Futile Flame (24 page)

‘What are you both talking about? Why can’t we see your father, Ilura?’ I asked. ‘Surely he must be told what has happened?’

‘The “king” is not my father,’ Ilura said solemnly.

‘Then who is he?’

‘Not who, what is he...’ Caesare responded.

The mountain garden began to rot around us. The plants shrivelled and died. The river level dropped and dried up leaving nothing but a dusty channel. The pool, however, was still. I stared down at the immobile water. It was as though someone had thrown a pebble into the water and it froze as the ripples panned outwards. I was looking at ripples frozen in real time. I shook away the paralysis the phenomenon caused and looked up.

The landscape grew barren around us. I could see the city in the distance as the trees shrank. The marble and rock buildings shuddered as though they would fall apart and that dizzy seasick feeling I’d experienced earlier made me feel once more unsteady on my feet. Ilura gripped Caesare’s leg in fear.

‘What’s happening?’ she cried and this time the sound came from her open mouth and not just her mind. Her hand flew to her mouth in terror and I realised that the Allucians world was truly broken; even their telepathy no longer worked.

‘Come,’ Caesare said, and he took Ilura up in his arms like a baby and began to run with supernatural speed across the deteriorating land.

I ran alongside him, knowing full well that the final mystery would be solved and I would discover who and what was behind the power of the Allucians.

Rock tumbled down around us. The mountain was reforming itself, eradicating the very essence of the Allucians from it. The ground shuddered beneath our feet as we ran. I believed at any moment it would just crack open and swallow us into the rock. Just ahead a landslide of boulders clattered down, blocking our way as they tumbled to the ground, knocking and clattering together. The rock sounded strangely hollow as it smashed into and crushed the remaining plants. I watched as years of lichen grew over the boulders in seconds. A barren tree extended out from between a crack in the boulders, and the other pieces of rock moulded together to form perfect waves of age-worn slate.

‘This way!’ Caesare called and I turned to see him running for an opening to his left.

I vaguely recognised it as the gateway to the Allucian citadel.

Ilura’s telepathy worked intermittently. Her thoughts and screams of fear came sometimes from her head and sometimes from her mouth. She tried to stifle the physical sounds but her terror was an abyss that threatened to swallow her. The Allucians had never lived without their magic and it was as though a limb was being ripped from her body. It hurt. I sympathised because I too had felt powerless without my own skills.

A piece of blue rock tumbled down from above us. I threw myself against Caesare and we fell aside just in time. The sky was literally falling in, and as it hit the rotting grass both reverted back to their former state of thick, grey rock. Tiny hailstones of sharp blue stone rapidly rained down on us. One hit Caesare’s temple, leaving a nasty gash that bled profusely for a few seconds before healing. Caesare sheltered Ilura from the hail. We staggered on to the archway, zigzagging to avoid being crushed as larger lumps of sky-stone fell. Through the archway and we were at the citadel; the Allucian world was swiftly shrinking.

Magic was being sucked from the air. An Allucian male ran frantically from his home in front of us as the mountain swallowed the structure before our eyes, absorbing it and replacing it with a blank rock face.

‘Oh my God!’ I yelled, seeing the half-absorbed body of another male Allucian as he was digested by the mountain. Only half of his face and a few fingers protruded when the rock stopped moving. ‘What is happening here? Was everything an elaborate illusion?’

‘Time is restructuring,’ Ilura cried. ‘We carved our life from the darkness and now it’s taking it back.’

‘What did you people do?’ I cried. But neither Caesare or Ilura answered me.

We continued to hurry forward. Around us the mountain closed in, and behind us the city fell and crumbled, becoming solid rock once more. The once-smooth streets became uneven slate, sharp spikes jutting out from floor and ceiling. Screams of the dying echoed around the cave. It was the most sickening torture chamber. The Allucians were being punished for their excesses; they were being digested by the very mountain that gave them shelter.

The illusion of daylight had now completely disappeared. We halted in a dark and gloomy cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites extended from the hollow floor and ceiling as though the mountain itself was growing fangs.

Ahead of us stood the nursery, and as far as I could tell, its structure was holding fast.

‘How can that be?’ I asked. ‘Why is the nursery still safe?’

‘That’s where he is kept?’ Caesare gasped.

‘Inside,’ Ilura replied. ‘Where else do you keep a king, but in a palace.’

‘Or an asylum...’ I murmured but neither of them responded.

We entered the nursery building, but this time I was even more alert to the malevolent presence within. There was a strong sense of madness and evil in the air. I’d sensed it before, but now it intensified. Glancing back from the huge hallway to the entrance doors I watched the mountain world as the rock closed in against the building and stopped one foot from the door. The mountain creaked and shuddered as though it had met with a force more powerful than itself.

I fell to my knees. My own magic had been quelled and now I remembered all my spells; realised I’d forgotten them without knowing. Such had been the magic of the Allucians. But now the block was gone and my head was free again. Anger surged up into my mind and heart. I had been psychically drugged and made into a pliable vegetable. With the return of all of my faculties I could feel the malice in the air. Caesare and any remaining Allucians would now suffer the consequences for their crimes. And maybe I would be destroyed along with them.

Caesare placed Ilura down in the open hallway and she fell against him, sobbing loudly. It was a human sound, one I had never thought to hear in this world of silence. But my heart was cold to her.

‘They are dead. All dead. My people, my family.’

‘You brought this on yourselves,’ I answered calmly.

Ilura cried harder, hysteria making her screams bounce around the hallway. But my brother had no sympathy for her now.

‘Stop it!’ Caesare said harshly. ‘Show me what you’ve done.’

She fell silent at his words and looked up at him in terror. It was ironic. She and her people had been our gaolers and now she was terrified of Caesare’s anger. My brother had grown in strength also over the course of leaving the garden. His abilities, like mine, had been stifled and subdued to make him controllable. Now I saw the anger and fury burning in his blood-coloured eyes. He pushed Ilura from him and she fell to the floor crying quietly.

Something echoed above us; a tiny sound, like the patter of small feet on a marble floor. I looked up the staircase that led to the nursery but didn’t want to go there and investigate. Upstairs I could hear the cries of the remaining women; their labour had begun and twenty more babies would soon be born. Their malevolent presence would wreck havoc on the remainder of this world, I was sure. But that didn’t scare me; what did was the thought of being sucked into the rock while still conscious, and I shuddered at the thought of the Allucian man I’d seen this happen to. Maybe he was still alive in there. It was too horrible a thought, even for a monster like me. But I stood up, tall and strong, remembering again my own strength. I could blast a hole into the rock with one word of power. The mountain would not hold me again.

Ilura continued to cry. I looked down at her coldly and then at Caesare. His anger was quieting. A woman screamed above us and Caesare looked up. I knew he was feeling apprehensive, perhaps even a little afraid now. The Allucians had imprisoned him for years, yet now that freedom was imminent he looked confused and uncertain. Then a change occurred. The scarlet colour seeped from his eyes and Caesare staggered back against the door frame. Within moments he gathered his composure and I knew that all his memories had returned.

‘Where is he, damn it?’ Caesare demanded, grabbing Ilura and dragging her to her feet. ‘Show me!’

She screamed again in terror and fright.

‘This way,’ I said.

I heard music; a lullaby, faint and enchanting. We left Ilura still cringing on the floor and walked towards a set of double doors to the left of the stairs. Caesare pushed the doors open with a crash and walked forward. We could now feel the call of this obscure song as we entered a wide passage with doors leading off it on both sides.

‘I saw this corridor when she brought me here yesterday. The double doors were open then.’

‘What is it?’

‘The doors of time,’ I muttered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Miranda told me. The wrong door will lead to the darkness.’

‘Who is Miranda?’

I couldn’t answer but took his hand and pulled Caesare forward. He clasped my fingers firmly and I felt for a moment transported to an innocent time where a brother and sister could hold hands; a time before our sin. His fingers trembled. Caesare no longer seemed like the cruel, vicious and bitter monster he had become, but a frightened child. Just like me.

The doors had a different essence to them. A strange and violent tumult rocked and pulled at their handles and knobs. A thousand screaming voices could be heard behind one. It was made of polished silver and I caught my reflection in it. I remembered seeing the same reflection in Joanna’s hairbrush several lifetimes ago. Déjà vu. I shied away to the other side of the corridor as we passed the door. It sounded like the hell of our Christian world and I had no urge to visit it, even if some part of me felt I belonged there. Door after door, all different. One was plain white, silent. I put my hand on the frame and the cold-looking wood was red hot and burnt the skin from my fingers.

‘Ouch!’ I stared down at my healing skin, watched the blisters shrink and dissolve.

Caesare stroked the handle of another door. This one was made from a million different cuttings of hair, all brunette and all belonging to different people. The door bowed as he touched it and blood seeped through its keyhole. Caesare pulled his hand back sharply.

‘What’s happening?’ he cried.

I shook my head, unable to reply, though the answer was on the tip of my mind, somewhere in my conversations with Miranda.

Farther down the corridor I saw a door which inexplicably felt right to me. How would I know which one was right? I feared the darkness because Miranda had warned me of it, even though I didn’t understand what it was.

‘This one,’ Caesare murmured.

He stopped by a door of knotted, whorled wood. It looked like old and rotten driftwood polished smooth by the actions of the sea.

‘He’s behind there.’

‘The King?’ I asked, but Caesare didn’t reply.

‘Where are the babies?’ Ilura said, and I turned to find her behind us. ‘They must be here too. They did this.’

Caesare shook his head. ‘They are just babies. It’s him. He’s loose.’

Caesare stepped forward but I gripped his hand, holding onto him firmly. ‘I need some explanations before I go in there.’

‘We don’t have time. But you’re right, you shouldn’t come through here. Wait with Ilura.’

‘No,’ I pulled at his hand, tried to hold him back.

Caesare looked at me for a moment. His eyes were watery.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I always loved you.’

Then he shook his hand free from mine and stepped forward, his fingers closing around the doorknob. Ilura ran before him and placed herself in his path.

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t let him out. You don’t know what he’s capable of.’

‘I only want to talk to him.’

Ilura grabbed his arm.. ‘You came here to find him. We knew that. Even though you swore allegiance, we knew all along that in your heart you wished to absorb his power. Caesare, being near his essence all these years has changed you and us. What do you think will happen when you see him in the flesh? Touch him?’

Caesare paused for just a second before viciously batting Ilura out of the way. She smashed back onto the marble floor. Her head cracked loudly and there was the sickening crunch of bone on bone. He opened the door.

Light, not dark, flooded the corridor and the strength was drained from my limbs as I narrowed my eyes to try and see into the blinding glow. Then the door slammed closed behind Caesare and my brother was taken from view.

Ilura was in my arms. Blood seeped from her temple and her nose and I lay her broken body down on the floor to examine her wounds further. Her breathing was shallow and there was a strange and sickening looseness about her neck. Some remembered healing made me straighten her body and I tried to keep it in line with her neck as she opened her eyes and looked at me.

‘What’s in there?’ I asked.

‘The ultimate God,’ she answered. Her lips moved and her voice was croaky. Blood flecked the corners of her mouth as she spoke.

‘Ilura, I can’t help unless I know more. Is he dangerous? Will he destroy my brother?’