Aaron looks at Silas. “You ok?”
Silas nods. “Just had to take the long way round.” He confesses. “So I’m afraid that stay in the walls thing went for a Burton.”
“Well you are back now.”
“So what have you been up to?” He asks, scanning the wall to see if anything has changed.
“Went to see Jack.”
“Oh.” Silas sounds almost left out. “How is he?”
“Great. He’s master of guard at Caer Cwartz at the moment.”
Silas looks at him and frowns. “Isn’t that your job?”
“Not any more it’s not.” Aaron smiles.
“Oh and you are so upset about that.” Silas lifts one of the mugs on the tray.
Aaron licks his lips. “How’s Andi?” He asks.
Silas sighs. “He knows about Rik.”
Aaron nods, his worse expectations confirmed. “Does he know it’s meant to be a secret?”
“He does now.”
“Well we will have to rely on his disgression and his loyalty to Rik.”
“He offered to show me Saturn.” Silas says sipping the coffee.
Aaron laughs. “He offers to show every body Saturn. It’s not a chat up line. He just really likes his job.”
The door opens and Paul comes in, still trying to suppress a smirk. He is followed by Prydan shaking his head.
Aaron turn the chair round to face the patch work of papers. “Right then. What have we got?”
“The cross can be used by Lea walkers to get out Caester.” Silas states
“But not back in.” Paul points out.
“No it’s one way.” Silas confirms
“But it is dangerously close to St Peters. That has to be our point of exit.
Silas takes a deep breath in. “I think” He starts slowly. “If you really knew what you were doing you could control where you were going. It’s a matter of making contact when the cross of the world you are after is in place and then riding it….” He pauses. “But I’m not sure if it’s on a cycle or if it’s random. I need to go and have another look.”
“Look but don’t touch.” Aaron states.
“I don’t need to make that mistake again.” He agreed “Trouble is lots of statues and crosses look the same. It’s not going to be a quick thing.”
“Ok lets leave it for now. But lets assume that out murderer knew where she was going.”
“Once out of this Caester she access the walls without being seen.” Prydan states.
“She doesn’t need to.” Paul stops him. “If she knows how to use the cross she can get straight to the world she want to. Straight into one where she can walk straight out of the gate and the Daemon can be waiting for her.”
“People are going to be noticing a Daemon waiting out side the walls Paul.” Prydan responds.
“Not if it is a world that’s already fallen.” Paul turns to Prydan. “Face it, what do your guys do when a world is really daemon ridden?”
“Break the walls. It’s standard practice. Stops the taint from getting in.”
“Exactly.”
“But then the world becomes inaccessible so...“
“Just like the one he ended up on.” Paul points out gesturing to Silas.
Prydans face goes white.
“You can’t use the cross to get in. It’s not like it’s a breach point or something.” Silas reassures him.
“Still.”  Prydan looks up at the map of Caester on the wall. And Swallows hard. “Bollox.”
“She still got back in with the body.” Silas points out.
“Yeah but where did she get back in from.” Paul presses.
“Zero.” Aaron whispers.
“Exactly. She gives the girl to the daemon, who probably has a whale of a time and then she picks up the body and steps straight into Zero.”
“Through Anaon.” Aaron whispers.
“Through Anaon.” Paul confirms
“Oh Shit.” Aaron cures is heartfelt.
“Err For those of us who didn’t keep up?” Silas prompt.”
“Do you know where your home world actually is?” Paul asks.
“It’s pretty deep.”
“No.” Paul shakes his head. “It’s not just deep. It’s Out. Your home world is actually in shades. That’s why it is so hard to get too. The Lea. U-space all that lot don’t get that far.”
“But shades is the nasty dark place where the daemons come from.” Silas asks obviously confused.
“Yeap.” Aaron responds. “Ok Daemonic origins 101, sit down. The daemons are not part of the realities, no one really knows where they came form but they are not ‘some thing of the wyrd’ as Christine like to put it. That is why they can’t remain in the realities unless they have some sentient thing believing in them to stabilise them and give them existence.”
“Ok.” Silas responds, realising he was vaguely aware of that from things Karl told him when they were picking up people who had been displaced.
“Works the other way as well. The place where the daemons hang out when they are not trying to get into reality is pretty damn empty and boring because nothing real can exist there unless you have some one with belief supporting it. For… however long, it was just the Daemons, fighting each other feeding on each other and then one day some how one of the daemons found out there was something out side shades. Blakk likes to claim it was him and there isn’t really any one to say other wise, but there is no real proof. What we do know is that when Blakk got out there, and he may have been following someone else, he saw reality and he decided it was good. So he brought something back to prove to the Daemons that there was an out side. Again it’s a blank spot we don’t know what that was, what we do know is that the nature of Shade destroyed it, and that really pissed him off. So he went and got something else. Only this time he brought back some body with him. By that point the Daemons had already realised that if you had the right person believe in them they could remain in reality longer, which is probably why stories of dark evil beings are so wide spread across the multitude of cultures in the multi-verse, whilst people don’t always believe in a god, they pretty much always agree there is a devil. So it didn’t take a great mind to work out you can flip that over and use the same power to stabilise a reality thing in shades. Any way back to the plot. Blakk returns with a thing. A tree.”
“Why a tree?” Silas asks
“I don’t know. He liked it.” Aaron guesses. “Bound into the tree were a couple of his followers from the world he got the tree. And ever since then Blakk has been very keen to collect fate gifted individuals because they can stabilise the tree and keep it in his domain. And whilst he has the biggest bit of reality in Shades, he is the boss man. The other Daemons know that. They will buy favours off him by giving him souls. Bottom line is, that side of the line and we’re nothing but currency.”
“So how come my world is in shades then?” Silas asks
Aaron frowns. “That I’ve never quiet worked out. Best I can figure is its being hidden in there. But I do know that wrapped round it is the place your Bulmas called Anoan.”
“The realm of the dead?” Silas looks confused.
“Yea but I’ve never been convinced they are dead souls. There are souls suffering in there and it’s not a good place to be, but I have a feeling they are actually the souls in Blakks tree projecting their pain into the reality of your world. But I do know that that blanket of pain and suffering effectively camouflages the world from the shades side, and pretty much guarantees that casual travellers don’t go too far out.” He shrugs. “Which makes it pretty cunning really. Some one spent a lot of time and effort setting that one up.” Aaron’s explanation tails off as he gets lost in the enigma.
“The point is.” Paul picks up. “There is a route from shades, into your world via Anoan and thus out again through Caester. But, and this is the interesting bit, you can only do that because of him.” Paul states, stabbing a hand in the direction of Aaron.
Silas looks at him. “Is this true?”
“May be?” He confesses. Then he shrugs. “I had a bit of a hand in founding Caester in your world yes.”
“Bit of a hand.” Paul state at the understatement. “I believe an entire legion was sent to hold a scratch of marsh land so you could get your stupid settlement.
“Do you mind that ‘Stupid settlement’ is my town.” Prydan defends.
“And erm yeah the re coursing of a major river. And entire inland sea that mysteriously dried up to give a salt plain.”
Aaron shifts uncomfortably.
“The founding of a welsh line of kings, The suppression of trade at Liverpool for 200 years.”
Aaron puts his head in his hands.
“Dunwich mysteriously vanishing into the sea despite being the second biggest town in the country at the time. The re routing of the Norse invasions to Ireland. The major break though of the industrial revolution happening in Shropshire of all god forsaken places.” Paul continues to rant.
Silas stares at his friend. He can see Aaron shifting his thumbs to cover his ears as if not hearing is going to make it any better.
”The construction of Offers Dyke and then the silting up of the Dee to make sure future development wouldn’t disrupt the walls.” Paul turns to his audience. “Is that a hand? Should we vote!”  he concludes.
“Finished?” Aaron asks without looking up.
“Yes.”
“You really did all that?” Silas asks.
“I had 30,000 years to kill.” Aaron defends.
Prydan shakes his head and leans back against the table. “Well it’s interesting but I don’t see how this is relevant.”
Paul looks at him shocked. “Relevant! Of course it’s fecking relevant!”
He looks down at Aaron.
Then he stops. He turns and looks at Silas. Almost as if he is considering who is in the room before he continues. He takes a very, very deep breath in and out.
“It’s relevant because we have a path taken by our murderer. And we can be pretty certain of the place of death.”
Aaron sits back and seems to visible relax.
Paul sits down. It is almost as if his rant took something out of him. “What we don’t have is a motive and without a motive we are never going to get to the bottom of this.”
“Are we disregarding the ‘just to wind me up’ one?” Silas asks.
“I think so.” Aaron responds. “There are far easier ways of winding you up.” He looks at the wall and then gestures to Paul’s diary extract. “What about this?”
Paul frowns. “Still not sure it’s relevant. Some one sent a whole load of Bulmäs to Chris’s place looking for a bloke called Stonehouse but they found Silvia instead. Thing is they didn’t follow it up, once they knew they had the wrong person they fucked off. I mean they must have been pretty serious to send such a big force but they were obviously after some one very, very specific.” He shrugs. “I can keep chasing it if you want.”
Aaron nods. “It might provide a missing piece in the long run.”
“What about my descendants?” Silas asks. “I mean I assume that is why you went to see the Maynans without me.”
Aaron smiles, a little pleased that Silas had picked up the clue for himself. “We are on it.” He assures him.
“Ok.” Silas responds. “I think I’d rather leave that too you. Feels a bit too weird for me, especially seeing as I haven’t even though of getting married yet let alone kids.”
Aaron nods. “Ok. Well you go and see what you can get from the cross. If there is a pattern we many be able to calculate the world she went to first.”
He looks at Paul. “You chasing up these Bulmäs and Chris?”
Paul nods.
He looks up at Prydan. “Sorry but I have a day job. The watch doesn’t run itself, and most of this is moving out of my jurisdiction.” The watchman points out. “Also, I think I need to let Connaught know about Silas discoveries around the cross. I know it’s not a route in, but we need to do something about it. We can’t have people accidentally vanishing off into distant worlds.”
“Ok. You cover the caster specific stuff. If you come across anything you know where we are, and if we need you we’ll come running.”
“Agreed.” Prydan nods and heads out.