest answer. ‘Maybe looking at them day after day, year after year, influenced me.’

Steven said, ‘So you might you have chosen Colorado State because he wanted you to?’

Mark, never one for arm-chair psychology, shrugged. ‘Sure. I guess. Who knows why eighteen-year-olds decide anything? But I do know that I have felt more at home in Colorado than I ever did in New York.’

Gilmour asked, ‘Did it take long for those feelings to emerge?’

‘About twenty minutes, Gilmour. I think it was twenty minutes.’

Garec dropped an armload of wood at their feet, interrupting the conversation. ‘Twenty minutes? I know that one; it’s the four rune. The four, right? The four means twenty minutes on this absurd machine.’ He held up Steven’s watch. ‘Why you don’t just put a twenty on there, I have yet to understand.’

Mark, close to understanding at last, didn’t speak, but wrapped an arm around Garec’s shoulders and handed him a silver beer can. Garec pondered it briefly, then looked confused.

Tilting his own can for Garec’s inspection, Steven said, ‘Just pull the tab.’

Mark went on, ‘So if my father faced west in moments of quiet – like the beach, when he wasn’t working, when he had time to rest, to think and perhaps even to-’

‘To be drawn,’ Steven said, not certain he had chosen the right word.

‘To be drawn,’ Mark echoed, ‘back to where he had been so-’

‘Back home,’ Gilmour said.

‘But my father never lived in Colorado,’ Mark cried. ‘That trip, and all the memories he had over the years, all the pictures and all the stories – they were just his way of – I don’t know.’

‘They were his way of feeling that blanket,’ Gilmour said. ‘If Lessek has truly communicated these memories to you, now we must figure out why. What significance does Colorado have for your father? And for you, as your true home? And, most difficult to work out, what significance does your relationship with your father have to Nerak and our struggle here in Eldarn?’

Mark’s reply was cut off by a rustling sound in the woods behind them: footsteps, stealthy at first and then closing at a run. Shadows painted the forest black, and it was impossible to see how many assailants there were, but in the instant before turning to flee, Mark saw at least two large figures armed with branches. Steven dived for the hickory staff, grabbing it as he rolled over and sprang to his feet. Garec stood frozen, unwilling to pick up his bow and quivers. His eyes flashed in the firelight as he peered back and forth at Steven and the men coming for them through the woods.

Gilmour shouted ‘Seron!’ and raised his hands, muttering; their small campfire exploded into a towering ball of flame, so hot that Garec fell backwards across the pile of firewood he had collected. He watched as three Seron, armoured in leather vests and chain-mail, charged, barking and grunting, between the trees. In the muted glow of Gilmour’s explosion, the hardwood trunks looked like upright bones. The Seron moved as if through the half-buried ribcage of a decomposing god.

The last thing Mark saw before rushing into the night was Steven standing firm and twirling the hickory staff. His flight was a knee-jerk reaction to buy a few seconds to think how they would turn back what might be an entire platoon, hell, a whole frigging brigade of the soulless monsters. He hadn’t expected the attack; he wasn’t ready. That wouldn’t happen again.

Mark risked a look over his shoulder. Gilmour had used magic to turn their sputtering campfire into a raging inferno and by its light it was clear that there were only a few Seron, possibly scouts for a larger force. He turned and began hustling back into the fray, certain Steven and Gilmour possessed enough power to dispatch the Seron even if they had been taken by surprise attack.

He watched as Gilmour held one Seron still; the old man’s hand was pressed flat against the creature’s chest, and though growling and spitting at the former Larion Senator, it was immobile, clutched in the grip of Gilmour’s hastily woven spell.

Steven engaged the second of their attackers, nearly as large as Lahp, in a hand-to-hand fight that reminded Mark of an old Bruce Lee movie. Steven, trying to preserve life no matter how monstrous his assailant, used a fraction of the staff’s power, just enough to sting the half-human nastily with each touch – first the soldier’s knee, then a shoulder, thigh, collar bone, wrist, a series of neat blows that didn’t appear solid enough to hurt a child… but Mark could see pale greenish-yellow energy crossing from the staff to the Seron’s body with each impact. The Seron barked, an inhuman yelp, each time Steven landed a blow and within moments the big Malakasian had collapsed to his knees, then toppled over.

Two down.

Their third attacker had somehow escaped the net of Gilmour’s immobility spell, diving and rolling at precisely the right moment. Now, still gripping his makeshift cudgel, the Seron scrambled to regain his feet. Mark followed the Seron’s line of sight to where Garec had fallen. With his companions bested, the creature would have only one opportunity to kill Garec. Mark would have to act quickly; this one would be his.

‘Hey, you!’ he shouted – he wasn’t sure if he spoke in Ronan or English; he was too furious to care.

The Seron, so intent on reaching Garec, ignored him at first, but as Mark started shouting obscenities at him he finally turned.

‘Come get me, you ugly motherhumper!’ Mark cried, his feet ankle-deep in the fjord. ‘I’m not armed – look!’ He discarded Howard’s Gore-tex coat and peeled his old red sweater over his head, leaving himself bare-chested, with a thin coat of perspiration despite the cold. ‘C’mon, ugly rutter!’ he shouted again, jumping up and down on the balls of his feet. ‘I’m right here waiting, you frigging bastard!’

The Seron remained low the ground, crouched, his eyes fixed on the raving man only a few paces away.

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re so tough,’ Mark growled. ‘Come get me, you pussy. Stop stalking around like my sister’s cat and get down here.’ Mark flexed his arms, not entirely convinced he had made the right decision, but too far down this path to change his mind now. ‘I’m going to kill you,’ he shouted, an instant before the Seron pounced.

For a fraction of a second, Mark considered standing his ground. His rage was so overwhelming that he was certain he could beat the soulless half-human in a straight fight, but something echoed in his mind, that same voice he had imagined speaking to him in the Blackstones when he had nearly frozen to death, the voice that had awakened him when he had fallen asleep at the wheel on the Long Island Expressway. ‘You can’t win,’ it said, and with just a hair’s width separating them, Mark ducked beneath the Seron’s grasp and dived into the black water.

He ignored the cold and kicked hard towards the bottom, thankful the water was deep right up to the shoreline, then, once he was thirty or forty feet out, he surfaced long enough to catch his breath. The Seron was paddling diligently after him.

‘I’m over here,’ he shouted, splashing a handful of dark water in the Seron’s direction. ‘You almost had me there. I was worried, I tell you.’ He let the Seron get within an arm’s length before slipping beneath the surface again. This time, on his way to the bottom, Mark reversed and gripped the warrior’s ankles. He gave a firm tug, not enough to drown the creature, but sufficient to pull the Seron’s head beneath the surface for a moment; it sent a powerful message. Mark knew he would have to surface and tempt the soldier again, or it might make the decision to turn and flee back towards shore.

Bobbing up through the darkness, Mark called again, ‘I’m over here, dummy.’ He had moved further away from their camp, from Gilmour’s fire he judged the distance at about seventy-five feet, not yet enough to get the job done. He listened for sounds of the Seron’s breathing: laboured and quick. ‘Are you getting tired? That’s a lot of armour you have on. I know I’m tired, and I’m just in boots and leggings. So, you must be wearing down.’

The Seron was starting to worry; he could tell. He swam closer to the struggling warrior. ‘I tell you what – why don’t you take off that leather vest and your chain-mail, and we can make a real contest out of this.’

The Seron, though obviously fatigued, lashed out with a fist like a hammer.

Mark took the glancing blow on the temple and saw stars for a moment. He let his rage numb the pain. ‘Good punch, old man. I actually saw the lights of Denver that time.’ He swam a few paces away. ‘Now go ahead. Take your time. It’s all right, I’m not going anywhere.’

The Seron ripped and tore at the heavy leather vest, then slipped out of his chain-mail, allowing it to sink to the bottom of the great inland cleft. The Malakasian killer seemed energised by his new buoyancy and growled a warning at Mark.

Watching him come, Mark gave his own warning, a quiet affirmation of what he was about to do. This was no parking-lot fight, throwing a few punches until someone broke it up or the police came: this was everything he had believed could never happen to him. He had never thought he would hate in this way – yet he was about to kill this thing in cold blood.

‘So be it, rutter. Come get me,’ he said as he slowly backstroked into even deeper water. Gilmour’s bonfire looked like a lighthouse as Mark dived deep and waited. Let the sonofabitch wonder. Once he was confident the Seron had dived after him several times – he wanted him struggling for breath – Mark moved with the fluid grace of an underwater hunter, slowly coming up beneath the creature’s legs. He grabbed one firmly with both hands and pulled hard for the bottom, releasing the creature at about twenty feet.

He surfaced, taking deep breaths, and checked his position against Gilmour’s fire. He could hear the Seron, grunting and wheezing in dismay, begin paddling back towards shore – Mark thought how curious it was that the supposedly reckless killers would cling so ardently to life when they realised they had been beaten.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he whispered and slipped beneath the surface once more. Three times he pulled the coughing, spitting Seron warrior down, thinking of Brynne. I love you, she had said, mimicking Mark’s own clumsy admission. Now he was about to get some revenge, a sliver, anyway. ‘Three down, and I am keeping score, you bastard,’ he shouted.

Rage at the thought of Brynne, freezing cold and sinking beneath the waves in Orindale Harbour, warmed him. Had she called out to him, treading water as long as she could in hopes he would come paddling over to rescue her? These questions tumbled through Mark’s mind as he inhaled deeply and pounced on the Seron’s back. Down and down they spiralled, the creature fighting furiously, but Mark wrapped his arms around the Seron’s neck and took the blows until he felt the Malakasian stiffen, then go entirely limp.

Mark couldn’t see in the black depths of the fjord, but he felt the body bob towards the surface for a moment, then, trapped by the cold and pressure of nearly fifty feet of water, spiral lazily towards the bottom.

He swam towards the shore and pulled himself onto land, his body trembling with cold as reaction set in. Blood ran from his nose, and one eye was beginning to swell. He didn’t speak as he strode across their camp, past the comforting warmth of Gilmour’s fire to the little catboat he had stolen and rigged for their trip along the Ravenian Sea. He reached beneath his pack and withdrew the double-bladed battle-axe he had found in Orindale. He crossed back to where Garec was binding the Seron’s wrists and ankles, ignoring Garec when he asked, ‘Are you all right, Mark?’

Gilmour whispered, ‘Don’t.’

It was too late.

Mark hacked viciously into the first prisoner’s neck. Blood splashed from the wound, dousing him. He took the second Seron while Gilmour was reaching out at him, but the spell on the old man’s lips was a moment too late. Mark left the axe embedded in the Seron warrior’s skull.

Mark barely heard his friends shouting. As he stumbled towards the fire, he was backlit by flames: a homicidal lunatic on a killing spree. Then Gilmour’s spell wrapped around him and he collapsed into the dirt beside the fire.

‘Do you like snow peas?’

‘What? I’m sorry. What?’ Jennifer jumped, startled. ‘What did you say?’ She turned to find the store manager standing beside her.

‘I asked if you like snow peas.’ He smiled. ‘You seem to be interested in the frozen peas, but I have some nice snow peas, fresh in, over in the produce section.’ He gestured towards the rear of the supermarket. ‘It’s eighty-nine cents for a half pound.’

‘Uh, no, I mean, thank you, but no – I’m just looking for some-’ Jennifer stammered to a halt. She had been replaying her conversation with Steven, and wondering where she could hide, someplace that no one would think of finding her, or even associate with her. A madman – no, a demon, worse than a demon – was looking for her, reading the thoughts and memories of people from her neighbourhood, her friends. They all knew where she went; Silverthorn certainly wasn’t safe, not for long, anyway. Eventually, he would find someone who knew Bryan and Meg had a condominium up here, and then he – it – whatever it was would be on its way.

Steven had just disappeared. He had woven an absurd tale of magic and demons and monstrous creatures hunting him and probably Hannah in some fantastic world, a night-time story to frighten adolescent boys, and then Steven had disappeared. He had earned credibility the only way he could: he had proven it, vanishing from the room like the coffee table Frisbee book she had tossed onto the tapestry only a few minutes earlier.

And with that, Jennifer had been left alone with her charge: to get away, to protect the tapestry portal, and to open it on time, every time, without fail. No one cared that she was overwhelmed; he had not given her any time. She had lived through two months of anticipation, not for news that Hannah was still alive; Jennifer had been waiting for news that her daughter was dead. You can think it now, because it’s not true. It’s not going to happen that way. Steven hadn’t given her enough time to get used to the fact that her daughter was alive, or that she might be pursued across the country by a homicidal creature bent on destruction. ‘It wasn’t enough time, Steven,’ Jennifer muttered.

‘David,’ the store manager corrected. ‘My name is David Johnson. I manage the store, and if you don’t mind me suggesting, ma’am, if you don’t think you’ve had enough time, would you please make your choice with the door closed?’

‘What?’

‘The door, ma’am, the freezer door. You’ve been holding it open for,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘for eight minutes now, ma’am.’

‘What? Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m so-’ Embarrassed, Jennifer realised she was standing in the frozen foods aisle of the Silverthorn grocery store, the freezer held open in one chilly hand. Staring at the same rack of frozen peas for the past eight minutes, she blushed despite the billowing clouds of dry industrial cold wafting around her ankles. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed, Mr Johnson. I was thinking, and I got distracted, and I – can’t believe I-’

‘David,’ he said, extending his hand.

‘David?’

‘Please call me David.’ He smiled again, and Jennifer felt her already red face flush anew.

‘Oh, and you’re being nice to me,’ she said, shaking his hand, ‘and I’m sure I look like a madwoman standing here daydreaming.’

‘Don’t worry about it-’ David paused.

‘Jennifer.’

‘Jennifer – really. It’s no problem. I mean just last week I had a couple from Ohio out for a ski trip, and they stood and stared at the zucchini for almost twenty minutes. I think one of them lost a relative to a zucchini once, maybe back in Italy.’

Jennifer laughed, ‘Must have been a mob hit.’

‘Those overcooked side dishes can be lethal!’

They both laughed, and David asked, ‘Can I show you those peas?’

‘Really, Mr Johnson, we just met.’ Jennifer feigned offence, then, holding a straight face for another moment, she burst out laughing, finding the humour. It might be a long road, she thought, you ought to try and find some joy.

Now it was David’s turn to blush. ‘Right back here,’ he said, taking her gently by the arm. ‘Are you in town long?’

‘No, just a few days.’ That was a lie; she had no idea how long she might be staying.

‘Are you a skier?’

‘No. I come up from Denver to spend time with my brother and his wife. They’re the skiers.’

‘So what do you do during the day?’

I worry. That’s what I do most. I worry, and I miss my daughter, and I pray that she’s all right, and I sometimes plan ways to kill or at least dismember whoever has her or anyone who might have hurt her. I have all sorts of sordid thoughts about torture and death. Just recently I learned that she’s been transported somewhere, somewhere I can’t go, and so I sometimes stand around with the freezer door open staring at the frozen foods for eight, ten, whatever, even twelve minutes at a time. ‘Oh, I cook and read and write letters to friends. I love walking here. Some of the trails are gorgeous in the winter,’ she said.

‘The ones we plough anyway,’ David was running out of things to interest her, and the produce section was coming up fast.

Jennifer stole a glance at the store manager. In her embarrassment, she had not realised that he was actually quite attractive. No wedding ring, fifty, maybe, with salt-and-pepper hair, brown eyes, a lean, honest face, and a small paunch engaged in a friendly wrestling competition with his belt, just the softening midsection of a middle-aged man who appeared to have been active for most of his life.

‘I do, by the way,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

‘I do like snow peas. I cook them all the time. My daughter loves them.’ Jennifer picked through a handful, discarding several and dropping the rest in a clear plastic bag.

‘Oh.’ David was surprised. ‘Is she here?’

‘No.’

‘Not a skier either?’

‘Not this season, no.’ Jennifer crammed two more handfuls of peas into the bag and tied a knot in it, suddenly in a hurry again.

David didn’t notice her sudden haste. ‘My kids either. They’re in school now.’

Jennifer was silent. She wanted to get back to Bryan and Meg’s condo, to consider her options and plan where she might go next. Tossing the bag of snow peas into the shopping cart, she said, ‘Well, thank you, David. I appreciate the help, and I’m really sorry about-you know, with the freezer.’

‘Please don’t worry about it, and come back anytime. I’m here every day.’

‘I will. Thanks,’ Jennifer murmured the normal courtesies, then looked into David’s eyes: he was gazing at her with calm, confident honesty. He was a nice man, and if he was attracted to her, he had picked just about the worst possible time in her life.

‘Or if you need a walking partner,’ he tried one last time.

‘That sounds nice.’ She wanted him to know that on any other occasion she would have been willing to stand here for the rest of the night, ice cream melting into a puddle of vanilla-soaked chocolate chips around her feet, to continue talking with him – but not tonight, and now perhaps not ever.

He smiled goodbye as she paid for her groceries, and watched as she pushed the trolley into the parking lot.

Outside, the afternoon had turned a muted ash-grey. Snow was falling above ten thousand feet; it would be in Silverthorn in a few minutes. Jennifer pushed the cart towards her car. She had bought enough groceries to last her at Bryan and Meg’s for a few days, long enough to figure out where to flee next, but not so long that the thing she had passed on Broadway and Lincoln might guess where she had taken the portal tapestry. Wind from the river carried the distinct smell of woodsmoke, and Jennifer promised herself a fire when she arrived.

She had not slept well the night before; the events of the previous day had been too fresh in her mind, the thought of finding Hannah too prickly and hot to put down. With two months to wait before opening the portal, she had to find a way to get some sleep, to enjoy some semblance of normalcy, to find some joy. Jennifer glanced back at the grocery store and was surprised to see David Johnson watching her through the plate-glass windows. Standing between a red-and-white placard advertising Paper Towels, $1.19 for 200 and a brightly coloured display hawking Frozen Pizzas, 2 for $9, she could see his smile across the parking lot. He waved, and turned back into the store.

Jennifer tilted her head slightly and furrowed her brow. ‘A sense of normalcy?’ she asked of the parking lot. ‘That would be anything but normal.’

By the time she’d unpacked her groceries it was snowing; she got a warm, comforting blaze burning as quickly as she could, then poured a glass of wine – never too early, particularly not these days – and opened an atlas she had thrown into her car. She ran a fingertip over the state map of Colorado.