Chapter 11

The lights, the smell, the noise.

I was back home, or at least on Earth. I tumbled out of a whirl of spinning lights and on to the cold, damp soil of the world I had known so well for so many years. I landed, undignified, on all fours as a dog, rather than a horse. I was cold and dizzy, and at once I felt rain splatter on my back. For a few seconds my vision was gone, but the darkness in me swiftly faded. As my vision came back I dared to look up and around.

It all looked and smelled like the London I had left. I was in a park, quite alone, and evening was falling. Across the grass was a busy road, with the all too familiar red buses and black cabs and the lights of countless cars. It struck me how much I missed all this, how much I had taken it for granted before being snatched. This hurt in a way that I could not have expected and I began to cry. I could stay, I thought, and make a new life here. But then I thought of Cerys maybe even being tortured light years away right now. I had to save her if I did nothing else.

For a moment on arriving I had prayed that somehow the heavy gold necklet had not come with me so I could not be found or return, making me free. But it was still there, hanging round my neck like a slave collar.

I got to my feet, my legs shaking. I had no shoes on—my iron hooves had been struck off—and I felt the soft ground wet beneath me. When I had arrived on Sevir I had come to my senses staring into the eyes of sword-wielding small beings, but there was no welcoming committee here. I didn’t know what to feel about that: either the Mages’ agents here trusted me or they did not know I had arrived. The rain seemed to be intensifying and my simple dress which was no more than a shapeless shift hanging from my shoulders to my knees was beginning to get soaked. They told me unlike the clothes worn on Earth this would survive the transit, yet it looked and felt little more than old sacking. I ran my hand over my shaved head and hoped that my hair was returning, but while it never grew again on Sevir my vague hope that my journey back would somehow allow my hair to show itself. I would look like a homeless freak and while a city like London always had its share of the disaffected, the outlandish and the poor, I was in a league of my own.

I walked across the park, trying to get my bearings. If I was right and I was in a place I knew, I was no more than a mile from where Natalie lived. A twenty minute walk in the rain wouldn’t kill me, though no doubt I would get a good few hard stares as I made my way to her apartment. As I headed towards the road nearby, I felt the collar on my neck begin to grow heavier. It was also rubbing on my skin and I was tempted to lift it up, though if I did so with both hands it would be the signal to drag me back to Sevir. I cautiously used one hand to ease it up, fearing it would activate, but happily it didn’t.

I had thought I might find a friendly locksmith to undo my necklet, but I had no money to pay for such service. I mused how I might go to the police and tell them I had been magically brought back from another planet, tell them my name and implore them to check their records as I was sure Natalie would have alerted them on discovering I had somehow slipped away two years or so before. But how many people turn up at a police station with such outlandish claims? At best I would look like a lunatic trying to find a cell for the night just to stay out of the rain.

I shivered and realised my task was well-nigh hopeless. Even if Natalie still lived in the same apartment what would she say when she saw me like this? Would she even recognise me with my bald head with my skin having darkened on Sevir thanks to my outdoor life? I suddenly felt this was an impossible task for all sorts of reasons. I was lost in more ways than one, and Cerys would be lost too. Killed by my inability to do anything for either of us. I was tempted to grab my collar with both hands and if this magic worked and I really was whisked back I would tell Ruben that Natalie couldn’t be found. Or better still that she was dead. I had no idea if he would believe me, but then no one here would believe I had travelled to another planet and back either. With magic, just to make it sound even more improbable.

I had arrived at the edge of the road and realised that I was too scared to cross it. Having spent two years more or less at walking pace with the occasional run in a world without cars and bustle, the pace of the traffic here was frightening. My ability to see a gap and run across the road, at worse drawing the odd hoot of a car horn as I scampered to safety, had deserted me. The rushing vehicles were every bit as terrifying as the Uymal monsters, the sweeping headlights and roar of engines as frightening as the Tankic battle swords. My still uncertain legs felt they could not carry me. Tears ran down my face afresh at the thought of being balked by such an everyday Earth thing.

That was when I felt a hand on my arm. “Are you lost, young lady?” asked a female voice. I turned and stared at the person holding my arm. She was older than me, but not too old. If anything she looked strong, which seems even now an odd first-appraisal of a person. The woman was dressed in a long coat, buttoned up to her chin and wearing a hat that looked as if it had been fashionable half a century before. She wore wire-frame spectacles and behind them her blue eyes seemed to shine. “Come a long way, have we?” she added.

I did not know what to say. I made a gurgling sound, then offered an “Um” before managing: “I don’t know,” which struck me as stupid as soon as I said it. I looked a simpleton and now I was providing proof. This woman should consider her own well-being and step away lest I was deranged.

She didn’t move. “You need me to help you,” the woman said as if she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

I didn’t take her suggestion and shook my head, which again was silly. Truth was I needed all the help I could get but I was hardly thinking straight.”You wouldn’t understand,” I frowned.

“I think I do. I saw your arrive, which was very unladylike. In fact, you have mud on your, ah, dress and hands.” The woman hadn’t let go of me. I thought about pulling my arm away but her grip was firm but not obtrusive. “If you come to my place I can give you a meal, get you some better clothes to wear and you can tell me how a woman can drop out of nowhere and dressed as if you had come from ten thousand years ago.” I cannot swear to it but her eyes seemed to sparkle a little more as she spoke.

“I fell, that’s all,” I said, wanting to pull my arm away. I didn’t. “You must have imagined it all. I was looking for my dog.” It sounded a weak explanation.

“And your dog’s name is?” The woman wasn’t going to be dissuaded.

“Uh, Ruben,” I blurted out.

“And you have decided that as you couldn’t find Ruben you’d just leave him? All on his own on a night like this.”

“He runs home on his own.”

“And where is home? Anywhere local?” The woman was half smiling. I got the feeling she knew and it scared the hell out of me.

Without thinking I gave the name of the road on which Natalie had her apartment, which fortunately was a long road. Unfortunately while it had mix of housing the part of the road likely to offer me shelter was a very long way down it. The woman by my side gave a small grin as if she knew I was unlikely to reside in the better part of it.

“My name is Meryl,” said the woman. “If you tell me yours I can begin to help you.”

“Look ... Thanks, but ... I have, um, an appointment,” I said.

“With a dressmaker, one hopes,” Meryl said as if she was enjoying this.

I recoiled and snapped at her. “This is ... this is my belief. My religion. I cannot wear what you do.”

“I see. And now you need to cross this road, but you aren’t used to London traffic after so long away, correct?”

I gulped. I was aware Meryl noticed my reaction and was looking at my collar, which with its dull gold colour looked more valuable than it was, but the weight and design of of it suggested it was not exactly quality jewellery. I finally pulled my arm away. “I’ve lived in London all my life so I can manage.” I even took an ill-advised, sudden step into the road, and a hurrying vehicle blasted at me with its horn, making me stumble backward. The woman’s hand was on me again, steadying me.

I relented. “Okay ... perhaps I am not well,” I said.

“Then you can recover at my place. It’s not too far away,” Meryl said, and began leading me away from the road, not letting go of me for a second.

Meryl’s place was little more than a bed-sit, but it was dry and I was glad to get out of the rain. London weather isn’t as brutal as on the open fields of Sevir but the rain here had come with a cold wind. Meryl invited me to sit down in the one armchair in the place and studied me for a moment. She didn’t say anything—not about my ragged appearance or shaved head and not even about my supposedly lost dog Ruben—and then to my astonishment, she undid her coat and took it off, revealing a thick body clad in a somewhat old-fashioned dress.

I gasped, loudly, for it wasn’t her clothes that had my attention. It was her collar, just like mine.

“No! You can’t have,” I managed to say despite my jaw hanging open.