Would Garvin come and investigate if I didn't report that evening? If he found my sleeping self back in my room, was there anything he could do? In any case, might it be too late by then? The seductive thought of my sleeping body, resting in my bed, crept into my awareness and I began to feel warm. I shook myself awake again, momentarily toying with the idea of summoning Sam back. Maybe if I fed him to it, it would let me get some sleep?
I stood up again and began pacing in a circle. There had to be a way. I was a Warder, for goodness sake! Garvin would be wetting himself at this performance. I had to think, but I was so tired.
There was no Way-node here, so I couldn't use that. I wasn't even sure this was a place, never mind whether it had Way-points. Maybe if I could get to the trees I could find a way out? I had tried walking and running, but I had another possibility. Raffmir had shown me how to reach places I could see.
I found a spot and focused on the distant tree-line. I opened myself to my surroundings and gathered energy to me. My skin fell into unreflective blackness and the cold deepened. I needed more to be able to jump across. The cold black core of magic within me dilated and the air around me chilled to bone-numbing intensity. The energy built slowly; it had started out cold. I held out my arms, extending my reach, increasing the area from which I drew, feeling downwards into the soil, upwards into the starlit sky. I drew it into me until the pale nimbus started flickering across my skin with tiny fingers of light. As the energy mounted I began to see.
This was not the real world. I already knew that in my mind, but now I could see it. I had discovered earlier how the fabric of the real world lay draped across the frame of reality. It was possible to step beyond that curtain and pass through, but the curtain and the frame remained.
What I found in the glade was a shimmering skin of a world with a liquid underbelly, formless and yet shaped. I peered beneath the skin of it and found within the liquid depths a beating heart.
"Got you."
Gallowfyre spilled from my hands, and in my heightened state I could see the tendrils of power reaching through the fabric of the skin and pricking that heart.
I awoke in my bed and sat bolt upright. The scream of anguish echoed in my ears still, though the glade had gone. Little normal noises, the bark of a dog, cars moving outside, the distant call of a mournful gull, all told me I had come home.
The mirror in my room was misted over. The whole room was deathly cold. Patterns of frost traced the inside of the window glass. It was midsummer and I had frost. Even as I watched, the frost blurred and clouded as the warmth transmitted through the glass turned frost to mist and then cleared.
The day was brighter than the four o'clock my watch showed. I held the watch to my ears and it ticked lightly. I looked at it again, making sure I wasn't holding it upside down. Ten o'clock would make more sense. Four o'clock was what it showed. I turned back the duvet, went to the window and peered through the misty glass. The sun was over the hill at the back of the town. It was four in the afternoon. not four in the morning. I had more than slept the clock around and I still felt exhausted.
I opened the window to let in some of the warm air from outside to heat the room, then went into the bathroom and spent a good ten minutes under the shower with the temperature wound round as hot as I could bear it. I never wanted to be cold again. I emerged, pink and steaming, and put on clothes from the previous day.
Once dressed I looked at myself in the mirror. There were dark rings under my eyes and my cheeks looked sunken. No wonder: I was starving. My stomach grumbled at the first thought of food. Before I could feed myself, though, I needed to follow up on the night's work.
Pressing my hand to the mirror, I told it what I wanted.
"Sam Veldon – his mobile phone."
I had discovered the ability to tap into the phone network from something Raffmir and Solandre had done when I had first encountered them. I had then discovered it was also possible to contact mobile phones, even if they were turned off. How the connection worked I had no idea, but it would enable me to cash in a favour I was owed.
Sam's phone was difficult to reach. I lowered the temperature of the room again as I drew in more power for the connection. "Sam Veldon, speak to me."
The line squeaked and chirped, making stuttering chattering noises. Then a broken ring, distorted by poor line quality. It rang eight or nine times before it answered.
"Is someone there?"
It was a strange question from someone who had just answered a phone.
"Sam, you know who this is, right?"
"I can't hear you." The lie in Sam's voice was blatant.
"I know perfectly well you can hear me, Sam Veldon. Now listen…"
"Stupid thing shouldn't work at all." He was addressing someone else. "This whole building is shielded. Here, let me take it outside. When will they get these things right?"
I could hear him moving around. Then his voice came back on. "Give me your number. I'll ring you in five."
"I don't have a number, Sam. I'll call you in three." I released the mirror.
Why were the phones I wanted to call always so difficult?
Having said I would call him in three, I waited four minutes before trying again. This time the call went straight through without problem. It rang once.
"How the hell did you get this number?"
"Good afternoon, Sam. I'm well, thanks. How are you?"
"Scratched to high heaven and sore to boot. What the fuck happened last night?"
"Not quite what you were expecting, was it, Sam?"
"Let's get back to where you got this number from. It's supposed to be unlisted."
"You only think I'm phoning you. This isn't real. The scratches on your arms and the weals around your throat aren't real either. You owe me a favour, Sam Veldon, and I intend to collect."
"This isn't happening."
"I told you that. Do you have the information on my daughter?"
"What am I, fucking Wikipedia?"
"Either you have it or you don't, Sam."
"Stop saying my name. Bloody GCHQ will be monitoring this. I'll lose my job and then no one will have anything."
"Then tell me what I need."
"Tate Britain. One hour. Can you do it?"
"Yes. Why there?"
"Because it's not far and there's something I want to bloody show you, all right?"
"If you're setting me up, Sam, I'm going to leave you up to your neck in grass."
"There's no set-up. Meet me. I'll show you." I could hear the truth in his voice. He was not setting me up, but I would still be cautious.
"One hour. Wait for me." I took my hand from the mirror and dropped the call.
I put on my jacket and checked the pockets, making sure I had the codex, a torch, my wallet and anything else I might need. I unsheathed, wiped and resheathed the sword and then held it until it was a black umbrella. I left the window ajar to air the room; if Raffmir wanted to get in, a window wouldn't stop him, and there was nothing valuable in the room to steal.
Leaving quietly, I found the downstairs rooms silent and empty. Making myself unremarkable, I exited the guest house and turned towards the harbour. Yesterday's rain had been swept away, leaving the sky looking scrubbed. I looked out beyond the harbour where the gulls perched on the bastion watching the tide ebb from the walls to the horizon where the sea melted into the sky. It was a beautiful day, and I had slept through most of it.
I marched across the harbour front and up the hill, past the church and into the narrow streets. Mounting the bank, I climbed up through the tussocks to where the Way-point nestled in the dip near the hill-top. Turning around I saw the town laid out below me, the roofs washed clean and shining in the afternoon light, the distant sound of children playing mixing with the mewling cry of the gulls. In this light, on this day, you could see why people stayed here.