Free Beyond the Shroud by V M Jones Page B

felt a pang of loss. Who knows when, if ever, I’d see it again … A mental image of Weevil flashed into my mind, but I pushed it roughly away.
    And finally we were back downstairs, each in front of our computer, screens on and ready to go. I tried to tune out Q’s anxious voice: ‘Do be careful. I shouldn’t be letting you go, I know I shouldn’t. I’d go myself, but I still haven’t managed to modify the programme to allow adults to make the transition … to tell the truth, I haven’t even been trying, what with Power … what with working on my new game. Now whatever you do, never forget things aren’t always as they seem … and remember spontaneous evolution, children — things change, and the changes are not always for the good …’
    â€˜Ready?’ I asked. Four heads nodded; four faces, in varying shades of tan, stared intently at their screens.
    â€˜OK then —’
    â€˜Wait!’ yelped Q. Our hands froze above the keyboards. ‘I’ve remembered! Don’t go yet! I won’t be a moment —’
    He turned and sprinted, with surprising speed, out through the door. ‘Quick — let’s go before he gets back, or he’ll never let us leave,’ grumbled Rich.
    â€˜I think we should wait,’ quavered Jamie. ‘Maybe it’s something really important. Or perhaps he’s thought of somewhere else Hannah might be. Maybe we won’t have to go to Karazan after all!’
    Richard snorted. ‘Maybe orange turnips can fly,’ he retorted. ‘Anyhow, no one’s making you go.’
    â€˜I know,’ said Jamie with dignity. ‘But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. That’s what my dad always says …’
    At that moment Q burst back into the room, something glinting in his hand. ‘Here they are!’ he panted. ‘Thank goodness I remembered! There’s only a little bit left of the healing one, but even that … you never know …’
    Solemnly, he held out the crystal phials. One glimmered with a strange, milky-blue fluorescence: the last remnants of the magic healing potion that had saved Hannah’s life. More useful than Nanny’s medicine by a long shot, I thought grimly. The other, still full, was blacker than ink: the Potion of Power. Wrapped in my shawl, they were the only two to have survived the transition back from Karazan to our world. I dug for my shawl again and tucked the phials snugly into its soft folds, then packed it safely away.
    â€˜And now —’ said Rich.
    â€˜Yes, now I suppose you really had better be off,’ said Q reluctantly.
    Rich looked over at me, fingers poised. I gave him a grin. Across the room Jamie was staring at his computer screen, eyes bulging like an exotic goldfish. Gen’s face wastense and focused, Kenta’s self-contained and still. ‘Ready? One … two … three!’
    Five sets of fingers came down on five sets of keys … and the computer room at Quested Court vanished in less than an instant, as if it had never existed.

An open door
    â€˜Any one of you could pass through from our world to Karazan as easily as walking through an open door,’ Q had once said. It was true. Making the transition from our world to Karazan was even more effortless than that, for me at least. Like blinking: eyes open — our world; blink and open them again — Karazan.
    My eyes blinked open on a crisp autumn morning. The red-gold Karazan sun shone down from the pale bowl of sky without any real warmth. Above me, the endless cliff reared up as far as I could see — in a few hours the rock I was sitting on would be in deep shade, and bitterly cold. Snow lay in crystal patches at its foot, and in a deeper drift on the western side of the standing stone a few paces away, protected from the morning sun by the stone itself, and the afternoon sun by the looming cliff.
    The air