The Necromancer (21 page)

Holding the sword high, Dee turned in a complete circle. “I’ve heard about these … though I’ve never seen one firsthand. It looks like an unmade Shadowrealm.”

“Unmade?”

“Started, but never finished.” He lowered the sword and the shadows clustered closer. “Elders create Shadowrealms using their auras, imaginations and memories. Sometimes a powerful individual can create an entire realm, but often groups will come together to shape their own world.” He gestured with the sword. “This one was never finished.”

“Why?” Dare wondered out loud.

“I have no idea …,” the Magician began, then caught Virginia by the arm, dragging her away. “Run!” he yelled.

She turned and looked up … and saw four cucubuths dropping out of the black sky.

“They must have fallen through before the leygate closed,” Dee said.

The four creatures settled lightly onto the ground, turned, obviously disoriented, then focused on the glowing light from the sword. With triumphant howls, the creatures raced toward Dee and Virginia.

Once they started to run, they changed. The transition from human to beast was instantaneous. One moment they looked like shaven-headed young men; the next they were enormous wolflike creatures with human faces. They ran upright on two feet, but hunched over, their claws sending up whorls of dust.

“Doctor?” Virginia said calmly.

“Send them to sleep,” Dee called out. “Can you play and run at the same time?”

Dare pulled her flute from its leather cover, put it to her lips and blew gently.

And yet no sound came out.

“Oh,” she gasped, “that’s not good.”

The four cucubuths were closer now, their handsome faces marred by the ragged teeth that filled their mouths. Hairless tails thrashed the ground.

There was a flicker of movement in the air behind the cucubuths, and Huginn and Muninn appeared. The huge ravens tumbled from the sky, crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. They flapped their wings, but only rose a few feet off the ground before they settled down again. Then, spotting the blazing sword, they screamed Dee’s name in unison. The giant birds darted toward the only light in the landscape, moving in a running hop that quickly ate up distance.

“Doctor, if you have a genius plan, now is the time to use it,” Virginia panted, shoving her flute back into its cover and pulling a flat-headed tomahawk from under her coat. When Dee didn’t immediately reply, Dare risked a quick sidelong glance at him. “John?”

Dee stopped.

“John?” she said again. She had actually run past him, but returned now to stand by his side. The Magician’s face was completely expressionless. His cold gray eyes turned red and blue in the reflected light from the burning sword. And then Virginia realized that the grit of this unmade Shadowrealm was coiling and twisting around his feet, creating patterns—intricate spirals and snaking ripples. She moved her hand past his eyes, but they did not blink, and she knew then that he wasn’t seeing her, nor could he hear her. “You always were trouble, Dr. John Dee. No wonder everyone around you died.” Then she turned to face the cucubuths and the crows alone.

Fire that was cold

Ice that was hot.

The sensations rolled off the sword and flowed through his wrists up his arms and settled into his chest.

And with the warmth and the chill came the memories, terrible, terrifying memories of a time before the humani, of a time when the Elders ruled the earth, and then beyond, to the world of the Archons; and before them, to the Ancients; and back further, to the Time Before Time, when the Earthlords ruled.

Memories of the four great swords of power …

… of their creation …

… and their powers …

… and why they had been separated …

… and why they must never be brought together …

And the shocking realization that these were not weapons, these were more; much, much more.

“John!”

The Magician slowly turned his head to look at Dare, and whatever she saw in his face left her speechless. Something ancient and alien peered out through his eyes. She watched, frozen, as his hand rose, bringing the weapon up before his face.

Fire.

The stone sword blazed with white-hot fire.

Ice.

Ice crackled and formed on the blade and hilt.

Suddenly the sword shifted and separated, leaving him holding Clarent burning red-black in his left hand and Excalibur cracking with blue fire in his right.

“Where do you want to be, Virginia?” Dee’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Anywhere but here.”

The cucubuths were almost on top of them now, circling warily around the two swords. The ravens were laughing in Odin’s voice.

“Do you know where I want to be?” Dee asked. His arms described two enormous perfect circles—blazing red, crackling blue—in the air. The circles overlapped in the middle to create a long oval that shimmered like melting ice.

“John, you’re scaring me.”

“I want to go home,” Dee said. He stepped into the oval and vanished. Immediately, the fire started to die, the ice began to melt. The cucubuths howled and darted forward; the ravens screamed.

Closing her eyes, Virginia Dare threw herself into the burning melting oval …

… and opened them to the sun on her face. She breathed in warm salt-scented air and discovered that she was lying on grass, listening to the sound of traffic. Car horns blared, and it suddenly occurred to her that it was the most musical sound in the world. She sat up and looked around. Dee was sitting beside her. Excalibur and Clarent lay on the grass alongside him, a puddle of ice around one, scorched earth around its twin. “John, your hands …,” Virginia said in horror.

Dee lifted his hands. They were both burned black, the flesh raw and ugly, blisters already beginning to form. “A small price to pay.” He grimaced.

Virginia stood up and looked around. She could hear voices close by. There were trees all around her, and she could see the tops of nearby buildings. One, a tower, seemed familiar—very, very familiar. “John, what did you do? Where are we? Tell me this isn’t another Shadowrealm.”

“I suddenly realized what the swords could do,” Dee said quietly. “No, realized is the wrong word. I was told what the swords were capable of.” When he turned to look at Virginia, she noticed the tiny speckles of blue and red, like chips of ice and cinders, in his gray eyes. “The Elders created the Shadowrealms with the swords … but the Archons used them to fashion the leygates.”

“You created a leygate!” Virginia looked down at him, shocked. “Even for you, John, that is very impressive. And what about the cucubuths and the crows?”

“Trapped forever … unless Odin goes after his pets.”

“How did you get us here?” Virginia asked.

Dee’s smile grew pained. “I just saw where I wanted us to be—” He stopped suddenly and looked at his hands again. “You know, these are really starting to hurt.…”

“Put some aloe vera on them,” Dare said automatically. “And where, exactly, are we?”

“Pioneer Park, San Francisco.” He turned his head to where Coit Tower rose above the treetops. “Five minutes from my home.”

“S
o there are four moons, and this is good news?” Joan of Arc stood at the cave mouth and looked at the four moons—one huge and yellow, another smaller and tinged sepia; the third was a bright green emerald, while the fourth was colorless. The slender Frenchwoman ran her fingers over her short boyish hair, flattening it. “There is so much that I do not know, and astronomy is not one of my strongest subjects, but even I know that the earth does not have four moons, has never had four moons.”

The moonlight turned Scatty’s red hair black and made her skin even paler than usual. Her eyes were silver mirrors. “Don’t you see what this means?” she said excitedly.

Joan shook her head.

“It means we’re in a Shadowrealm.”

Joan continued to look at her blankly, four pinpricks of moonlight reflected in her gray eyes. “So we’re not in the past.”

“No,” Scatty said, taking her friend’s hands in hers and squeezing tightly. “We’re not.”

“And that’s good?”

“If we were in the past, then we’d be stuck, with no way out. Or at least, I couldn’t think of any way out, other than someone coming through time to find us, and the chances of pinpointing us in time would have been astronomically small. The only way for us to get back to our own time would be by living maybe a million years.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Theoretically, yes. Elders and Next Generation can live incredibly long lives, but I’m not sure about the humani. Look at what happened to poor Gilgamesh after ten thousand years. I think the body can live on, but the mind breaks down under the weight of all the memories and experiences.”

“So if this is a Shadowrealm …,” Joan began.

“… then there must be a leygate,” Scatty finished delightedly.

“And how do we find it?” Joan asked.

Scathach’s smile faded. “I haven’t quite worked out that bit yet. But there’s got to be one around here somewhere.”

The Dire Wolves attacked at dawn.

Scathach and Joan beat them off easily, sending them howling into the thick mist lying heavily across the landscape.

A single lion prowled around the foot of the cave shortly afterward, but Scatty pelted it with rocks until it scrambled out of range.

The giant short-faced bear appeared next.

The two women watched it approach, loping on all fours, its head thrown back to sniff the air. The creature was huge.

“It has to weigh at least twenty-five hundred pounds,” Scatty said, loosening her short swords and checking her nunchaku, “and I’ll wager it probably stands close to eleven feet tall when it’s up on two legs.”

“I don’t want to have to kill it,” Joan said.

“Trust me, it’s not going to share your reservations about killing.” She pointed with her folded nunchaku. “It’s looking at us now and thinking: breakfast.”

Joan shook her head firmly and pushed her sword into its sheath, then slung it across her shoulders.

Scatty sighed. “If we don’t kill it, it will kill us.”

Joan shook her head firmly. “I’ll not kill it.”

“Can I remind you that you once led an army?”

“That was a long time ago. I will defend myself, but I will not kill an innocent creature.”

“Is that why you became a vegetarian?”

Joan shook her head. “No,” she laughed. “Shortly after Nicholas gave me your blood, I discovered that I really hated the taste of meat.”

The bear paused at the bottom of the incline and looked up at them. Then it reared up on its hind legs, threw its head back and growled.

Scatty revised her original assessment of the beast’s height. “Twelve feet tall.” She examined the creature critically. “I could take him.”

“Look at those claws,” Joan said. “One swipe will take your head off. And I know you can do many things, but growing a new head is not one of them.”

They ran for most of the morning, moving easily across lush waving grassland. Now that they knew this was a Shadowrealm, the tiny inconsistencies in the world became obvious. The breeze only blew from the south and always smelled of lemons, there were no insects in the air and although the sun rose in the east and climbed into the heavens, it seemed to remain at its highest point for far too long.

“It’s as if someone created—or re-created—the Pleistocene era from memory,” Scatty said.

“Well, they got the animals right,” Joan said, in French. Although she kept herself fit and in condition, she thought they’d run the equivalent of a marathon so far, and there was no end in sight. She had a stitch in her side and her calves were beginning to cramp. She was also conscious of the blisters starting to form inside her boots. “I’m going to need to rest soon,” she said. “I need some water.”

Scatty pointed to the right. “There’s a stream down there.”

Joan could see nothing. “How can you tell?”

“Look down,” the Shadow said, pointing. The earth at their feet was impressed with scores of hoof and claw tracks, all leading off to the right.

“If there’s a watering hole down there, then we’re sure to find something drinking there …,” Joan began.

“How thirsty are you?”

“Very.”

Scathach slipped both nunchaku out of their sheaths and turned to the right, following the animal trail. “Let’s get you that drink. And I promise not to kill anything that doesn’t try to kill me first.”

The trail dipped down into a hollow, and the grass, which had been waist high, now grew to their shoulders. It hissed and rasped together noisily. The air was filled with the rich cloying odor of life and growth. Without the cool lemon-scented wind on their faces, the temperature immediately rose.

Scathach held up her hand and Joan stopped and immediately turned to look behind them. The Shadow stood with the back of her head against her friend’s. “Be careful,” she said, using the French language of Joan’s youth. “Something’s wrong here.”

Joan nodded. “We cannot see through the grass, our sense of smell has been overwhelmed, even our hearing is impaired. Coincidence?” she wondered.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Scatty answered. Pushing her nunchaku back into their holders, she pulled out her matched short swords. “Something is wrong here,” she repeated, “very, very wrong.”

They moved forward carefully, conscious that with limited vision, hearing and even smell, they were at a disadvantage. Anything could be hiding in the tall grasses.

“Snakes,” Joan said suddenly.

Scatty jumped and spun around. “Where?”

“Nowhere. I’ve just realized we haven’t seen any since we arrived. Yet this place should be filled with them. Especially here, in this grassland; it’s the ideal environment.”

They took another half-dozen steps and the grass suddenly ended. Directly ahead of them lay a sparkling blue pool, the perfectly still water reflecting streaks of unmoving white clouds in the sky above.

And sitting on the boulder by the side of the river was a man wrapped in a long hooded leather cloak. He turned his head to look at them, and they saw that the bottom half of his face was concealed by a scarf, leaving visible only a pair of bright blue eyes.