"Impossible!" Beranabus keeps croaking. "Impossible!" He's striding around the cave, hair and eyes even wilder than normal, clutching the drawing of the girl to his chest, muttering away to himself, occasionally bursting out with another round of, "Impossible! Impossible!"
Kernel and I have drawn together by the fire, temporarily united by our uncertainty. "Has he ever gone off like this before?" I whisper.
"No," Kernel replies quietly. "He often talks to himself, but I've never seen him so agitated."
"Do you know who the girl is?"
Kernel shakes his head. "Just some old drawing that he gets out every now and then and moons over."
"Beranabus said she died sixteen hundred years ago."
"I heard."
"Do you think he knew her? Was he alive then?"
"No." Kernel frowns. "He can't have been. We can live a long time, battling the Demonata in their universe, even a few hundred years. But no human can live that long. At least that's what Beranabus taught me...
Beranabus stops pacing, whirls and fixes his stare on me. "You!" he shouts. "Come here!" I glance at Kernel for support. "Don't dither! Get over here now!"
Since I don't want to enrage him any further, I edge across but keep out of immediate reach. Beranabus holds the drawing up. His hands are shaking. "How sure are you?" he growls.
"It's her," I tell him. "The girl in the cave. I'm certain."
"Would you stake your life on it?" he snarls.
"No," I say hesitantly. "But it is her. You don't forget a face like that. It's not every day a person speaks to you from within the heart of a rock."
Beranabus lowers the drawing. Turns it around so he can study the face again. "You say she's alive?" he asks, voice low.
I shrug. "She spoke to me. But it wasn't a real face. It was a cross between flesh and stone. She could have been some sort of ghost, I guess."
"Of course," Beranabus says. "But a ghost imprisoned there... trapped all this time..." His eyes shoot up. "Tell me what she said."
"I can't. I didn't understand her. She spoke a different language."
"Don't be stupid! You can..." He stops and gets his breathing under control. "First things first. Tell me the whole story. Everything this time. About the cave, what you saw and heard. Leave nothing out."
I don't want to go through it again, but he's not going to tell me anything until I do, so I quickly trot out the story, filling in all the details I skipped the first time. Seeing the face in the rock. The eyes opening. Later, when the girl spoke to me. In the cave, the night of my turning, when she screamed at me and seemed to be trying to warn me.
"Warn you of what?" Beranabus asks.
"Maybe that Juni was a traitor. Or of the danger Bill-E was in."
"Perhaps," Beranabus mutters. "There are blood ties between you, which might account for her interest in your predicament, but to break out of the rock and make herself heard must have required a huge amount of energy and effort. Why would she do that just to save your lives?"
He's not expecting an answer, so I don't try to provide one. Instead I pick up on something else he said and ask stiffly, "What blood ties?"
He waves a hand as though it's nothing. "The girl was called Bec. A distant ancestor of yours."
"Ancestor?"
"A distant one," he repeats. "She was a priestess... a magician. A brave, true, selfless girl."
"Did you know her?" Kernel asks. He's slightly behind us, listening closely. "Were you alive then?"
"I'd be a real Methuselah if so," Beranabus says. He looks at the drawing again and frowns. "I need to know what she said. She might have simply been trying to help you, but I think there's more to it. We need to study her words."
"But I told you I couldn't understand her. I don't speak her language."
"I do," Beranabus says, then gestures to the chair behind the desk. "I'm going to teach you another remembering spell, like the one we used to prove you didn't kill your brother's grandparents. But with this one you'll repeat everything the girl said. I'll be able to translate."
I sit. Beranabus clears an area of the table, then lays the drawing down gently, so it's facing me. "Look into her eyes," he says softly. "Forget everything that's happened recently. Let your mind drift back." He gives me a minute, then says, "Repeat after me."
I mimic Beranabus's words carefully. As the spell develops, the lines on the paper shimmer. I'm startled, but I've seen a lot more incredible stuff in my time, so I don't lose concentration. The lines begin to move. The face doesn't bulge out of the page the way it projected from the rocks, but it comes alive. The eyes flicker and the lips part. The girl talks. No sounds come, just the motions. But as the spell concludes and Beranabus stops talking, I find my own lips moving in time with the drawing's. Only it's not my voice-it's the girl's.
I speak swiftly, anxiously, the muscles of my throat hurting from having to form such unusual words. I spot Kernel listening with a frown, unable to interpret. But Beranabus understands perfectly. And the more I say, the more his face pales and he trembles.
Before I finish, the elderly magician sinks to the floor and stares at me, appalled. I want to ask him what the girl said, but I can't. My lips continue to move and the dead girl's words spill out. I'm repeating myself from the beginning.
Beranabus groans and covers his ears with his hands. "No," he wheezes. "Gods be damned. No!"
"Beranabus?" Kernel says, approaching his master cautiously. "What's wrong?"
"His fault!" Beranabus shrieks, pointing an accusing finger at me. "If he'd told me when he first came here..." He shakes his head and curses. I carry on talking, unable to stop. I'm afraid he's going to leave me this way, that I'll warble on like this forever.
Finally, rising slowly, Beranabus growls something and the words cease. My mouth closes. I rub my aching jaws and throat, staring at the magician, wondering what I've done to incense him.
"Damn you, Grubitsch Grady," he says bitterly, shooing me out of his chair and lowering himself into it, picking up the drawing and cradling it to his chest. There are angry, hopeless tears in his eyes. "Damn the day you came into this world. If I'd known the trouble you'd cause, I'd have killed you at birth, you meddling, cowardly, destructive brat."
"Beranabus!" Kernel gasps as my insides clench tight.
"It's true!" Beranabus shouts. "I stood up for the wretched fool, but I shouldn't have. I should have just... just..." He stops, closes his eyes and moans. "No. You didn't know what you were doing. I can't blame you."
"I don't care what you think of me," I snap, angry and ashamed. "Just tell me what she said, you horrible old buzzard."
Beranabus opens his eyes and smiles faintly. "That's more like it, boy. Spirit." His smile disappears. "Bec was trying to warn you, but she wasn't interested in saving your life. The stakes were much higher. She..."
He clears his throat, then continues lifelessly. "I don't know how she wound up where she is, or how she managed to communicate with you, but her soul has been trapped in that cave since she died, torn between life and death, between our universe and the Demonata's. I've never seen that before. Ghosts, aye, but only pale shades of those who died. This is different. She somehow defied the laws of death and her soul remains intact. It shouldn't..." He coughs and shakes his head, then continues.
"Bec is able to peer into the demon universe from where she's trapped. She's been observing the Demonata for centuries. She became aware long ago of a powerful demon master trying to open a tunnel to this world. When she sensed you clearing the entrance to the cave, she was afraid the creature would learn of it and restore the ancient tunnel. That's why she tried to warn you off. Later she learnt of a more direct threat, which is why she appeared so desperate the last time she established contact.
"I made a fatal error. I thought Lord Loss wasn't interested in opening a tunnel between the two universes. But he's changed his views. When Dervish told Juni about the cave, her master decided to kill two birds with one stone. His plan was to slaughter you, Dervish and your brother-or take you back to his own realm to torture-then open the tunnel, clearing the way for the ranks of demons to cross."
Beranabus pauses. Kernel and I are staring at him, struck dumb.
"Juni must have made a sacrifice after Dervish revealed the cave to her," he goes on. "It takes a few weeks for the blood of a sacrificed victim to prime the tunnel walls. The spells of opening can't be cast until then. I was guarding the cave closely, but somehow she got in and killed someone without my knowledge.
"Lord Loss could have opened the tunnel at any time, but he decided to do it on a full moon, when there was more magic in the air. Tapping into the power of the moon, he could complete the spells within a few hours. That way, if I discovered him while he was at work, he'd only have to hold me at bay for that short time.
"Being a lover of neatness, he planned to kill or abduct you three and open the tunnel on the same night. Unfortunately for him, your magic burst to the surface and derailed things. He missed his chance to get even with the Grady clan at the cave. Since settling his score with you before he opened the floodgates was important to him, he pushed his plans back by a month."
"Then we still have time!" I gasp. "It's not too late. We know what he's going to do. We'll return to the cave and fight."
"We?" Kernel says sarcastically.
"Yes! I'll fight to save Dervish and Bill-E. I don't care what those monsters throw at us. When it's family, it's different."
"You really think you can choose not to be a coward if and when it suits you?" Kernel jeers.
Beranabus interrupts wearily before I can retort. "It doesn't matter. You're arguing about nothing. The time for heroics has passed."
"What are you talking about?" I say edgily.
"It's difficult to track time here," Beranabus says softly, "but not impossible. I can reach out and make a quick check on the heavens when I wish. I did that while Bec was speaking. You miscalculated, Grubbs. It's been seven weeks since I rescued you from the aeroplane."
I start to shiver. "But... no... maybe Lord Loss delayed again. He wanted to kill me before he opened the tunnel, but I'm still alive. Maybe-"
"No," Beranabus stops me. "Once I'd established the date, I cast my senses further afield. When there's a rip of great magnitude between universes a magician can detect it. If the spells I'd cast at the cave worked, I'd have known earlier. I should have renewed them, but it seemed like there was no rush. I wouldn't have made that mistake a hundred years ago. I'm getting so old..."
Beranabus sighs and his head drops. "The demons crossed as planned. They've had three weeks to stabilise, multiply and spread. Your town is theirs. Probably your country too. Dervish... your brother... everybody else you know in Carcery Vale..." He finishes in an awful whisper which fills me with a dread beyond any I've ever experienced. "The Demonata have had their way with them. They're all dead now-and probably millions more besides."
