Vega Jane and the Secrets of Sorcery Read online

  There was a drawing on it. I drew a quick breath when I saw what it was – three hooks attached as one. The same design as on my grandfather’s hand and on his ring found in Quentin Herms’s cottage.

  As I stared around at the other walls, they were suddenly awash in different lights and sounds. I jumped back as I saw what looked to be a flying slep with a rider astride it, soaring across the rock. The rider threw a spear and there was an explosion so loud and real that I covered my ears and dropped to the floor. A million images seemed to flow across the stone as I watched in disbelief, my eyes unable to keep up with them. It was like watching a great battle unfold in front of me. Screams and moans and cries mingled with bursts of light and the sounds and visions of blows landing and bodies falling. And then the images faded and something else took their place. And that something else was even more terrifying.

  It was blood. Blood that looked as if it had just been spilled. As I watched, it started pouring down the cavern’s walls.

  If I’d had enough breath in my lungs, I would have screamed. But all that came out was a low, pitiable moan. Then another sound came to push my panicked thoughts in a new direction: a roar that was nearly deafening.

  I turned to my right. Where there had been a solid wall was now the opening of a long tunnel. Something massive was heading towards me, but I couldn’t see what it was yet. I could only hear the sound. I stood rooted to the spot. A moment later a wall of blood exploded out of the tunnel and engulfed me.

  I managed to flip over so I was facing the direction from which the blood was thrusting me. Up ahead, the tunnel ended. I was hurtling towards a sheer wall and my thought was that I would be smashed against it and die instantly. The roar became so loud I could barely think. And I suddenly saw why. The blood was cascading downward at the end of the tunnel. It just dropped off. If the roar I was hearing was any indication, the blood was falling a long, long way. And I was about to plummet over this edge with it.

  I tried to swim against the flow. That turned out to be completely and utterly useless. The current was far too strong. I was maybe fifty yards from the edge, mists of red spray rising up from the abyss, when I saw it – something suspended across the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know what it was. But I did know what it could be. My way out of this nightmare. My only way out, in fact.

  If I missed, I was going to die. But if I didn’t try, I was certainly going to die. There was an outcrop of rock to the left, just below the suspended object and just before the drop-off.

  I timed my jump as best I could. I would not get a second chance. I leaped, pushing with my feet off the outcrop of rock, my arms and fingers stretching as far as they could. Only I swiftly realized it was not going to be enough. I hadn’t pushed hard enough or jumped high enough. I kicked with my feet as if I were swimming and angled my left shoulder lower and my right higher. I stretched until I believed my arm had popped out of its socket. The abyss seemed to scream at me. I heard the blood crashing on what I supposed were masses of rocks at the bottom.

  My hand closed around what turned out to be a chain. The links were small and shiny, and at first I was afraid they would not be strong enough to hold me. Yet they did. But only for one quick breath.

  Then I fell, screaming, into that awful chasm. When I thought my situation could not get any more terrible, I felt something truly horrible.

  The chain was wrapping itself around me, link by link, until I was completely immobile. Now I had no chance of attempting to swim, even if I survived the drop. I closed my eyes and waited for the end to come.

  14

  THE CHAIN OF DESTIN

  I fell a long way with my eyes shut. Yet in my mind I could see things in the bloody river as I plunged. Faces of people I knew came out of the dark depths for a moment. My grandfather, Virgil Jane. He loomed up and stared at me with sad, empty eyes. He held up his hand and showed me the mark on the back of it, the twin of the one on the ring. He was saying something. I strained mightily to hear, but then he disappeared. More figures slid past me as I continued my descent. Until finally I saw John, looking lost, followed by my father, holding his hands out to me. And, last of all, my mother looking pleadingly as her only daughter fell to her death. Then the swirling blood closed further in on me, like giant, gripping tentacles.

  I finally opened my eyes. I wanted to face death with the little courage I had left. Astonishingly, I hit the bottom gently. It felt comforting somehow, like falling into my mother’s arms. I was not frightened any more.

  I lay there because, well, actually, I couldn’t move. The chain was still wrapped tightly around me. I held my breath as long as I could to keep the blood out. But finally I had to take a breath. I expected the foul liquid to rush inside my mouth and my lungs to fill like a pair of buckets, but several deep breaths later, there was no blood in my mouth.

  I looked straight up. The Noc stared straight down at me from a clear night sky.

  I blinked and shook my head clear. I looked to the left and spotted a tree. I looked to the right and saw a ragged bush. I sniffed and smelt the grass

  Then I screamed.

  The chain was uncoiling itself from around me. As I watched in horror, it fell away and then neatly coiled itself up next to me like a serpent. I slowly sat up and tested my arms and shoulders for injury. I found none, though I was sore. But I wasn’t even damp. In fact, there was not a trace of blood on me. As I looked up ahead, I gasped.

  Stacks stared back at me, about twenty yards distant.

  How did I go from plummeting into an abyss all trussed up ready to drown, to being outside? At first I thought I had dreamed the whole thing. But you dream in your cot. I was lying on the ground! And there was the chain next to me and the book in my pocket as absolute proof of my adventure this night.

  I stood and looked down at the coiled chain. I was afraid to touch it, but I tentatively reached out a finger. I kept reaching until my finger grazed one of the links. It felt warm to the touch, even though the metal should have been cold. I gripped the same link between two of my fingers and lifted it up. The chain uncoiled as I drew it upward. It was long. In the light of the Noc, it seemed to pulsate, glow even, as though it had a heart. I looked more closely and saw that there were letters imprinted on some of the links. Together they spelled –

  D-E-S-T-I-N.

  Destin? I had no idea what that meant.

  I dropped the chain and it instantly curled back up. But the thing was, it never made a sound. I knew that when metal touched metal, it made noise. But not Destin apparently.

  I took a long step away from it, and the most incredible thing happened.

  The chain moved with me. It uncurled and glided along the ground until it was once more within an inch of my foot. I did not know what to make of this. I decided to focus on my most pressing issue. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the book and pondered what to do.

  I had to hide it, but where? I started to walk. After perhaps a mile, with the mysterious chain slithering next to me, an idea skittered into my knackered mind.

  The Delphias.

  I broke into a run and didn’t notice until a sliver later that the chain was flying along beside me. Literally flying, straight out, like a long stick. I was so stunned that I pulled up, breathless. It stopped right beside me and momentarily hovered in the air before falling to the ground and coiling up once more.

  Still breathing hard, I stared down at it. I took a step forward. It reared up as though ready to take off. I took another step forward and then a third. It lifted off the ground. I broke into a run. It rose completely off the ground, configured itself like a stick again and flew right next to me.

  I stopped and it stopped. It was like having a pet bird.

  I looked up ahead of me and then back at the chain. It hovered. Even though I had stopped, it seemed to be sensing my indecision. Could it have a brain as well as a heart?

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I reached out, grabbed the chain, looped it aroun
d my waist, tied a knot with the links to secure it and started to run. And that’s when it happened. I lifted off the ground maybe six yards and flew straight ahead. I didn’t realize I was screaming until I gagged when a bug flew down my windpipe. My arms and legs were flailing around me as I looked down. That was a mistake – the looking-down part. I pitched forward and zoomed right into the dirt, tumbling painfully along until I came to a stop in a crumpled heap.

  I lay there completely still. Not because I was scared, but because I thought I was dead. I felt the chain uncoiling from around me before re-coiling next to me. I rolled over and tested myself for broken bones. I seemed to be all right, just bruised.

  I looked at the chain. It seemed remarkably calm for having just driven me into the ground. I stood on shaky legs and, sure enough, it rose up with me. I walked, and it hovered next to me with every step. I was afraid to put it around my waist again. I was afraid to even touch it. So I just walked, keeping my distance while it flew next to me.

  Just over a mile later, I cleared the last bend and saw Delph’s cottage. I glanced over at the corrals. The creta’s huge silhouette loomed back at me from the far corner of his little enclosure. The young slep was sleeping standing up while leaning against the weathered fence boards.

  The adar squatted in one corner, its foot still attached to the chain and the peg in the ground. Its great wings were pointed downward and it seemed to be sleeping in a cocoon of its own body. There was no sign of the whist hound. I hoped it was in the house with the Delphias, for whists could make a racket when disturbed.

  I pulled the book from my pocket and peered around. I needed something to put it in. The answer reached me as I looked over at the door in the little hillside. At the entrance was an old lantern, which I lit with a match from a box next to it.

  There was a very odd collection of things inside. There were great piles of salted and skinned dead birds and small creatures, which I assumed were food for the beasts. The enormous skin of a garm hung on one wall. I gave that a wide berth.

  There were animal skulls lined up on a large trunk – a creta’s and what looked to be an amaroc’s. The amaroc’s upper fangs were as long as my arm. On one shelf was a line of old metal boxes. I looked through them until I found an empty one. I slipped the book inside and closed the box tight. I grabbed a shovel from against the wall and went back outside, taking the box with me.

  I dug a hole behind a large pine tree and put the box in the hole. I covered it back over and then spread pine needles over the disturbed dirt.

  The creta was starting to stir in the corral and the adar’s wings were now open and it was staring at me. This was a little unsettling. The last thing I wanted was the thing talking to me.

  I hurried off down the dirt path and around the bend. I had decided to wrap the chain around my waist once more in case I met someone along the way. I didn’t know how I could explain a chain flying next to me! Now that I had separated myself from the book, I felt both relief and concern. At least no one could take it from me, but I was desperate to read it too. I wanted to know everything that Quentin Herms had found in the Quag down to the tiniest detail. I told myself that I would come back as soon as I could, dig it up and read it from cover to cover.

  When I reached my tree, I climbed up. Settling down on the planks, I hiked my shirt and my sleeves up and my work trousers down and looked at the map again. The marks were still fresh and clear. From the map I could tell that the journey through the Quag would be long and difficult. It was vast and the terrain was harsh. It was fortunate for me, I thought, that I would never attempt the journey. For some reason, this caused a great sadness inside me.

  As I slowly pulled my shirt down and my trousers back up, I felt a slight tug around my waist. The chain was moving.

  I jumped up and tried to pull it off. It wouldn’t budge. I kept trying, my fingers digging painfully into my skin. It merely tightened around my waist. Duf had told me of serpents that do that. They squeeze the life right out of you.

  Suddenly I stopped panicking. My heart stopped racing. My breath returned to normal. The chain had stopped squeezing and fallen limp. I couldn’t believe it, but, well, I think it was simply giving me a . . . hug. A reassuring hug, as though it had sensed my depression.

  I slipped the chain off and held it up. It was warm and my fingers felt good holding it. I went to the edge of my tree planks and looked down. A long way, about sixty feet in fact. I glanced at the chain and despite what had happened last time, I was supremely confident that it wouldn’t let me down.

  I jumped.

  I plummeted down, the ground coming at me way too fast. Halfway down, the chain wrapped tightly around my waist and I straightened out and landed gently, the heels of my boots barely making a dent in the dirt. The chain was still warm and the links moved slightly.

  I lifted my shirt and covered the chain with it, then drew a long breath and had an impossible thought. I might never take the chain off again. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but then again, how could I not? I was closer to fifteen sessions now than fourteen. I was female. I was independent and stubborn and headstrong and probably many other things that I didn’t yet realize or didn’t know enough words to adequately describe. I also had never had much in my life. But now I had the chain.

  I took off running as fast as I could; I was light and nimble on my feet even with heavy work boots on. After twenty yards, I leaped into the air. The chain hugged me tight and up I went, straight up. I bent my head and shoulders forward slightly and levelled out into a horizontal plane. With my head up, my arms back by my sides and my legs together, I was like a metal projectile fired from a morta.

  I soared over trees and open land. My breath came quick, my hair forced back by the wind. I passed a night bird and startled the thing so badly it spun downward out of control for a few feet until it righted itself. I had never felt so free in my life. My whole world had been Wormwood. I had been rooted here, never able to rise above it.

  Until now.

  A view of the place spread beneath me. It looked small, inconsequential, when before it had loomed so enormous in my life.

  And around Wormwood, like a great outer wall, was the Quag. I banked left and did a slow circle in the air. That way I could see the Quag all in one pass. It dwarfed Wormwood. But what I couldn’t see, even from this vantage point, was the Quag’s other side.

  I flew for a long time and then landed. The sky was brightening and I figured it was nearing first light. I needed to get John to Learning and then I would head to Stacks. I flew back towards Wormwood, landed about a quarter-mile from my digs and fast-walked the rest of the way. When I got back to Wormwood proper, I received a shock.

  The cobblestones, which were usually quite empty at this time, were full of Wugs talking in large groups.

  I stopped one of them, Herman Helvet, who ran a very nice confectionery shop and sold things I would never be able to afford. He was tall and bony with a voice as big as his body.

  ‘Where is everyone going?’ I asked in confusion.

  ‘Special meeting at Steeples,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Just got the notice fifteen slivers ago. Got Wugs outta their beds, I can tell you that. Nearly scared me to the Hallowed Ground when they thumped on me door.’

  ‘Special meeting called by whom?’ I asked.

  ‘Council. Thansius. Morrigone. All of ’em, I ’spect.’

  ‘What’s the meeting for?’

  ‘Well, we won’t know that till we get there, will we? Now I got to budge along.’

  He hurried on to join what seemed to be all of Wormwood streaming towards Steeples.

  A thought suddenly hit me.

  John!

  I hurried to the Loons and found my poor brother sitting in front of it, looking scared and lost.

  When he saw me, he rushed forward and took my hand, squeezing it hard.

  ‘Where were you?’ he said in such a hurt voice that my heart felt shattered.

  ‘I . . . I got u
p early and went to my tree.’

  ‘But you always take me to Learning first.’

  ‘So, there’s a special meeting, then?’ I asked, wanting to quickly change the subject so the shattered look on John’s face would vanish.

  ‘At Steeples,’ he said, his face now full of anxiety.

  ‘I guess we best get on, then.’

  Many reasons for a special meeting crossed my mind as we walked along.

  None of them would turn out to be right.

  15

  THE OUTLIERS ARE COMING

  John and I rarely went to Steeples any more. Before my grandfather suffered his Event, and our mother and father went to the Care, our family would regularly go and listen to Ezekiel the Sermonizer, always resplendent in his blindingly white tunic. Maybe it was simply to see the beauty of Steeples and listen to Ezekiel’s voice, which sounded like wind rushing between stands of trees, with the occasional thunder-thrust when he wanted to make a point as fiercely as a mallet introducing itself to a nail.

  When we arrived outside Steeples, Thansius’s carriage was there. We hurried past it and inside. As we took our seats near the back, I looked around. The ceiling was high and laced with beams of blackened, gnarled wood. The colourful stained-glass windows were fully thirty feet tall and located on both sides of the structure. There were serene Wug figures and important events embedded in them, all looking properly pious.

  There was a high altar at the front of Steeples with a carved wooden lectern in the centre of it. Behind the lectern, against the wall, was a face chiselled into the stone of the wall. This was Alvis Alcumus, who was said to have founded Wormwood. Yet if he founded the place, that meant he had come from some other place. I mentioned this once at Learning, and I thought the Preceptor was going to have me committed to the Care for spouting madness.

  I could see Thansius and Morrigone seated next to the lectern. As I continued to look around, I saw Delph and Duf off to the right. And even those sentenced to Valhall were here, with their hands bound with thick leather cords and with the short-statured Nida standing next to them.