Coldbrook

17

Jonah had been too amazed at what he was seeing to consider what he might see. And from the moment when he had voiced his acceptance to the Inquisitor he had placed himself in that strange being’s hands, and in his own hand lay the certainty of the Inquisitor’s demise. Warm and flexible, the small trigger sat in Jonah’s palm. When he rolled it, he felt a linked sensation in his chest, a twisting knot against his heart that took his breath away. There was such potential there. But not yet.

‘Time to leave these unclean worlds,’ the Inquisitor said, and held out his hand. Jonah looked close, and was shocked to see the clearly defined lifeline on his palm, hairs on his arm, and dirt ground into his creased fingertips. It looked far too human.

‘How do you speak English?’ Jonah asked. ‘How do you know so much?’ But the Inquisitor did not answer. Jonah took the proffered hand and saw the smudged tattoo on the inner arm again, its shape ambiguous, its edges bled and faded. And then he recognised it, and the shock struck him numb.

HMS Cardiff, Jonah thought. The circle of rope encircling a castle turret: the Cardiff’s crest. He had seen it before when he was younger, when he had briefly considered a career in the navy. Perhaps, in another world, his decision had been different.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. But the Inquisitor had turned and had started walking, expecting Jonah to follow and showing no emotion. Whether he had seen Jonah’s shock or not, he was way beyond such Earthly concerns now.

The Inquisitor left that world, and then they were travelling. There was no slow transition: one moment Jonah smelled blue flowers and ferns, and felt the breeze in his hair; the next, they were in between. There was no sense of movement, nor of time passing, and yet worlds were being passed by. Whole oceans of possibilities, countless realities, all flitted past, and Jonah could only sense the magnitude of what was beyond, and the nothing of where they were. The breach that Coldbrook had formed through from one Earth to another had taken account of time and space, but the route they now travelled was timeless, and without space. In the breaches there had been memories, but here there was nothing. Where are we? Jonah thought, but even ‘where’ held no significance here.

In that non-place there was nothing around him but the Inquisitor, and he was the one thing that Jonah had no wish to see, or smell, or sense through body warmth. He tried to close off his senses, but they were not his own. He was a prisoner already.

The instant ended, and a bright light seemed to fill him and then bleed away. I’ve come so far, he thought. He had to watch; had to be aware. He could not ruin this.

Jonah opened his eyes.

The room felt painfully familiar — buried, windowless, with the weight of the world all around. But that was where any familiarity ended. He and the Inquisitor stood in the centre of the room on a smooth circular stone, worn down through the ages by generations of footsteps. Surrounding the stone were seven smooth metal uprights, waist-high and three inches thick. They glowed faintly, and Jonah could hear a subtle ringing in his ears, as if the uprights were still vibrating with some mysterious echo.

Beyond them, the blend of modern and archaic confused his senses. Three desks buzzed and hummed, while the three people standing behind them were dressed in fine robes, inlaid with gold designs and glittering across the chests with flickering lights. They wore headpieces with microphones and earpieces, one wore heavy-framed glasses, and all three focused intently on their desks. Jonah could not see what they were doing, but their concentration was evident as the washed-out white light of reflected computer screens played across their faces.

Behind them, a tapestry covered one wall, a creation of obvious antiquity that showed Jesus lying in the Virgin Mary’s arms, dead and not yet risen again. Another wall held a simple wooden cross, and the others were home to a collection of religious artefacts — crosses, artwork, carvings, parchments.

Jonah breathed in and smelled something vaguely spiced, an unpleasant aroma that reminded him of age and neglect. The Inquisitor removed the mask across his nose and mouth and inhaled, sighing deeply.

A woman behind one of the desks glanced up at Jonah and the Inquisitor.

‘Deus nobiscum sacri itineris,’ the Inquisitor said. The woman flicked a switch on her desktop, and the metal poles surrounding the smooth stone slid soundlessly into the floor.

‘Deus in nobis,’ she said. ‘Please move along, Revered One. Busy day.’

Busy day, Jonah thought, wondering what she meant. ‘Who are you people?’ he asked, but it was as if no one had heard him. The poorly lit room thrummed with power. It was a nauseating feeling.

The Inquisitor took his arm and steered him across the room towards a door. It was set in an ornate archway, a beautiful structure that sickened Jonah with its intricacy and the care that must have been taken in creating and maintaining it. They find time for beauty while doing their best to destroy, he thought. He pulled free of the Inquisitor’s grip and turned to face the three robed people, hating them for their casual manner, shaking with anger. The trigger in his pocket seemed to call to him, urging him to explode the disease through his heart and set himself to bite.

But the Inquisitor grasped his shoulder and pulled him on, and as Jonah reached one hand into his pocket the room lit up.

Again Jonah shrugged the Inquisitor’s hand from his shoulder and turned around. The smooth circular stone glowed briefly and brightly, and the metal rods rose swiftly from the floor, accompanied by a gush of silver steam. As the glow died down, two shapes appeared within the metal circle, forming on the stone.

How many feet to wear that stone down so much? Jonah wondered. But then the shapes manifested some more, and all conscious thought was ripped away by shock.

This new Inquisitor was a woman, but there the differences ended. She still wore the familiar robes, the strange mask that leaked steam, the bulbous goggles that hid her true eyes, and the scalp hat which Jonah had started to believe had become a part of the Inquisitor he knew. Beside her on the stone stood a tall man. He was perhaps several years younger than Jonah, and thinner. But it was him. Face contorted with fear, limbs shaking, blood running down across his neck and chest from a wound beneath his left ear, eyes wide and disbelieving, mouth slack and dribbling. But still Jonah.

Me, Jonah thought. That’s me. Another me. A similar, alternate me. And the first thing he did was to try and see whether this new Jonah clasped something in his pocket, something that might perhaps explode and mist the air of this wretched room with disease-laden blood.

But there was nothing except terror to this man, and Jonah wondered how much his world and life differed from his own.

‘You. . you. .’ the other Jonah said, and Jonah smiled at him.

‘Don’t be scared,’ he said. ‘Wendy wouldn’t like that.’

‘Wendy,’ the terrified man said, and his shaking seemed to lessen.

‘Deus nobiscum sacri itineris,’ the woman Inquisitor said, and the robed woman behind her desk responded.

Jonah’s Inquisitor grabbed his arm again and pulled him towards the deep arched opening. He pushed him close against the door and stood back, and Jonah lifted both hands to his face, tucking the nut-sized ball into his mouth between teeth and cheek. Because something was going to happen.

Flames erupted from holes around the fine stone arch. They stripped away his clothing, so quickly that by the time he registered that the flames did not burn they had faded away. His clothing and shoes lay in a scorched pile around his feet.

Brighter, heavier flames came, searing away his body hair and then coating him with a layer of something fluid and yet dry.

Jonah stroked the ball with his tongue, and looked down at his pale old-man’s body, denuded of hair and speckled here and there with moles and other imperfections. They won’t see, he thought, looking at the fine raised scar on his chest. They won’t see. . and if they do, that will be my time. But if they don’t, my time is not yet.

He laughed softly, wondering what Wendy would make of him now. He’d always been hairy, and she’d