The Slanted Worlds

4

Five men were in the final ascent party on Katra Simba.

There are many rumors about what happened on those terrible slopes, but as only Venn returned, only he knows the truth. He has never discussed it publicly, though he did meet with the families of each of the dead climbers.

If, as is thought, Morris and James plummeted into the crevasse, Venn would have tried anything to save them.

His courage is not in doubt.

Jean Lamartine, The Strange Life of Oberon Venn

SARAH SPENT THE long drive to Devon gazing out at the green woods and the moors.

It was April, and she realized with surprise that the spring was well under way. Hidden in London, she had missed its coming; now she stared with delight at the lambs skittishly running from the motorway’s roar, and the white umbels of cow-parsley in the hedges. Every wood had its swathe of bluebells, every tree its small unfolding leaves. Small black horses nibbled the corners of fields.

She knew this country. As the twilight gathered, Dartmoor began to loom on the horizon, purple-gray receding folds of moorland under the darkening sky. Sleepily she felt the old desire to climb up there, breathe that wild air again, as she used to do with her father and the three dogs. Before Janus came, and unmade the world.

Wharton let her dream. He drove carefully with only the swiftest of glances at her. By Exeter, darkness was closing in. If Sarah hadn’t opened her eyes by chance and glimpsed the road sign to Princeton, they would have sped on unknowing into the night. Wharton slammed on the brakes, shunted back, and turned into the lanes, grateful there was no one behind. “Nice one, Sarah. Of course, I was just checking you were awake.”

“Right.” She wrapped her coat around her, shivering.

“Do you want to stop? Or there’s some water and fruit in the back.”

“Keep going.” She squirmed around to find it. “We need to get there before he does anything stupid.”

Urgency seemed to grow in the car as darkness fell. She bit into an apple, gazing out at the black landscape. “So, George. Did you ever get home? To Shepton Mallet?”

“Not yet. I will.”

“Then why the car?”

“Had to get something. You know how the Abbey is miles from anywhere.” He turned at a crossroads, knowing she was ready to ask the question he had been waiting for.

“What’s it been like?” she said quietly.

Wharton changed gear. He glanced out at the passing small squares of light that were cottage windows, the sudden flicker of a pub sign.

“Like? Sarah, it’s been like living in a besieged castle, with the enemy all around. For a start, the Shee. You can’t see them, can’t hear them, but you know they’re out there somewhere. Every time you go near the Wood you feel watched. Not only that, the defenders inside with you are silent, preoccupied, and feverishly working at a bizarre and broken machine. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m the only sane man among lunatics. It’s as bad as being back at the wretched school.”

She couldn’t help grinning. “Surely Piers . . .”

“Piers is hardly normal. Besides, Venn works the man like a slave.”

She said, “And how is my . . . how is Venn?”

“Obsessed. Sleepless. He scares me. And it’s worse, since Jake went.”

“Tell me about that,” she said.

As he drove deep into the dark land, he was glad to; glad to finally get the story out, to speak it aloud to someone, as if doing that would dissipate it like breath, release the tight hard ball of terror it had become inside him.

“Three weeks ago—on the Wednesday, it must have been—Piers came hurtling into the kitchen where Jake and I were working. As you know, that’s the only warm room in the place. He was yelling, tremendously excited. Come at once, come now, His Excellency says! Why he gives Venn that ridiculous title . . . Anyway, we ran. Jake first, of course. Turns out they had made some breakthrough—the mirror was suddenly, inexplicably active. They were prepared, though, I’ll give them that. The plan had been formed for months—to journey to the 1960s—and Piers was so confident they could do it. Jake scrambled into a suit of clothes that was utterly nondescript—it was designed to be unnoticeable for almost any era, and was packed with everything he might need—money, a med kit, a souped-up phone-thing that Piers hoped might be able to communicate with him. And a weapon.”

“A gun?”

“I insisted, Sarah. Of course I didn’t want him to go, but you know Jake. He put me firmly in my place, the arrogant little sod . . . and then Venn made it clear my opinion counted for less than the dirt on his shoe.”

“So Jake put the bracelet on.”

The car splashed down toward the Abbey, the headlights picking out ghostly trees, a field gate, a spindly signpost pointing into the dark.

“And?” she said gently, because he was so silent.

“You know better than anyone. It worked all right. The mirror’s huge energies erupted, that dragging, terrible pressure, the implosion that seems to suck all your life—your spirit—right out of you. When I staggered up, Jake was gone. Simply no longer there.” He changed gear, his voice harsh. “We waited. Time went by so slowly. Time, Venn’s archenemy, seeming to mock him, and us. An hour, then two. The night. The next day. Venn just sat there, slumped in a chair, watching the mirror, watching his own dark reflection till he seemed to harden into its black stone. I have never seen a man so sunk in despair. Finally I couldn’t bear it anymore. I went up to my room and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and because I knew—knew, Sarah—that they had lost him, just as they lost his father. And of course, the bracelet with him.”

The bleak anger in him, the cold fury, was so clear she was almost afraid to speak.

For a moment the only sound was the car’s tires, slurring down the muddy track; then she pressed the button that lowered the window, and smelled the twilight, rich loamy scents of the fields, the wet decay of the Wood.

“Next morning, about five, a shout woke me. I stumbled over to the window and looked down. Venn was there. He’d thrown the main doors open; he was standing on the top of the steps. It was pouring with rain, and a wind was gusting, but he ignored it. He just stood there, Sarah, a little drunk maybe, and he called her. He yelled ‘Come to me, Summer. I need you. Are you listening, you witch!’”

Sarah shivered. “He must be totally desperate.”

“Or insane.”

“Did she come?”

“No one came. But they heard him. All the birds of the Wood rose up, starlings and crows and jackdaws, karking and laughing and flapping around the trees. They all streamed off westward. Then Piers came out with an umbrella and he and Venn had one great unholy row. I got out the car and left to find you at once. I just pray we’re in . . .”

His voice faded into dismayed silence. The car stopped.

“. . . time,” he said.

The gates were wide open. Over the familiar lions on the pillars, ivy had grown. Sarah felt the seed of dread inside her grow to certainty.

Wharton blasted the horn, twice. “Hang on!”

The drive had always been overgrown. Now, Sarah thought, it was if the trees had taken a step forward, threatening, closing in. Beneath the faint light from the stars, the Wood seemed darker and denser than before, all shadow and gnarled, silent thickets.

An owl hooted, somewhere close.

She shivered. It was like coming back into a trap waiting to spring and catch her, the snare of Venn’s obsession. And it scared her, because if she fell into it—if just for a moment she allowed herself to feel sorry for him, allowed her resolution to waver—the world she had known, far in the future, would be destroyed, and all her life with it.

The car struggled up the drive, jolted around the fallen tree, slurred swiftly over the gravel, and stopped. She looked up at the gray mullioned façade of the Abbey. It was in darkness. No lights showed.

“We’re too late.” Wharton was already out and racing toward the building. Sarah ran after him; she overtook him and leaped up the steps. The front door was solidly locked.

She rang the bell, then banged furiously with her fists. “Piers! Venn!”

The house stood as dark and silent as a mansion in a dream.

Wharton scowled. “Kitchen door.”

They fled around the dark building, through shrubbery and toward the stables; then she stopped so suddenly he cannoned into her.

“Listen!”

A soft creaking sound drifted in the dark breeze. It made the hairs on his neck stir, because it was so alien. He had no idea what it was. A body hanging from a twisting rope? The wheels of a ghostly carriage passing in the night?

“The lake.” Sarah was already running, so fast he couldn’t keep up.

“Sarah! Wait!” He hurried after her. The Wood was black; he stumbled over briars and brambles, almost pitched into a sudden ditch. Then he shoved his way through bracken out into a dark path tangled with sprouting fungi, the smell foul.

“Sarah!”

Hurtling after her, he came out on the lakeside.

Quite suddenly, as if they had all been lit at that moment, he was blinded by lanterns. They hung from the trees, floated on the water. Some seemed to be carried in the air like small moving stars. And their colors were the most gorgeous he had ever seen—turquoise and orange and emerald, each jewel-bright flame blurring and blending into another. Underfoot, as he hurried down to where Sarah was, he sank ankle-deep in a soft drift that he realized was petals; the heaped petals of a million roses, scattered with the abandon of a wedding. The scent of their clotted richness was so overwhelming that it made him gasp in a stifled breath—the perfume of summer in the coldest of spring nights.

He stopped beside Sarah. “This is trouble.”

“Yes.” Her voice was hard. “Look.”

Venn stood at the edge of the lake, where the bank crumbled. He stood tall, his spare figure silhouetted against the moon. Coming toward him over the dark water was a small boat rowed by four of the Shee, canopied with silk, hung with lanterns, the oars creaking. Seated in it was a young woman, her hair short and black, crowned with flowers. She wore a long white dress, simple as a nightgown, that trailed out behind her in the dark water. Her face was Summer’s and her red-lipped smile was sweetly triumphant.

The boat touched the bank. The faery woman stood, rocking slightly, and gathered up her dress. She held out one long white hand. Venn seemed to hesitate.

Then he stepped forward. Their fingers reached for each other.

“NO!”

The yell of fury broke from Sarah before she could think; she ran down and grabbed Venn’s arm, forcing it down, physically pulling him away. “What are you thinking? Are you mad? Have you forgotten about Leah? About Leah, Venn!”

Astonished, he stared at her. “Sarah. You came back.”

“And only just in time. How could you betray—”

“I don’t betray her. I do this to save her.”

He had lost weight. His face was gaunt, his eyes colder and bluer in their pain. There was a terrible blindness in them. His hand was a weight in hers.

She dropped it, stood back.

“That’s not what she thinks.”

Summer stood smiling, unmoving. And then in a bewildering instant she was on the bank between them, close to him, and her voice was girlish as she laughed.

“Since when do you listen to children, Venn?”

“I don’t.” But his gaze was dark.

“You will!” Sarah wanted to push Summer aside but dared not touch her. Instead she walked around her and faced Venn again. “Yes, I’m back. I’m back to work with you on the mirror. To find Jake, get the bracelet, bring back Leah. That’s what you want, and that’s what we’ll do.”

“Sarah, you can’t . . .”

“You have no idea what I can do! What I know. Maybe I have ways, Venn. Maybe I know things from the future you can’t even guess at.”

“Such as?”

“I’m saying nothing in front of her. Get rid of her. Do you seriously think you can ever trust her? You told me yourself . . .”

“I have no choice.” It was a whisper of defeat. It infuriated her.

“You do! I’ve been busy, researching. I’ve found Mortimer Dee’s page—it may tell us how he built the mirror, all the secrets he knew about it. You can have it! Use it. You don’t need this dark magic. This danger.”

Summer sighed. A breath of breeze rippled the trees. The Wood seemed to stir with hidden unease.

“Oberon . . .” she said.

He ignored her. “How can I believe you, Sarah? You want the mirror broken.”

“Yes. But not yet. That’s why I’m back. To get Leah. Remember what I told you. She’s my great-grandmother. If we fail, I’ll never have been born.”

For a moment he stared at her with those ice-blue eyes, a shared intensity, an instant of consideration. Wind lifted his blond hair, flapped the collar of her coat.

Summer snapped the silence like a twig. “She’s quite obviously lying. She’ll do anything to get her way. Come with me, Oberon. I’ll send my people through the Summerland to find Jake. It will be too easy.”

He was silent.

“Don’t ignore me.” Her voice had the tiniest edge of frost.

Sarah’s gaze was steady.

Venn looked down. Then, abruptly, he turned away. “I’ve changed my mind, Summer. You always ask too much. She’s right. I’ll do it without you.”

The faery woman’s pretty face did not flicker; her red lips made no pout. But at once, and from all sides, a gust of wind lifted the petals and scattered them high into the darkness like clouds of dark ash.

Sarah backed off. Wharton, close behind her, felt the sudden slanting chill of rain on his face.

Summer stood barefoot on the soaking grass. Behind her the boat shriveled. Its flags became cobwebs, its canopy shredded to rags; the four boatmen lifted their arms and flew away, starling-dark, into the stormy sky.

“Oh Venn,” she whispered. “I will destroy your house for this.”

Venn pushed Sarah toward Wharton. “Get back inside. Now.”

She couldn’t move. She stood mesmerized, like a mouse before a swooping predator.

Because Summer was transforming.

As they stared, her eyes darkened, widened, her pale dress shivered into feathers. She fragmented, fell to pieces, her fingers curled to talons, her small red mouth warped into the cruel hooked beak of an owl.

“Move!” Venn yelled. He grabbed Sarah, forced her away. “Run!”

The Wood was alive with crawling shadow. Tree-shapes stirred. A cascade of bats clattered up across the moon.

The wind screamed.

Sarah tore her gaze from the dissolving woman and fled, running blind into the darkness, Wharton puffing beside her.

Venn came last. Glancing back she saw he too was looking over his shoulder; between the trees the lakeside was ablaze, as if all the lanterns had flared into a great conflagration. Lightning, swift as a silver dagger, stabbed from the sky.

A branch above her cracked like a pistol shot; leaves and foliage crashed.

Wharton’s hand grabbed hers. “This way!”

Flying leaves blinded her. Then, far over the darkened countryside, thunder came, a low, angry, incredibly sinister rumble that seemed to shake the Wood and the landscape even to the horizon.

“She’ll kill us,” she gasped.

A snort behind her. She realized it was Venn’s bitter laugh. “Not yet.”

They floundered through the undergrowth and out onto the black lawns. As suddenly as if all its switches had been pushed at once, the Abbey burst into light, windows blazing, its door wide open, a small figure in a white lab coat hovering anxiously on the threshold.

Even as Sarah ran for the steps, the rain crashed down, a deluge that soaked her in seconds, plastered her hair flat, streamed in her eyes and down her neck.

She scrambled up the wet stones, her hand slipping from Wharton’s, and stumbled into the black-and-white tiled hall.

Breathless, she crouched on the floor.

Wharton was bent double, gasping. Venn crashed in last; the wind gave a wild screech, snatched the door from his grip and slammed it in his face. Breathing hard, he shot home the bolts, top and bottom.

“Do your worst, Summer!” he yelled.

Outside, like a scornful answer, the thunder roared again.

Piers, wearing a wine-red waistcoat under his lab coat, stood gripping his hands together. Venn turned on him. “Where were you? What sort of coward are you?”

“She terrifies me.” Piers shrugged. “Sorry. Sorry. But there was no way . . .”

“Shut up.” Venn swung on Sarah. “If you weren’t telling me the truth . . . If I’ve just lost my only chance . . .”

“Relax.” She stood, wearily, pushing her wet hair back. “Like I told you, we don’t need her. I’ve got Dee’s page. Well, photos of it.”

“And,” a low voice said from behind them, “you’ve got me.”

Gideon sat, knees up on the stairs. He wore the green patchwork clothes of the Shee, and his eyes glinted with their alien brightness. But his ivory-pale skin was human, and his voice was full of scorn.

“If you want Jake found, let me find him. I’ll go into the Summerland for you. And out the other side, into wherever he is.”

Venn stared at him, intent. “If Summer knew, she’d destroy you.”

Gideon looked at Sarah. “Let her. It would be a relief.”

“What would?” she asked.

He shrugged and leaned back, and she saw his bitterness was so deep now it burned him.

“Death,” he said.