Other Worlds

What the Darkness Is-1

What the Darkness IsThe howls of the gore-hounds filled the night air. Vanda stopped to catch her breath. Sounds echoed off the trees, throwing noises at her from odd angles. Her pursuers were close. When they caught her it would be the end.

She peeped at the precious cargo she carried, strapped across her chest in the sling she'd fashioned from an old shawl. The night was dark – of course – but there was just enough starlight to see Abha's tiny face peeping out, wide-eyed in wonder, oblivious to what was happening. Vanda envied the baby. Abha had no idea that the gore-hounds, if they caught up, would rip her to pieces like a rabbit.

Vanda set off again, ignoring the stomach cramps tearing at her. The ground was rising. She'd heard the Chronicler lived in a ramshackle hut on a hill in a wood. That was all she had to go off. It was entirely possible the whole thing was no more than a story. When it came to the Chronicler, the lines between truth and tale weren't always clear.

She glimpsed a light through the shifting boughs: a single yellow candle shining from a cottage window. In one of his tales it would have been placed there as a beacon for the desperate. She raced into the clearing and rapped on the door, gaze darting around. She expected the hounds, black as night and red of eye, to lope from the woods at any moment. Away over the treetops the thinnest of crescent moons sliced through the night sky. As it always did.

The door creaked open. An old man's face peeped through the gap, regarding her over the top of his half-moon spectacles. His wrinkled, veined skin might have been the map of an imaginary land. A red birth-mark, a blotch like the shape of some island, adorned his cheek. He didn't look surprised to see her.

She expected to feel the foul breath of the Lady's beasts on the back of her neck at any moment. “Chronicler. I need your help,” she panted. “The gore-hounds are after me.”

“And you want me to distract them with an exciting story while you sneak out of a window?” said the old man.

“Please. Let us in.”

“Us? You said me a moment ago.”

“I have a child with me. A baby. Chronicler, please. Abha has The Speech.”

The old man's eyes widened at that. A look of appreciation crossed his features. Appreciation and something like concern, as if The Speech were some terrible disease. Which, in a way, it was.

“I see. Then you'd better come in. No point standing outside in the cold and dark is there?”

It took a few moments for Vanda's eyes to adjust to the brightness within. Candles flickered from sconces and shelves. A log fire crackled and spat, filling the cottage with the sweet smell of woodsmoke. Next to the fire, upon a cushioned chair, lay a book, a strip of red silk marking the Chronicler's page. She glimpsed an inner room that had to be his library. She had the impression, before he closed the door, of high shelves of books receding into the dark distance, impossibly far away.

“So,” said the Chronicler. “What do you want me to do? If Lady Lillian has sent her hounds to hunt you down, you need to find a fortress with high walls to protect you. You need an army of fierce guards loyal to the end. Not a tired old man in a hovel in the woods.” His eyes glittered with delight as he spoke. In his stories, old people living alone in the woods were never what they seemed.

“No walls are high enough to keep the hounds out,” said Vanda. “No oceans are wide enough to keep Lady Lillian's ships at bay.”

“Perhaps.”

“But you can protect the baby. You can take her beyond even the Lady's reach.”

“I?” Now he sounded vain, enjoying the flattery of her words.

“You have The Speech too, in your own way.” said Vanda.

“No. I can't shape the world as the Lady can. I can't banish her hounds or unfreeze the moon. I can't bring an end to her eternal night. Would she have let me live if I could unweave her words?”

Vanda glanced to the outside door. Shouldn't the hounds have arrived by now? “You're more than that. I've heard the stories. Once you came to our village, at Midsummer, when there was still a Midsummer. You told the tale of Siggurd, sent on an impossible quest to slay the Clockwork King. It was … more than mere words. I saw the red roofs of Pirathia sitting in the great desert. I felt the warm air on my face, tasted the sand in my mouth. You took us there. That is your magic; that is what you can do.”

She sounded more sure than she was. The memory of that night was faint. Perhaps, swayed by the balmy air and too much hurtleberry wine, she'd imagined the whole thing.

The Chronicler didn't reply for a moment. His eyes narrowed amid their nests of wrinkled skin. “How can you be sure the child has The Speech? She is a baby. It is too soon to know.”

“She uttered her first word when she was six moons old.”

“That is not so unusual.”

“A ball she wanted rolled away from her so she spoke a word of Making. It took her a few attempts to get her tongue around it, but soon she held a new ball in her hands. One she'd created.”

“She found the toy on the ground beside her.”

“When she'd finished playing she spoke the word backwards and the ball in her hands was gone.”

“She dropped it.”

“She is six months old and has already spoken words of Making and Unmaking. Would Lady Lillian have unleashed her hounds if this wasn't so? The baby is a threat to everything the Lady has wrought.”

A frown knitted the Chronicler's features. “Who is she? And who are you? Is she your blood?”

“The girl's parents died, lost at sea. We found her, took her in, a family of wheelwrights. When the Lady heard about her and the hounds were sighted I took her and ran.”

“I see.”

“Chronicler, please, you are our only hope. The beasts were at my back. I don't understand why they aren't here already.”

The Chronicler nodded his head in something like appreciation. “I have some small magic, it is true. The magic of the fireside tale. A moment like this when imminent danger presses can be made to stretch out longer than should be possible. It suits the shape, the need of the story, and even the Lady can't deny that power. I can hold them back for a minute or two, although they will break through eventually.”

“So you will help? You will take us to one of the distant lands where the Lady does not hold sway?”

Outside, from somewhere in the trees, a howl filled the night. The Chronicler peered at her over the top of his reading spectacles. “You truly believe this baby will be the one to defeat the Lady? She's the one chosen to save us all?”

Vanda sighed. “Yes. Although I'd settle for her surviving. Growing up, falling in love, making mistakes. Doing whatever she chooses.”

“I see,” said the Chronicler, his face thoughtful. “Less satisfying as a story. The helpless baby destined to defeat the Lady and restore light to the world: now that's a tale I might be able to work with.”

“Can't you weave a different yarn for her?”

The possibility seemed to amuse the Chronicler. “The needs of the tale cannot be denied; that's the way it works.”

“And if she chooses a different path?”

“Then we are in a different story to the one started. We shall see. It doesn't always do to know the ending when we've barely begun, does it? But … I can't take you. The orphaned baby alone in a strange world: that has power. Resonance. You must stay behind. Your part is played.”

“She is a baby. She's helpless.”

“I will deliver her to those who will care for her. I may be needed again later. The enigmatic stranger offering cryptic advice. That could work.”

“Have you experience of looking after a baby?”

A smile of delight flickered across the old man's face. “Little. We make an unsuited pair, our chances of survival small. You see the power of it already? I will prepare myself for the journey. The hounds will be at the door soon, and the candles need snuffing out. Will you attend to them while I prepare?”

The Chronicler bustled off, stooping through a low door in the shadowy corner of the room. Vanda, rocking Abha in her arms, crossed to peer out of a window. In the brittle cold she could see yellow eyes glinting from the trees. Many, many eyes, brighter, somehow, than the moonlight they reflected. She set to work, l*****g the finger and thumb of her spare hand and pinching out the candle flames. Each gave off a little twist of smoke as it was extinguished.

She worked her way around the room to the Chronicler's chair. Unable to resist, she opened the book at the page marked by the slip of red silk. The pages were blank. Puzzled, she turned over more pages, and more. All were empty.

“That is our story,” said the Chronicler, reappearing behind her. He wore a long grey coat, a pack slung over his shoulder, stout boots on his feet. He had the air of a man used to travel. “It is the tale of our land.”

“The words stop.”

“They stopped when the Lady wove her magic and froze us in this night. That is what the darkness is. Words unwritten, lives unlived. It is the story stopped in its middle, the ending never reached. Now, hand me Abha and we will proceed.”

Vanda held back, reluctant to release the baby. “Why has the Lady worked this evil? You of all people must know. This land was beautiful. She gazed upon it from her tower with a mother's love.”

The Chronicle considered, his brow furrowing. “Who can say? Perhaps she learned to hate the coming light. She foresaw what the day would bring and despised it. That might make the start of a passable tale. Now, please, we must leave.”

Vanda handed the baby over. The Chronicler walked to the library door and pushed it wide. Vanda, peering in, saw the shelves she'd glimpsed. The endless ranks of books.

“There are so many of them. I had no idea.”

“Many, yes. I have lived many lives. Lived and loved and lost. And won, too, against all the odds, of course.”

“Which book, which world will you take her to?”

The Chronicler turned to block her passage. “I cannot tell you. The Lady must not know. Tell her what we have done, if you must, but you can't know where we have gone.”

Vanda nodded. “Then, thank you, Chronicler. Look after Abha, please. It is all I ask.”

“I will.” He nodded once and quietly shut the door behind him, leaving Vanda alone.

After a few moments she heard growling and snuffling from outside the cottage, and then the first heavy blow upon the door.

“Another tattoo, Abi? What is it this time? More moons and stars?”

Abi rolled up her sleeve so Gemma could see it properly. Her arm was an angry red from the tattooist's needle. “A wheel.”

“Okay, that's … boring.”

“No, it's cool. It's, like, the cycles of the year. The cycles of life. The end is the start and all that.”

“Hippy shit.”

“It's clearly not, look, there are flames. I like it.”

Gem shrugged. “Okay, it's your skin. Just don't let our Galactic Overlord see it.”

“Galactic Overlady.” The Home was ruled by the fearsome Mrs. Framing, a woman who seemed to know everything that went on among the children in her care. “I'm sixteen. I'm allowed tattoos.”

“You're supposed to get them approved. And they're supposed to be nice things. Happy things, things the Inspectors couldn't object to.”

“You think they'll object to a wheel?”

“Maybe for being dull, yeah. And then there are the demons on your back.”

“They're not going to see those, are they?”

“I've seen them.”

Gem was her oldest friend. Both orphans, they'd shared a room in Gladwell House until they were ten. Now they were in and out of each other's rooms all the time.

“You're different,” said Abi.

“Thanks. I think.” Gem rose and leaned her elbows on the ledge of the first floor window. “Hey, your stalker's outside the gates again.”

“He is not my stalker.”

“He so is. I hate that dog of his. Growls each time I go past. Think we should report him for, I dunno, s****l harassment or something?”

“He's just a homeless guy. He's never even spoken to me.”

“He looks at you.”

“I'm sure he looks at lots of things. People do when they have eyes. Besides, I happen to be a beautiful young woman. You're lucky I hang around with you.”