‘We’ll follow on.’ Sophie subtly motioned to Thackeray to stay behind and hoped Caitlin hadn’t seen it.
Caitlin ordered Harvey to pick up a selection of the weapons and follow her. He meekly obliged.
Once they had departed, Thackeray said curiously, ‘What are you planning?’
‘There’s a way out of here. A way back home.’
Thackeray was stunned silent for a second, then said, nonplussed, ‘Why didn’t you tell the others?’
‘Because it’s not as simple as it sounds. I’ve been weighing it up ever since I found out about it. I still don’t think it’s necessarily the right way to go forward, but we don’t have a choice any more.’
‘It’s dangerous?’
‘Yes. Morally, emotionally, probably physically if Caitlin finds out.’ Sophie steeled herself; she couldn’t back out now. ‘There’s a place called the Watchtower, a physical building in some kind of space between the worlds. It’s possible to reach it from anywhere, and access anywhere from it, as long as you have the right key.’
‘And you have the right key?’
‘And the right keyhole,’ she said with dark humour. ‘I can use my Craft to open a way to the Watchtower. Everything I learned back home works so much more effectively in T’ir n’a n’Og. I can be powerful here, Thackeray, really powerful, given the right impetus.’
‘You’re scaring me now.’ Thackeray’s troubled, dark eyes searched her face.
‘Then I’d better get to the point. Imagine the Craft as a bullet. I’m the gun. But you need some kind of focused energy to send the bullet shooting out of the barrel. For small things, you can often do it with the mind — say, with words that set free subconscious energy. Ritual works better. But the best is sex. The energy freed during sex is like rocket fuel, to mix my metaphors.’
‘You need to have sex?’
‘With you.’
Thackeray’s expression was almost comical. ‘No, no,’ he protested, holding up his hands subconsciously as a barrier. ‘I mean, it’s not that you’re not an attractive woman. You are. Of course you are. But… it’s Caitlin…’
‘I know.’
‘I love her.’
‘I know.’
‘Harvey would do it in a flash.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘It’s not just about having sex, Thackeray. It has to be with the right person… the right battery. Bluntly, Harvey isn’t the one. You’ve got a lot of sexual energy ready to be released.’
‘I don’t know if I should be flattered or embarrassed.’ He jumped to his feet and ranged around the room anxiously. ‘There’s got to be another way.’
‘There isn’t. That’s what I’ve been considering long and hard. Don’t you think I would have done this the minute I found out about it if it was that easy? You’ve got to do this, Thackeray. Not just for us here, but for all the people back home.’
Thackeray ran his hands through his hair in impotent silence.
‘I’ll tell you something, Thackeray: I’ve never had to go to the lengths of invoking the survival of the human race to persuade a man to have sex with me before.’
‘I’m sorry.’ A flicker of fear crossed his face. ‘If Caitlin loves me, and if she finds out… if the Morrigan finds out-’
‘Then we have to make sure she doesn’t find out. Let’s get this done, the sooner the better, while she’s out on the ramparts slaughtering thousands.’
As if punctuating Sophie’s words, another projectile crashed against the walls, shaking the court to its very foundations.
‘Come closer.’ Sophie held out her arms; Thackeray twitched like a nervous schoolboy.
It had taken almost an hour to get the preparations just right. They had moved to the privacy of the bedroom chamber in the large suite that had been set aside for Sophie after her arrival in the Court of Soul’s Ease. The furniture had been moved to one side and a sacred space inscribed on the floor with red dye and candles. She’d had to guess at the cardinal points for her special sigils — compasses didn’t always make a great deal of sense in that place. Incense drifted teasingly through the air, and she’d forced Thackeray to have two stiff shots of the dark, potent spirit that many of the court’s residents consumed at the end of their meals. Despite being a little tipsy, he was still on edge, and that made Sophie even more anxious.
‘I don’t know if I can go through with this,’ he said.
‘This isn’t helping the mood, Thackeray.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Sophie turned and lit some dried herbs in a small brazier.
‘Double, double, toil and trouble?’
‘Just get your clothes off, Thackeray.’
She heard him mutter, ‘Something wicked this way comes,’ and then she turned and grabbed him and started to pull his clothes from him. She stripped off herself, quickly, and then used her hands and her mouth to get him erect.
‘I don’t know if I can keep it up,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll help. Just close your eyes and think whatever you need to.’
She lay down in the circle and opened her legs, pulling him into her. As he began to move backwards and forwards, eyes clamped shut, a surge of emotion hit her and she had to blink away the tears. She had thought it would be easy, pure mechanics, but all she could think of was Mallory, and that she was betraying him, and that she missed him so much.
She must have grown tense, for he whispered, ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. Keep going.’ Her emotions were too raw and the only way she could continue was to focus in that gap where her meeting with Mallory had once been; she found it ironic how something so painful now had a use. Without that loss, she might have had to give up.
They continued until they grew hot and sweaty and arousal took over from the regular flow of thoughts. In her mind, Sophie shaped the energy and infused a word of power. She managed to hold on to her orgasm so that they climaxed at the same time, and then she said the word of power with force.
The flash she experienced may have been in the room or in her own head, but when she looked around there was a doorway shimmering in one wall, like oil on water, and on the other side she could see a long corridor lit by flickering torches.
‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s get the others.’
Thackeray withdrew and they both dressed quickly. But then Sophie noticed something strange: the bedroom door was slightly ajar. And she was sure she had closed it tightly after they had first entered.
‘How long will the portal stay open?’ Lugh stood in the centre of the bed chamber, surveying the entry to the Watchtower. Ceridwen stood behind him. Thackeray and Harvey waited in one corner while Caitlin remained a dark, brooding presence nearby. There was no sign that she had any suspicions about what had happened.
‘It won’t stay open for ever,’ Sophie replied. ‘It should remain long enough for you to carry out some kind of evacuation.’
Lugh was troubled. ‘But will every member of this vast court be able to pass through before it closes? I fear for the safety of any left behind.’
‘There will be a slaughter,’ Ceridwen said bluntly.
‘We could do with your help back in the Fixed Lands,’ Sophie said. ‘But you have to do what you have to do. We need to go.’
Lugh nodded curtly and stepped back. Ceridwen gave Sophie a brief hug. ‘If we can, we shall join you shortly, Sister of Dragons.’
Sophie turned to Caitlin. ‘Ready?’
‘Let’s do it.’ Caitlin gripped one axe tightly and adjusted the other strapped to her back. Sophie nodded to Thackeray and Harvey to follow, and then led the way into the unknown.
The General steeled himself before he entered Kirkham’s private lab. He thought that over the years he had learned to be immune to bad news, but the latest report had shaken him to the core. The estimates of the size of the enemy army were such that he had berated the messenger for typing too many digits. But there had been no mistake. The enemy had moved slowly south and west, converting the population to their cause; and converting
