Viola ran across the strange white
surface. It felt like running on a sponge. Boo was still asleep, but she still
made running a lot more difficult; the elf had to clutch on to her unexpected
companion at all times. She appeared to be running uphill, but there was no
sense of gravity anywhere except down towards her feet.
The white tunnel was
breaking up. There were holes in its fabric that were getting larger as she ran
past them. They started off as mere cracks but soon they were like ragged
windows into other worlds. As she ran she caught glimpses: of grey oceans, of
windy deserts, of a huge ruined city, but mostly of uniform green forest. Then
there were stranger things – the rifts began to be edged with blue. It felt
like the tunnel had bent upwards so that now she was running through the sky.
As the holes grew, however, she sawthat this was no normal sky – the clouds were
also blue, and the creatures flying among them were not birds.
Her heart jolted –
was that it, then, had she run out of real world? Was all that was left to
escape to the Outer Void? And wouldn’t that mean immediate death? She scanned
the holes as she ran, hoping for something that looked like a real place in the
real, material, world.
The tunnel began to
twist and turn, flexing like an eel. She could feel the force of it now –
pushing her away from the floor and threatening to throw her off her feet. Now
she was running in a zigzag to avoid the huge holes at her feet.
She saw green way
ahead of her at the end of the tunnel, far to her left. Breathing in deeply,
she held on as tightly as she could to Boo and sprinted for the green patch.
She had to jump over one blue hole and then scuttle along a narrowing isthmus
of white that would carry her to her destination. The thin strip that she was
following fluttered and then disappeared, several feet from her target. All she could do was throw herself into the
air.
The physics of folded
space kicked in. She spun slowly in the air, as if in free fall – all her sense
of position disappeared. As she rotated gracefully, she saw an expanse of green
below her. It was clear that she would drift on and float past it. She reached out with her hand, as if to grab
some of the sky. As soon as her arm was inside the ordinary space she was
yanked into the real world.
There was no force as
she hit the ground, just the momentum of her movement. She landed on her feet
and kept running for a few seconds. She stopped, leaning down to catch her
breath. The ground looked reassuringly solid, but unlike any ground that she
had seen before: it was covered in lichens and mosses. She looked up. Above her
were only a few skeletal bottle brush conifers and some scrawny birches. A
watery sun stared down at her. It was
bitingly cold.
Where was she? Didn’t
lichens and mosses grow at the top of mountains? Or was that at the top of the
world? Maybe not the latter – she remembered the stories of the endless forests
in the far north of the world. They certainly weren’t described like this.
She was standing on a
steep slope but she couldn’t see far in either direction. She needed to find
somewhere where she could see further than the next tree. She leant against a
trunk and assessed the possibilities. She was too relieved to feel scared.
She couldn’t face climbing up, so she
began to clamber down. The slope below her was littered with scree and the
footing was uncertain, particularly with no free hand to steady herself with.
The descent seemed endless and the sun began to dip in the cloudless sky. She
hoped that she would find some sort of shelter before night-time.
The conifers disappeared
eventually, opening out into a meadow full of coarse tall grasses and little
yellow flowers. The walking was easier here, but there were still no paths that
she could make out, unless they were the meagre tracks of wild animals.
The sun was close to
setting when the meadow ended abruptly. There was a short border of stones and
then a cliff dropping down several hundred feet into a river below. The river
was the widest one she had ever seen; she could not see the opposite bank at
all. Viola scanned down the cliff and across the river – she could see no way
to get past either of them.
She wanted to rest;
to find somewhere to sleep, but there was no shelter here. How would she
survive out here? How would she ever get home? She wandered around close to the
edge of the cliff, stopping every now and then to seek out a way down. She had
to rest more often now, anyway, as Boo felt increasingly heavy. Her arms were
very tired.
It was just as the
sun was snuffed out by the land that she heard a voice behind her.
‘Who by earth and sky
are you?’
She turned. There was
an oldish man dressed in brown trousers and a padded brown jacket standing
behind her. He had a rabbit snare in his hand.
‘Viola’ she said
without thinking ‘Viola from Ortia’
The man went back to
setting his snare – he disappeared beneath the long grass again. If he was
surprised to see her he didn’t show it.
‘Where’s that, then?
Where’s Ortia?’ he asked. He spoke in rough and ready Ethian, but he was easy
enough to understand.
‘In Eastern
Visneoria’
His head shot up.
‘Don’t give me all
that gravy; that’s thousands of miles away from here’
Viola considered
telling him the truth, but it decided that it would take too long.
‘I’ve been on a long
journey’
His trap set, he
reappeared. He had a good long look at her.
‘I’m the ferryman’ he
said, studying her clothes, ‘Are you in uniform?’
She nodded. Even here
this all seemed a bit embarrassing. She had only brought her imperial jacket
because it was so warm.
‘Imperial uniform,
eh? And an officer’ He looked at the stripes on her epaulettes, ‘well, you’re
clearly not a spy’
He thought for a
moment.
‘Where have you just come from then? You
wouldn’t last ten minutes dressed like that in The City’
A chill spread
through her bones. She had no idea where she was and absolutely no idea what
The City was. She had to think quickly. She lied clumsily.
‘I think that I was
kidnapped; my captors said that they were taking me to The City, but I know
nothing about it’
‘Planos – that’s The
City. Two hundred odd miles north of here’ He pointed up the hill. He chuckled.
‘Just keep climbing and you can’t miss it’
This rang a distant
bell. Planos was rumoured to be a city in the far north of Paror ruled by evil
gods. She had thought it was just a fable.
‘I haven’t been there
– to be honest with you I’m rather confused about what has happened to me. Are
we in Paror?’
The ferryman’s eyes
widened. He stared at her.
‘You don’t even know
what continent you’re on?’
She shook her head.
‘Something happened
to me – I’m not sure what.’ That was only a partial lie.
He whistled through
his teeth. He looked exasperated, but also, Viola was relieved to see, his eyes
crinkled kindly. He moaned loudly to himself.
‘At the top of a
cliff, looking after a mad elf as darkness falls. Just my luck’
He packed away his
remaining snares then he turned to Viola.
‘Whatever that bloody
creature is – it’ll have to go into my bag for the climb down. Is it likely to
wake up?’
Viola looked down at
Boo – she had remained asleep during the death of Ith, his strange restoration,
the run through a wormhole and the long trek down the mountainside. She doubted
that some time in a bag would worry her.
She shook her head and handed the tupaia over. The hunter rearranged the
bag so that the snares were at the bottom and the dead rabbits that he had
collected today were on the top. He nestled Boo on top of the furry corpses.
‘Cosy but a bit gruesome’
he said. Viola nodded slightly.
‘Follow me’ he
commanded, ‘And by the way, I don’t believe for a second that you were
kidnapped’
The ferryman hurried to find the
rough-hewn steps that marked the only climbable part of the cliff. The way down
was easy, though, the steps were wide and not too steep. It took them more than
half-an-hour to get down, however, and by then the light had faded. For the
last few minutes Viola’s guide followed the light of a large fire that burnt on
the flat ground by the side of the river.
There were several
buildings next to the fire, and close to the buildings was a medium-sized
rowing boat bobbing up and down on the edge of the river. Two muscular young
men and a middle-aged woman came out of one of the buildings. The woman was carrying
a torch. She was shaking her head.
‘Why do you leave it
so late to come back, old man? One of these days you’ll get stuck up there’
He grinned.
‘Don’t be cross with
me, wife, this time I’ve brought back not just rabbits but also... an elf’
The women lifted up
her torch. She stared at Viola. Her voice was suddenly business-like.
‘It’s an elf round
for passage, madam – payable in advance. My lads can take you across in the
morning. You can stay in a hut overnight. It’s basic but no-one has complained
so far’
The ferryman touched
his wife’s shoulder.
‘This one don’t know
if she’s planting or felling, Beth... Let her sleep and she might make more
sense in the morning’
Viola was so tired
that she felt unable to say a word and so overwhelmed that she could think of
nothing but to pick Boo back out of the bag and lie down. She smiled weakly and
allowed herself to be led to a horsehair mattress and sleep. She did not dream.
***
Everything became a lot clearer in the
morning. This settlement was built on the Bearclaw River – one of the giant
tributaries of the largest river in the world, the River Clearwater. It took a two man team half a day to row
across it, and that was what Jake and Kurt, the ferryman’s sons did for a
living. They would do it at almost any time if you had a spare gold coin or
two. They fed her a hearty breakfast of
bacon and rye bread while they explained all of this to her. Boo remained
asleep at her side. After a while the ferryman and his wife came to join them.
‘So what’s on the
other side of the river?’ she asked him.
‘A big forest, a few
mines, a lot of big rivers’ answered the ferryman
‘So, who uses the
ferry?’
‘Gold miners carrying
their gold up to The City; a few merchants selling very specific things; Whores
both ways...’
‘Is there a way to
get back to the Western Continent from the other side?’
The ferryman
shrugged. His wife spoke.
‘Big river – someone
must float boats down it’
Viola knew there was
only one way to go.
‘I need to get across
the river’
The woman folded her
arms.
‘Pay up and you can
go now...’
‘Stop it woman’
groaned the ferryman, ‘we know she hasn’t got any money – no bags and just that
ragged imperial jacket’
The woman began to
clear away the wooden bowls. Viola felt panic rising inside her.
‘I need to get home –
I need to tell the witches what I have discovered’
The ferryman barely
hid his chuckle. His wife stared wide-eyed at her.
‘Witches, eh? You
know a lot of ‘em, do you?’
‘Yes, I have things
they need to know; stuff about the structure of the Universe’
Everyone except Viola
laughed heartily.
‘Don’t we all’
sniggered Jake, the taller of the two boys. He wandered off.
The ferryman’s wife
spoke gently to her.
‘We’ll take you across
when we have a full boat or when you have some money to pay me; not before. Or
– you can give me your pet...’
Viola held on to Boo
even more closely.
‘She’s not my pet’
she replied, ‘she belongs to a... friend’. Viola had a brief vision of a tall
blonde woman who she did not know but who had somehow saved her life.
‘She belongs to one
of the witches... I think...’
‘Well, you’re stuck
here, then, elf..’ chuckled the woman, walking away with her dirty crockery.
The ferryman looked
down at her and smiled.
‘Something will turn
up soon – something always does’
He patted her on the
hand.
The others drifted off go about their
daily duties, until only she remained sitting at the table. She shifted to a chair
that faced the river. From there she could see nothing except the grey water. A
heron was hunting over it. If she
concentrated really hard she could see, well beyond the reach of normal eyes,
the opposite bank and beyond that an ocean of trees. She looked to the south
west and wondered exactly how far away home was.
The events of the
last few days rattled around in her brain. She needed to remember everything
and recount it to the Hybitor – they might know what it all meant. All she had, for the moment, was the knowledge
that there were creatures, the primes, that seemed to hold the world together,
and that they were guarded by the nagas, the fire snakes of her dream. Against
them there were forces intent on destroying them, but also there were forces
that sought to preserve them. How she fitted in to any of this was unclear, but
she had survived Bea once and so, who knew, she might well do it again. She
would do what she could to help. All she needed to do now was find out how that
help could be delivered. And to find that out it seemed she needed to find out
who, and perhaps even what, she really was.
She walked over to
the river and sat on a stone right by the torrential water. She watched it carry its debris downstream in
long spirals. There was so much to do, so much to find out; she hated to have
to wait. Beside her, against the jetty, she felt the monotonous beat of lapping
water, but she was happy for this reminder of the steady pulse of time. It was such
a precious thing.
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