Unmarked Journey

crowd with ease, guiding Elra towards the doors at the far end. After navigating the torrent of hurried commuters heading down the escalators towards the Tube, they were outside in the light grey aura of London.

  Euston road was a straight shot of imposing stone architecture, chrome and glass office towers, and quirky institutional façades, stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see. People walked by on each pavement with hurried purpose and – oh, there goes a red bus – black cabs zoomed down the four lane road, stopping at the lights just in time to miss the pedestrians.

  'You ever been here before?' Kai asked.

  'Never,' Elra replied, a little star-struck and overwhelmed.

  'Well, I'd better show you around in that case. Best way to see this city is on foot. Next stop, the British Museum.'

  He struck off at a fearsome pace aided, Elra suspected, by marks tattooed on his calf muscles. They swept through Bloomsbury, passing Victorian town-houses clustered around quaint squares full of relaxing university students, jostled with the tourist traffic on Southampton Row and crossed Russell Square. Elra liked London already; the place had a compelling buzz, just like she'd expected, and its vivacity was infectious.

  Soon enough they were at the rear of the British Museum.

  'Ah, tell you what, let's go around the front. Better view.'

  They duly circuited the building, dodging cyclists and tour groups, and were presented with the classically-styled front, full of girthy columns and imitation Greek carvings.

  'Do you like history, Elra?'

  'Love it,' she confirmed, under her breath.

  He took her inside and directed her to the west wing, full of Egyptian sarcophagi and Greek statues. He crouched down next to a particularly old-looking stone coffin, and gestured to Elra to come closer.

  'Look,' he said, pointing at a faded hieroglyph near its base. 'Check this out.'

  He held his palm over it, and furtively glanced around the room. The nearest people were a few kids, perhaps six meters away, pretending to kiss an owl statue and giggling every time one of them did it.

  He took his hand away. The hieroglyph, small and abstract, glowed dully for a few seconds with the color and warmth of an old ember.

  'An old type of Fire mark, probably used for protection,' Kai explained.

  'Against tomb robbers?'

  'Or worse. Want to see something else?'

  They passed through a few imposing archways and found themselves in an Ancient Near East section, full of reliefs of large kings with curly beards being brought gifts from all over the ancient world.

  'See that?' Kai pointed at a small figure sitting atop a winged platform.

  'Yeah? He's, uh, hovering over the king.'

  'That's... well, we're not entirely sure, really. Archaeologists and Ancient Historians call him Ahura Mazda, the chief Zoroastrian god. But from what I've heard this is, um... a mark that focuses someone's desire to rule, to be a god,' he said, raising his eyebrows. 'So if you didn't know any better, you could kind of see how this kind of represents the king's ego and status, you know, drawing a god above his picture; but the crazy thing is, it seems the presence of this mark actually helps create that status in the first place. Difficult to understand: this stuff is really complex Knowledge. Probably out of reach for practically everyone alive today.'

  Elra was confused. ‘How... how does that even work?’

  ‘You know how governments, institutions and other organizations use certain words and symbols to assert their authority? You know, like flags, coat-of-arms, logos... an official stamp, as it were, to lend themselves credence or to seem imposing?’

  ‘I guess’

  ‘Same principle I suppose, except taken up a level. Instead of the national flag inspiring authority, it acts as the source of authority.’

  Elra stared at the little flying winged figure, and wondered how a simple drawing could imbue a person with so much power. 'So, how do marks come about?'

  'What?'

  'How are they made? How do people know which symbols and patterns to use?'

  'Well, they vary by place and period. Kind of like writing: everyone uses it, it has power of sorts, and it changes over time and by place. Presumably most marks stem from the ones used by prehistoric humans, hundreds of thousands of years ago, before they spread out of east Africa and across the rest of the world.'

  'But how were they made? What was their origin?'

  'Nobody knows. Not even the Wise. Just like no-one knows the exact origin of writing. And just like writing, you can make up your own, if you’re that way inclined.'

  ‘Your own marks?’

  ‘Of course! Only drawback being that it’ll probably only be you who can use that particular form.’

  Elra looked impressed.

  Come on,’ Kai beckoned. ‘Last one. I saved the best for last.'

  Fourteen

  He led her into the ethnographic section, past a huge Easter Island moai statue and down some stairs into the dimly lit African gallery.

  'This is where it gets epic,' he whispered excitedly.

  They came to a stop in front of a small wooden mask on a stand in a shadowy corner of the hall. It was beautifully carved and daubed with red ochre; its gaping, otherworldly eyes seemed to bore into Elra's soul; its elongated face seemed in equal parts majestic and disturbing.

  'So, I guess those are Knowledge marks?' Elra said of the ochre daubs.

  'Exactly. You'd only get the full effect if you wear it, but we obviously can't do that. Instead, just touch it.'

  Elra carefully placed her fingers on the edge of the mask, letting them feel the wood's strangely smooth texture.

  Nothing happened.

  'Now, imagine there's a current which begins in the very center of your body, spreading down your arm, across your fingers and into the mask, and then pulses out across its surface. It takes some practice; don't worry if you don't pick it up at once.'

  Elra tried, visualizing the energy as a piercingly bright beam in her arteries and smaller blood vessels, pulsing out of her fingertips.

  'No, relax. Just relax and let it flow on its own. Don't push. If it helps, imagine there's another source of the energy in the mask, and yours and its are just meeting in the middle, like when lightning hits the ground.'

  Elra felt a momentary clarification, rather like time itself slowing down and giving her room to think. The mask's eyes bored into her own, like vast hollows that had stared into the Beyond and comprehended its ineffability. There was a palpable connection between the two of them, and Elra could feel that the mask did indeed have its own energy.

  Somewhere, as if from behind a wall of memory, she could hear Kai speaking. 'Whoa, I think it's working. Don't freak out!'

  His voice trailed away, lost in the cavernous spaces between their differing experiences. Elra didn't freak out. She felt the very character of reality change around her, but all she experienced was clarity.

  She became aware that the exhibition hall had changed, had become emptied, worn and... concreted. To her slight alarm, Kai was gone too. It was just her and the mask, in what was now a vast subterranean space, the walls heavy with damp and the floor puddled with run-off moisture. Dull, thudding booms sounded far above them, presumably at ground level. Explosions?

  There was a figure at the far end of the room, by the bottom of the stairs. He (or she, it was hard to tell at this distance) was standing well out of the light, wrapped in a heavy coat. A portable screen cast a golden glow on their indistinguishable features.

  A silhouette at the top of the stairs, casting a shadow that cascaded down the steps like liquid night. The device's screen was hurriedly covered. Elra found her vision zeroing in on the scene, intrigued, as the silhouette grew bigger and started descending. There must be some trick of the light, Elra thought, because its outline was like an object out of a nightmare. It looked like the person was wearing something along the lines of a burqa, with no differentiation possible between head and should
ers. A long, snout-like tube, not too dissimilar from a plague-doctor’s mask, hung down from where the person’s face should be, and almost touched the floor.

  To top it all off, the costume had what appeared to be stylized spikes rising from the shoulders, their ends pointed directly at the sides of the wearer's head, making head-turning impossible. The only way the person inside could see something to their side, Elra reasoned, would be to rotate their entire body.

  The figure's walk down the stairs was carefully executed, and dare Elra say it, even majestic. The wearer clearly had plenty of practice maneuvering while wearing the garment.

  The person at the bottom of the stairs clearly recognized the figure by their silhouette and gait alone, and dashed out of their shadowy cover and embraced them as best they could. The man - Elra was able to make that out, at least - swept off the garment, taking extra care with the shoulder spikes, revealing its female wearer.

  Elra gasped. The woman had a metal muzzle clamped to her face, totally covering her mouth and wrapping cruelly around the back of her head. The male gently brushed her cheek, at the exact point where metal gave way to skin. He tenderly kissed her forehead, stroked her hair and closed his eyes, rapt. They embraced deeply, savoring each other’s physical presence, lost in a forbidden moment below the tumult above.

  After a few moments the air was broken by a by a piercing klaxon shriek. A short, rising blare, domineering, forceful and completely ear-splitting, repeated every few seconds. The cavernous space began fading,