Time snaked
on inside John’s box and morning began to shift unbidden into afternoon. John was making some progress – he was fairly
certain now that the scroll held a spell that would trigger a Dwarven Magic
event. However, unfortunately, he had very little idea what it was that might
be triggered. He began to realise that very soon he was going to have to stop
doing this and go and do something much more boring. Just a few minutes more…
He sat back and twisted the scroll in his hands, examining it from all
possible angles. He knew that what was required was a long period of study and
a really concerted attempt to decipher the mysterious runes – but he didn’t
have the time right now. He’d have to put something else aside – perhaps fewer
visits to the club – and well, that wouldn’t be a terrible hardship.
He waited for his mind to be calm before making his way back to the real
world. It was soothing studying up there. His stomach began to tell him that he
needed food, and he began to wonder which ocean side restaurant had the best
lobster and whether that one also had the best views. He really should have had
a proper breakfast before he started this.
There was a noise – just the faintest sound, like a ‘pop’ in the
distance. Which was odd, nothing should be moving down here. Then his heart jumped as he realised that he
recognised that sound. It was the noise
made by something blinking in. How was it possible? He got up from the desk,
ordered the tree to open the iron door and stared into the space below. How many pops had there been? One, two? He
could see nothing, but a faint blue glow was now beginning to mix with the
white light in the chamber. A blue light? What on earth was that?
He climbed a little way down the trunk and peered out, perplexed. What
could possibly have blinked into here? Then he saw it, as far as it could be
seen at all. It was a large flat disc, hovering a few feet above the ground,
and it was shimmering in and out of phase. It was an intense, strange, blue,
unrecognisable as any shade that he had ever seen. He had to screw his eyes up
to focus on it at all.
As the disc advanced slowly down the chamber, it occasionally stopped,
and for a moment its shape shifted. Projections, like fat round whips, would
dart out, as if sensing something in the air. Was it trying to find some odour
or, maybe, a taste? John rushed back to the book of scrolls and hid the Quiena
Scroll in a pocket inside his robe – it must be the scroll it was after – what
else would it be looking for? Well, it was either the scroll or him.
John ran down the wide root of the Zymena tree and tried to make for
the exit; the scroll in his cloak pocket clenched close to his chest. The blue
disc quivered, and glided towards him, its disc shape fluid and vague. He
paused, and calculated his chances of getting past it. Not good – it could move very fast, and was
flattening to fill the space between them. The disc hovered and pulsed – it was
entirely silent. Then, one fat projection curled out like a blue tendril from
the centre of the disc and felt its way towards John. He took a step back,
wondering what to do. There was a pause as the tentacle groped towards
him.
He dropped to his knees and scooped up a handful of dust. Taking a step
forward he threw it upwards over the disc. The dust sparked briefly, as the
disc pulsed, and then the dust dropped in a fine spray on to the floor beneath.
What was it trying to do? He squinted at it very carefully. There was
nothing that he could see properly – again he felt this this strange inability
to sense the disc. Was it out of phase? No, it didn’t look right for that.
Maybe it was made of something unlike ordinary matter? But if it was, how could
it interact with ordinary matter? And, how did it exist in this space at all?
John had an idea. He picked up a piece of blank parchment and rubbed it
against the scroll inside his cloak. Then he dropped it on the floor and took
several steps back. The blue disc rolled over the parchment and as it did the
paper erupted into flames. The blaze lasted less than a second and then nothing
was left. John let out a little gasp. That wasn’t good at all.
The disc moved closer and closer to him, hemming him in at the corner
of the chamber. He could sacrifice the
scroll, he supposed, but he really wasn’t ready to do that. After all, this all
certainly confirmed that it was something of extreme importance to someone;
important enough to expend huge magical capital to destroy it. There must be a way to disrupt this thing:
there was always a way.
John ducked rapidly back to the base of the tree, which was sustained
by shallow pools of water. He kneeled and slid his left hand under the water of
one of the pools. He twisted it three times and then whispered ‘dwymo’. Almost instantaneously the water
in the pool began to bubble and the room filled with steam. John blinked
through the translucent mist. The steam began to condense on the disc, forming
a thin film with every pulse. And beneath the film, and he could see it clearly
now, a sort of membrane around the blueness. Perhaps that was the only way that
he could see the disc, through the distorting optical effect of the outer
material surface. This was really clever, he had to admit, well beyond the
CRS’s usual capabilities. The pulsing was clearly the membrane being turned on
and off. Without it the disc was not just invisible but in a sense not really
there, moving through a parallel space which must, in some way, exist in
synchrony with this space. What he needed was something really big and heavy…
Most of the items in the vault were small and fragile, but in one
corner there stood the Murvale Ionadon, a large figurine found under the temple
complex in Murvale. It was exquisitely carved, and of unknown provenance and
properties. It was about three feet tall and made of carved enchanted wood. It
depicted a rotund, heavily bearded, merry-looking, god. Unfortunately for the world of magical
archaeology it was also about the same size as the disc. John just hoped that
it wasn’t too heavy to move.
He ran to the corner of the vault and grabbed the statue – it gave out
a small strange hum, a little like a bumblebee trapped in a bottle. He waited
for the disc to move as close to him as he dared and then, with some effort, he
lifted up the statue and waited a beat. At the moment that he saw the membrane
disappear, he dropped the statue straight onto the disc. The statue fell to the
ground at the pulse, with a mild thump, and then the disc re-appeared within
it. A kaleidoscopic ball of colours erupted from the centre of where the
figurine and the disc were now mixing. There was a huge roaring and then a
dislocation, played out very quietly, like the moment when you lift your head
out of the bath and the water streams out of your ears.
‘Pop’
John felt the universe shift
around him and he felt faintly sick. The membrane, which, for a split second,
had remained hanging in mid-space, unravelled instantly. For a second he saw,
in negative, the inside of a room, a table and a man leaning over a globe.
‘Kratos!’ he shouted out, knowing though that the Enemy was gone.
‘Bastard!’ he whispered under his breath and then just as a thought, but such a clever bastard.
Everything was now silent.
John caught his breath, briefly checked that there were no more discs,
and then ran rapidly to the entrance of vault, hoping that he could still get
out. As he approached it, however, his heart sank. Blue light, or something
somewhat like blue light, was seeping round the edges of the entrance. Not blue
light exactly, even, more like blue smoke. Through the smoke he could see that
the spider’s web of threads was tangled into a horrid knot.
He knew that he trapped. What was this? Was that the effect of the
disc, or the membrane, or the statue? He had no idea, but he knew who was
responsible. For the time being, however, he couldn’t imagine how he could get
out of the vault. And even if somehow he could get out, he had no idea where it
was he’d emerge or into what. He was nowhere.
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