Original Fiction The Many-Angled World (Mystic Albion III)

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Eighteen: Glasgow, Now



“This is …”



Norris shook his head in disbelief. He had never flown before and he’d never expected he’d ever have the chance to fly, and now he was riding through the sky in a carriage that could have come straight out of a Disney movie. He half-expected a fairy godmother to pop up and announce that yes, he would be going to the ball. He’d seen a lot of magic in the last few months and yet, there was something about the flying carriage that was difficult, if not impossible, for him to wrap his head around. It was just … too much.



He forced himself to stare through the window, even though cold logic told him the lack of any glass – or anything stronger – meant he should be buffeted by the slipstream, if he didn’t have his head torn off. Glasgow lay spread out below him, a drab grey city straddling a river that flowed down to the sea. It had once been a prime shipbuilding site, if he recalled correctly, but the great shipyards were now much reduced, leaving a city that was struggling – like so many others – to reinvent itself. Glasgow reminded him of York, and not in a good way. The core of the city was wealthy, warm and welcoming as long as the guest had money, but it was surrounded by poorer suburbs, populated by people who were one bad day away from finding themselves on the streets. It was hard to imagine the city could be regenerated, certainly without massive investment. And that was lacking in the modern age.



The carriage descended sharply, coming down to land near a massive crater. Norris sucked in his breath. He’d seen devastation on the telly – it had always struck him as massively unfair the media cared more about war in foreign lands than the deprived regions in the home country – but it was the first time he’d seen such destruction in person. The crater was huge, easily big enough to swallow St Champions … he wondered, suddenly, what had happened to the remnants of the school. Crushed under Gatehouse? Or lost somewhere in an interdimensional wasteland? It couldn’t happen to a nicer place.



He gritted his teeth as they landed, the door throwing itself open. The air stank of tainted magic, the stench billowing into his nostrils and poisoning his mind. It was hard, so hard, not to stumble back and run … but then, there was nowhere to go. The Merlin placed a hand on his shoulder, offering a little comfort, as Norris stumbled down to the ground. Up close, the crater looked more like a smoking volcano. The interior was steaming, so hazy that Norris only caught glimpses of what might be inside. They were so fearsome that he was glad he couldn’t see them clearly.



Sir Pellaeon stepped down beside him, his face grim. Norris glanced at the Knight, feeling a complicated mixture of emotions he didn’t want to look at too closely. Admiration and fear, awe and resentment … Norris wanted to become a Knight himself and yet he knew he could never make it, no matter how hard he worked. Sir Pellaeon was a true leader, a hero among men, a man so certain in himself he didn’t need to raise himself up by putting everyone else down. Norris had never believed in the alpha male concept, not least because those who did believe in it insisted he was a worthless gamma male, but just looking at Sir Pellaeon made him wonder if there really were such things as alpha males. The thought was oddly amusing. The bastards who had insisted they were alpha couldn’t hold a candle to Sir Pellaeon.



He forced himself to look at the Merlin. “What did they do?”



“Good question,” the Merlin said. “Shall we go find out?”



He turned and walked towards the edge of the housing estate. Norris followed, taking in the sheer devastation. It looked as if an entire block had been blown to rubble and the surrounding buildings scorched and pitted, even if they hadn’t been knocked down. A row of burnt-out wreckage lined the street … it took him a second to realise that the rubble had once been parked cars, ignited by the blast and left to burn themselves out. The police had set up barricades at the end of the street, blue lights flashing brightly as they blocked public access. Norris winced as he saw the cameras beyond, filming the scene. The media would get it wrong – as usual – and magicians would pay the price. All magicians.



“Say nothing,” the Merlin advised, as they neared the line. “Let us do the talking.”



Sir Pellaeon stepped forward and spoke to a police officer with a strong Scottish accent, who studied Norris thoughtfully before returning his attention to Sir Pellaeon. Norris wasn’t quite sure what to make of him – in his experience, the police were worse than useless – but he couldn’t help thinking the two men had quite a bit in common. Sir Pellaeon was a policeman, in a sense. The Knights were supposed to keep the peace …



“She’s being held in there,” the policeman said, finally. Norris guessed he was a high-ranking officer, although he had no idea how to read the badges on his uniform. “I have orders to keep her in custody until we know what happened.”



“Understood,” Sir Pellaeon said. “We have orders to provide assistance.”



Norris shivered as the wind shifted, blowing the stench of tainted magic over the lines. The world appeared to be shifting and changing, things flickering at the corner of his eye as they made their way to a sealed and heavily-guarded building. It felt almost fragile … the policeman on the door eyed the visitors, then stepped aside to allow them to enter. The air inside was warm, yet there was a cold edge that bothered him. The door led directly into what had once been a bedroom, he guessed. A young woman – her dark features suggested she was probably mixed-race – lay in the bed, staring at the television. The BBC announcer was babbling about strange lights being seen at Stonehenge and a drum beating remorselessly … it meant nothing to him.



Sir Pellaeon stepped up to the bed. “Young lady,” he said, calmly and firmly. “Janie. We need to discuss what happened. And why.”



The girl looked at them. Norris swallowed, hard. The girl was pretty, and exotic, and yet she was vulnerable in a way that made him feel guilty for looking at her. He could almost imagine her thoughts. Two weeks ago, two men in wizarding robes and a third wearing a suit of armour – although armour that looked weirdly liquid – would have been a joke. Now …



“You’re magic,” Janie said. She had a Scottish accent, although it was clearly tinged with something else. “Aren’t you?”



Norris nodded and looked for the remote, switching off the TV. He doubted either the Merlin or Sir Pellaeon would be able to figure out how to turn it off themselves, at least in a hurry. The girl sat upright, revealing that someone had dressed her in an ill-fitting nightgown that hid everything below her neck. Norris told himself he should be relieved. Janie had enough problems without him staring at her.



“Tell us what happened,” Sir Pellaeon said. “Please.”



“We found this ritual,” Janie said. Her eyes were wide with remembered horror. “If we took all the right steps, with the right spell components, we could get whatever we wanted. I wanted to speak to my mother, to ask her why she abandoned us … Jack wanted power.”



Norris felt himself stiffen. “Why …?”



Sir Pellaeon shot him a sharp look. Janie answered anyway.



“He was bullied at school, a loner and a loser … I was his only friend,” Janie said. “We were loners and losers together. And …”



Norris felt a hot flash of envy, mingled with bitter resentment. He hadn’t had any friends … and he’d been a loser. How much better would it have been, he asked himself, if he’d had a single friend? And a girl, at that! Perhaps he should have tried to befriend Janet … but then, that would have made her a target. The bitterness rose up within him once again … he hadn’t had any friends, because no one wanted to be close to him when the bullies came calling.



Janie kept talking, outlining the ritual. Norris felt his mood grow worse with every revelation. Janie had gotten naked for Jack … maybe it had been for a ritual, instead of the prelude to sex, but still … no one had ever done that for him. She’d been a good friend, a great friend … and look what had happened to her. Norris would have treated her better, he was sure, but instead …



“My mother told me to run,” Janie said. “And then Jack exploded with power and … it wasn’t him.”



“The ritual was booby-trapped,” Sir Pellaeon said, coldly. “Where did you find it?”



“The internet,” Janie said. “I … I thought we could make it work.”


“You used spells to break down the barrier between worlds, then asked for wishes that could be easily twisted or turned against you,” Sir Pellaeon said. “And you made your requests while in a frame of mind that could easily have led to complete disaster, even without malicious intent. Jack’s demand for power led to his entire soul being set on fire. He couldn’t control it and …”



Boom, Norris thought. It had been hard, almost impossible, to generate enough magic to kill Colin … and even then, he’d needed Norris2 to cast the fatal spell. If he’d tried that after the merge, with enough magic in the air to perform wonders and summon terrors, he’d have blown the entire school to hell. That could have happened to me.



“What you did was incredibly stupid,” Sir Pellaeon said. “Do you understand me?”


“Yes, sir,” Janie said. “I didn’t know …”



“Playing with magic is like playing with fire,” Norris said. “Except … sometimes you’re striking that match in a room full of gas, unaware you’re about to cause an explosion until it is too late.”



Janie looked down. “What … what now?”



“Good question,” Sir Pellaeon said. He was holding a small talisman in his hand. Norris guessed it was a lie detector, of sorts. There were legal rules surrounding the use of spells that compelled someone to talk, from what he’d heard, but using a talisman to confirm someone wasn’t intentionally lying was a very different matter. “Right now, we will be holding you until a final decision is reached.”



He paused. “I’m not technically sure if you’re under arrest – negotiations about jurisdiction and suchlike are going poorly, and you might escape being charged on a technicality – but I should inform you that anything you say will be extracted from my memory and might wind up being used against you.”



Janie gave him a dirty look. “Shouldn’t you have mentioned that earlier?”



Sir Pellaeon ignored her. “Furthermore, I would prefer not to compel you to accompany us, or shrink you so you can be carried in my pocket, but I will do so if you attempt to escape,” he added. “It will unleash another set of legal headaches, so please cooperate.”



“I’ll try,” Janie said. “Do I get a lawyer?”



The Merlin leaned forward. “If you were one of our children, raised in a society that discussed the dangers of such rituals from the moment you started formal education, there would be no question of your guilt. You would be lucky if you were spared a life sentence. Given that you lacked that sort of knowledge, the precise degree of guilt you hold will be difficult to determine. Your cooperation will work in your favour.”



Janie sagged. “We didn’t know …”



She forced herself to look up. “Was it really my mother?”



Sir Pellaeon cleared his throat, loudly. The Merlin shot him a sharp glance.



“It has been hotly debated over the years,” the Merlin said. “Spells to summon and speak with the dead have not always worked, and the dead themselves often appear to be very different than how they were in life. Some speak the truth, some lie, some have no interest in the affairs of the living. We do not know if the summoned shades wait until the last summoning is completed, before they go on to their just reward, or if they are plucked from Heaven or Hell to answer the call. We do not know …”



He looked compassionate, but firm. “What is important to us isn’t always what’s important to the dead. Like I said, they can be very different. It might have been your mother or it might have been something else, something wearing her face.”



Janie blinked, hard. “Is there any way to bring her back to life?”



“It doesn’t work,” the Merlin said, flatly. “I understand the urge – really I do – but attempting to raise the dead never goes well. The rituals often fail, or lead to dangerous magical surges, or simply create the walking dead. There are only two documented cases of a successful attempt to raise the dead, at a huge price, and both ended in suicide. You can no more raise the dead than you can let yourself be a child again. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained.”



Norris swallowed. He’d never thought to raise his mother from the grave … whatever had happened to her body. If he had … what would happen? Would she tell him she’d always been proud of him, or that she’d always hated him, or … would she have forgotten him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And his father … what had happened to the bastard? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know that either.



“I’m sorry,” the Merlin said. “But magic can’t do everything.”



Sir Pellaeon held out a hand. Janie took it and let him help her out of bed. Her body was unmarked, but her soul … Norris realised, in a way, that she’d made the same mistake as himself. She’d thought magic would change her life for the better, little realising it could be just as dangerous as everything else, perhaps more so. He wondered, numbly, why the Merlin had even insisted on bringing him with them … had it been to tap his knowledge, or to let him see how badly things could go wrong? Or … who knew?



The police officer was standing outside the house. “Their homes have already been searched and computer equipment seized,” he said. “The families insist they knew nothing of the planned ritual, but we’re taking them into protective custody anyway. It is only a matter of time before someone works out what happened and broadcasts the news far and wide, provoking revenge attacks. Really, we should be taking her too.”



“You don’t have the ability to hold her,” Sir Pellaeon pointed out. “We do.”



Norris frowned as a thought struck him. He nudged the Merlin, who drew him back and cast a privacy ward.



“They took the computers,” he said. If Janie had been telling the truth about where they’d found the ritual, their computers would have copies. “If they have the ritual …”



The Merlin looked puzzled. Norris sighed. The Merlin hadn’t heard of a computer until six months ago, if Richard and Janet had told him about them, and he certainly hadn’t used one until the two worlds had merged. It was quite possible he didn’t understand the internet, or the cloud, or how a computer actually worked … Norris had seen filmmakers show bad guys shooting computer monitors, as if that were enough to erase their memory beyond hope of recovery. The Merlin knew even less than the filmmakers …



“The police could recover the data and use the ritual themselves,” Norris warned. The temptation to recall dead men and ask who killed them would be overwhelming, perhaps irresistible. “Or they could do something worse.”



“We’ll warn them,” the Merlin said. “But taking the data might prove impossible.”



He spoke briefly to Sir Pellaeon, who spoke briefly to the officer as Norris tried not to look at Janie. The girl looked shy, shy and afraid … he wanted to tell her it was going to be alright, but he knew better. He’d killed someone, and then spied on someone else, and … he shook his head as the Merlin and Sir Pellaeon led them back to the carriage. The crater didn’t look any better. It was still smouldering like a volcano that might be on the verge of erupting again.



“You’re to stay at Gatehouse,” Sir Pellaeon said, once the carriage was back in the air. “You are not to leave the school without special permission, which will not be forthcoming until we have a clear idea of just where the legal lines will be drawn, and you are to make yourself available to anyone who wishes to question you further. Beyond that, you are welcome to join the new classes and study magic properly.”



Janie shuddered. “And if I don’t want anything further to do with magic?”



“You can stay in your room, if you like,” Sir Pellaeon said. “That said, if you do attempt to leave we will be forced to resort to more stringent methods to keep you in place.”



Norris leaned forward. “I’ll take care of you,” he said, softly. “And I’ll show you around.”



“I …” Janie looked up. Her voice was strange, a mixture of pleading and bitterness that reminded Norris of himself. “How many people did I kill?”



“We don’t know,” Sir Pellaeon said. His tone was flat, too flat. “We may never know. But did you intend to kill them?”



Janie shook her head, bitterly.



“Good,” Sir Pellaeon told her. “Keep that in mind.”

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Nineteen: York, England, Now



“They refused to hand Mr Nicolson over,” Inspector Javier reported. His tone was cold, angry. “Apparently, seriously injuring – and nearly killing – four teenagers is a very minor matter.”



Polly kept her face under tight control. She had enough experience to know that the refusal to surrender Norris Nicolson wasn’t the true cause of the inspector’s unhappiness, even though it made a suitable excuse. The man was an authoritarian, who believed his uniform gave him the right to boss everyone around; he was wholly incapable of tolerating, let alone accepting, any challenge to his authority. The idea of being balked by a mere school headmaster was intolerable, although said headmaster was not only extremely well connected in his own right, but had the power to turn an imprudent inspector into a toad. The wretched man was lucky he had friends in high places, who understood his weaknesses well enough to ride herd on him. Polly suspected it was just a matter of time before Inspector Javier caused a major diplomatic incident.



“It is unfortunate that those blessed with magic are completely incapable of appreciating the mindset of those who lack it,” Cecil Burghley said, smoothly. Polly suspected her boss hadn’t expected the inspector’s visit to produce anything, although he certainly hadn’t said that to Inspector Javier! “Mr Nicolson will be dealt with in due time.”



“It isn’t their job to determine what is right and wrong, let alone legal or illegal,” Inspector Javier fumed. “Sir, with the greatest of respect …”



“You did a fine job, Inspector,” Cecil Burghley told him. “We will continue to monitor the situation. Thank you for your time.”



Inspector Javier visibly hesitated. “They also took the little bitch from Glasgow into custody,” he continued. “If they excuse her too …”



“It will be handled,” Cecil Burghley said. His voice was suddenly very cold. “We shall speak later.”



Polly stood before the inspector could continue the argument. “Sir, it’s time for your 12 o’clock appointment.”



“Very good.” Cecil Burghley met the inspector’s eyes. “We shall speak later.”



Inspector Javier stood and managed a nod, before turning and leaving the room. Polly was mildly surprised he didn’t slam the door. The inspector was not used to any sort of dissent, let alone being dismissed in a manner more fitting to a serving maid than a police inspector. Polly wondered, not for the first time, just how many of the allegations of police brutality, directed at Inspector Javier’s old unit, were actually true. The inspector was not the sort of man to betray his subordinates, as he would see it, at the behest of a gang of whinging libbers who knew nothing about real police work. He was lucky the unit had merely been broken up, Polly reflected, because he was still useful. The day he wasn't would be the day his sins caught up with him.



And Norris deserves a chance at a better life, Polly thought. Norris had been a typical young man in many ways – she’d caught him staring at her from time to time, his conflicted feelings nowhere near as well hidden as he’d thought – but he wasn’t a bad person. They’d used him and then … Polly wasn’t sure what had happened, in the moments before the merge, yet he had clearly freed himself. He didn’t need to be punished for putting some thugs in their place.



Cecil Burghley didn’t move for a long second, his eyes oddly unfocused, before he stood and made his way to the inner door. Polly smoothed down her skirt and followed him, all too aware she would have been dismissed if her boss didn’t want her with him. Her eyes narrowed as she stepped through the door, and then walked through the servant corridor that led down to the training hall. It was hard to shake the feeling there was something wrong with her boss, no matter how normal he seemed most of the time. Perhaps it was the sheer weight of responsibility. The Prime Minister had given Cecil Burghley vast power and authority, but if something went badly wrong he’d also get the blame. And who knew what would happen then?



The lower door opened, revealing a chamber that had once been a dining hall before being converted into a training centre. A small crowd of men, clearly soldiers or police even though they’d been told to wear civilian garb and travel separately, waited for him, their eyes calm and intensely focused. The Brotherhood had tagged them long ago as possessing a little magical talent, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort of recruiting and training them. Polly understood the logic – there was a certain risk in trying to recruit men who might reject the whole idea of the Brotherhood, if they didn’t mistake it for a particularly strange test of their common sense – yet in hindsight it had been a mistake. The Brotherhood’s army had been destroyed – somehow – when it needed it the most. And now they had to depend on raw recruits …



She stepped to the side and noted, approvingly, that the men kept their eyes on Cecil Burghley. They were fit and handsome, by and large, and even the ones who looked rough – even ugly – had a kind of confidence and charisma that suggested they’d never lack for feminine company. None were married, she reminded herself. The vetting process had specifically excluded men who were married, or had very close family ties. She wasn’t sure why.



“I’ll come right to the point,” Cecil Burghley said. He spoke quietly, but a combination of magic and training sent his voice echoing across the room. “You all know what’s happened. You all know the risk magic poses to our country, magic in the hands of rogue magicians as well as supernatural entities that are both extremely dangerous and almost impossible to defeat. You know that some of our cities have merged with their cities, and some of the countryside has become near-impassable. The news is, if anything, understating the case.”



Polly nodded to herself. Magic on the streets of London … and five other cities. Magical estates, appearing out of nowhere … magical establishments, defended by magicians and their familiars. It was possible to have a laugh at the council officials who had made their officious way onto an estate, only to be turned into pigs and sent running back out again, but … it was what it represented that bothered the government. And that was just the magicians … too many people had gone missing, in the last few weeks, for anyone to sit comfortably and wait for the world to settle down. The news was a constant liturgy of horrors, from the little child who had been carried away by tiny fairies to the older teens who had run into something that had turned them into stone. There was no way to avoid the simple fact there were now large swathes of the country where the government’s rules no longer applied …



… And if something wasn’t done quickly, it was going to get worse.



“Magic has always been with us, but the last major eruption was during the Second World War,” Cecil Burghley continued. “That was on a far smaller scale than this” – he waved a hand in the general direction of Gatehouse – “and didn’t involve magicians from a whole world of magic. The Nazi Warlocks might have been amongst the most evil men in history, but they had the same limitations as ourselves. They had to work hard to develop and shape their power and channelling the energy of a mass blood sacrifice – the Holocaust – was beyond them. The newcomers are different. They are steeped in magic, to the point some are as powerful as minor gods. Do any of you feel this is likely to end well?”



Polly waited, but no one spoke. The military and police officers she knew were often ruthlessly practical people, not given to dreaming or foolish notions. They had no faith in the rule of law, or the rules of war, when those rules could not be enforced. There were no shortage of laws banning all sorts of illegal acts, most thoroughly deserving to be considered illegal, but it was a great deal harder to put them into practice. And once people got into the habit of defying them …



“You were selected because you have a talent for magic,” Cecil Burghley said, smoothly. “That talent remained undeveloped. It was our belief that the last traces of magic were slipping out of the world, and that there was no point in training you when your training might be worse than useless, for everyone involved. In that, we were wrong. The country needs men who can serve as both a magical army and a police force, one that can take on all kinds of magical threats.



“I won’t lie to you. You will be required to take a blood oath, one far harsher than anything else you might have taken, and you will be giving up much of your freedom. You will be required to obey orders that will seem strange, absurd, bizarre, perhaps even borderline illegal … without question. There will also be a great deal of danger, danger that is very hard to quantify. You might wind up spending the rest of your lives as frogs” – Polly noted there were uneasy glances, rather than the laughs she’d expected – “or worse. If you join up, I can promise you adventure, but I can’t guarantee your safety … or even that whoever, whatever, who injures or kills you will face justice.”



There was a long cold pause. “If you are willing to sign up, please remain in this chamber. If not, you may leave though the side doors and make your way to the bus. The driver will take you to the train station, where you can return to your units. It will not be held against you if you refuse to join, and your commanding officers will be informed that you were found unsuitable through no fault of your own. You have five minutes to decide.”



Polly sucked in her breath, watching the men consider the issue. Some debated with their friends and comrades, others seemed alone … she noted, grimly, that the latter seemed more inclined to leave the hall. It was one thing to back out if you were on your own, but quite another to do it when your friends were watching. Five men left … six …



“This is your last chance,” Cecil Burghley told them. “Once you stay, you are committed.”



The pause lasted a minute. It felt like hours.



“Very good.” Cecil Burghley gestured at the door. They closed with a thump. He made another gesture and a stone altar appeared at the front of the room, covered with silver daggers. The gathered men stared, their eyes darting from the altar to their new commander and back again. Some had doubted, even after seeing all the evidence. They didn’t doubt now. “Undress.”



Polly felt torn between embarrassment and confusion as the men started to undress, some more reluctant than others. She wasn’t even sure why she was still in the room … had Cecil Burghley forgotten she was there, or was her presence intended to test the men, to see how quickly they’d disrobe under a woman’s eyes? She felt a flicker of warmth as she tried to look at the naked men without making it obvious. She’d never been attracted to men with muscles on their muscles – she’d always thought such muscles masked a certain kind of insecurity – and she was pleasantly surprised to note the soldiers looked strong and wiry, rather than beefy enough to make Rambo look a wimp. Some were clearly embarrassed, unwilling to even look in her direction; others were standing tall, their arms resting by their side as if they had nothing to hide. Polly tried to keep her eyes to herself. She’d been stared at herself, time and time again, and it felt odd to be on the other side. But then, if there was even a lone man in the room who couldn’t best her in a fight, he was clearly in the wrong line of work.



Cecil Burghley spoke into the silence. “Take a dagger,” he ordered, indicating the waiting blades. “Hold them above your palm. All of you – the oath will turn very dangerous if you are not all carrying a blade.”



The men moved forward, almost as if they were in a trace. Polly watched as they took a dagger each, feeling … something … tickling at the back of her mind. The air was changing, in a manner she felt hard to put into words. It felt as if something was about to happen … the tingle grew worse, a shiver running down her spine … she felt naked, the sensation so strong she looked down to check she was still wearing her clothes. She was, and yet she felt almost as if she wasn’t.



“When I say the word, cut your palm and let the blood drip onto the floor,” Cecil Burghley commanded. His voice was stronger now, almost hypnotic. “Prepare yourselves.”



He stepped up to the altar, rested his hands on the stone, and started to chant in the old tongue. The very old tongue. Polly had been taught a little of the language, and its history, when she’d initiated, but she knew she could barely speak a single word without her tongue feeling as if someone was trying to twist it out of her mouth. Her tutors had noted that the old tongue was the root of Latin, Old Norse, Sanskrit and so many others, had asserted it was practically the original language of humanity itself, the one lost when God destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered the would-be builders across the globe. Polly hadn’t been sure she believed that, although she’d seen enough to wonder if there was some truth behind the myth. Far too many of the old stories were metaphors, intended to try to convey their meaning in a manner the listener would understand. And …



The chanting grew louder. Polly felt her hands creep up to her ears and cover them, almost against her will. It didn’t work. The words were echoing now, echoing through reality itself. The sense of nakedness was growing stronger, as if something was peering down at her from a very far distance … the world seemed to fragment around her, angles everywhere …



Cecil Burghley spoke a single word. “Cut.”



The world heaved. Polly staggered, feeling as if someone had struck her a mighty blow. She wasn’t even sure what had been struck … she nearly lost her footing as she looked up, just in time to see something shimmering through the room. Her mind refused to accept what she was seeing … the world spun, the floor came up and hit her. She thought she blanked out, just for a second, as the booming noise echoed through the room, through the world itself ..



The next thing she knew, a naked man was helping her to her feet.



“Welcome, all of you,” Cecil Burghley said. Polly looked at him and blinked. He looked wrong … she shook her head a moment later, the dull headache pounding behind her skull. “You are all welcome here.”



Polly felt … weirdly disconnected from the world, as if the whole experience was a strange nightmare. A naked man was holding her and … he was just holding her. It felt wrong, very wrong … she wasn’t sure what was wrong, but she was sure it was. Her legs felt wobbly as she pulled herself free, the man making no move to hold her or to push her away. If she hadn’t known better, she would have wondered if he was a man at all.



“Go to your stations,” Cecil Burghley ordered. “When the time comes, we must move fast.”



He looked at Polly as the men filed out of the room. Polly found it hard to even look at the men. It wasn’t the shame of being caught staring, but something else … something that bothered her. The men moved like robots … biological robots. It was hard to wrap her tired brain around what she was seeing. She could almost believe she was dreaming.



“They are magnificent,” Cecil Burghley said. In her tired state, his face looked wrong … “Are they not?”



Polly staggered, and blinked. He looked normal again. “What … what did you do to them?”



“I gave them what they needed, and what they wanted to be,” Cecil Burghley told her. There was a hint of amusement in his tone, as if he were quietly laughing at her. “And now, all we have to do is wait.”



He paused. “Oh, and contact Mam’zelle. I dare say we will need her services soon enough.”



Polly blinked. Mam’zelle was a high-class procurer, a pimp by any other name. Polly knew, through the grapevine, that she specialised in finding young girls for the high and mighty, then taking care of them after the deed had been done. It said much that her name was unknown outside her customers, who had enough influence to ensure that any police or media investigations were quietly cancelled. It had been one of Cecil Burghley’s better aspects that he’d never made use of her. Polly had wondered if he’d find a girl for Norris …



“Yes, sir,” she managed. “I’ll inform her.”



“And then prepare a full report on the coming festival in Edinburgh,” Cecil Burghley added, almost as an afterthought. “I think we will need to get involved.”



Polly nodded, although she didn’t understand. The festival seemed unimportant, compared to the desperate need to keep the magic from tearing the rest of the world apart. But she was sure her boss knew what he was doing. It was rare, almost unknown, for him to make a false move.



“Yes, sir.”

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Twenty: York, Now



Helen sat on the broomstick and floated high over York.



She knew she shouldn’t be flying so high, certainly not now. The skies over Britain were teeming with aircraft, from tiny little propeller planes and helicopters to jumbo jets that were larger than anything she’d ever imagined, before she’d found herself in a whole new – or, rather, a very old – world. The risk of a midair collision was small, but she had no idea what would happen if the broomstick – and the magic surrounding it – crashed into a jet aircraft and no one wanted to find out the hard way. And yet, flying was always a way to be alone for a few short hours, to be alone with no one standing between her and her thoughts.



Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at York, the city illuminated by a thousand lights that parted the darkness and filled the night sky with light pollution. There was something almost fantastical about the sight, as if the mundane city was just as wonderful as its magical counterpart from such a distance. The dark hid the scars, hid the drab grey buildings and the ruined streets and the piles of litter, growing ever worse as the rubbish men threatened to strike over encounters with supernatural vermin. It was hard not to look at the city in broad daylight and know its creators to be morally unsounded, inheritors of a fantastic tradition who seemed intent on tearing it down. The sheer splendour of York Cathedral – a building that reminded her of Gatehouse, and in fact predated the school – contrasted oddly with the dour apartment blocks, or the cookie-cutter homes on the estate. There was no soul to those buildings, nothing to stir the heart; she supposed, deep inside, that that explained the blight pervading mundane society. How could you reach for the stars, when you were surrounded by a sense there was nowhere to do and no point in struggling? In hindsight, it was astonishing Steve had been trying to climb out of the hole well before he’d met the three magical intruders. Everything was weighed against him, trying to keep him on the estate until the day he died.



And Janet would not have gotten anywhere if we hadn’t given her hope, she thought, tiredly. She would have been lost, never knowing what she could have become.



She scowled, feeling a twinge of unease washing over her. Things were going well, or at least as well as could be expected. The magical education project was going ahead, cautioning new students of the dangers of exploring whole new realms, and now the shock of the merge had worn off the two societies were actually starting to work together. Her family’s interests were doing well – the Burghley Family had always specialised in magical healing and the mundane world needed it desperately – and they weren’t the only ones. Nearly every magician had a chance to earn money from the mundane world, and most were taking advantage of it. The country appeared to be settling down …



… But she still felt uneasy.



Her heart hardened as her eyes swept over the city. Her relative was still out there. Helen wanted to believe he was dead, yet it was impossible to convince herself. There was no hint of the rogue magicians, no suggestion they still existed … she knew they were out there somewhere, up to something, but where? It wasn’t in their blood to simply give up and go away. Helen refused to believe the blood had worn so thin, since the two branches of the family had been separated. Cecil Burghley might be an enemy, who had plotted the invasion of Mystic Albion, but he was still a Burghley, with all the family’s virtues and vices. The sheer pigheaded refusal to admit defeat, Helen was sure, would be part of him as much as it was part of her. So too, she admitted sourly, was a reluctance to admit she could be wrong.



You’re out there, somewhere, she thought, staring at the lights – and the darkness beyond. What are you doing?



The sense of unease refused to fade, even as she kicked the broomstick into motion and flew over the city. She could feel something was wrong, a feeling – she suspected – that wouldn’t be taken seriously by many others. Helen knew to trust her instincts, but … she also knew they’d misled her from time to time. She had been wrong about Richard, wrong about Janet, wrong about … she shook her head, feeling as if someone had walked over her grave. It was just wrong, but … she had the uneasy sense the world was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.



Two worlds smashed together, she reminded herself, as Gatehouse came into view. The school was surrounded, as always, by powerful currents of magic. It would be more surprising if something didn’t happen.



Her skirts rustled as she flew through the currents, the broomstick quivering unnaturally between her legs. Her lips twisted sourly. The jokes from the mundane world about that had been about as funny as a punch in the face, and part of her wanted to hunt down the unfunny comedian who’d made them for the first time and show her what made her laugh. Perhaps it was just his way of dealing with the chaos sweeping over the world, the sudden lack of certainty about anything. Helen supposed she could understand that, even though she didn’t want to. Her life had been plotted out in minute detail before she’d been a year old, but now … she had no idea what was going to happen next. No one did. The world was a very different place now.



She landed neatly on the perch, brushing her hair back as she dismounted and walked through the door. The broomstick store was normally empty at this time, but there was a young blonde girl sorting through the brooms and making sure they were either in place or signed out to someone qualified to ride them. Helen’s lips quirked in annoyance. There had been a time when the brooms had been free for anyone to take, but that had been before new students had arrived who hadn’t even known they could fly on broomsticks a few months ago. Helen had been taught when she’d been a little girl … it still astonished her, even now, that there were mundane students who thought they didn’t need lessons before mounting a broom. The first idiot who’d tried had been lucky he’d only broken his leg.



“Thank you,” the girl said. She sounded irked by the job. Helen couldn’t tell if she was annoyed at having to do the work, if it was some kind of punishment, or if she was annoyed for other reasons. “Did you have a good flight?”



“It’s better to fly at night, these days,” Helen said. OldeWorld still had some spectacular landscapes, but most of the island was thoroughly urbanised. It puzzled her that they somehow managed to have both a surfeit of homes and a housing shortage. “The views are better.”



The young woman smiled, then frowned. “You’re Helen of Burghley, right?”



Helen blinked. She had been popular at school – or at least she’d thought she was, which wasn’t always the same thing – and everyone, from the junior students to the seniors, had known her name and face. She’d been surrounded by students who’d wanted to be her friend, none of whom would have stayed with her if she was disowned or her family took a tumble into the abyss of history … she wondered, in hindsight, just how much of her anger and resentment towards Brains and Richard had stemmed from the two boys being genuine friends. Being a Burghley was great, but the name brought troubles as well as privileges …



… And this girl didn’t know her? That was odd.



“I am,” Helen confirmed. The girl didn’t look like one of the new mundane students – and a mundane student wouldn’t have been trusted to take care of the brooms either. “And you are …?”



“Marian,” the girl said. She offered no family name, indicating she was a commoner or someone who intended to make it – or not – on her own merits. Helen studied her for a long moment and guessed the former. Marian didn’t hold herself like an aristocrat. “What was it like, out there?”



Helen hesitated. “Different,” she said, finally. “It’s a very different world.”



“I’ve been asked to join the outreach classes,” Marian said. “You know, the ones that send students to mundane schools to tell them about magic …?”



“Yes.” Helen had been asked to join herself, and she’d politely declined. She’d seen enough of mundane schools to last her a lifetime. Steve had agreed to become involved … she felt a flicker of irritation, even though neither she nor her mother could fault Steve’s dedication to duty. “Are you going to go …?”



“I don’t know,” Marian said. “What do I have to teach them?”



Helen considered it. Marian had to be new. If she’d been at the school six months ago, she would certainly have known Helen by sight. Someone would have pointed Helen out to Marian, perhaps in the dining hall or the playing field, if only to make sure Marian knew all the movers and shakers before she graduated. Or accidentally offended someone who would blight her entire career … it wasn’t supposed to happen, but everyone knew it did.



“I don’t know,” she admitted. She was an aristocrat and Marian … she might be a merchant’s daughter, which was far from impossible, but nearly every other occupation didn’t have a good counterpart in OldeWorld. Farmers, craftsmen, magicians … there weren’t many of them. The apprenticeships that were so much a part of Mystic Albion rarely existed in OldeWorld. “But even a very new student can give the basic lecture and demonstrate basic spells.”



“I suppose,” Marian said. “But I have been asked to work with Norris too.”



Helen frowned. “Norris?”



“He was the spy,” Marian said. “And he had something in his brain. And he hexed me.”



Helen winced. She vaguely recalled Norris from St Champions, but … he hadn’t made an impression. She’d known Cecil Burghley had sent a spy into Mystic Albion … Norris? She kicked herself, mentally, for not following up on it. If she hadn’t been so busy with the merge, and then introducing Steve to her family …



“He wasn’t quite operating of his own will,” Marian said. “But … I don’t know how much of what he did was of his own volition.”



Helen heard a hint of an accent in Marian’s voice and frowned, inwardly. Was Marian’s father a family client? It was very far from impossible. It would certainly explain why Marian was asking her, instead of someone she knew better. And … the relationship between patron and client – and their families – had been laid down for hundreds of years. If the client needed help, the patron was supposed to offer it.



She took a breath. “From a legal point of view,” she said, “if Norris was under a compulsion spell he cannot be held responsible for his actions. A geas might be a little more iffy, depending on the exact nature of the spell. He might have agreed to have the spell cast on him, knowing what he’d be ordered to do, or whoever cast the spell might have taken advantage of his sudden vulnerability to alter the deal. If he was not, then yes … he could be held accountable for whatever he did. Perhaps. There are ways to twist someone’s mind to the point where they think up is down and right is wrong, making it impossible to offer anything resembling informed consent to anything.”



The words hung in the air. “I don’t know precisely what happened, or what he was thinking at the time, but the Merlin would have dealt with Norris if he could be considered legally responsible for his actions. If he isn’t …”



Marian snorted. “He’s walking around freely …”



“Noted.” Helen tried to hide her irritation at being interrupted. “Regardless, you have every right to refuse to work with him, or even to give him the time of day, if you wish. If you don’t want to go with him” – and she had no idea why someone had even thought it was a good idea – “you can say so. I don’t believe anyone will force you, and if they try you can make a formal complaint. This isn’t the mundane world. You don’t have to put up with him if you don’t want to.”



“Thanks,” Marian said, dryly. “Is it wrong of me to be angry?”



“No.” Helen was sure of that. “Your feelings are valid. What you do because of your feelings is a little more iffy.”



She turned away before Marian could ask another question, walking down the long stairwell to the dorms. It had been easy to hear the hurt and betrayal in Marian’s voice, the grim awareness that Norris wouldn’t have managed to hurt her so effectively if she hadn’t already cared for him … Helen felt a twinge of contempt, mingled with envy. It was so much easier to have one’s relationships sorted out coldly and logically, and to sit down and discuss the matter like grown adults, but at the same time … she had to admit there was a certain thrill to reading stories of forbidden love. She supposed that was yet another difference between the two worlds. OldeWorld thought a couple defying their parents was romantic, and that their love would bind them together even as romance gave way to reality, but Mystic Albion disagreed. Stories in which a young girl ran off with a peddler, or a young nobleman married a scullery maid, always ended badly.



And you are planning to marry Steve, she reminded herself, dryly. What is the difference?



She opened the door to her suite and stepped through, trying not to yawn until the door was firmly closed behind her. There was a pile of letters on her desk, including a handful written on mundane stationary. She eyed them warily – the school’s wards should have caught anything dangerous, but it was hard to be sure when some of the threats weren’t magical – and then pushed them aside. She’d open them tomorrow, after she’d slept. She had no idea when normal classes would resume, or even if they would, but …



There was a handful of knocks on the door, beating out a familiar pattern. Helen muttered a spell, feeling the power flickering through her to open the door. It was so good to have magic once again … she felt as if she’d been half-dead, ever since they’d fallen through the gate, until the worlds had started to merge together. And now … she smiled, openly, as Steve stepped into the room. He wore a simple set of robes, but she had to admit they suited him.



“Helen,” Steve said. “How did it go with your family?”



Helen recalled her earlier thoughts and flushed. “I wish I could trust someone else to handle the legal work,” she said. She did have a reasonably decent legal education – it was very common in aristocratic circles – but one truth held by both worlds was that the lawyer who represented herself had a fool for a client. She made a mental note to remind everyone that OldeWorld’s legal system was absurdly complicated, and what she’d thought was a complete legal education – and was, in her world – was nothing of the sort. “It’s a tricky task.”



“We could just elope,” Steve pointed out.



“Bad idea,” Helen said. Quite apart from all the stories suggesting it was a bad idea, common sense mandated against it. “We have to settle everything first, before we tie the knot, or it will come back to haunt us.”



Steve grinned and took a seat. “You really want to get married so quickly?”



“It’s fairly common,” Helen said. She didn’t know why OldeWorld seemed to think a woman’s career should come before childrearing. The older the mother, the harder it was to have children. “Have children early. Raise them. Go back to your career when the children are old enough to take care of themselves.”



“Your society is very different,” Steve said. “And the lessons are going … iffy.”



He paused. “But we have leant more about how magic and mundane tech can be blended together,” he added. “Brains and I have come up with a concept for casting spells without a magician.”



“That’s going to be fun,” Helen said. She hadn’t heard of a single person in Mystic Albion who didn’t have at least some magical potential, but vast numbers of people in OldeWorld could no more cast a proper spell than they could jump to the moon. It wouldn’t be long before hatred and resentment started to overwhelm them, leading to … to what? Helen doubted it would be pleasant for either side. “How much do the rogue magicians already know?”



“We don’t know,” Steve admitted. He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. “They’ve had centuries to figure out how to cast very low power spells, and decades to work out what they can do with computer modelling and spellcasting. They could be light-years ahead of us.”



Helen nodded. There were some spells that were theoretically possible, but practically impossible because they required a degree of precision no human magician could meet. A computer … could it do the spell? No one knew, but if a computer could be programmed to cast a series of tiny spells that worked together … it would change the world. Both worlds.



She shivered. She was in her bedroom, in the safest place in the known world … and yet, deep inside, she still felt uneasy. Something was about to happen.



She could feel it in her bones.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Twenty-One: Gatehouse, York, Now.



“This is the dining hall,” Norris said, as he showed Janie into the giant chamber. “I think you will find the food is actually edible, unlike the slop they used to serve back home.”



Janie didn’t smile. She’d spent the last day answering questions from countless people, from the school staff to police and government security officers who’d been allowed into Gatehouse for a few hours, and then gone to bed early. Norris had woken her in the morning with breakfast, then started to show her around the school. It would have been easier, he supposed, if the magical students hadn’t been giving him the cold shoulder. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the mundane newcomers … they would take one look at him, he was sure, and put him firmly back in his place. It would be like he’d never gone anywhere at all.



Norris shot Janie a sidelong look. It was hard to be sure – he’d never been the most empathic of people – but she looked depressed, perhaps grieving. Norris had no idea what it was like to have a proper friend, and it was hard not to feel a tidal wave of envy for the now-dead Jack, yet … he supposed that losing Jack had to be painful. The fact she’d played a role in his death, and the deaths of several others, couldn’t have helped. Norris didn’t feel any guilt over Colin’s death, but Colin had been Colin, the resident bullying arsehole who made normal bullying arseholes look decent by comparison. Norris would have danced on his grave, if he’d had a chance, and besides … it had been Norris2 who’d killed him. Janie had helped to kill her best friend, and – perhaps – a few innocents. She could hardly be blamed for feeling guilty.



He picked up a tray and led her to the counter, where he picked up slices of roast chicken, roast potatoes, and a selection of vegetables that were actually cooked properly. It still staggered him to realise that one could cook a decent meal for an entire school, rather than feeding kids meals that had been rejected by the local jail, when they didn’t look suspiciously like cardboard covered with brown water. Janie followed him like a duckling following her mother, keeping her eyes lowered as they made their way to the drinks counter – no coloured water here – and then a table at the far side of the room. Norris felt weirdly protective as she sat down, eyes following their every move. He deserved their suspicion. Janie did not.



“They don’t seem to like you,” Janie observed, quietly. “Why?”



Norris made a face. “You’re not the only one to make a dangerous mistake,” he said, a statement that was technically true even though it was a little misleading. “And my mistake was a great deal worse, because I went into it with my eyes opened wide.”



Janie eyed him for a moment, then started to pick at her lunch. Norris studied her for a moment, feeling conflicted. Janie was pretty, in an exotic way, and yet she was almost childlike in a manner that bothered him, even though he knew they were the same age. A flash of the old envy swept through him – girls whined they had it harder than boys, but his lived experience told him otherwise – before he could banish it. Janie had fucked her life as surely as Norris had fucked his, and no matter what happened to her – legally – she’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. Norris had heard about spells that allowed someone to wipe their memories, but they were apparently considered dark magic. And yet, the idea of forgetting his crimes was very tempting …



You’d probably forget why you shouldn’t commit them and commit them again, he thought, rather waspishly. It would be one hell of a cycle. Crime. Forget. Crime again.



He shook his head and delved into his food. He’d never been a big eater back home – his mother had been an indifferent cook and the school cook had been worse – but the food here was great, cooked to perfection. It was hard to imagine anyone here complaining about the food, although there was a certain sameness he supposed might come to bother him after a while. The menu was all British, very old British. There was no pizza, no curry, no burgers … not even anything from France or Ireland.



His lips twisted in dark amusement. What was the old joke? Two Englishmen go on holiday to Spain. One turns to his mate and complains he can’t stand fancy foreign muck … give me a pizza or a curry any day.



Janie looked up. “What do we do now?”



“We eat, then we see the rest of the school,” Norris said. He had been tapped to join the outreach program, but he had no idea if that was still happening. The Merlin had hurried off, the moment they’d returned to the school, and no one else had been around to ask. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”



“And then what?” Janie asked. “It’s just …”



Norris shrugged. He didn’t know. Janie had been ordered to stay inside and … he wasn’t sure if that order applied to him. On one hand, he had been allowed to go visit his family home; on the other, that had been before the police had tried to arrest him for defending himself. He had no idea what would happen if he tried to leave.



“We take each day as it comes,” he said. “And deal with our fate when it arrives.”



He paused as he felt the magic shift, an instant before Marian stepped into the dining hall and headed straight for him. His heart skipped a beat. Marian was incredibly pretty, all the more so because there was absolutely nothing fake about her, and … she hated him now. He had wanted to hang around outside her room and beg on bended knee for her forgiveness, but why should she? If he had been treated in such a manner, he would have refused to forgive the person no matter how much she begged or pleased.



“Norris,” Marian said. The way she said it made the word sound like an insult. “We need to talk.”



Norris hesitated, torn between relief and fear. Marian wasn’t that dangerous, compared to Lucy or Helen or even Richard, but … he was deluding himself. No one would take his side, if they came to blows … he snorted in disgust. There were few girls on OldeWorld who could fight the average boy and win – a real boy, not a wimp like him – but here … magic levelled the playing field. A girl could tie him in knots, literally. Or worse.



“I need to get Janie back to her room first,” he said. He briefly considered going for dissert … no. They needed to have that talk and the sooner the better. “Do you want to come with us?”



Marian studied Janie for a long moment, then shrugged. Norris had no idea what she was thinking. There hadn’t been many magicians, back in the days of Elizabeth Tudor, who had been anything but white. Not in Britain, at least. He wasn’t sure how much of them had gone through the gates, before they closed, but there couldn’t have been more than a handful. Janie looked exotic and Marian might be jealous … he shook his head, telling himself he was being silly. The idea of two girls fighting over him was about as absurd as the Death Star.



“Sure,” she said. “Shall we go?”



Janie stood. Norris stood too, careful to pick up the tray and return it. The staff here didn’t deserve to have to clean up the mess … and, besides, not returning a tray could lead to a demerit. Norris wasn’t sure what would happen if he got too many demerits, but he didn’t want to find out. He was in quite enough trouble already.



“I may want to talk to you later,” Marian said, to Janie. “You’re from OldeWorld, right?”



“Yeah.” Janie sounded tired, although it was only lunchtime. “I used to be.”



Norris’s mouth was dry as they made their way to Janie’s room and dropped her off, then stepped into a nearby study room. He had no idea what to say. A dozen arguments ran through his mind, all great speeches he knew he could no more say than he could snap his fingers and make sure nothing he’d done had ever happened. He wished he could go back in time and befriend Richard and Brains, instead of only picking up magic too late to join them, and then accompany them when they left the old world for the new. It wasn’t going to happen. Time travel didn’t, he’d been told. It was simply impossible.



Marian said nothing too, perched on a desk that seemed a mite too small for her. Norris wanted to reach for her and take her in his arms …he bit his lip hard, quashing that desire before it could burn him. Colin had been able to do it, but everyone had been scared of him. Norris had no doubt that half the sexual conquests he bragged about had involved at least some degree of coercion and the other half had never happened at all, certainly not outside his own mind. And yet … he bit his lip again, telling himself not to dwell in the past. Colin was dead. Norris had fucked up his life, post-Colin, without any help from him at all.



“I …”



Marian swallowed and started again. “I am mad at you,” she said, holding up a hand. “I know your mind was damaged, and not entirely by yourself, but not everything you did can be blamed on your evil mind-twin.”



Norris looked down. He had created Norris2. He didn’t know how Lord Burghley had warped and twisted the other personality into something dark and dangerous, a secret agent shadowing the spy he’d sent into Gatehouse, but there was no way Norris could blame everything on his master. He had lacked the nerve to use magic to kill his enemies, even when there was no danger of any comeback … how could they have known, even slightly, what had happened to them? He hatred his own cowardice …



“I know.” A flash of resentment ran through him. Did she expect him to grovel? Should be grovel? Or was her mind already made up, to the point there was nothing to be gained by throwing himself at her feet? “It was all my fault.”



“Partly,” Marian agreed.



She paused. “I have been asked to join the outreach program,” she said. “And that you will be coming with me.”



“I wasn’t sure,” Norris said. He hadn’t known Marian had been asked to join. It didn’t make sense. Marian hadn’t spent any time in OldeWorld, at least until now. She had known him … the hell of it, he supposed, was that knowing him made her better qualified than anyone outside the original trio. “They sent me to Glasgow, and then told me to look after Janie.”



“Rumour says she destroyed a city,” Marian said, quietly. “Is that true?”



“No.” Norris was very sure of that. “She … she accidentally helped destroy a city block, I think, but she certainly didn’t destroy the whole city. It isn’t clear how many innocents were caught in the blast.”



Marian said nothing for a long moment. “I am mad at you,” she repeated. “I liked you. I trusted you. And you abused that trust.”



Norris blinked, hard, to erase the tears before she saw them. The idea of a girl trusting him had seemed absurd and he hadn’t been able to believe it … fuck! If only he’d had the wit to sneak out of the school alone, instead of using her for cover. He could have kept her and … no, it wouldn’t have lasted. Even if Norris2 hadn’t enchanted her, she would still have known he was a spy. Fuck.



“We can work together,” Marian said. “But it will be a long time before I trust you again.”



“I understand,” Norris said. “And I am sorry.”



“Good.” Marian’s voice was sharp. “I heard what happened when Richard and Janet visited a school. Their lesson was televised” – she stumbled over the unfamiliar word – “and shown to many other schools. If you saw it too, what do you think?”



Norris hesitated. “Richard is a good speaker,” he said, finally. There had always been something reassuringly solid about Richard, the few times they’d met. If Brains was Sherlock Holmes, Richard was Doctor Watson. “And he managed to cover all the important points.”



Marian nodded. “And what would you add? Or advise me to add?”



“I …” Norris forced himself to think. Richard and Janet made a pretty good team. Marian and he … maybe not so much, not now. “You have to understand …”



He stopped, unsure how to put his feelings into words. It was difficult. Marian was from a very different culture, true, but even someone from the same culture – someone like Steve – would have trouble understanding what he wanted to say. It wasn’t just that his experiences would be alien to her, it was that it would expose him as a fraud, a coward, a weakling … he felt the magic curling inside him, waiting to be used, and feared he wouldn’t have the nerve to use it.



“There are two problems,” he said, finally. “The first is that most of the people who will press ahead with studying magic, with trying to use magic, will have a massive chip on their shoulder. They feel they are oppressed, that they are constantly put down … and there is a certain amount of truth in it. Magic offers them the first chance of real power, the chance to push back at their tormentors … they won’t just want to push back, they’ll want revenge.”



He winced, inwardly. He was describing himself, except … he didn’t have the nerve. Someone else had, if the internet was to be believed. A jerk jock had woken up to discover he’d been turned into a frog, a bitchy young woman had discovered her clothes fell off every time she called someone a nasty name, a football team had been cursed to ensure every ball they aimed at the goal went wide. Whoever had cast that spell hadn’t been caught yet, according to the news. Norris wanted to think it was a nerd who’d decided to take a little revenge, but it was just as likely to be a rival team cheating shamelessly. Or maybe not. Most spellcasters were nerds and geeks and they didn’t get on with jocks. The idea of a nerd helping a jock was just …



“I see,” Marian said.



Norris doubted it. Marian lived in a society that was far freer, in so many ways, than his. She had power, and knew how to use it. Her father could leave his patron any time he chose, if the patron mistreated him, or seek justice from paladins sworn to enforce the law without fear or favour. He supposed that was why she’d trusted him, so long ago. It had never crossed her mind that she needed to be wary of him.



“The second point is that they will push you,” Norris continued. “You’re seventeen. They won’t take you seriously. They’ll take one look at your chest and make snide remarks, or try to grope you, or …”



He shuddered. There had been one trainee teacher at St Champions, two years ago, who had been in her early twenties. Colin had sneaked up behind her, one modern, and yanked down her skirt. He’d suffered no punishment, of course. She’d never been seen again.



“You have to be ready,” he warned. He doubted she’d believe him. She had grown up in a world where self-defence was a right and authority could be trusted to be reasonable. “If they try something, you have to smack them down.”



“You make your world sound so alluring,” Marian said, dryly. “How did you grow up there?”



“I didn’t,” Norris said.



Marian gave him a sharp look. “How so?”



Norris felt the old bitterness starting to well up. Again.



“I didn’t grow up, not mentally,” he said. He supposed he should be glad of the mind healer. The man had made it easier for Norris to take a good hard look at himself. “I got smacked down so much I just … gave up and stopped trying to grow up. I fell into my own hatreds and resentments, hatreds directed at myself for being so weak as much as they were directed at my tormentors. I loathed them, and I loathed the people who did nothing to stop them, and I loathed the girls who were tormented and took their torments out on me because they couldn’t stand up to their real tormentors. I wanted to die, and yet I was too frightened to kill myself. I …”



He shook his head. “And then came magic, and him, and … I was so lost in myself that I never thought there might be a way out, not until it was too late.”



Norris fell silent, bracing himself for mockery. It was a mistake to reveal so much. It always was … certainly, at St Champions. Weakness, any sort of weakness, was mercilessly mocked.



“I’m sorry you went through that,” Marian said, finally. She looked him in the eye. “Are you going to try to become a better person?”



“Yes.”



“Good,” Marian said. “Try.”



She paused. “I genuinely liked you,” she added, after a moment. She didn’t try to hide the hurt in her voice. “And someone else, in the future, will like you too.”



Norris flushed. “That’s another difference between our worlds, right there,” he said. “Your world has hope. Ours … does not. Not any longer.”

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Chapter Twenty-Two: South Queensferry, Now



Selena – her real name was a closely-guarded secret, certainly from the rest of the Sisters of the River – had always loved the Forth River, right from the moment her parents had moved to South Queensferry when she’d been a young girl. It had seemed natural that she would learn to swim in the river, despite the dangers of a fast-flowing current, large ships moving up and down the water, and equally natural – as she grew older – that she would drift into environmentalism. She had nearly drowned in the river once, losing consciousness and recovering – on the small stony beach near her home – convinced that something within the water had saved her for a purpose. It hadn’t been hard to let herself shift into the Sisters of the River, despite mockery from the unaware, and become one of their priestesses. The river needed her maidens.



It wasn’t an easy life. The Sisters had never been taken seriously, unlike the patriarchal religions that blighted the world. It was all too easy for men to point and laugh at the women, to make snide remains about naked dancing under the moonlight or even to accuse them of having truck with the devil. It was nothing like that – the Sisters were part of the natural order, maintaining it as well as worshipping it – but there was no point in trying to convince the ignorant of their ignorance. Selene had grown up looking at the three mighty bridges over the river, the rail bridge and the two road bridges, and knowing they offended the natural world around them. She had danced a blessing many times, to soothe the nature spirits, but …



She liked to think she was a benevolent person who never bore a grudge, but she couldn’t help feeling a little vindicated when the magic came flowing back into the world. She’d always been in tune with the world around her and she’d sensed it instantly, the sudden influx of strange creatures, some so eldritch it was hard to even look at them properly. She had felt the magic growing stronger, watched dragons flying from Edinburgh – where two cities had become one – to unknown worlds she could barely imagine. There had been ghosts too, haunting cries and spectres of men who’d died at sea or fallen from the bridge when it was under construction; she’d heard stories of Mary Queen of Scots walking the corridors of Holyrood, her head under her arm. The world had changed … and the Sisters were finally ready to step into the light. They had never been a very wealthy sect, but they had a backer now. And they needed to carry out the ritual for the good of all.



Two motorboats rested on the beach, waiting for them. The bridges were as busy as ever, with cars and trains crossing the river, but sea travel had been cut to the bare minimum as the country adjusted to the new world order. Selene had planned to hire the Maid of the Forth, the tourist boat that sailed from South Queensferry to Inchcolm Island, yet the operators had flatly refused to take the booking, something she was sure was a reflection of government pressure. The Sisters had real power now, and nothing scared men more than powerful women. It hadn’t been enough to stop them. Selene – and most of the other women – worked on the water. Obtaining two speedboats hadn’t been even remotely difficult. And there was a very good chance no one would realise what they were doing until it was far too late.



She clambered into the boat, not bothering to don a life jacket. If the river wanted to claim her, if it was her time to go, she would go calmly into the water’s welcoming arms. The speedboat roared to life a moment later, gliding out into deeper water before cutting loose and speeding east to Inchcolm. Selene kept her eyes open as they passed the oil refineries – and spat in disgust as she spotted a Royal Navy destroyer making its way up to the shipyards – but nothing moved to stop them. She wasn’t too surprised. The Sisters had known Inchcolm was a place of power for centuries, its history dating back well before King David I had built a monastery on the rocky atoll in hopes of claiming the power for himself, and nothing would be allowed to stand in their way, now their time had come around at last. The boats slowed steadily as they neared the island, heading straight for the rocky beach. There was no sign of the watchman, or anyone else remotely human. The air was pregnant with possibility.



She lowered her hand into the water, feeling raw magic sparking in the waves. The tide was rising slowly, heading towards a peak. She could sense something waiting in the water, waiting for the Sisters. The water felt cold and yet … she was sure, somehow, that today she could have swum to the island without trouble. It was a day of power.



The boat grounded itself on the sure. The women disembarked in silence, leaving the boats on the beach. There should have been seagulls overhead, launching themselves from the remains of gun emplacements and other ruins that dated all the way back to 1940, but instead the air was surprisingly – almost eerily – quiet. Selene walked up the beach and onto the grass, looking towards the distant rocks. There were four seals resting there, and a real mermaid. Awe rushed through her. If she had wanted a sign she was doing the right thing, it was there, right in front of her.



They kept moving without speaking, somehow aware that to speak aloud would be to risk the whole ritual. They’d rehearsed the dance before, time and time again, and practiced laying out the stones until they could do it in their sleep. Selene allowed herself another moment of vindication as she put the final stone in place, then checked her watch. Morris dancing might be traditional, but very few understood how traditional. The dances weren’t just there to welcome in the new season, and bid farewell to the old. They were there to reaffirm mankind’s tie to nature, and offer their blood to the land.



It bothered her, sometimes, that the Sisters were the only ones who knew the secret. But the modern world didn’t want to know.



She looked from face to face, then reached for her dress and lifted it over her head, tossing the dress behind her. It had been hard, the first time she’d gotten undressed in front of the other Sisters, but now it was easy to let herself be naked. The Sisters weren’t judgemental. No one cared if your breasts were too large or too small, or if you were overweight or dangerously thin, as long as you brought your whole self to the dance. Selene felt tears prickling in her eyes as she looked from face to face, feeling deep inside that this was how life should be. There were no men here to intrude, their masculine energies ruining the feminine life; there were no women who would primp and preen in front of the men, betraying their sisters for a hint of favour from the patriarch. She raised her right hand, still not saying a word, then touched her forehead. The others followed her lead.



Selene felt the world shift as she drew her finger down, between her eyes, down over her chest and stopping, for a few raw seconds, on top of her womanhood. She had wondered, once upon a time, why it was always the virgin beauty who was sacrificed, but she knew now. She was a woman. Inside her was the spark of life itself, the ability to give birth … an ability that could never be stolen, not by any man. And now …



She fell into the dance, joining hands with the others as the time reached zero. The magic seemed to flicker and flare around them, her awareness expanding rapidly as the magic grew stronger. She had always had a connection to the river, but now … she was suddenly almost painfully aware of every last atom within the water, every last piece of raw iron burning through something – a presence – that was beyond her comprehension. The ground shook beneath their feet as her awareness spread wider, sensing pollution poisoning the water and contaminating the riverbed. The Forth was not a tame river, no matter how many bridges crossed it, and it was angry. She could feel its rage.



It crossed her mind, in the last second before her awareness was swept up and absorbed by something far greater than herself, that she might have made an awful mistake …



… But it was already far too late.

***​

Gareth MacAndrews was bored.



There was very little to do in South Queensferry, if you were a teenager who didn’t particularly care for the water. There were no cinemas, no sports centres, nothing beyond countryside walks and beaches that were barely worthy of the name. The magic surge had only made his boredom worse, as far as he was concerned. The schools were closed, half the town’s population had hopped in their cars and driven away, and most of the shops were closed too. It didn’t help that his father had gone to work in Edinburgh and his mother had gone to join her weird little cultist friends … giving him, once again, an incurable case of being terminally uncool. His mother was the laughing stock of the town and he, as her only son, bore the brunt of it.



He scowled as he walked towards the jetty, knowing there was no point in going but also no point in hanging around doing nothing. The beach was empty, the high tide licking the water front and leaving seaweed bobbling about to contaminate the sand once the tide went down again. There was no sign of the Maid of the Forth, or any of the other tourist boats that bored him to tears. Perhaps she’d been sent upriver, or …



The ground heaved.



Gareth blinked in surprise. Earthquakes were vanishingly rare in Scotland. He wondered, for a moment, if he’d imagined it … and then the ground heaved again. He looked around, half-expecting to see a fireball rising from the direction of the naval shipyards, but there was nothing. A plane crash? Aircraft flew over South Queensferry all the time, as they came into land at Edinburgh, but there was no sign of any explosion. The ground heaved again, a third time … he looked east, towards the railway bridge, and saw the water bubbling around it. He stared, one hand reaching for his smartphone to record the scene. What was it? A sinking boat? There hadn’t been one there a moment ago …



The water exploded upwards, a geyser of raw power that shocked him to the bone. He stumbled backwards, expecting to be drenched, but instead the tower of water was rising higher and higher, taking on a vaguely humanoid form. Gareth couldn’t take his eyes off it. There were hints of long hair, and breasts, and disconcertingly human eyes, within a watery form that ebbed and flowed in a manner he found hard to follow. It kept growing, towering over the bridge … the ground shook again and again, the tremors merging together into a single endless shaking. He gripped hold of the railing, uneasily aware it wouldn’t be enough to save him if the water-thing collapsed back into the river. The tide was going out, impossibly fast … no, the water was being sucked up, revealing hundreds of beach toys and pieces of debris, even a ruined boat, that had been lost and never recovered. A dark shadow fell over the land. The shape was so large it was blotting out the sun.



A whistle blew. Gareth looked back, just in time to see an intercity train heading north. The water-thing reached for the bridge, waves of water splashing everywhere as it took hold of the train and pulled. Gareth heard metal screeching as the train came free, its speed carrying it over the side and straight into the river. Horror washed through him a second later as the entire train crashed down, smashing into the water hard enough to utterly destroy the carriages and kill everyone onboard. The water-thing didn’t seem to notice, or care, as it kept ripping up the bridge, surges of water tearing through stone and metal with a savagery that chilled him to the bone. He thought he saw movement at the far side, another train, but it was hard to be sure. The water-thing didn’t seem to notice. It was turning slowly, dark and angry eyes meeting his …



… For a second, their minds were one. Gareth had a sense of something incredibly large, something that had been in chains … something that was now free, free to wreck revenge on the world of men. There was an eternity of rage and hatred bound up in the towering giant, something so inhuman that he couldn’t even imagine it …



… The contact broke, a second later, as the water-thing turned and smashed the original road bridge with almost casual ease. Cars went flying, one spinning over Gareth’s head and crashing down somewhere to the south. The bridge shattered a moment later, the supports ripped free from the riverbed and thrown in all directions. Gareth felt water – no, not water – trickling down his legs, found himself on his knees with no solid idea of how he’d fallen. The ground was still shaking, the water-thing tearing the third and final bridge asunder … Gareth hoped, desperately, that anyone who’d been on the bridge had had the sense to drive away, before it was too late. A military boat charged out of nowhere, right at the giant water-thing … Gareth had no idea what the sailors thought they could do, but it hardly mattered. The ship was sunk before it could fire a shot, waves of water crashing down the river and straight onto the oil refineries. A series of explosions billowed up, casting an eerie pallor over the scene.



The entity turned, standing right in front of South Queensferry. Gareth stared up at it, helpless. He couldn’t move … the entity came apart a second water, water crashing down with terrifying – impossible – force and raging out in all directions. Gareth had the brief impression of a tidal wave, coming right at him …



… And then the world went dark.

***​

Flying Officer Patrick O’Neal hadn’t expected much, when the two Eurofighters had taken off from RAF Lossiemouth to investigate an unexplained radar contact over North Queensferry. Edinburgh was one of the conjoined cities, now unexpectedly paired with a magical twin, and the RAF had – in the last few weeks – flown interception missions against targets as bizarre as children on broomsticks and dragons that made Smaug look cute and cuddly. They weren’t a real danger, unlike Russian aircraft probing the edges of the Unitede Kingdom Air Defence Region, and the fighter pilots had started to get used to them. The fact the mystrery contact had appeared well inside the UKADR suggested it was another wild goose – or dragon – chase, not …



He swallowed, hard, as he saw the tidal waves battering North and South Queensferry. The RAF was discouraged from flying too close to the bridges – the days of fast-jet flying under the bridges were over, as far as the brass were concerned – but he had flown over the bridges before and he knew the area well. Now … for a moment, he honestly thought he’d messed up his navigation so badly he might be in France, not Britain. The three bridges were gone and tidal waves were marching inland, wiping the two towns off the map. The military shipyard further up the river appeared to be gone too, alone with …



His hand tapped a control, sending back a live feed from his gun camera footage to the base. There would be others on the scene shortly – lifeguards, press helicopters – but for the moment the skies were clear. Suspiciously clear. He wondered, numbly, if the tidal waves had reached as far south as Edinburgh Airport, washing over the runways and wiping out a handful of aircraft before they had a chance to take off. God, he hoped not. He’d seen disasters before, but … disasters on this sort of scale just didn’t happen in Britain. It just didn’t happen.



He tilted the aircraft, then reduced his speed and flew as low as he dared over the remnants of South Queensferry. The northern part of the town looked like a giant mudslide. He doubted there was anyone left alive, although he hoped he was wrong. The southern part looked drenched, the waters having swept over the buildings and smashed everything they could. It was weird. There were no visible survivors. They couldn’t all be dead, could they?



“Ah … we have a weird energy signal to the east,” the operator said. He sounded badly shaken. Right now, the military and emergency services would be trying to coordinate a response to the disaster. The situation would be chaotic, for quite some time to come. Whatever police or fire stations there’d been in the two towns, they were no longer in any state to assist. “Check it out.”



Patrick nodded, and steered the Eurofighter down the river. It was a scene of utter devastation. A giant ship – it took him a moment to realise it was an oil tanker – had been picked up and capsized. The oil refineries were burning ruins. Smaller towns and settlements were gone. And Inchcolm …



He sucked in his breath. “Control, Inchcolm has become a volcano,” he said. He hoped it was Inchcolm. The island was in the right place, he thought, but it was so different it was hard to be sure. “I say again, we have an active volcano in the River Forth.”