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“You’re not talking sense,” Slade said.
“The fuck—”
“Nah, just this fucking once, you’re gonna listen to me the way I’ve always done that for you,” he replied, stepping into the other man’s face. “You think he’s a box you can open and get what you want from if you’re prepared to be ruthless enough, but he’s not. Jules told me what she saw. He’s been copping a hammering way worse than any of us could administer, and the fucker learned to lie through their interrogations. You won’t be able to trust a word he says, even if you could break him. But, Finn, the fact you’d ever say you’d do this? That’s what concerns me. You think you’re so bloody tarnished, it doesn’t matter what you do. I know that freedom well. But, mate, that’s not you. You’ve always been the one trying to keep the peace, keep us all ticking along, sorting out the shit. When we’re back home and we’ve sorted these pricks out, you’re gonna need to go back to that.”
“So, I can keep sending blokes to these fucks?”
“Fucking Prince Perfect, always with the self-sacrifice,” Jack drawled. “We don’t need you to beat the weaselly little fuck into submission. We need you to make the changes to stop this shit from happening when we get back. We need you to get the matriarchs on board.”
Silence reigned for a moment, giving me time to watch Finn’s face closely. He was stricken, his eyes glowing almost as bright as the crystals behind him.
“Who’s going to get an audience with them?” Slade asked. “Who’s going to make them see that exiling strong men isn’t the answer?”
“Who’s going to get us access to the Women’s Council? Get us representation rather than just dictation?” Jack asked.
“Who’s going to get the guys on side? Get them seeing that the world order they’ve lived with for so long is not the right one? That we’ll be stronger as a people if the best of us lead, not just the best women?” Aaron asked.
“This will require a massiv
e mental shift,” Brandon said. “It’ll mean making changes to the fundamental nature of Sanctuary. It has always been a matriarchal society. You feel sick about what’s happened, want to fix it quick to soothe your conscience. What about making permanent changes? Making it so that people get a fair trial, get the opportunity to redeem themselves, the opportunity to go into the human world rather than through the portal if they truly need to be exiled?”
I watched Finn blink as he considered all of this, the muscles in his jaw working. He didn’t answer though, just shook his head and said, “If we’re gonna follow this bloke’s lead, let’s do it.”
I scanned the murals as we went, but it all seemed to be more of the same—pretty scenes of life back in whatever place the Great Wolves had come from. There were more intimate scenes of wolves and humans cohabiting depicted in stylised shapes, or important events where humans wore rich robes and performed unknown rituals. We walked down the stairs, dodging the broken steps, before finally arriving in a large area dominated by a huge cluster of crystals. Sylvan stood before it, moving now in a series of dance steps as he sang, and the crystal was now glowing so bright, it was hard to look at.
“OK, we’re here,” Slade said, “So apart from serenading random geological formations, we’re doing what now?”
“Sing,” Sylvan hissed through the words of the song. We watched the light dim, then flare again. He waved his hand furiously when I didn’t start. Everyone turned to me, waiting to see what I would do.
Of course, it had to be me that was expected to sing a bloody song, in a language I didn’t understand, standing within an ancient ruin, in front of the most incredible cluster of iridescent crystal, shards spiking up in every direction. I was starting to feel bad for chuckling at those people doing auditions for Australian Idol now, hearing my own voice warble in tone, my mouth struggling to make the right sounds. But I must have done alright. While I wasn’t going to walk away with a recording contract, I was able to get the crystal to sing. Louder and louder, higher and higher, the pure note sang over us, as we were a mere background distraction now.
The words came easier now, the meaning somehow coming to me as I sang in fits and starts. It was part ode to the Great Wolves, part description of the wind in your fur and the land under your feet as you run. Part description of the love a mother feels for her cubs, part burning passion that brings mates together and potentially tears them apart. I no longer tripped over the words as we sang them faster and faster, the sound growing and growing until the light could no longer be contained. I worked out all too late what the shape was for. It was a conductor, it shot beams of light out through the room, hitting the stone walls and us.
I didn’t sing the words, they sang through me. Those and a million others, a massive torrent of information streaming through me as my mind struggled to keep up.
People were using the crystal to open a gateway, a panoramic view of the city I’d visited briefly winking into view as others came through it. Locals came down at the exact time to greet them, with much dancing and singing as a result, and the crystal was shining like a beacon throughout. More rituals, so many rituals, over and over. People painting scenes on the walls to commemorate the different events. People going through the gateway, in human or Tirian form, bringing food and goods, trading materials, long scrolls and important visitors. A constant stream of people doing a million things at the gate, their individual actions blending into one whole. Then came the calamity.
The gate was opened by smiling locals, obviously expecting more of the same, and why wouldn’t they? There were records everywhere of the continued good relationship. Except this time when the gate opened, it did so on devastation. For unknown reasons, smoke billowed from the tall buildings, now smashed as if by an errant child. Chunks of stone were torn asunder, bodies strewn about the mosaic paths like discarded toys. But not all. People staggered through the gate to the dismay of the locals, then they were rushing forward to assist when the shock wore off. An impromptu field hospital was set up around the crystal, the faces of the injured were bleached white by the singing crystal, the red blood standing out all that more starkly for it.
And then he came.
For a moment, I thought the memory had come to an abrupt end as everyone went completely still, even the injured. They all watched from where they sat, lay, or stood as the Great Black Wolf padded through the gate.
He hadn’t escaped unscathed either, which put the whole catastrophe into perspective. What the hell could hurt the god of the Tirian? He limped through the portal, attendants at his side, dragging one of his rear paws behind him. He didn’t stop until he was directly in front of the crystal cluster, sitting down on his haunches slowly and with difficulty. The portal shimmered closed behind him. If he’d come through, the Great White Wolf hadn’t. Perhaps that’s why his head was thrown back, a mournful howl coming from the depths of his chest, filling the building. The crystals flared terribly bright, the main cluster and the ones worn by those who had accompanied him.
The howl still rang in my ears when reality returned, and perhaps that's why we were slow to detect the threat. And why would we? We’d just participated in some kind of 3D vision of the past in glorious Technicolour, not exactly the most guarded time. I blinked as I heard the sound slowly fade away, but it was hearing it start up again that sent shivers up my spine.
“What the fuck was that?” Slade asked.
“We need to get out of here,” Brandon said, staring at the podium behind the cluster of crystals. I shifted sideways and saw that somehow, we’d managed to open the goddamned portal to Wolflantis. Just as it had in the vision, the crystal cluster still shone, singing to itself in a much more muted tone, low enough that we could hear the howl of other Tirians.
“I think I know what that black landscape we always see is,” I said, backing away from the cluster and edging towards the stairs, because all you could see through the portal was a large expanse of unrelieved deep charcoal grey within. The water I’d always seen lapping at the edges was the sea not a lake, but this was not a landscape we could run freely on as a pack. It remained torn and broken, and I could dimly make out the shapes against the slightly lighter sky, but it appeared some saw us much more clearly. A long eerie howl filled the air, closer now.
“We need to close this and go. Sylvan, how do we close this?” Brandon asked.
“No!”
The Volken seer’s voice was almost as much a howl as our mysterious brethren, his face a mask of horror and grief. I watched his eyes burn phosphorescent blue, shining with the weight of unshed tears, his face twisted in a rictus of agony. He continued to sing, forcing out the words as if trying to create a different result.
