Mazeweaver, page 20
The centre
My family toured the cathedral in Chartres two years ago when we were visiting my grande-mère in France, and I walked the labyrinth inlaid into the floor. Aliya made a simple version of the same design. Which makes an awesome kind of sense, because labyrinths are supposed to function as meditative tools. Across the boundaries of worlds. What are they but a representation of the mental pathways we travel when we sink into a trance? And a pathway is something you can lead someone else along. Even if they don’t want to go.
I need to get back to my centre, and I plan to take someone else with me. The Mantis has been playing games with me for long enough: now it’s payback time. But The Mantis won’t be easy to lead. It will only work if I pull right at its core. At least it’s easy to know where to find the foundations of a building... just not so easy to access.
Which is why I’m creeping around at nine o’clock at night wearing black clothes and a baseball cap. I’ve heard about urban explorers who map the hidden tunnels under London. Sometimes it takes them years to find ways into hidden passages – but they don’t have my skillset. Mind you, they do have climbing gear and head torches. Wish I’d thought of that.
In the alley behind The Shard, I crouch and rest my palm against the concrete. Our roots are all connected, Treebeard says. And millions of people have roots in this city. It is alive, in its own way. I can feel its heartbeat. The deserted streets spread around me like the filigree in a leaf, calling me to follow. I let my awareness sink down instead, to map the hidden city beneath my feet. Tube tunnels and access shafts, sewers and ventilation pipes, forgotten basements subsiding into the Thames mud – a vast network.
A manhole cover ten metres away will give me access. No one is looking. I pull with all my might. Nothing happens. Ah, I guess that’s why urban exploration is so hard. But they don’t have my contacts.
‘Any ideas?’ I ask the empty air.
‘You just want to lift it?’ says Sleepy. ‘Easy!’
My heart lifts just to hear their voice.
A gust of wind as two of the air elementals dive through the tiny hole in the metal grate; then an ear-splitting clang as the manhole cover shoots ten feet into the air and lands on a wheelie bin.
‘Perfect,’ I say. The violence of the noise suits the anger that is vibrating through my limbs. It’s too late to save the dragons, but I will not let The Mantis wreak the same destruction on my world.
No time to waste now – someone is sure to come and investigate that crash. I dry my sweaty palms on my jeans and peer down the hole. A metal ladder descends into darkness. Pulling my phone out to switch on the torch, I curse for the thousandth time. How did people survive before smartphones?
‘Can you folks make light, by any chance?’ I ask.
‘We can refract and amplify ambient light.’ A diffuse glow starts to emanate from Doc’s wings.
‘I’ll be seen!’ I yelp, ‘Can you hold off for a minute?’
‘We can stop you being seen, too,’ Grumpy says. ‘That’s a simple matter of bending light.’
‘Whoa. Would I be able to learn to do that?’
‘I don’t know. How well do you understand geometrical optics?’ Bashful asks.
‘Oh. Maybe I’ll set Ravi to investigating invisibility.’ Right, enough procrastinating. ‘Let’s get down there.’
‘Dear Luca,’ says Sleepy, hovering over my shoulder, ‘we like you very much. But not enough to go under the ground.’
Makes sense. Guess I’m on my own again. But I don’t feel as alone as I have been. I’m in the dark, but only literally rather than metaphorically as well. I’ll just have to navigate using my extra senses rather than my eyes.
I go down the hole, like Alice into Wonderland. No, bad analogy: Alice fell.
The ladder takes me a long way down. It’s hard to keep a sense of space when it’s pitch black. It’s also hard to stop my hands from shaking. Eventually, my feet hit concrete, and I lean my forehead on the metal bars and breathe for a minute until my heart rate settles. The righteous indignation that’s brought me here to The Mantis’ home is putting me on edge, interfering with my mental control. I breathe that out too until I’m focused and can stretch out my senses again.
I close my eyes, stop straining to see and let myself feel. The underground city unfolds around me, my awareness spreading out like water running through cracks.
A labyrinth is built of concentric circles which loop back on themselves near the end of each circuit, folding into the centre. I begin to walk, my footsteps echoing down the wide concrete tunnel. A hundred metres, then I need to bear right to follow the path of the labyrinth I’m holding in my mind. My mental map shows me a series of narrow brick shafts strung with cables, and I twist and turn my way through them to trace an approximate circle.
It’s so weird to walk without using sight; hard not to focus on the enclosing dark. I have to remember this is a meditation. Shame – I’d get so many likes if I documented this on Instagram. But there are more important things. I must make the pathway compelling enough that The Mantis will be drawn to follow; I have got to want with the whole of my being to find the centre of the labyrinth.
Half of the first circle is done. The next part of the path leads down: another metal ladder. My trainers splash into an inch of water at the bottom. The smell tells me this is part of the sewers – an overflow tunnel, I hope. The main sewers are dangerous, liable to flooding. I think they are at a lower level ... I wish Tarn were here. I try to read the surrounding water as best I can, feel it surging and trickling and seeping. Most of it is below. Just enough on this level to be thoroughly unpleasant.
I slosh along the sewer until another ladder takes me up to a rusty hatch. I bruise my shoulder forcing it open. This is a meditation; I will not swear. I will not think about the smell wafting up from my shoes.
One circle is complete, and I can feel it working. I’m being followed.
Being followed along a dark tunnel by a giant creepy insect is not my usual idea of fun. This is what I want, remember.
‘These are my foundations, Shaman. You transgress your place.’ Its steel voice is squeezed by the narrow walls, forced through my ears like the squeal of a braking train. It’s so close I can hear the camera-shutter click of it blinking. A faint glow from its eyes casts spooky shadows in front of me.
The tunnel distorts my reply so that I hardly recognise my own voice. ‘I claim this space.’
Doubling back, I begin the second circle. Pulling loose a rusty grate, I duck into a ventilation shaft. Shuffle along, scraping my head on the rough concrete ceiling. At least there’s a warm breeze.
Multiple footsteps sound behind me, sharp clacks like high heels. Six metal feet, dragging as if reluctant to follow. It’s shrunk itself to fit into the shaft; it’s being forced into my pattern.
‘Do not imagine you can win this game,’ The Mantis hisses. ‘I have been fed by a thousand dreams of ambition and vengeance. I will always outmanoeuvre you in the end.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘That’s why I won’t play your game.’
I’m not trying to win; just shut down the computer.
We turn into a vast, echoing space with a vaulted brick ceiling, crisscrossed with bundles of cables. How can all this be lost underground? The faint glow of The Mantis’ eyes only serves to give the darkness shadows. But I know the shape of each brick, each curl of wire, even though I can’t see anything. Which is super cool, but I’m worried that if I think too hard about how I’m doing it I’ll jinx it and be stuck down here in the dark.
Our footsteps echo as we cross the buried cathedral. At least it’s easy to walk a large arc here, clambering over cables as thick as my arm. Then into another circular concrete pipe that joins a disused tube tunnel, going in the right direction for us to follow for a short while. A distant rumble shakes dirt into my hair. I must be right underneath London Bridge Station.
I double back into another ventilation shaft, a wide one that’s part of the London Underground and has stairs like a fire escape; at the first landing, a smaller brick tunnel crosses it and I choose that, my reluctant companion lurking behind.
This is the third and final circuit, the widest circle but the one that leads to the centre of the labyrinth. The energy of the pattern is pulling at me; I created the pathway in my mind, but it exists outside me now, leading me on. I hardly need to map out the route anymore – my feet know where to tread.
Back across the underground cathedral – we emerge from a tunnel two metres up the wall, and I have to lower myself by my arms and then drop. The Mantis just walks down the wall. A wide arc, parallel to the line I inscribed with my feet earlier, and then another warren of narrow pipes lined with cables. We’re nearing the centre.
Everything is settling into place. No anxiety, no doubt. Our footsteps fall in perfect harmony. We walk into deep stillness.
A small brick room with a high vaulted ceiling. Victorian. Empty and abandoned. Not much to look at, but I have walked a labyrinth to bring us here; I have made it the centre. These arches and tunnels have become a mirror of my mind; The Mantis’ foundations buried beneath my own.
‘You think to make me weak by bringing me here?’ The Mantis asks. ‘I have never felt stronger.’
‘Not weak, no – that’s your tactic,’ I say. Now I’m here in the centre, I can’t be angry anymore; there’s no space for it. ‘You tried to weaken my influence by breaking me down. You stripped away all the external things I’d based my identity on. And now I’m stronger because I’ve had to come back to myself. To knowing that I don’t need anything else to build my identity on. I’m not a shaman because the elementals need me or because my friends support me: I’m a shaman because I’m me. That’s enough.’ I go right up to the big metal creature and place a soothing hand on the top of its head. ‘You’re strong here because this is the centre of your being, the deepest part of yourself. Only deep sleep can bring someone here; or a trance.’
‘I never sleep,’ it says.
‘You will now. You have to: the pattern of your mind is wrapped up inside mine. This is your stronghold, but you can’t leave it. Not without me to show you the way.’
For the first time, I sense its fear. ‘Have you brought me here to bargain?’
‘No. You told me yourself I’ll never beat you at your own game. This is it, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.’
And I really am. Now that the anger’s gone, a deep well of regret is opening up to take its place. I wish there were another way.
‘There must be another way,’ The Mantis says. ‘I will stop feeding from your friends.’
‘And what about everyone else?’
‘I do not require so much energy now,’ it begs. ‘I have no more need for revenge.’
But the desire for revenge is all it’s ever known. Habits are hard to break. With the dragons gone, what if it realises that humanity can be just as bad? We killed a whole planet full of elementals, once.
‘You told me yourself: you can’t help being who you are. You can’t change, and I can’t make you.’
‘You can’t force me to stay here. Sleep cannot be a prison.’
Seeing it beg feels wrong. Even after all it’s done, I hate to see it broken. I shake my head sadly. ‘You’re part of the pattern I made, now.’ I stroke my hand down its vicious beak and its legs fold up until it’s lying on the floor. Metal shutters concertina closed over its eyes, and total darkness descends again.
‘Sweet dreams.’ My voice cracks.
It’s easy for me to leave the labyrinth. It only takes minutes to return to the ladder where I entered. For The Mantis, it would be an impenetrable maze. I’ve stolen its foundations. I’ve left it in the magical equivalent of a medically induced coma. Except they are supposed to help someone heal. There’s no healing happening here. There’s forever.
I feel no sense of success as I climb back into the alley behind The Shard. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I brush away all the dust and cobwebs and salt water. I’ve won. Now, I just have to find a way to live with it.
sleep
only dreams remain to me
but what remains of my dreams?
is there any world in which i might belong?
Falling
‘The next wave will be worse, won’t it?’
Aliya opened her eyes to see that Linden had joined her on the ledge above the valley.
‘You can tell when they’re coming, can’t you?’ she guessed.
The young dragon shrugged and his wings shuffled over his back.
‘And it doesn’t affect you like everyone else.’
Linden glanced at her, then quickly away. ‘It used to. But then I learnt to ... hide from it. Somewhere inside.’ He scraped the talons of his front foot over the stone. ‘I’ve never met a shaman before.’
‘Have you even talked to a human before?’
‘Well, no ... but we have stories. Human stories. Can you shapeshift?’
‘No.’ Aliya had grown up on the same stories. They made the realities of her life both disappointing and relieving.
‘Can you talk to ghosts? Do you have a spirit animal? Can—’
‘I probably can’t do any of the things you hear in stories,’ she snapped.
Linden flinched. ‘But can you...?’
A wave of compassion swept over her. ‘The one thing I can always do is believe that there’s a way to make things better.’
The peace of the moment shattered. All across the valley, the sounds of grieving shifted into a rising siren of violence. Linden hunched into the rock face and pulled his wings over his head, retreating inside himself. From the cave behind her, Quantum let out a wail – and then tumbled past her as if loosed from a slingshot. Aliya dived after him with a yell as he careened over the edge of the path; her fingers closed on one tiny back foot. Her grip slipped. Her thoughts seemed to run into a wall, stabbing pain like that of her bruised ribs pressing into the stone. It couldn’t end like this. And then Quantum’s claws snicked out of their sheaths and dug into her hand. She welcomed the pain that allowed her to haul him to safety.
‘What are you going to do?’ Quantum yelled as soon as his feet touched the stone. ‘You must know how to save them!’
‘I don’t,’ Aliya croaked, wiping blood off her hand. ‘I don’t know how to fix something this broken.’
‘The same way that Meri protected me,’ Quantum said. ‘Call on all the other air elementals to help.’
‘Meri had to sacrifice her life to give you that protection – there’s no way that other spirits will do that. Not for strangers.’
Sparks dripped from the corners of his mouth as he spat at her, ‘Do you even want to save them, or do you think they deserve this? Are you judging them like you judged my wings, and finding us all wanting?’
She closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness swept over her. This wasn’t a sign that their relationship was falling apart; Quantum was just terrified for his parents. ‘I want you to feel complete. What I hated was that those copper monstrosities—’
‘I know!’ he yelled, shooting a jet of flame at the cliff face. Fire dripped off the rock like tears. ‘They powered a curse. They’ll rip apart everything I care about. And I loved them, Aliya. That’s the worse thing: I loved them.’ He landed on her shoulder and nestled into her hair. ‘Please, Aliya. Ask the air elementals to help.’
‘Okay.’ Impossible as it was, she had no other options. Pain and exhaustion and the erratic pulse of the mountain’s curse were all pressing in on her. It was impossible to think. If only Meriel were here to speak on their behalf...
Maybe she still could. There would always be part of her within Quantum; he could be her voice. Aliya just had to get him into the sky, where the air elementals were. Once this heartbeat of the curse ended, another dragon could carry him... if any dragons were still alive. If this heartbeat wasn’t the final one. There was no time to wait. But there was one other dragon who was free of the curse.
‘Linden,’ she said, moving to the young dragon huddled against the cliff face. Placing a hand on his back, she asked, ‘Can you hear me? You’re going to need to be strong, to not just resist the curse but also help us defeat it. Can you do that? Hold onto that clear space inside, but come out of yourself, now. I believe you’re strong enough to do both.’
Slowly, so slowly, Linden’s neck unfurled and he blinked open his eyes.
She nodded respectfully. ‘You’ll make a fine shaman one day. Now, you have to fly.’
With Quantum clinging awkwardly to his back, too large to fit comfortably in the space between his wings, Linden launched into the sky. Wings straining under the extra weight, he slowly spiralled up into the blue, weaving through the erratic flights of the larger dragons.
Aliya heaved herself to her feet and began to stumble down the mountain path, searching for somewhere safe to shelter while she tried to talk to the spirits. Gathering pace as she staggered downhill, she swung into the first switch-back bend and ran straight into Kai. He pitched backwards, the two sticks he was using as makeshift crutches skidding away. Aliya fisted both hands in his jerkin to keep him upright.
His smile was more of a pained grimace. ‘I figured you’d need saving again before too long.’
Aliya threw herself backwards, dragging Kai down on top of her. A huge fireball detonated on the section of pathway he’d been standing on a moment before, cracking the rock and sheering away a long section of the trail.
‘My turn,’ said Aliya. Kai just groaned and buried his head in her shoulder until Aliya shoved him off. ‘Come on, get up – we can’t stay here. Where’s Fennik? Was he behind you?’
‘No, he stayed well outside the city,’ Kai said. ‘He’s much less of an idiot than me.’
