The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1) Read online

  Didn’t matter. The orcs might not be able to climb the moving platforms—but they weren’t all orcs, were they? This Borrick fellow, he was as outwardly human as me. I didn’t doubt that he’d be able to make his way across. Perhaps even more deftly than I had.

  But that didn’t matter either. The only important thing now was my exit. My safe exit.

  Simple. I’d just open a gateway and pass through.

  I frittered at my belt. Detaching my compass, I lifted it, held it beneath the light streaming in from above.

  The worlds beneath connected haphazardly. It was true that you’d never know where you were going when opening a gateway—at least, if you were cutting in blindly. With a compass like this, though, I could see the points of connection. Could see if I were cutting through to some alien location like this temple … or was in danger of opening a hole to the bottom of an ocean.

  I flexed it back and forth, willing it to yield …

  A moor, enshrouded in mist, appeared across the compass’s face.

  My lips pursed. Not London.

  I dared another look out of the opening to the spear’s hideaway. No orcs this way, and none climbing the platforms ahead of me.

  I could just cut through and hope for the best; make a blind trek back between worlds, back and forth until I found my way to London once more.

  For a moment I debated it … then cursed, snatched up the spear, and leapt onto a platform as it drifted by.

  “Mr. Alain, sir!” an orc roared. “Intruder!”

  The entire mass swiveled as one. Thirty or forty of them, easily, spread across the closest walkway.

  Closest to the front, Alain Borrick. Now I saw him clearly, and the handsome fellow was, indeed, my age. His eyes flashed at me.

  “She has the spear!” a nearer orc cried. He—or she; never could tell, and it’d be rude to presume—reached over a shoulder, and withdrew a club, end covered in bony barbs.

  All along the edge, others followed suit; I saw swords, knives … a whole bevy of implements I didn’t want to meet the business end of.

  “You want this?” I called, holding the spear overhead. “Gotta catch me first!”

  I leapt onto the next platform as it passed, rolled, righted, and then immediately threw myself onto another.

  What a terrible security system. Awkward to get to the spear, and impossible to appreheeeend—

  I shrieked. The platform beneath me had abruptly changed direction. So close to the edge, my body arched almost comically as my middle tried to carry me forward but my head and feet pulled back.

  The temple rumbled.

  Disbelief filled me.

  Every platform, as one, was moving in the same westerly direction—to the walkway covered in orcs.

  Borrick’s face brightened. He really was handsome, devilishly so, I saw as I was drawn across the shrinking distance between us. Chiseled, and yet smarmy. The kind of person, in a movie, some starlet would both yearn for and hate in equal measure.

  No yearning from me. Nothing good waited for me over there, that much was clear by the hungry look on his face.

  The platforms condensed into a line. Twenty meters clear …

  I glanced at the compass. Now I caught a glimpse of forest—green, not the yellow of the ivy, and pouring with rain.

  “Give me the spear,” said Borrick, “and you can leave. No harm will come to you.”

  I considered, just for a moment, eyeing it.

  Freedom or glory. Freedom or glory.

  Tough choice, at least for me.

  “Nah.”

  And I broke into a sprint.

  The line was not flat, each platform rising and falling six or eight inches as they finished coalescing. But they drew a straight path back to the doorway I was pretty certain I’d come from—and with it, the London Underground.

  “GET HER!” Borrick barked. “But don’t hurt her!”

  “Mr. Borrick, sir, the gap—”

  “JUMP IT!”

  Clanking, the orcs leapt. A couple of cries signaled misses—but heavier noises overpowered them. Right behind me.

  Platforms and walkway almost touching now, I sprinted. Borrick was just up ahead, and in a moment I’d be past—

  I had a flash of him leaping, pushing me over the side, grabbing the spear from my hands before it went with me—

  Not on my watch.

  I swung the spear round at him. Not close enough to thrust. Enough to deter, though, the wide spearhead slicing through the air with a whistling sound.

  He didn’t move.

  I screwed my face up at him. He smiled back—”You can’t outrun them. Not on those little legs.”—and then disappeared into an angular doorway to darkness at his right.

  I hurtled down the line. It clunked into place at last. I wobbled, then caught myself, powered on.

  The ledge I’d first looked out on was within spitting distance. A vine, caught from the ceiling, was trapped between it and the closest slab of kite-shaped rock; my first stepping stone. It was pinned in a U shape, rising above the platform again and snaking over the edge.

  Borrick was right. I wasn’t going to make it.

  Another glance at the compass. A flash of orange: sand. Desert, maybe. Sahara?

  A bellow went up from behind.

  They were almost on me …!

  The vine!

  I wasn’t seriously considering …?

  Yes, I was!

  Just as something behind me swung—I felt a breath of air against the back of my neck—I put on a desperate burst of speed, and leapt—sideways!

  The platform disappeared, past my head—

  I had one terrifyingly endless second to scream as I sailed—

  Then I clutched at yellow as I slammed into the vine. It arced backward with me—Please don’t snap!—

  My hands barely found purchase—Please don’t drop the spear!

  And then I was sliding down, riding it until I released, praying neither my ankles nor Decidian’s Spear snapped on impact, and crash-landed in a heap on the level below.

  “Oww,” I moaned.

  “She’s on the lower platform!”

  “This way!”

  They hurtled off, armor clanking above me, its volume barely diminished by the rock separating us.

  I dragged myself up. I didn’t know the layout of this place, but it would be just my luck that one of the corridors led to a staircase directly down here. I might have only minutes to drag my bruised butt out of here.

  I lifted the compass, praying it was not broken.

  It wasn’t, thank goodness.

  Better, it teetered. One half of the image looked like idyllic Scotland, with beautiful rises over a loch. The other half bore the unmistakable sign of an Underground station.

  “Yes!” I whispered.

  I moved down the nearest doorway. There was less light here. I hoped the border would vanish soon enough to give me a guaranteed gateway before I descended too far into its gloom, and would need to rely on my dim flashlight.

  When the boundary was a quarter of the way across the compass face, London Underground sign dominating—Piccadilly Circus again!—a crash sounded from behind me.

  I spun.

  Still gripping the vine I’d descended on, a squat, dazed-looking orc blinked. He grunted—

  I froze—

  And then the cloud over his eyes passed. They set on me.

  “Thief!” he bellowed—and charged.

  3

  I threw the spearpoint up in front of me, thrusting it toward him like a shield between us.

  “Stop right there!” I cried.

  The rage on his face dissolved, replaced with an expression of perplexity.

  “That’s right,” I breathed. I jabbed, just to make sure. Then, one eye on the compass—still not a guaranteed path between worlds—I took a half-step backward.

  “No! You are the one who has need to do the stopping!” the orc roared.

  I paused, taking him�
��and that sentence—in. He was short compared to the rest of Alain Borrick’s little army. The ruby red of his armor was grimy, boney barbs jutting in all directions from the pauldrons, gauntlets, and vambraces. One of the barbs, reaching skyward from a shoulder, was broken. Black had crept inside, like a fractured tooth had given up and gone bad.

  A mop of messy black hair stuck out in all directions at the top, almost comically small against his oversized head.

  “You didn’t say ‘Simon Says’,” I muttered, backtracking yet farther.

  “Stop your walking!”

  I paused.

  The orc grunted heavy breaths.

  I dreaded him drawing close enough for me to smell.

  “Listen, orc,” I started. “I’m not—”

  “Burbondrer!”

  Another hesitation. “Huh?”

  “I am Burbondrer of Ocklatojsh!” He hammered a fist as big as my head against his chest. Human armor would have buckled, irreparable, under the blow. The dully gleaming orc armor just vibrated. “And you are a thief!”

  “Mira Brand, actually,” I said, backing up another step. “And I’m no more a thief than you are.” I hefted the spear. “Didn’t see your name on this. Or Mr. Borrick’s, for that matter.”

  “I said stop!”

  “Yeah, well, I said it first.”

  “I challenge you!” Mop-head sucked in a deep, rattling breath. Inflating his chest, he said, in what I imagined was his most proper, officious voice, “Burbondrer of Ocklatojsh challenges the thief to fight with honor!”

  “First, I told you already; it’s Mira Brand. And second … yeah, no. I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline your challenge in favor of a subsequent engagement. And unfortunately for you …” I glanced up, stepping backward again. “It ain’t fancy dress.”

  Burbondrer’s face contorted in rage. Then he loosed a roar, magnified in the corridor. Gripping his club and bringing it around, he charged.

  I jabbed—he didn’t stop—and so I swiveled, hurtling down the hallway full of sharp edges with one eye on the compass, one on the floor so I didn’t go sprawling. Shame I didn’t have a third, on the base of my skull; I could use it to see how close he was to stomping my head like a bug.

  The compass flashed as the sign for Piccadilly Circus overtook its face. I spun, eyes on the mop-haired orc, needing just seconds—

  I didn’t have them. He was almost on me.

  I swung the spear up again, face height—

  Burbondrer slammed to a stop. The sharp silver end of Decidian’s Spear hovered mere inches from his bulbous nose.

  “I’m not fighting you,” I breathed. “So let’s do us both a favor, and get to walk out of here without any new holes, shall we?”

  Burbondrer considered, wheels turning behind his face. Then …

  “NO!”

  He swung.

  I dodged back.

  Forgot their reach—!

  Spines from the club’s end sailed past, just an inch away from dragging across my stomach and sending my guts all over the floor.

  I planted my feet again, and jabbed at Mop-head.

  “I will use this!” I belted.

  “Then do it! DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR!”

  “I’d really prefer neither,” I muttered as another swing went over my head. I ducked, and the club clattered into the wall. Chips of bone rained down over me—then I was scrabbling back, darting out from under Burbondrer’s next swing, and bringing Decidian’s Spear up to bear.

  “I don’t want to fight!”

  “Nor do I!” he yelled, and swung—I yelped, dodging back. “But you cannot leave with Decidian’s Spear.” Another swing, at my legs. “The shame upon myself—my family, my name—I could not live with it!”

  “You think that’s hard to live through? Try catching a spear to the heart.”

  I stabbed at him. It drove into the space between his breastplate and pauldron. Tension pushed back for a fraction of an instant, then dissipated.

  Mop-head screamed, high and ear-burstingly loud.

  And then I was joining him, as he flailed in shock and a spiny barb from the club traced a long line up my forearm.

  I stared at it in shock.

  A deep crimson streak, softly widening as blood oozed …

  I yanked back Decidian’s Spear. Deep purple liquid, thick like syrup, coated the point at its end.

  I readied my feet for another swing … but Burbondrer backpedaled. Clutching the wound with an oversized hand, he let the club drop. He followed, landing on his knees just short of me, hand extended upward, shaking, as though he were waiting for me to hand him the spear.

  “I’ve failed,” he said, ghostly quiet. “I …” He lifted the hand from his wound. Dark liquid coated it. Not a lot, and even less considering the sheer size of him … but his lips quivered.

  I backed away, not entirely believing my eyes. He was kneeling there, useless, over just one jab? Orcs were supposed to be tanky, strong-willed, ready to sustain a thousand wounds and keep on fighting. And yet this one, daring enough to descend after me and challenge me to a fight I didn’t want, had traded a battle-cry for a baleful look up at me.

  Maybe he really was an adolescent.

  He peered at me. Red rims outlined yellow eyes.

  “Please.” He hiccuped. “This is a task set by my elders.” A sniffle snuck its way out. “I’ll be made to look a fool. Again,” he added, piteously. He was plainly holding back tears, his lip quivering as he awaited my response.

  I felt … pity. For an orc. What world was this?

  “Yeah …” I finally said, slow. Gathering myself together, I consulted the compass one last time. Definitely Piccadilly Circus.

  “Look, I’m, uh … sorry, or whatever, about this.” And I meant it, kind of—which flooded me with another alien feeling. Almost as though I wanted to throw the spear down at his feet; give it to him, rejuvenate some of his wounded pride, and just escape from here empty-handed.

  But I couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I just … I need this more than you.”

  Reattaching my compass to its resting place, I gripped the talisman in one hand. Leaning the spear carefully against the wall, far enough that if this were a feint Burbondrer could not get to it in time, I swiped down.

  The gateway opened, white and sizzling with frantic explosions of color.

  Burbondrer stared—at it, as it widened, then me.

  I collected the spear, held firm.

  “Sorry,” I said again, stupidly.

  And as his head sank and his eyes closed, tears of utter defeat starting to stream down his face, I turned my back on the spectacle and stepped back through to my world.

  4

  Back into the Underground. In fact, except for being on the opposite side, I’d managed to re-enter in the same cut-through between platforms. Which was good, because except for a young man who smiled at me as he passed, no one had seen me.

  Then I realized it was not my sudden appearance that had caught his eye, but the spear in my right hand—although now it was not a spear. It had shrunk, glamour over the top, so that it became … an umbrella.

  An open umbrella.

  How utterly innocuous.

  “That’s a bit of bad luck,” he said. He was young, handsome, a blond-haired Adonis—and looking right at me as I held an open umbrella in the underground.

  “I’ve done worse,” I said. “Broke a mirror once a few years ago. Still working through the seven, but everything seems to be coming out all right.” I held up the spear-turned-umbrella. “Guess I like to tempt fate.”

  “I’d say so. All the same, though, try not to run under a ladder when you go scrambling from the black cloaks in a few minutes, okay?” he asked, giving me a wink. “You seem a resourceful girl; I’m sure it’ll all come out all right. Best of luck.”

  I pulled an uncomfortable smile at the departing man’s back, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, and folded the umb
rella shut, hoping it had started raining outside and I didn’t look like a loon.

  Given that there had been clear skies earlier, I probably looked like a loon. But he sounded like one. Black cloaks? What was that all about?

  Never mind. I turned my eyes back to the umbrella; it could be a crossing guard’s sign for all I cared, with a great big STOP written in blaring bold letters. Passers-by might think I was a mental, scruffy runaway who believed her calling was to help kids cross roads. And that was fine by me. Because I had it. After all this searching, all this hoping—I had found Decidian’s Spear. Step one of my quest.

  At long, long last.

  After affixing the umbrella to my belt via a small metal loop on its base, I slumped against the wall, sighing. I’d be hungry again soon, and I’d have to find something to eat. Not a whole lot at my new digs. The adrenaline had kept me going, but now I’d stepped back into the stale embrace of the Underground, it fled all in one fell swoop, as though someone had opened a valve for it to run out of my feet and into a bucket.

  Like bloodletting. Which I was doing a bit of, I noted, checking the scratch up my forearm.

  That thought brought back the image of Burbondrer, kneeling on the floor of a temple he was sworn to protect.

  A pang of sorrow filled my gut.

  I fought to dismiss it. Why should I feel sorry for an orc? This one was in an army; he was supposed to be tough. It wasn’t my fault that he found out too late he didn’t make the grade.

  It wasn’t that, though..

  “I’ve failed.”

  The words echoed.

  I shut the door on them. Didn’t matter. I needed the spear far more than some stupid orc did.

  A train pulled into the station at my left. I eyed it with distaste. I’d heard they whipped hair and dust and other grime down the tubes as they came and went.

  People clustered in their usual way. The doors opened, and passengers clambered on while others departed, neither pausing to permit one flow to conclude before beginning their own.

  Then they were bustling by, passing me as they joined the opposite platform, yet more streaming for the stairs.

  Okay. This pause was enough. Breath caught, legs gone to jelly just a little bit, it was time to get going again.