The Yazziz nodded and rejoined the other five adult Yatsill. They jumped from the side of the Ptall’kor and moved away toward the hills, where one of the Yarkeen tentacles was pulling leaves from the treetops. It reminded me of an elephant’s trunk, but with teeth in the opening at its end.
I was surprised by the speed at which the Yatsill moved. With their four oddly jointed legs, they looked somewhat ungainly and walked jerkily, yet progressed rapidly across the sward.
Once they reached the treeline, Yazziz Yozkulu threw one of his spears up at the long appendage. He missed it. One of the other Yatsill made the attempt and also failed. However, a third spear hit its mark, and the Yatsill immediately huddled together and started moving in a manner which caused me to realise that, although I couldn’t see it, a thin cord must have been attached to the end of the spear.
With much straining and shouts of encouragement, the creatures hauled on the line and pulled the Yarkeen’s limb out of the foliage and down to the ground. The tentacle looked strong enough to send them all flying, yet put up no resistance whatever.
I’d been reporting the action to Clarissa, but now paused and turned to Kata to ask, “Why does it not struggle?”
“Because it doesn’t know anything is wrong yet. The Yarkeen is very slow and stupid. If the hunters work fast enough, they will be able to kill it before it’s even aware of the danger.”
The Yatsill grabbed at the limb and pushed spears through it and deep into the earth, pinning it down.
Looking up at the disk, I could see that it was now leaning toward the hunters and watery ripples were playing across its surface. It seemed impossible that something so colossal could be pegged down with what, to it, must be nothing more than splinters, but it was fast becoming clear to me that the Yarkeen possessed even less substance than a jellyfish.
After ensuring the spears were all secured, the hunters left the edge of the clearing and disappeared among the trees. Nothing more happened for some considerable time, until one of the Koluwaian men cried out, “There! They have another!”
I saw that, farther around the circumference of the Yarkeen, a second limb was being drawn taut, causing the edge of the disk to dip so far down that it brushed the foliage.
Some moments later, I spotted the six hunters swarming into the upper canopy. The Yatsill do not by any means appear arboreal—far from it, in fact—yet they sped through the branches with all the ease and confidence of monkeys. Upon reaching the edge of the Yarkeen’s disk, they hauled themselves up onto it and ran toward its centre. It sank and wobbled beneath their weight until they reached the slope where the flesh of the vast creature rose into the central cord.
The Yarkeen finally began to react. The tentacles around its edge flailed about in a distressed manner. The two that were pinned down tore themselves loose.
“They must work quickly now,” Kata commented.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They are using their fingers to cut through the cord.”
I looked at the young Yatsill and noted that the inside edges of their long, restless fingers were sharp and serrated.
“There!” Kata announced.
I turned back in time to see the Yarkeen collapsing downward onto the forest like a silken shroud, while the gas sac, high above it, shot up and rapidly vanished from sight. The Zull that had been circling it wheeled away and disappeared toward the cloud-obscured mountains.
The Yatsill dropped with the disk, but the fall was slow—it floated down rather than plummeted—and as it descended, its tendrils retracted into it, and the entire expanse of flesh withered and shrank before disappearing into the trees.
“They will now cut out the edible organ,” the islander said. She rubbed her stomach and smiled. “Excellent! Yarkeen tastes good!”
A short time passed, then the Yatsill returned and clambered aboard the Ptall’kor. Yazziz Yozkulu was holding a long strip of rubbery flesh: a honeycombed diaphanous glob from which a clear jelly oozed.
While the Ptall’kor got moving again, the Yazziz crouched and, with keen-edged fingers, cut the meat into thick slices. These were then distributed among the children, the Koluwaians, and the Wise Ones.
I held the dripping slab that had been handed to me and looked at it doubtfully. Clarissa raised her piece to her nose. “It smells like lavender flowers.” She tested it with her tongue. “Mmm! It’s sweet! Taste it, Aiden!”
“I’m not sure—” I began, but stopped when my friend took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and sighed with satisfaction.
“It’s very good!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you hungry?”
I couldn’t deny it. I took a cautious bite. Clarissa was right—it tasted delicious.
° °
The Ptall’kor dragged itself over the forest, following the course of the river. The purple-leafed trees were gradually supplanted by a taller but more widely spaced variety of plant, the base of which resembled a perfectly spherical cactus, about fifteen feet in diameter, out of the top of which grew a thin and high-reaching trunk that divided at its top into horizontal branches. These divided again and again, thinning until the tips were almost invisible. The lower portions of the plant were the colour of suede leather; the upper parts a creamy white.
Gripping at the thick central branches, our vehicle slid over them and entered a second valley, through which the river flowed more rapidly. Its banks were thick with big white flowers that sent clouds of yellow pollen into the air, making the atmosphere misty.
Something was happening to the Yatsill. They’d started to twitch in a peculiar manner. I mentioned this to Kata, and she told me, “The reflections surround them. We will see them soon, too. It normally takes a bit longer for us. The meat is more difficult for us to digest.”
Clarissa asked, “What do you mean?”
“Our sight must adjust. The future is—”
Kata suddenly stopped talking and her face went slack. Her shoulders jerked. I looked at the other islanders and saw they all bore the same blank expression and were making inexplicable movements.
“Clarissa,” I said. “I think we’ve been drugged.”
Her reply, whatever it was, sounded like the deep chime of a bell. Its tone soaked into my skin and took the weight out of me. My will to move became entirely insignificant. The atmosphere wafted straight through my body and I saw, all around, intersecting planes and angles, as if the pollen was settling against invisible surfaces. The rays of the suns filled my eyes with gold, and the ringing in my ears merged with the light as my senses blended together. Suddenly I could see the lemony tang of the air; feel the lingering flavour of the Yarkeen meat like petals brushing my skin; smell the sunshine; taste the colours.
Parts of the air became reflective, as if shattered fragments of a giant mirror were floating around me. I saw myself in them, a tall, skinny man with untidy blond hair and pale blue eyes, stumbling along in a fogbound alley. Its surface was cobbled, but with seashells rather than pebbles, and the tenement buildings to either side of it were eccentrically designed and leaned inward in an exaggerated manner.
The atmosphere darkened, the yellow becoming the deepest of reds.
I was in fog. Very dense. I was lost in it. I began to feel afraid.
The soft glow of two gas lamps—or twin suns?—shone through the pall and illuminated the legs of a Yatsill. The creature was on the ground, lying face up. It had been wearing woman’s clothing, but these garments were now rent and tangled, ripped away from the body, the front of which had been shattered. I felt, heard, smelled the crushed splinters of its carapace, the ripped innards that had been torn from it, the red blood that puddled outwards, oozing along the channels between the inset shells of the road.
A large broken section of the thing’s torso swam into sharp focus. It bore a long mark on it—the furrow of an old wound. The corpse was that of Tsillanda Ma’ara.
I looked down and saw that my hands were wrapped around the grip of a long sword. I
ts guard was fashioned with ornately carved and curved quillons, and its pommel was large, heavy, and studded.
Blood dripped from the blade.
Darkness pressed against me.
The weapon. Tsillanda Ma’ara. The blood.
“I can’t be!” I moaned. “I can’t be!”
° °
4. Immersion and Transformation
I lay still, with my eyes shut. The citrus air whispered past my ears. The yodel of an animal echoed from the far distance.
Kata’s voice: “Sometimes it is this way. The Valley of Reflections can be difficult.”
Clarissa: “You should have warned us. Had I known the meat would affect us in this manner, I would have refused it.”
“But it is tradition. The valley cannot be traversed without first tasting Yarkeen.”
My mouth felt dry and there was an unpleasant sensation in my stomach, as if I’d swallowed a ball of tobacco. I opened my eyes. “Clarissa.”
“Aiden! Are you all right?”
I sat up, blinked, and saw that the Ptall’kor was gliding through an area of rocks and bubbling springs and waterfalls. The air was filled with pollen and steam. My skin was wet with perspiration.
“No, I’m not. Do you remember Jekyll and Hyde?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“There is a darkness in me, Clarissa. I’m afraid it can rise to the surface and take over, just as Hyde did with Jekyll. I think it has a name.”
“A name? What are you talking about?”
“It is called Jack the Ripper.”
“Aiden, surely you don’t mean to suggest that you’re the Whitechapel killer?”
“A part of me is. I’m insane. I can’t control myself.” I indicated the landscape. “And I’ve been sent to Hell.”
“You’ve been hallucinating.”
“I gutted Tsillanda Ma’ara with a sword.”
“You did no such thing. Look around you. Are the Yatsill still with us?”
“Yes.”
“Is the one called Tsillanda Ma’ara among them?”
“Yes.”
“Then obviously you didn’t kill it.”
“The experience was real.”
Kata said, “Not was, but will be. The valley shows the future, not the past.”
“Then it is the same. I saw the dead creature. It had been slaughtered in the same fashion as the Ripper’s victims and I was standing over the corpse with a long blade in my hand. The meaning of the vision is obvious—I was responsible for the murders in London and I will be responsible for more.”
Clarissa reached out and gently touched me. “Do you actually remember killing any of the women in Whitechapel?”
“No. I black out when Jack possesses me.”
“You’re talking absolute rot. You’re leaping to conclusions with no proper evidence to support them. It’s a hysterical reaction. A hallucination is a hallucination and nothing more. The fact that you stumbled upon the corpse of Polly Nichols that night is explanation enough for your vision. Anyone who suffered such a shock would have difficulty in processing the experience. Their memory would return to it again and again.”
“Where was I when the other atrocities occurred?” I asked.
“Out performing your duties.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, but the fact that I can’t vouch for your whereabouts on those nights doesn’t make you a maniacal killer. I have absolute faith in your sanity and goodness.”
I sat silently digesting this, then asked, “And you? You ate the meat, too. Did you experience a vision?”
“I saw myself driving an autocarriage through a London street. My passenger was wearing a Viennese mask. That’s all I remember.”
I accepted a skin of water from Kata and slaked my thirst.
“We are close to the Cavern of Immersion,” the Koluwaian informed us.
Passing the skin back to her, I examined my hands, expecting to see blood on them. There was none.
Something occurred to me.
“Clarissa, if our visions were of the future, then we will be returning to our own world, for we both saw ourselves in London.”
My friend shrugged. “If that’s true, then Tsillanda Ma’ara will also be transported to Earth. Do you really believe a creature such as that would be left alone long enough for you to murder it? Of course not! As I said, just a hallucination.”
The sound of falling, dripping, and trickling water, which was all around us, took on a hollow quality and the mist suddenly darkened.
“We are entering the cavern,” Kata stated.
I peered through the vapour and gathering gloom and saw mighty stalagmites rising up to barely discernible points high overhead. Pools were dotted about. Some of them bubbled and steamed.
The Ptall’kor sank to the ground. Tsillanda Ma’ara crossed to us. “Please escort the children to the pool. We will protect you.”
The Wise Ones disembarked and stood with their spears poised. One of them had a long length of rope coiled around its left shoulder.
“Protect us?” I asked Kata. “From what?”
The islander and her fellows began to guide the children off the Ptall’kor.
“We are sheltered from the Eyes of the Saviour here,” she replied. “There are Amu’utu.”
“What are they?”
“Dangerous.”
I helped Clarissa down and we waited while the islanders pushed the children into a tight group then herded them forward along a trail of worn stone. I followed behind, with my companion holding on to my arm. The Wise Ones walked to either side of the path.
“Kata, you keep mentioning the Saviour,” I said. “Do you mean God?”
“A god, yes. The Saviour watches over the Yatsill and protects them. The Saviour is good.”
As we penetrated deeper into the cavern, the light slowly faded and hundreds of small, glowing indigo-coloured beetles swarmed around our feet, darting in and out, narrowly avoiding being trodden on, as if playing a game of “dare.” At first, I took each step awkwardly as I attempted to avoid them, but then I noticed that Clarissa—who, unable to see the insects, was moving more naturally—hadn’t crushed a single one, so I relaxed a little, allowed the insects to look after their own welfare, and turned my attention to our surroundings.
The walls and roof of the vault were closing in around us. The space was pierced through by a great many stalagmites and stalactites, and was increasingly illuminated by the little beetles, which streamed across the rock in incandescent rivulets, shining through the roiling mist, replacing the watery yellow light of the exterior landscape with an intensely shimmering blue.
“Might you risk removing your blindfold, Clarissa?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I sense enough through my eyelids to know we’re surrounded by a peculiar radiance, and a gentle one, but it remains too much for me.”
The path inclined downward.
We trekked along it for maybe half an hour before a gurgling moan echoed from somewhere ahead of us.
My hair stood on end.
“What was that?” Clarissa whispered.
“Amu’utu,” one of the Koluwaians answered.
I glanced at Yazziz Yozkulu. All the Wise Ones had crouched down and were now absolutely motionless, with their spears at the ready.
Kata and the other islanders held the children back. The Yatsill youngsters stood quietly. Even their fingers stopped wiggling.
A Koluwaian man hissed at me, “Don’t move!”
I felt Clarissa’s fingers tighten on my arm.
A few yards in front of us, the path curved out of sight, disappearing behind an outcropping of rock. From around that bend, another awful moan now sounded, along with a scraping and the rattle of falling stones. There was something dreadfully uncanny about the noises. I trembled uncontrollably and would have taken to my heels were it not for Clarissa’s firm grip.
A huger spidery leg came into view, but, bizarrely, it angled up to th
e cavern roof rather than down to the floor. It was a bluish-white, with long thorns projecting downward from its leading edge. I tried to back away but Kata whispered, “No! It will sense you!”
I froze—with terror, I admit—for the creature was coming into full view now.
The wormy blue-coloured body of the Amu’utu was around fifteen feet high and shaped somewhat like an upside-down cone. Three multi-jointed legs extended from the upper, thicker part of it and disappeared into the mist and shadows above us, where their ends clung to the ceiling by means that were hidden from view. As it moved, small fragments of rock dropped from above it. The thinner end of the creature, which hung six feet above the ground, flowered outward into a complex arrangement of snappers, teeth, jaws, and hook-like appendages. Its skin was semi-transparent and fluttering organs could be glimpsed pulsating within it, as could the blood, which radiated a milky blue as it throbbed through arteries and veins.
The monster swung slowly and deliberately toward our group then stopped. Pinkish light suddenly flowed in waves across its skin and I had the distinct impression that it was extending its senses into the cavern, groping around with them, seeking movement, seeking food—seeking us!
The Yatsill and Koluwaians remained motionless, as did my companion and I.
A tremendously long spiny tongue slid out of the Amu’utu’s twitching maw, its end slithering to the ground where it began to feel about, like a blind serpent.
All of a sudden, without any indication they were about to do so, the Wise Ones scattered, each of them scurrying in a different direction.
The Amu’utu let loose a tremendous whistle, sounding exactly like a locomotive venting steam. The tongue whipped up, shot out, coiled around one of the Yatsill, and started to drag it toward the flexing jaws. Its prey—it was the individual with the rope around its shoulder—kicked and struggled and cried out, “My name is Tokula Pathamay, and I die untaken!”
“Untaken!” Yazziz Yozkulu shouted. “The Saviour has favoured you! You will be delivered to Phenadoor!”
The Wise Ones rushed in, jabbing their spears into the giant beast, aiming for the visible organs. Blood spurted and the Amu’utu shook and shuddered. A second tongue flopped out of its maw and wrapped around Tokula Pathamay’s four legs, yanking the Yatsill up into the jaws, which, with a horrendous crunch, closed over the victim’s head. I choked back a cry of horror and was almost pulled off my feet by Clarissa, who hissed, “Tell me, Aiden! Tell me what’s happening!”