Ella blinked the tears away, her heart reaching out to what was left of Killian's father.
"We don't have long," Ella said. "When the portal opens, I need you to cross with me. That's all. Then we can save your son, and bring him back from the darkness."
Ella hesitantly took the revenant's hand. Without protest, Lord Aidan allowed her to lead him to the base of the steps to the portal.
"Remove the three lower seals, Bartolo," Ella said.
Bartolo took Evrin's seals from the portal's rim and backed away.
"Listen to the activation sequence, Shani. Do you remember how to add the inflection to deactivate?"
"Yes," Shani's voice quavered.
"Close the portal as soon as I'm across."
"I will."
"Castrum," Ella said the single word.
The three Lexicons flared, suddenly too bright to look at. The ruby on the device above them began to glow savage red, and the stone on the seal Ella had placed at the apex of the oval glowed in sympathy.
Ella led Lord Aidan up the steps.
Ella held her breath, and in front of her, the portal began to open.
The dead silver colour changed hue, becoming a dirty brown, and then moving to the shade of sand. Suddenly the portal shifted hue to the colour of copper, and then it was a sizzling curtain of molten gold.
The beacon called, a terrible sound that rose and fell, bursting inside the head like a thousand exploding stars. It was intended to call the Evermen, and could only be stopped from the other side.
Hand in hand, Ella and Killian's father stepped through the molten curtain.
Into the unknown.
28
ELLA entered a twilight world. Her first sensation was an intense difference, a factor of the light and the air, the smell and the temperature. She was no longer in Merralya.
She blinked, and tried to see what lay in front of her, but all she could see was a dark landscape of rock. Gravel crunched under her boots and she took a breath to steady her nerves.
The beacon sounded again.
The beacon!
Ella turned back the way she'd come and saw a stone archway, the same height as the oval mirror but different in all other respects. The air under the arch sparked and fizzed, while waves of energy shot from one column to the other in bursts.
"Ahh," the revenant put his hands to his ears and fell to the ground.
Ella looked frantically at the arch, conscious of the time. Killian had stopped the beacon, and she could too.
There! Under the top of the arch was a device. A pendulum swung left and right, timed to the head-splitting cry of the beacon's call.
Ella placed her hand on the pendulum to hold it still.
She screamed. Pain seared her hand, the device burning the flesh away from the bones of her fingers. She fought to hold on but it was impossible. Ella had to let go.
The beacon stopped. The pendulum was once again stilled. Ella lifted her hand and stared at her palm in wonder; she was unharmed.
The sudden realisation hit her. Her plan had worked. The portal had recognised Lord Aidan as one of the Evermen, and Ella was now in another world.
Wondering at the eerie light, Ella stared up into the sky. She saw a glowing orb, but was unsure if it was the sun or the moon. The air was filled with a thick haze, so that it seemed neither night nor day, and the orb's light was diffused.
Deciding the orb was the sun, Ella turned and examined the landscape. Distances were hard to judge, for the expanse was little more than a rocky field, as far as she could see in all directions. A hazy red horizon extended in a blurred line, and the rocks were all shapes and sizes, some small and smooth, others jagged boulders.
The only feature Ella could see was a road.
It started at the stone archway and followed a dead-straight line, disappearing into eternity. The path could have been made by the Evermen, or perhaps it had been here before they came. Ella knew one thing, however.
The Evermen had opened a portal into a world of nightmare.
Ella turned back to Lord Aidan. He sat slumped on the earth beside the portal, heedless of the stony ground.
"Come," Ella said.
"No," said the revenant, looking up at Ella with his red-flecked eyes. "I can go no farther."
Ella looked at the faint shimmer of the runes on Lord Aidan's skin. She knew from Barnabas's teachings that a revenant who'd been in the ground as long as Lord Aidan, brought back with so much of who he was, would not last long.
A dark shadow passed overhead, but looking up, Ella couldn't see anything. She shivered. If she couldn't find Killian, Lord Aidan would be her only chance of making it home.
"Lord Aidan, I need to search for your son."
"My son…" he moaned.
"Will you stay here? I will be back."
"Stay here."
Ella drew a shaky breath and made herself turn away from the revenant. The portal would only open every three days. She needed to move quickly.