There was a sudden noise from somewhere back down the tunnel, and we both came to our feet in an instant. Had Tanaki sent something smaller after us? I wondered.
‘We need to press on. The sooner we reach the next domain, the better!’ Thorne said.
I’d expected to see the path again, but we emerged from the tunnel straight into what was clearly another domain.
There was enough light radiating from the purple sky above for us to see what a terrible place we’d arrived in. There were no trees or grass, just a vast, arid wilderness scattered with rocks and boulders. The air was very warm, with a stink of sulphur, but not as hot as the ground beneath our feet. I bent and touched it, removing my fingers quickly. It was very uneven, with long cracks that vented steam.
This was a strange and terrifying place. I wondered who it belonged to. What manner of god would make this home?
Thorne and I glanced at each other and set off up the nearest slope. When we reached the top, I could see mountains directly ahead.
‘We should head over there.’ Thorne pointed towards them. ‘From higher ground we’ll be able to get our bearings.’
‘What is this place? Who would want to live here?’ I asked.
‘Well, that’s a good question, Alice. You said you’ve seen Pan’s domain. It’s suited to him, isn’t it? It must be green and lush because he’s a god of nature . . .’
I realized what she was getting at. ‘So what sort of creature would be happy living in this hot, barren wilderness?’ I wondered. ‘Some sort of fire entity, no doubt.’
Thorne nodded. ‘That sounds likely; whatever it is, we don’t want to meet it. It won’t be long before the owner knows we’re here and comes looking for us. We need to get out as quickly as possible. From the slopes of those mountains ahead, we might just be able to see our best route.’
There was no arguing with that, so we set off just as fast as we could. Wasn’t easy, though. Sometimes huge boulders blocked our path and we had to go round. We had a close escape when a jet of steam hissed up from the ground about ten paces to our left. Any nearer and it would have scalded our faces. It was so hot that we had to turn away.
At times the ground rumbled and shook, though not as violently as when Tanaki had come close. According to Thorne, he was mostly a threat between domains. Whatever was making the ground shake was something peculiar to this place.
I was thinking again about what sort of god would have this as his home when, as if she had read my thoughts, Thorne spoke up:
‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I think this is a new domain that hasn’t been around for very long. Grimalkin travelled a lot and told me about her journeys. She said that she had recently visited an island full of volcanoes. The ground there was hot underfoot, with scalding steam just like this. The fisherman she forced to take her there told her that three years earlier there had been nothing there but sea; it was a new island born of fire that had burst up out of the waves. This seems to be something similar.’
‘That makes sense,’ I told her. ‘Maybe it’s a new god, only just born. Most gods are ancient, but they all had to begin somewhere, didn’t they?’
Thorne nodded in agreement. ‘Grimalkin has her own ideas about that,’ she said. ‘She’s learned things on her travels that those Pendle witches, set in their ways, wouldn’t even dream of. She thinks that a daemon can sometimes grow in power until it becomes a god; or that the reverse can happen.’
I had always known that there was much I could learn from Grimalkin. Not only was she a great assassin, but she had also acquired a great deal of knowledge.
‘That’s true enough,’ I agreed. ‘Old Gregory thought that about the daemon called the Bane. It was trapped behind a silver gate in the labyrinth under Priestown Cathedral. Once it was a god, but because it was no longer worshipped it gradually grew weaker.’
‘I suppose it depends on what people believe,’ continued Thorne. ‘If enough of them want something to happen, it will! You could well be right. Maybe a new god has been born here or is about to come into existence because of the worship of thousands of people somewhere back on earth.’
I shuddered at the prospect of another dark god. Weren’t there enough already? ‘Well, let’s hope we never meet it,’ I said. ‘We must find our way to the Fiend’s domain. I need to get that dagger.’
We trudged onwards, and I started to get thirsty – though I realized that I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. This might be the dark, but I was here with my human body. Surely it had the same needs as back on earth. I wondered what it was like for the dead. Did Thorne need to eat?
I tried to remember how I had managed when I’d been a prisoner of the Fiend all those months ago, but could bring little to mind. When I arrived, he had immediately handed me over to his servants. At first I had been kept in a cage, and I remembered a wet sponge being pushed through the bars into my hands. I had sucked on it eagerly, desperate for any drop of moisture. Sometimes the Fiend’s servants had soaked the sponge in vinegar rather than water, and I recalled the intense stinging pain as it made contact with my parched, cracked lips. Once they’d held me down and rubbed it into all my cuts. The memory made me more determined than ever to play my part in destroying the Fiend – no matter what it cost me.
Once again, it was difficult to judge the passing of time. Crossing the abyss, it had moved very slowly; here it flashed past, and it seemed to me that we were nearing the mountains much more quickly than we would have done back on earth. I could now see that their upper slopes were white.
‘Snow and ice!’ I pointed upwards.
Thorne stared at the jagged peaks for a few moments, then nodded. ‘On earth, the higher you go, the cooler it gets. The same could apply in this domain.’
‘Snow and ice means water!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt so thirsty. My mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow. If there’s ice up there and it’s hot down here, then at some point on those slopes it must turn to water. There’ll be streams running down the mountainside!’
Thorne nodded, not saying whether she was thirsty too, and we hurried on. Soon we were climbing, once more picking our way between boulders and giving the crevices a wide berth. At any moment they could send up jets of scalding steam.