Chapter Twenty-Five - The Cage of Fire
His mind was racing, his stomach knotted, his heart pounding, fear twisting every fibre of his fragmented psyche. It would be the end of him, the end of her. It would be the end of everything, the end of history itself.
It was inconceivable. But it had all sounded so convincing, horribly convincing. He didn't want to but he couldn't help himself believing it. He stroked the tunic's sleeve. It was solid enough, real. Whatever that thing was it had the powers it claimed, powers over matter, time, reality, fate. He was going to die in these clothes. Should he tear them off? Parade around naked? Would that defy the future? Trivia, that's what it had said the details were. It had transformed his clothes with ease. It could do that again. Stripping would achieve nothing other than to expose him to the cold air.
What else could he do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He had felt powerless all his life, but not like this. Never like this. He could do nothing but wait. Wait in terror for the end.
Beyond the glass the storm continued to rage, fire raining down, flickering fingers of light caressing the darkened walls.
There was an ominous creaking noise from the window. It was gently undulating, waving.
There was a sound like a gunshot. Fenton flinched.
A fine vertical line about twenty-five centimetres long had appeared in the centre of the glass.
He raced for the door, hit the control.
It was still locked.
There was a snapping sound behind him. He spun round. There was a second crack, this one horizontal. He could hear the tell-tale gasp of escaping air.
He had tried to get out into the lab before. There was no sign of any opening mechanism.
There was a screech. There were now three lines on the window. It was swaying and wobbling.
The shutters! How did they work?
He raced to the window, every instinct screaming at him to back off, to run away. More cracks were appearing by the second. It had become a crazy expressionistic web, a hissing serpents' nest. There were no controls. Where were they? Think!
It was Graeme's office. Graeme controlled everything. From the desk!
He ran back behind it flinging himself into the heavy, padded chair. He glanced back at the glass. It was now almost completely opaque, latticed with criss-crossing splintering white lines, singing like some daemonic choir, the glass billowing like a curtain. The table top was blank. He glanced down in desperation. There was a single sensor on the right pedestal. He swept his hand over it. The desktop lit up. A hierarchical pattern of commands was laid out in front of him. Where was the shutter control?
The window shattered, exploded.
There was a violent, surging rush of wind. It plucked him from his chair with contemptuous ease. He was hurtling through the air, blown into the voracious maw of the whirlpool that had been the window. There was a muffled thump and he was tumbling to the floor. He slammed into it with a force that smashed the air out of his body. Heavy clattering sounds echoed away and then, abruptly, there was silence.
For a few moments he lay on the ground, dazed. He looked up. He was lying a matter of centimetres away from the wall where the glass had been. The shutters were closed, hiding the shattered remains of the window. They must have fired shut automatically, alerted by the drop in air pressure. If it had been a few seconds later he would have been out beyond them, dead. Relief flushed his body. He was alive, but for how long? How long could the shutters hold against the tempest outside?
There was a whisper of air behind him. He twisted round, pain shooting through his body. The door into the corridor was standing open. The whirlwind had wrecked the room. He was surrounded by damaged, overturned furniture. He couldn't believe his luck. If any of it had smashed into him! Graeme's precious books littered the floor. The picture of Gadder had been ripped from the wall. It lay on the ground, the frame's glass fractured and broken. A few metres away lay the football-sized model of Pandemonium.
His body was aching all over. He'd taken a lot of punishment in the last few hours, but there was no time for recuperation. He pulled himself up, stumbled over the broken furniture and hobbled out of the room, into the corridor. There was faint light coming from somewhere, bright enough to see by. The door hissed shut behind him.
Where to now? He'd last seen Paize and Julia going back into the lab. Were they there now? Had they vanished like Alizen? Or were they dead, all of them? She couldn't be dead. He wouldn't let her be dead. It had said she was safe. Had that been just to silence him? It was going to kill everyone, everyone in the universe. They end with you it had said. He was still alive. There was a chance then they were. He dashed the short distance along the corridor to the lab. He tried the door. It opened. The room was unlit. He stepped through the doorway.
'Alizen! Julia! Paize!' he shouted.
The door slammed shut behind him, plunging the lab into total darkness.
For a few seconds there was nothing but terrifying blackness. Then the lights sprung on, all of them.
Fenton gasped in horror.
Two bodies dangled from the ceiling, suspended by thick black ropes. They were hanging by the neck, heads lolling forward, both clearly dead. They spun slowly, listlessly and gracelessly, hands bound roughly behind their backs. Their heads were covered with crude sacks.
They had been a man and a woman: Paize and Julia.
'No,' whispered Fenton, backing away in terror. He was going to retch. He swallowed hard, fighting off waves of nausea. He couldn't believe it, Paize and his calm air of authority gone. And Julia. She could have killed him down in the labyrinth. She'd had every right to. But she'd risked her life to get him out. Excepting Alizen she'd been the only one of them he'd ever really trusted. And she had been beautiful.
Alizen. Where was she? There was only her and him left now. He forced himself to look beyond the corpses. The lab was empty. He had to find her. He'd need a torch. He glanced round, saw one. With revulsion he reached up catching Paize's swinging body by the belt. He snatched the torch from it. The holster next to it was empty. There was no sign of the gun. Why was that missing? It had said it was immortal, so why had it had taken Paize's pistol? He was suddenly excited. Maybe it was vulnerable. Maybe he had a chance after all. He looked up at Julia's body. He didn't want to touch her. It would be an act of irreverence, a violation. He didn't have to. Her equipment belt with its gun and grenades had gone. He scanned the room again. There was no sign of Alizen's confiscated weapon either. He turned, opened the door and stepped back into the corridor. There was a doorway opposite him to the interior. He glanced to his left. The passageway leading to the mortuary vanished off into blackness. He looked to his right. That was where the light was coming from. It was flickering. It had been dark down there before. He swallowed hard. He had to investigate.
He crept slowly down the passageway. It curved away into the distance. He edged along it, breathing hard. His body and brain ached. He was cold, tired and hungry.
But most of all he was afraid.
It was getting lighter.
He rounded the corner.
The passageway opened out into a large chamber. In the centre of it was a cage. It was a cage of fire. The bars were roaring flames.
It held the thing that looked like Dezlin.
'Mark!' it screamed in surprise.
The voice was Dezlin's. There were no goggles. He could see the eyes, his eyes. It was him, Graeme.
'Graeme!' He ran towards him but the intense heat drove him back. He could feel his eyebrows singeing, sweat breaking out all over. He was coughing, choking for air. He stopped a few metres away, panting for breath.
'It said you were dead.' He was so relieved to see him again. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
Graeme Dezlin stood beyond the wall of flames, surrounded by fire. He seemed strangely unaffected by it. He was having no trouble breathing. He wasn't even sweating.
'I am dead,' he said.
'No!' He co
uldn't be. He wasn't.
'Listen, Mark,' his voice was determined, his form blurring behind the shimmering heat haze, 'I don't know how much time we have. I can't even be sure if you're real or just another one of its tricks, its games.'
'I'm real,' he exclaimed.
'Yes, you would say that. It doesn't matter. I've got nothing left to lose. It told me it was going to bring you here to kill you. You're going to have to kill it first, Mark.'
'Kill that?' He could smell burning sulphur.
'You didn't believe that nonsense about it being Satan did you?'
'No,' he lied unconvincingly.
'Christ, Mark, you don't change do you? Still wanting to believe in every lost cause that comes along, you credulous fool.' Despite everything there was genuine affection in his voice. 'Listen. It may have come through that door from another dimension but it's not the Devil. I won't believe that. I'm responsible for the deaths of my friends here. I'm not responsible for human history.'
Did he really believe that? Was he in denial?
'Well, what is it?' he coughed.
'I don't know. But it's in human form, my form. If it needs a human host there's a chance it can be killed with that host. We're going to have to take that chance. You're going to have to take that chance. It's the only thing I can think of.'
Fenton suddenly went cold.
'If it's stolen your body,' he was backing away fearfully, 'how come you're still here?'
'No!' screamed Dezlin in anguish, trapped and isolated by the flames, 'don't go!' The pain and desperation in that voice stopped him from running. 'I don't understand that either. It told me I'm in limbo, trapped in an extended instant of time, the moment just before my death, before it took possession. It's kept me round to gloat over. I don't know if that's true or not, it's not like any science I've ever heard before. But if it is, Mark, then killing it may mean killing me. Don't let that stop you. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' replied Fenton grimly.
'Good man,' said Graeme smiling through the bars. Fire raged around him.
Could he kill it? 'You know you may be right,' he said breathlessly. 'It seems to be taking care to make sure there are no guns left lying around.'
There was a whoop of triumph from Graeme as if this was the first good news he'd heard for a very long time.
'Good. Go to the end of the corridor, turn left then right. There you'll find the armoury. There's an override key code on the door. The combination is three nine one six five nine two. There are guns there, Semaasers.'
Semaasers!
'I can't use a Semaaser, Graeme.'
'Why not?' Dezlin was incredulous.
'There've been time anomalies, Graeme, visions from the future. I kill someone in one of them with a Semaaser, somebody innocent. I can't let it happen.'
'Visions, what do you mean visions? What happened in them?' Dezlin was excited.
'There've been three. One when we arrived, someone shot at us. I think it was me, a future version of me. Then a short time ago, down in the labyrinth, Brozmam, one of the SSD men, was killed. It was me that shot him. You must know about the recording.'
'What recording?'
'When you opened the fracture. There's a recording of it. I'm there. I shoot at you.'
'I don't remember that. You weren't there. You know what this means, Mark?'
'What?'
'There may be a way for you to get back in time. Shoot me, shoot it before all this happens. Change the future.'
Change the future? Was that possible? Would he be changing anything? Surely it had already happened. It was there on the recording. He would just be playing into its hands, proving again that things had to happen that way.
'Sorry, Graeme. I can't take that risk.'
'What do you mean? What risk?'
How could he explain?
'Destiny, Graeme. It said we have no choice, we have to do what it's preordained. I have to prove that it's wrong. If I don't take that gun I can't kill Brozmam. If I don't kill him I've cheated fate, beaten it.'
'How? By doing nothing? Doing nothing for fear of doing the wrong thing is no solution.' He was shouting, angry. 'That only leads to paralysis. For God's sake, Mark, for once in your life stop bleating and do something!'
The words stung, but he was right. Paralysis had been the keynote of his life so far. He had to break it. Do something.
'Alright, Graeme. How do I get back?'
'I don't know. But there are definitely temporal instabilities here, a side-effect of the fracture. You'll have to find your own way. Get that gun first. And remember, this Brozmam may have to die before you can kill that thing. You mustn't let that concern you. You have to go all out to get it. Don't give up. Never give up.'
So, he wasn't supposed to worry about killing Brozmam; it was for the greater good.
I know your hopes, your dreams, your ends, your means.
He shuddered.
'Good luck, Mark.'
'And you, Graeme.' He stared at him, imprisoned by the flames. Both men knew they would never see each other again.
'Oh, and Mark, it said Alizen was here.'
'Yes,' he snapped back, resenting his interest. He had no rights over her, not any more. 'She is. She's still alive somewhere. I'm going to find her.'
'I'd hoped it was lying. You've got to save her, Mark. I told you to look after her for me. Remember? I'm holding you responsible.' He said it with a smile, as if it was a joke. It was no joke. They both knew that.
'I'll find her,' he promised.
'Good, and when you do, tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I love her. Goodbye, Mark.'
'Goodbye, Graeme.' He turned away, blinking back tears.
Then he ran.