“Where were you?” I said.
“More or less where your car is, only in the hedge,” he said. “I was having a pee.”
“Thanks,” I said. He had been pretty accurate. And it was fortunate that it was now dark. The strong white glare of the headlights from my car threw shadows from every pebble and every dip in the surface of the lane, magnifying even the very faint straight groove in the sand that ran for about a yard on either side of Maree’s ankles. It would have been almost invisible by daylight. I went down on hands and knees and enlarged the mark with my fingernails along its entire length. It was only then that I dared try to move Maree – or what was left of her.
She was still breathing – shallow, faint, infrequent breaths – but as I rolled her on to my left arm in order to get that arm under her shoulders, I found she was very cold. I hoped, fervently, that this was only because she had been lying on the ground at nightfall. It had become very cold here at sundown. The air now had that still, frigid feel to it that promised frost before midnight. And Maree, as stripped folk do, looked as if the frost had struck her already. Her shaggy hair, which had been a sort of mid-brown, was now silvery blonde. There was no colour at all in her face. Her black leather jacket had become the palest of greys and her one-time blue jeans, I saw as I got my other arm under her knees, were nearly white.
It was no trouble to lift her. Her body weight was exactly half what it should have been. I stood up with her easily and was puzzled to discover that holding her like this, light, limp and frost cold, was one of the most sexual experiences I have ever had. I also had to fight myself not to cry.
Before I could lay her down again where I needed her, Dakros’s hover came hurtling down the hill at tree-top height, pinned me with its spotlight and plunged to a landing on the other side of the hedge. I heard mature vines crack and splinter under it and wondered how much he was going to have to pay the owner in compensation. Or maybe he owned the vines himself. His searchlight blazed through the hedge, casting long criss-cross shadows of empty branches over Nick and me and pretty well obliterating my carefully scraped mark.
“Is there some more trouble, Magid?” his amplified voice boomed.
Oh go away! I thought. I did not need Stan’s urgent croak from the car, “Don’t tell him!”, to decide on my answer.
“Yes, but it’s trouble to do with my own world this time!” I shouted. “I’ve got the problem well in hand!”
I might have saved my breath. Dakros was already crunching through the broken vines. Shortly, he was leaning through the hedge above Nick. I suppose one could hardly blame him. “What is it this time?” he said.
“The same killers,” I said. “They seem to have stripped this young lady in order to steal her car. Do you mind turning your searchlight off. I can’t see my mark.”
Dakros spoke an order into his com, looking keenly at Nick while he did so. As the great beam flicked off, he said, “You’re one of those two sightseers who gave Jeffros the slip, aren’t you?”
Nick had no more desire than I had to confide in Dakros. While I laid Maree carefully in the right place alongside my now visible groove, Nick said, “Yes, I’m sorry. We had no idea it was a military operation. We just followed him here – Rupert. It was a silly jaunt. I explained to Jeffros. And we thought we’d go when everyone got busy. But – but it went wrong.”
“Damned right it did,” Dakros agreed. “You were told to stay by the carriers. The Magid’s had enough trouble already, boy.” And he stayed, leaning into the hedge, watching, while I stepped back from Maree and performed the working that unfastened just a scrap of the walls between universes.
The place was weak anyway. White, or Janine, had only sealed it perfunctorily. It burst open in our faces in a sheet of roaring red flame. Dakros and Nick both cried out and ducked. Even Maree’s tepid half-body flinched. I held one arm over my blistering face and worked like a madman to get that gate properly closed. It seemed to take for ever. I heard the hedge frizzle and a tinny smicker from my car as its paintwork blistered, before I managed to drag the broken edges of Infinity back together and seal them down in place. I put extra sealing on them for safety and then tottered to lean on the hedge for a moment.
“Phew!” said Dakros. “What was that?”
The lane was filled with
smoke, sharp singed smells and a stink of sulphur. I slapped at a burning spot on my trouser-knee and told him, “The inside of a volcano. Fool amateurs make these mistakes.” But I didn’t think it was a mistake. It felt to me as if the area around where Maree had lain had been carefully staked out.
“But,” said Nick. “The other half of Maree—”
“Doesn’t exist any longer,” I said. Nick stood, half pointing to Maree’s white remnant, so obviously stunned that I added, “We’ll have to think of some other way, Nick.” There was no other way, except one so strange and risky that I hoped he would come to accept what had happened and not ask. “We’d better take her home now,” I said.
Nick simply turned and trudged to my car, where he opened the rear door.
Dakros said, “I’ll be in touch quite soon, Magid, about the new Empress. We need to hold a serious discussion. And I still want those murderers handed over to the Empire.”
“You’ll get them,” I said, “if it’s the last thing I do.”
I bent and picked up Maree’s sad remnant again. This time I felt only strong sorrow. Though she was still alive after a fashion now, it was not for long. The stripped half of a person fades very quickly on its own. What I was picking up and carrying to the rear door of my car was a virtual corpse. Nick received it from me so carefully and laid it so considerately along the back seat that I rather feared he was still thinking of Maree as alive.
Poor kid, I thought and, with that, remembered Rob and my fears for him too. “Let’s go,” I said.
Nick obediently scrambled in beside me. I waved to Dakros and we went, further up the lane, around the same moment as the hover took off back to the hilltop.
And I muffed it.
I suppose I had excuses. We went from a different place, facing another direction. I was certainly in a state of shock after all that had happened, and quite tired. Magids are human, after all. And Maree’s attackers had staked out Wantchester the way they had staked out the area round her car. I think that, having failed to shoot me, they were trying to make sure I did not come back. But Magids are chosen for their ability to carry on regardless of difficulties, mental, physical and magical. It was only a question of homing on to the place I had set out from. I am still kicking myself.
At all events, we were booming uphill Naywards, with the headlights kicking back on puffs of silvery mist between world and world, when thorn bushes began to appear in all directions, more and more of them, cluttering the hillside. The final slope was a total thicket. I went into bottom gear and drove on through, hoping a stray thorn didn’t do for the tyres. Twigs crunched and thwacked underneath and squealed clattering across the doors. The wheels juddered about on the springy growth. Maybe that threw my direction out just the significant fraction. At least we made it to Wantchester. I felt us get there. I was sure we were there when I saw the dim orange of distant sodium lighting – but we arrived with an almighty rending clang on both sides. The orange light broke into murky ripples overhead. And my expensive, reliable, carefully maintained car stalled, coughed, and gave up. I could hardly blame it. It was lodged between two sets of strong metal railings almost exactly its own width apart.
The railings formed a sort of lane. I could see it ahead for yards. Overhead, the lane had an arched lid made of white corrugated plastic. I swore, with the inventiveness of helpless fury.