The New Star: Interlude 11

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange æons, even death may die.”

Well, thought Mary, that’s all very well, but does ‘death dying’ mean that the dead stop being dead or that the concept of death itself dies, sort of like Terry Pratchett’s anthropomorphic personification of Death having a coronary, or something…
This train of thought was derailed by the arrival of Mary’s underground train at her stop, where she had to change for York. She was only one of many people disembarking at this point, and the crush made her give thanks she only did this occasionally, when travelling to visit her parents.
King’s Cross Station at rush hour, she thought, who’d do it?
As she forced her way along the platform and up the broken escalator, the background noise of thousands of people started to bring on a headache, which did nothing to improve her temper. Then came a final straw; just when Mary thought she couldn’t say “excuse me” one more time without exploding, a man in a dark suit bumped heavily into her, knocking her into a wall and to the floor. As she sprawled there, humiliated, Mary closed her eyes and wished for a hole in the ground to swallow her up, and said:
“Why don’t you all just go away!”
There was instant silence. Mary’s first thought, as she still had her eyes tightly shut, was that all she had done now was get everyone to stop and stare at her. But when the mocking laughter didn’t come as she expected, she summoned up the courage to look – and everyone was gone.
This was simply the first of many shocks Mary would receive in the coming hours: the next was that she no longer appeared to be in King’s Cross Station – because although that corridor had looked the same, the rooms at either end of it were different. At one end was, to Mary’s mind, a kind of farmer’s barn, but with no doors or windows. At the other was some sort of church, Eastern European or Greek, by the look of it, with all the doors in it locked bar one, which Mary eventually went through.
Always her path through this madhouse seemed predetermined, as there was never any choice of routes to take. If there was ever more than one door, only one would open.
I’m dreaming this, of course, she thought, that man knocked me out and this is my bonkers subconscious doing this while I’m being taken to hospital.
I hope I wake up soon; I’m quite hungry.
She didn’t. Room after room she trudged through, growing more and more hungry, thirsty and tired with each one. On the point of collapse, Mary walked into the biggest chamber she had seen yet; a massive golden, domed ceiling stretched for what seemed like miles over a featureless, grey plain. Not quite featureless; at the centre stood a pillar of silver, from which a strong blue light shone. Mary instinctively headed towards it. As she approached, gentle steps formed before her that gradually lifted her up to the height of the light source. She saw that the source was a blue crystal, about the size of an egg. It was beautiful, and it was just sitting there. Unable to help herself, Mary picked it up.
Almost at once the hunger and thirst fell from her like dust from a shaken carpet. But the tiredness remained and overwhelmed her, and Mary slept at the foot of the pedestal, the crystal clutched in her hands.
When she awoke Mary set off again, taking the crystal with her. While she held it she felt neither hunger nor thirst, and this was good for she travelled on with neither food nor drink. Every day she travelled until she was weary, then slept where she could. Each day brought new and wonderful sights for her to see:

  • Forests of silver metal trees.
  • Golden pyramids larger than Egypt’s, yet contained within still larger rooms.
  • Statues of resplendent dragons that would dwarf, or even eat, the Statue of Liberty.
  • A clockwork model of the heavens (though not any heaven she was familiar with), made from polished bronze.
  • A painting, entitled ‘The Beast and The Man’, that reached into her very soul and terrified her such that she ran screaming from it – it showed either the same person twice, or else twins. Both were men with long brown hair, depicted from the waist up. The figure on the left was naked and the front of his torso and the right side of his face were shown. He was looking into the eyes of the other figure, who was wearing black articulated plate armour. His back and the left side of his face were shown.
  • And many other wonders. But never another living person.
    Mary tried to keep count of the days that passed, but it was difficult. She had a watch, so she knew when one day became another, little difference that made when there was no night or day, but she had to rely totally on her memory for the date. By her reckoning, almost eight months had passed since she found and took the crystal, when her lot finally changed.
    One day, not long after she had found a pretty little necklace into which her crystal seemed to fit perfectly, Mary had noticed that her path had been tending to lead her downwards recently, and had vaguely begun to wonder if there was some purpose behind this trend. The rooms had been smaller of late, and the one she found herself in presently was, to her way of thinking, most reminiscent of an Egyptian tomb, all sandstone and worn away paintings on the walls. Without warning, the floor dropped away and she plunged down, down into the open sky beneath. Far below her were clouds, and beneath them was land – she saw open plains in one direction, a jungle in the other, and she could just make out a river. After a time, she twisted in mid air and looked at where she was falling from. Above her floated an island, with a castle atop it. It was glowing so brightly that after a couple of seconds she had to look away. But not before a thought entered her head, from where she knew not, giving her the name of the place: Cruithne.
    This thought also brought with it an overpowering urge to sleep, which Mary was in no position to resist. But before it took her, she had time for one final thought; that castle wasn’t big enough to hold everything I’ve seen…

    Elsewhere, a nameless mind, ancient as the universe, vast as creation and more terrible than death, lay, eternally dreaming of its revenge…