The Psychonaut - Book 1 Read online

  ~~~

  Merrick dipped his hand in the spring. The ice-cold waters licked his fingers. “I think we’re going to get wet,” he said.

  “Do you have a plan, once we reach the other side?” Albany asked.

  “Depends what we find there. I’m going to try and breach the gateway with my mind first, like I did at Paraganet house.” He looked at Celestia. “I don’t have the benefit of mad honey anymore but a melding of minds should be even better.”

  “Je suis disposé,” she said.

  “No time like the present?”

  She held out her hands to him and their palms met. In the intervening months they had found the technique efficacious in that it amplified the strength of their union.

  Their minds united in a contiguity both rapturous and disconcerting. Having another present in his mind, able to read his every thought, committed Merrick to an openness that transcended any conventional relationship. In fact, in an irony that was profound, he realised he knew Celestia better than Lotus. It was a double irony that Celestia would know of his meandering thoughts even now.

  “Keep your mind on the task at hand, mon cher,” she sent.

  They moved as astral forms, down beneath the surface of the water until the gateway appeared as a diaphragm of energy at the bottom of the pool. Perception in this thought-world was in higher definition than Merrick remembered from the museum. Was it testament to his increased power? It was certainly surreal in the extreme.

  By consent, his consciousness dominated their twinned projection such that his decisions held sway. It struck Merrick that this required a profound level of trust from Celestia. He didn’t accept it lightly.

  The diaphragm gave way to his astral push like molasses, subsuming them in a way that was almost asphyxiating. This perception was gone in an instant as they emerged on the other side.

  The scene that greeted them was perplexing. At first, Merrick assumed they had failed in their attempt as they rose to the surface and viewed what seemed to be the cavern they had just left. Only one figure inhabited the cavern. It sat on a rock at the waters edge. A silver-bearded man, stooped over by age’s withering hand, stared around him, as if hearing something but not seeing.

  “Where are Jahan and the others?” Celestia said.

  “Where we left them. This is not the reality we left but another. It’s like a mirror image.”

  “This man, he seems harmless, oui?”

  “He’s unarmed. Acting like a startled rabbit. I think he can sense our presence.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Go back for the others. We can’t communicate with him in this incorporeal state.”

  Merrick carried them back and in an instant he was seeing through natural eyes again.

  “Well?” Albany said on their return.

  “It’s like an analogue to this place,” Merrick said. “I think I can get us all through, but it might frighten the body on the other side if we do so at once. I suggest we stagger the transit.”

  “Are we covered at this side?” Arun said. “We can’t be certain the Ukurum haven’t followed us. After all, they know of this place.”

  Celestia shook her head. “There is no presence I can detect, and my range is extensive up here at the roof of the world.”

  “Then we all go,” Merrick said. “This is a leap in the dark, and there’s strength in numbers. Celestia and I will go first and talk to the man on the other side. I’ll return for Arun as soon as I can, then the rest of you.”

  “Sounds as good a plan as any,” Albany said. “Go for it.”

  The physical passage was, if not traumatic, then uncomfortable in the extreme. The chill of the water seeped into Merrick’s bones as he dipped his head underneath. They found the gateway on the bed of the spring, superimposed over the entry point of the water so he had to swim downward against the current. Then there was the suffocating envelopment of the gateway itself. It conspired to force the last breath from his lungs. With a strong surge of will, he forced the ethereal aperture to remain open, and took Celestia’s hand to pull her through. They broke the surface on the other side, gasping and spluttering.

  The man was backed up against the wall of the cavern, eyes wide with alarm.

  We mean you no harm, Merrick projected.

  The man appeared not to have heard him.

  “Celestia, I need your help.”

  Their minds joined and Merrick reached out an astral tendril to the man. He sensed the fear of the cavern-dweller, but also detected a fulfilled expectation. Merrick withdrew the connection and saw the man’s brow unknit with relief. He took a tentative step towards them as they rose, shivering, from the waters. They held their hands up in a gesture of peace. A sign the man seemed to understand.

  “You come from beyond the window?” he said with an accent that sounded pseudo-Scandinavian.

  “Y… Yes,” Merrick said, shivering with cold. “You speak English?”

  “I know not this tongue of which you speak. My language is Drynn.”

  Merrick could only just follow the man’s speech with its long vowels.

  “There are more of us. I need to go for them. My name is Merrick and this is Celestia. Is there a place she can keep warm until I return?”

  “Yes, of course. I have a fire lit in the chamber above.” He smiled, then laughed. “My whole life I have waited for such a moment as this. Now that it happens I am caught off guard.”

  “Do not worry mon ami,” Celestia said. “We’re relieved it is one such as you who greets us.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Merrick said to Celestia.

  “Ne pense rien à ce sujet.”

  “I think you better stick with English,” Merrick said. “The guy’s had enough culture shock as it is.”

  He ducked under the water and allowed himself to pass through the gateway using the force of the current. On the other side, Arun was ready.

  “Fasten your seatbelt,” Merrick said and guided the Vietnamese through, as he had done with Celestia. He took Albany next and finally, Jahan. Each time he penetrated the gateway it became easier, as if he had just learnt to swim. He reveled in his newfound liberty, noting with growing ease that the repeated use of his power assuaged the hunger of his pent up mind-energy. Expending it on a mind such as Arun’s, accepting or not, made him a parasite in his view.

  They stepped up the analogue path to an upper chamber while water trickled from them in irritating drips. Merrick put his arm round Jahan’s quivering body. To prevent hypothermia, she would need a change of clothes, if possible.

  “I will survive,” she said. “I have not come all this way just to—”

  She stopped mid-sentence and stood staring at the man throwing brushwood on the fire.

  “Hanchik,” she murmured. “Is that you?”

  The man dropped his bundle. “Guljemal. After all this time. You ... You have returned.

  ~~~

  “I buried you myself,” Jahan said, “in the mountains. I laid you beneath a cypress tree and covered you with stone from the mountain.”

  “And I remember, as yesterday, the sight of you retreating into the distance. Your final words were that you couldn’t be second to my obsession with the gateway.”

  Jahan reached out and touched his face. “You are so like my Hanchik. But you are not he.”

  The man smiled. An acceptance of the impossible received with patience for the time being. “My name is Kemran. You may not be Guliemal but I cannot help but allow my eyes to feast upon your beauty again.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” Merrick said “but we have many questions—as, I’m sure, do you. We hope you can help us.”

  “I will do what I can,” Kemran replied. “Come, I have furs and a banked fire to keep you warm. Winter comes early to Babylon this year.”

  “You call this place Babylon?” Albany said.

  “Babylonia is an empire spanning most of t
he civilised world, my friend.”

  “It just gets more and more weird. How does this fit with your theories, Merrick?”

  “To be fair, I don’t have any concrete ideas yet. This world seems to be on a different page to ours, yet still from the same book. The last world I saw at Paraganet was a book in a completely different library.”

  They huddled round the fire while Kemran handed out fleeces and skins. “I need to know something “ Merrick said. “Were there others who appeared from the pool in times past? Your reaction suggests no, but I want to be sure.”

  “You are the first,” Kemran replied. “It has been the life’s work of many a pilgrim to discern the mystery of the gateways, yet none have succeeded.”

  “The reason I asked, is that one from our side has the potential to cross these portals too, but hasn’t the purest of motives. His name is Jagur Shamon.”

  Kemran’s brow furrowed. “Shamon, you say? Why, Abdu Shamon is ruler of this Province. Second only to the Emperor himself.”

  “Could there be a connection?” Arun asked.

  “Tell us about this ruler,” Merrick continued.

  Kemran shuffled his feet then looked at Jahan. Merrick sensed the psychic warmth exuding from them both.

  “Politically, Shamon is a reformer. He inherited rule from his father before him and over the last few years has risen in popularity with the people of Archmenia.”

  “Archmenia still exists here?” Celestia said.

  “For centuries, yes. We integrated with Babylonia in the year of the jerboa—it was a peaceful process. Mutual trade and a common political framework paved the way for substantial economic growth. From your question, I take it Archmenia does not exist on the other side of the first gateway?”

  “Neither does Babylonia,” Celestia said. “Merrick, do you think this Shamon is a parallel of the Ukurum leader on our side?

  “I don’t know for sure. No one’s written an instruction manual for trans-dimensional travel yet. But I want to go back to something you said before, Kemran. You just referred to the pool gateway as the first gateway. Are you aware of others?”

  “I can show you them.”

  The Outcasts looked at each other in astonishment.

  “That would be fascinating,” Merrick said.

  Kemran led them through one of several passageways radiating out from his central living quarters. “Each of these passages leads to a gateway. They are numbered rather than named.”

  “But I counted seven passages,” said Albany. “That means—“

  “Seven gateways, yes. That is why this site is called the Nexus.”

  “Incredible,” Merrick murmured.

  The chamber Kemran guided them to was larger than that containing the pool. Limestone stalactites and stalagmites joined in an edifice resembling a natural pipe organ.

  “The gateway is through that formation over there.” Kemran pointed to a rock arch. It framed a midnight-black cavity.

  Merrick weaved through some strewn boulders towards the gateway. “I’m going to try something.”

  “We need to be careful,” Celestia said. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. It may not be as harmless as Kemran here.”

  “Just an astral glimpse. I could do with your help though.”

  “Sûrement.”

  They passed through without thinking.

  “It gets easier every time,” Merrick said.

  “Don’t be over-confident.”

  Communication flashed between them at the speed of thought.

  As astral bodies, they emerged on a deserted plain at the centre of a crossroads, the topography alien. Merrick looked up and followed the sage-coloured sky until it met the featureless horizon. The substrate of the road under his feet was difficult to identify but each leg of the crossroads branched into a straight highway, extending to the limits of their vision like a wheel spoke.

  “No gateway guardian here,” Merrick said. “Look at the air rippling above each road.”

  Celestia gasped. “More gateways.”

  “You could lose your way and your mind in this journeying,” Merrick said. “Remember our bearings. I’m going to project into the one on the left.”

  He felt a brief resistance from Celestia but she allowed release. The transition this time was much harder.

  “Is it the resistance of this particular gateway, or the fact we are projecting through two at the same time?” Celestia said.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” He pushed harder until the portal diaphragm yielded. On the far side he had to expend much energy resisting the gateway’s attraction as it threatened to pull them back through the way they had come.

  “Merrick, look.”

  A bestial shape, the size of a small mountain, eclipsed the burning sun that beat down on the hard, cracked earth. That it lived was evident from the way it swung its head from left to right, as if it was on duty, a sentry.

  “I don’t think it sees us,” he said.

  It rested in a crouched position on haunches large as cliff sides. Indeed, its flesh appeared to be hewn from the rock making up the surrounding crags. The head was saurian, horny appendages extending in lateral causeways from its cheeks. On the crown grew pine trees and other shrubs.

  “I think it’s made from the earth,” Celestia observed.

  “I think we should go back. We’ve seen enough for now—maybe too much.”

  Merrick allowed them to be drawn backwards through both gateways. This time it was a relief to enter their bodies again.

  “Right,” said Merrick immediately.

  “Whoa! Don’t do that,” Albany said. “Give us some warning next time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve both been standing stock-still for half an hour. In fact we started to worry about you. We couldn’t bring you round, no matter how hard we shook.”

  “Half an hour?” Merrick mused. “We would have said five minutes at most. Maybe there’s a time dilation effect we hadn’t considered.”

  “Their efforts to rouse us might explain the resistance we felt after the second gateway too,” Celestia said .

  Arun spoke up. “Tell us what happened then.”

  Merrick filled them in while they listened in awe.

  “It is as the writings describe,” said Kemran. “Worlds beyond worlds.”

  “I’d like to talk more about these writings,” Merrick said. He looked up at the gateway’s rippling blackness. “I think I can see why Shamon, our Shamon that is, holds Jahan’s gate at such a high value.”

  “I’m convinced he will return there as soon as he can, to carry out a more extensive search. No doubt with a greater number of Ukurum,” Arun said.

  “Which is why we need to get back to our world. He might be scouting around the valley again as we speak.”

  “What’s our next move?” Albany said.

  “I’ve got a theory about Archmenia,” he replied. “Kemran, where does Abdu Shamon live? I mean, does he have a palace or a presidential house somewhere.”

  “Yes, in the capital.”

  “Can you describe its location?”

  “I have a map.”

  Back in Kemran’s main chamber, he rummaged through a wooden chest and pulled out a rolled-up scroll. He spread it out on a table.

  “This plan has the same layout as Ashgabat,” Arun said, scanning the outline of the city in front of him. “Some of the streets even have the same names.”

  “No shit?” Merrick said. Again, the many parallels between these two worlds struck him with force. It was akin to twins separated at birth— same genetic origin, but different developments. Where is Shamon’s palace?”

  “Persepoli is its name. Here.”

  The old man indicated a walled citadel at the north-east of the city.

  “In our world, that would be beyond the Bagtyyarlyk district,” Arun said. The remains of an Archmenid fortress can b
e found there. But it is a ruin, completely uninhabited.”

  Merrick looked at him, a smile of accomplishment on his face. “Maybe not. Maybe this time we’ve found the fox’s lair.”

  ~~~

  Chapter 23

  Too late

  That Jahun decided to stay with Kemran was not a surprise to Merrick. She and Kemran were like neighbouring pieces in a jigsaw—at least it seemed so.

  “There’s nothing keeping me in my world any longer,” she said. “Kemran and I are able to act as guardians on this side of the gateway with greater potency than either of us could achieve on our own. The illusions I created will still hold in my absence, but they may not deter a sustained search by Shamon.”

  “Leave Shamon to us,” Merrick said. “Now, about Kemran—you realise he’s not Guljemal, don’t you?”

  “I understand your caution, but we must grasp this opportunity. We can only do what we can do.” She looked at Kemran, who nodded his agreement. “It is enough that we have found each other,” he said.

  Merrick smiled. “Who am I to counsel others about relationships anyway? I don’t know when we’ll be back, if at all. So you’ll need to accept this situation as a permanent arrangement.”

  “It isn’t a difficult decision,” Kemran said. “We have much to discover about each other, and our duty binds us to the gateway. Worlds separated us and yet, in another sense, we existed only a few hundred units apart.”

  After snatching two hours of sleep, the Outcasts transferred back to earth-side and decamped. Kemran informed them the world beyond the gateway was named Demeldin. An alien name in some ways, yet uncannily familiar to Merrick’s ears. It occurred to him that the two world’s evolutions might not be so much parallel, but overlapping, like chromosomal chiasmata, swapping their code at auspicious junctions.

  The journey back down the mountain was tense. The potential for Shamon or his horde to surprise them was always at the back of their minds, despite reassurances from Celestia.

  “If he’s crossed a different gateway, he may have magickal resources that outstrip our detection,” Albany said with a frown.