Aysel’s eyes opened wide. ‘A mind-eater,’ she gasped under her breath. ‘No, it couldn’t be.’
‘What’s a mind-eater?’ Song was curious, as was everyone.
Aysel was frowning deeply, but shook off the thought. ‘Nothing … a myth, from the old universe,’ she explained away her doubt.
‘The old universe?’ Rhun queried.
‘Yes,’ Aysel was surprised by his query. ‘You know, beyond the Eternity Gate.’
‘The Eternity Gate?’ Rhun had no clue what she was talking about.
‘You humans don’t get out much, do you?’ Her jaw clenched hard, as her thoughts returned to Vugar. ‘If my consort is dead, then I shall kill his coveted body, so that he might rest in peace.’
‘Kill him,’ Telmo went on to inform, ‘and the entity will only pass on to your next principal.’
Aysel’s silent fury turned apprehensive as she swallowed hard. ‘I am next.’
The news was rather sobering for all those present.
‘Then we must trap the entity in Vugar’s body, and then contain them both,’ Wu Geng stated, nodding to reassure their visitor that they would not allow the same fate to befall her.
‘You are going back whence you came,’ Rhun insisted. ‘I have my own council and resources to contend with this situation.’
‘The only way we can do that is by our own free will,’ Wu Geng reminded him. ‘And I, for one, am not leaving.’
‘Nor I,’ Huxin chimed in, the rest of the timekeepers shaking their heads in accord.
‘I cannot keep your presence here a secret forever!’ Rhun protested. ‘You are just making dealing with the situation doubly difficult for me.’
‘We need to speak with Avery,’ Hudan calmly suggested.
‘I will speak with him,’ Rhun insisted. ‘All of you are to stay put.’
‘Governor, I humbly request to accompany you.’ Dan was not going to be kept in the dark on this one.
‘I should also attend,’ Telmo insisted, ‘as we need to sort out that other long forgotten matter.’ Clearly the technologist did not wish to mention the time chariot in their visitor’s presence.
Rhun scowled, annoyed to have his orders constantly disputed. ‘If you must,’ he granted, quickly speaking up to prevent Song opting to tag along. ‘No one else. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone for.’ Rhun looked to Noah without mentioning their destination, for Noah knew well enough that time was unpredictable in the Otherworld. ‘But if any more than a few days pass —’ Rhun looked to En Noah ‘— you’d best come find us.’
‘Right you are,’ Noah replied.
‘I will leave Aysel in your charge, Wu Geng,’ Rhun instructed.
‘That is a polite way of announcing that you are placing me under surveillance,’ Aysel commented.
‘If the situation were reversed, would you not do the same?’ Rhun posed, fairly.
‘The advantage of a hive-mind is, I wouldn’t have to,’ she said with a sly grin.
Rhun found the comment enlightening and off-putting as he could well be addressing the entire Fiameadi council, who were probably all taking notes. But then again, if their hive-mind was in chaos at present, perhaps not. ‘You’ll just have to bear with us,’ he replied graciously, ahead of looking at the others who meant to accompany him into the Otherworld.
‘Let’s go.’ Rhun vanished, and Telmo and Dan vanished after him.
The grand otherworldly entrance chamber in which they found themselves had Dan and Telmo turning circles in awe.
The large, round block of floor beneath their feet appeared like a smooth sheet of ice, but as it was neither slippery nor cold, Dan assumed it was some kind of crystal. The ceiling above had a circular hole that allowed light to flood in — the light was celestial and came from no source in particular, but rather from everywhere. Around the edges of the circular cavity above, water streamed between the ceiling and the edge of the platform on which they stood, forming a great wall of water around them — only instead of the water flowing down, the stream was flowing upward.
‘That is a strange paradox,’ Dan commented staring at the water rushing up to the ceiling, ‘it feels as though one is hanging upside down.’
‘Ah, the Otherworld.’ Telmo released a deep exhalation, delighted. ‘Where the illogical is logical.’
‘That would explain my brother.’ Rhun forced a grin.
‘I heard that,’ Avery commented from beyond the wall of water, just as Dan was wondering how they would depart the chamber without getting wet.
The water feature drew apart like a curtain to one side of them to form a clear exit. Dan gave half a laugh, enchanted by the feat, as he followed Rhun into the huge, light-filled garden chamber beyond.
This was much like a grand circular hall in structure, only there were stone pathways in place of aisles, grass and flowers in place of carpet, and grand trees where pillars might have been. The outer walls of the structure were made of etheric matter that were opaque enough to be seen, yet emitted enough of their own subtle light that it hardly seemed they were there.
Avery was waiting to greet them with a mass of tiny earth-lights hovering about him. ‘Not now.’ He was shooing the nature sprites away. ‘We have guests.’ Avery turned his attention to his brother and company, unhappily. ‘Not to seem unwelcoming … but, why are you timekeepers still here?’
‘There have been a few complications,’ Rhun began.
‘No, no, no … I don’t want to hear about complications,’ Avery objected. ‘I want the timekeepers back where they belong!’
Rhun rolled his eyes. ‘I couldn’t agree more, but —’
‘Fen is dead,’ Dan informed.
‘What?’ Avery was shocked that he had not got wind of this event, until one of the tiny earth-lights again alighted on his shoulder to have a whisper in his ear. ‘Oh, I see,’ he thanked and dismissed the sprite. ‘It seems there was a disturbance earlier.’
‘There has been a disturbance all right.’ Telmo got on his high horse. ‘Where is the second time chariot?’
Avery looked to Rhun with a baffled look on his face.
‘I already told them that we don’t know what happened to it,’ Rhun verified. ‘But Dragonface’s movements seem to indicate that he has got a means to time travel.’
‘That is very bad,’ Avery considered. ‘Why do you suspect he has time travel capability?’
‘Because Ling Hu is the one who killed Fen, after we’d brought him forwards in time to Kila,’ Rhun outlined the conundrum.
‘And Dragonface took Ling Hu.’ Avery nodded in understanding. ‘Best tell me the rest.’
In the absence of the governor and the others, the rest of the timekeepers, along with En Noah, saw to the sad chore of laying Fen to rest. The Wu way was cremation, but so as not to attract attention to themselves, Hudan employed her elemental power to incinerate the body without any smoke being created. All the while, Hudan had a terrible foreboding that Fen’s death was just the prelude to a far greater ordeal ahead, and so strong was the premonition that it was making her feel physically ill.
It was not like Hudan or her sister to openly display their grief, yet, as Huxin stood in silent, sombre tribute to their brother’s memory, Hudan could not prevent herself from weeping. It was not like she was never going to see this soul-mind again; Ringbalin was awaiting her return to AMIE along with the rest of the crew. In fact, the same soul-mind was standing alongside them in the form of En Noah. But she would never again see his Zhou incarnation, who’d been a beloved brother and a dear, sweet friend who she’d raised from a toddler. That knowledge made her soul ache as she watched the last of Fen Gong’s ashes burn out and be swept away on the breeze.
Afterwards Hudan felt drained, which had been known to happen after performing a taxing sacred rite. Usually her vitality would be restored after a good rest and some sustenance; the only problem was that she couldn’t keep any food down as her stomach was in knots.
All six t
imekeepers not native to Kila, and Aysel, who was being regarded as a guest at this stage, were confined to Noah’s lake house, outside the city proper. Designed to comfortably house two people, it was now accommodating seven.
As Hudan and Dan were the only couple staying at the lake house, they had been given the stunning circular bedroom upstairs, and Hudan was grateful for the harmonious and quiet place to rest as she’d not felt so weak since she’d awoken from the Yin rite, performed to secure Ji Fa’s reign in ancient Zhou. As distressing as her brother’s murder and funeral had been for Hudan personally, it should not have taxed her chi this much.
‘How are you feeling?’ Huxin emerged from behind the circular feature wall that hid the spiralling stairway leading to the mid-level of the house. ‘Can I get you something to eat yet?’
‘No,’ Hudan insisted, her stomach heaving at the mere thought of food, and suppressing the urge to be sick, she merely burped up some wind. ‘I’ve never felt so wretched.’
Huxin came closer to observe her sister. ‘This is certainly unlike you … belching, vomiting, and over-emotional … anyone would think —’ Huxin gasped on her own observation. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘No!’ Hudan went white. ‘I can’t be.’
Huxin gave her a questioning look. ‘I think you’ll find you can quite possibly be.’
Hudan sat up so quickly and in such panic that she was almost sick again, but she breathed deep to contain her nausea and explain. ‘What I mean to say is, I cannot take this body back to our true universal scheme with me, let alone with a child!’
Huxin’s amusement fled as she realised her sister’s dilemma. ‘That does pose something of a quandary.’
‘Even if I were to stay long enough to have the child, who would raise it? I could be trapped in this universe indefinitely! And this universe is becoming increasingly risky for us to remain in.’
Hudan was near hysterical and Huxin sat and gripped her shoulders, hoping to calm her. ‘If this has happened, then for some cosmic reason it is meant to be,’ she reasoned. ‘I’m sure once you discuss this with Dan, you’ll —’
‘Heavens, no,’ Hudan appealed. ‘Please don’t say anything to him.’
‘You cannot keep this from your husband!’ Huxin stood, indignant.
‘Just until I have confirmation,’ Hudan added to appease her sister. But she knew how dearly Dan’s previous incarnation, Lucian, had wanted a child, and she doubted very much that he would sacrifice his long-held hope for the greater good, or whether indeed she could herself?
‘Fair enough,’ her sister relented. ‘I shall ask En Noah about getting a healer to see you.’
Hudan nodded, although in reality she didn’t want her fear confirmed. Her fellow crew members would not leave without her, and keeping them here was to make them subject to Vugar’s vendetta. Please, please, heaven, she prayed, do not let it be as we suspect.
‘Okay, let’s recap.’ Rhun summed up their current theory. ‘Dragonface died in the explosion of the Dropa ship, then the entity shifted to Fiameadi and took possession of the body of the Draconian leader, Vugar, three thousand years ago. As the Draconians of Fiameadi obviously have supernatural power, he could have used psychokinesis to join the second time chariot —’
‘That you just left in Atlantis,’ Telmo added, still unable to believe it. ‘If I’d still been around, I would have been sending you back for it!’
‘Well, we were dealing with your old nemesis Mahaud, the demise of Atlantis, the uprising of Demuzi’s horde of bastard demigods, and another bloody reptilian with visions of total world annihilation!’ Rhun defended, fed up with being chastised about the incident.
‘As long as Dragonface knew where the second chariot was at the time he died in the explosion,’ Dan returned to Rhun’s summation, ‘he could have willed himself to it at his leisure, and then used it to go back in time to reach us in the crystal cavern at the exact moment the Dropa ship was destroyed.’
‘Exactly,’ Rhun agreed. ‘He then killed Shi and kidnapped Ling Hu. Now, as Ling Hu is not immortal and does not possess any great longevity, we might assume that for those long periods of time that Vugar spent off-planet doing space exploration, he was really time travelling forward to meet up with us three thousand years in the future and carry out his most recent attacks on the timekeepers.’
‘That still does not explain how he even knew where we would be,’ Telmo pointed out.
‘Unless Ling Hu told him,’ Dan postulated. ‘I’m sure Fen must have told her about his past at some point. Including the time his previous incarnation spent on Kila, and his need to return to that incarnation in the next universe, at some point in the future.’
‘Perhaps,’ Telmo conceded.
‘What really matters is what we aim to do about it.’ Rhun looked to his otherworldly brother, who was being very quiet. ‘Do we go back to Atlantis and take back the chariot before he gets his hands on it? Do we go back to Bayan Har San and do things differently —’
‘No,’ Avery insisted, ‘we do not go back in time for any reason, we must take out Dragonface from here.’
‘But —’
‘No buts,’ Avery barked. ‘Atlantis could be a wild goose chase. The Draconians could have their own means to time travel. Did anyone ask this visitor that?’
All appeared a little sorry to have overlooked that question.
‘You’ve just outlined how insanely out of control events were in the final hours of Atlantis. Anything we do there could affect the next thirteen thousand years of history,’ Avery lectured. ‘Including ancient Zhou, and your birth era —’ he looked to Rhun ‘— in the dark ages of ancient Briton.’
‘I am touched that you would be so concerned.’ Rhun was not convinced by Avery’s motive. ‘What do you know about the Eternity Gate?’
‘What should I know? I’ve never heard of it.’ Avery frowned.
‘I thought you knew everything!’ Rhun emphasised.
‘I know everything about everything that has transpired since I was appointed Lord of the Otherworld. I do not have access to akashic memory like Telmo and Dan do.’
Rhun looked to Telmo and Dan. ‘Anyone know anything about it, or the old universe, or mind-eaters for that matter?’
Telmo was thinking hard on it. ‘Not in all my lifetimes on Earth have I heard it mentioned, and yet when Aysel spoke of it, I had a flash vision of a beautiful nebula in space.’
‘I don’t know of it either,’ Dan was sorry to say, ‘although I know where I might be able to acquire some information.’
Rhun was terribly curious about the claim, Dan could tell by his inquisitive frown.
‘I am a medium,’ Dan replied, ‘and I, or rather Lucian, can contact my silent watcher. It is one of the beings that you call the Grigori, who goes by the name of Azazèl. That entity answers to our collective consciousness, Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi, the being who drew all the timekeepers into this universe when it shifted here from our universal scheme.’
His company all looked rather stunned by the claim.
‘Well, you could have mentioned that earlier.’ Rhun was a little perturbed. ‘A little divine guidance would certainly not go astray.’
‘It is only since returning to Kila that I’ve been clearly recollecting Lucian’s time here.’ Dan explained the delay. ‘En Noah’s lake house sparked a memory of Lucian once contacting Azazèl there.’
‘Fair enough,’ Rhun conceded. ‘A good unbiased opinion on how best to proceed would be welcome. The silent watchers even outrank Avery in the cosmic scheme of things …’
‘Are you implying my judgement is tainted?’ The Lord of the Otherworld took offence to his brother’s implication.
‘I fear your want of a child is clouding your clarity,’ Rhun answered.
‘Fallon’s pregnancy is beside the point!’ Avery insisted.
‘You are lying.’ Rhun stood to press home his view, and Avery stood to challenge it. ‘You’ve stated as much yoursel
f —’
‘I am not at risk?’ Avery’s wife, Fallon, appeared among them, and an ambience of serenity accompanied her. The hostility between the brothers ceased and all the men rose to acknowledge her presence. ‘So long as I remain here in the Otherworld, I cannot be harmed and my happy circumstance will not change.’
Dan was shaking his head, dumbfounded. ‘It seems such a long, long time since I saw you last, and yet your pregnancy does not seem to have advanced at all. Or have you already given birth?’ Dan gathered not, as Avery still did not refer to his child as either male or female.
Fallon looked puzzled and Avery explained. ‘Do you remember Lucian, the captain of the —’
‘Of course I do.’ She smiled, having established the connection. ‘Your appearance has changed somewhat since last we met, but I can clearly see our first governor in you, now that Avery has mentioned it.’
Dan bowed his head to accept what was, to the Chosen, a great compliment. For Maelgwn Gwynedd, the first Governor of Kila, was among Dan’s past life incarnations in this universe, and much as Zhou Gong was to the people of China, Maelgwn was revered among the Chosen as one of the greatest leaders ever to walk among men.
‘As for my pregnancy,’ Fallon further enlightened them, ‘it shall not advance so long as I remain in the Otherworld.’
‘Hence the need to make this universe safe and stable as soon as possible,’ Avery outlined.
‘Now I see the urgency,’ Dan warranted, but considered that wish would prove no simple matter.
‘There is no urgency really,’ Fallon made it sound like Avery was making an awful fuss over nothing. ‘We’ve waited a hundred years to conceive, so a few more years before giving birth will hardly make much difference. However,’ Fallon urged them to be seated on the tree elementals who had contorted themselves into seats for the lord’s guests’ convenience, ‘regarding the question of how to combat the reptilian we knew as Shyamal: I was entrusted with the specs for the anion spray adhesive, which Kestler and Floyd designed to combat the menace, and the specs for the weapon Shyamal designed to use against us.’