The Blue Portal

Eric Brown

Solaris

The Blue Portal is an extract from the beginning of Eric Brown's upcoming novel The Kings of Eternity, due to be released April 2011.

This extract is © Eric Brown 2010.

First published 2010 by Solaris, an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

ISBN (.epub version): 978-1-84997-219-2

ISBN (.mobi version): 978-1-84997-218-5

Read The Blue Portal, a free sample of Eric Brown's upcoming novel The Kings of Eternity, released April 2011...

On a bitterly cold morning in February 1935, with thick snow covering the length and breadth of the country, I met the writer Edward Vaughan outside Waterloo station. It was the start of a series of events which would prove momentous to all involved.

Vaughan was a tall, broad man, whose choice of dress ran to rough and ready tweeds, and he was never without a lighted pipe. His hair was grey, and swept back in leonine profusion, his face craggy and weathered, fissured like some outcropping open to the depredation of the elements. It was an apt metaphor: although quiet and private, he had once let slip, after a succession of double malts had loosened his tongue, that he had known tragedy in his life. He had lost a brother in the Great War, and five years ago his wife had succumbed to cancer.

He was introspective, but amiable: on our first meeting he had praised a short story of mine published by our mutual friend Jasper Carnegie in The Monthly Scribe. In company he was thoughtful and somewhat reserved - though his reserve suggested, not the suspicion that some taciturn men emanate, but a wealth of quiet understanding of the ways of the world.

He was standing beside his Austin 16 when I hurried along the pavement with my overnight bag, somewhat out of breath.

"Mr Vaughan!" I panted. "Forgive me. Late as ever! The buses-"

He smiled around the stem of his pipe. "What's five minutes, Jonathon? And please, call me Edward."

He took my bag and stowed it in the back of the car, and I climbed into the passenger seat beside him. He pulled into the street and proceeded to drive through the city with a quiet attention and thoroughness I came to view as characteristic.

"What are you working on at the moment?" he asked, glancing my way.

I said that I was stalled on the latest novel and he smiled, nodding. "I know the feeling well," he sympathised.

He puffed his pipe, and soon a pungent fug filled the car. He opened the quarter-light, murmuring apologies, and I breathed freely again.

Vaughan published his first novel in 1925, at the age of forty. It was much publicised at the time as being in the tradition of H.G. Wells - a Scientific Romance, to use that old term, set thousands of years into the future of planet Earth. It was an odd choice of subject matter for a beginning novelist to pursue, and a practitioner with less literary skill and intelligence might have failed miserably. The book was an instant success, however, earning the plaudits of the crusty literary establishment with its undoubted stylistic merit and the breadth of its imaginative daring.

I ventured to ask what he was writing now, and he told me that he had just finished, and submitted to his editor, his latest novel.

We chatted thus as we left London in our wake and motored along the rolling roads of Berkshire.

A new fall of snow had settled during the night, and a bright winter sun had appeared to light the scene: the land on either side of the metalled road wore a dazzling mantle of unsullied snow; we passed occasional oak trees, standing in splendid isolation, all the more magnificent for the burden of snow carried by each and every branch.

Inevitably, perhaps, the conversation found its way on to the subject of Jasper Carnegie.

"Have you been to the Grange before?" Vaughan asked.

"Never. This will be the first time. I usually meet Carnegie at his office in London."

"You've known him long?"

"He was in the year above me at Cambridge," I said. "So, what, about fifteen years?" I smiled. "He was old before his time. He was editing a magazine, even then. Inevitable that that's what he'd do out here in the real world."

"He was a friend at Cambridge?"

"I'd hesitate to call him a friend. More of an acquaintance. I've actually come to know him better over the past two or three years, since he started the Scribe."

Vaughan glanced at me as he drove. "In your opinion," he asked, "is Carnegie of sound mind?"

The question surprised me. "Well... I've never had reason to question his sanity, if that's what you mean."

He chewed on the stem of his pipe. "What did you make of his phone call?"

"It was somewhat surprising, to say the least. And not only at the late hour he called."

"What did he tell you?"

"Not a lot, and to be honest I'd had a little too much to drink at the time. He invited me down to the Grange, said something about wanting you and me to help him investigate something."

"But he didn't say what?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing at all. Well, he did mention something about some strange goings on."

"He said much the same to me. When I tried to question him, he clammed up. Very strange, if you ask me. And all the more so because he hardly knows me. I've met him, what, on three or four occasions, when he's bought pieces from me for the Scribe. I was the last person I thought he'd summon when he was in need of help."

I glanced across at him. "You thought that that's what he wanted?"

Vaughan frowned. "He sounded agitated, disturbed. More than once he mentioned an investigation, and odd happenings which he thought might interest me. But as I say, I hardly know the chap."

"He always was a bit of a loner," I offered. "He never made friends easily. Apparently he's become a bit of a recluse at the Grange, only venturing out to oversee the office in London."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Vaughan murmured to himself. "We shall see what we shall see."

In due course, as a swollen, ruddy sun was extinguishing itself over the low folds of the horizon, we drove through a snow-bound Aylesbury and followed a signpost to the village of Fairweather Cranley, ten miles to the south.

Forty minutes later Cranley Grange, to give Carnegie's ancestral home its full title, appeared as we crested a rise in the lane; it stood between beech woods in the lee of the Chiltern hills, an imposing, foursquare pile with the folly-like addition of gothic towers or belvederes at each corner. Its dour façade appeared all the more eldritch in between a roof upholstered in snow and the dazzling white mantle which covered the entirety of the surrounding land.

I was impressed by its size and the extent, judging from the length of the drive-way, of its grounds. Vaughan halted the car on the crest of the lane, the better to view the Grange as the setting sun, behind us, blazed in the building's serried windows.

"He lives there alone?" I enquired.

"Apparently. He has a brother, but I rather think he's in India."

"Charles, he's a doctor in Bombay," I said. "He was in the same year as me at Cambridge. A greater contrast to Jasper you couldn't meet. Chalk and cheese."

Vaughan ground the gears and we skidded down the gentle incline of the hill and turned into the drive-way. The snow had not been cleared, and progress was slow. Eventually we arrived before the rise of steps that gave access the double doors. I climbed out, retrieved my bag, and accompanied Vaughan towards the house.

Carnegie's valet showed us into the library, where Vaughan planted himself with his back to the log fire, and I inspected the books ranged along the west wall. Most of them appeared to be volumes of traveller's tales dating from the last century, along with a good number of atlases and bound maps.

"Gentlemen! Vaughan, Langham... you don't know how delighted I am that you could make it."

I turned. Jasper Carnegie stood framed in the doorway, a short, rubicund figure in moleskin breeches and a faded scarlet waist-coat. He was balding, with a well-fed face, and he appeared far older than his thirty-six years; indeed, it was hard to believe that he and I were almost the same age.

"Do let me get you a drink. Whisky, brandy? Something to take the chill from your bones!"

We both chose brandy, and Carnegie rubbed his hands and beamed, delighted. "Brandy it is, and I think I'll join you."

He poured three stiff measures from a bottle on a well-stocked table in the corner. As Carnegie passed the drinks and joined us before the hearth, I was struck by the resemblance between the editor's physique and the glass he nursed in the palm of his hand.

I also noticed, as he raised the glass to his lips, that his hand trembled, ever so slightly.

Carnegie enquired as to how our respective writing projects were faring, and for a while we traded business talk. He informed us that the latest issue of the Scribe was at the printers, and launched into a diatribe aimed at that beleaguered profession.

I wanted nothing more than to ask him why he had summoned us here, but thought it diplomatic not to interrupt.

He recharged our glasses and I admired his library.

This provided a further ten minutes of conversation. I was about to ask what, exactly, Carnegie had meant by the 'strange goings on' that he wished us to investigate, when he said, "I'll show you to your rooms, and after you've changed we'll have a spot of dinner. How's that sound?"

We finished our drinks and followed Carnegie to our rooms. I washed and changed, then joined the others in the library, where we were to dine.

The dinner, I was somewhat surprised to find, was superb: a haunch of venison, roast vegetables, and numerous bottles of the finest wine I had sampled in ages. We ate and drank for over two hours in the flickering light of the fire, and after the initial uneasiness of our arrival, we fell into conversation as if we were old friends reunited.

Carnegie and I recounted our Cambridge days, while Vaughan spoke of his time at Oxford. I asked after Carnegie's brother, Charles; as I thought, he was in India, working as doctor.

"But," said Carnegie, waving his glass - by this time we were all somewhat the worse for the grape - "You'll be delighted to learn that he'll be back next week. You'll have to come down. What a reunion that will be!"

Vaughan regarded his glass. "If you don't mind my asking, Carnegie, you mentioned on the phone-"

"There's plenty of time for that tomorrow, my dear Vaughan."

"You can't even give us some hint?" I ventured.

He lowered his glass and leaned forward slightly, both palms flattened on the table to either side of his empty desert bowl. "Gentlemen," he said, regarding us in turn, "I rather think that, if I were to recount the reason for your presence here, you would in your current state of inebriation take me for a madman, and in the morning believe not a word of what you'd heard."

"You are nothing if not intriguing," Vaughan said, smiling.

Carnegie changed the subject. He stared at me with pop-eyes. "What do you think of the world, Langham?"

"The world?" I asked, surprised. "Well, that's rather a big question after so much excellent claret."

"I'll be more precise. I mean, the modern world, society. Commerce, popular culture..." He waved, as if to encompass all the other aspects of the world he had omitted to mention.

"Well," I began. "I think the great evil is the fact that popular culture is driven by commerce. People in power, with vested interests, are force-feeding a populace what they think it wants..."

Carnegie was nodding. "That's why I like your novels, Langham. They seem not of this time. Your characters are paradigms for the universal aspects of the human psyche. Perhaps I'm not making myself clear..."

He refilled his glass, tipsily. I glanced across at Vaughan, who was smiling quietly to himself.

"And you, Vaughan," Carnegie went on, "your visions... D'you know something, Vaughan? To be perfectly honest I'm sick and tired of the world I find myself inhabiting - I might even say, find myself imprisoned in. That's why I find your visions so liberating. They speak to me of something beyond the mundane and every-day, the petty concerns of humankind."

"That's what I'm trying to get at," Vaughan said. "I want to show the reader that there are more things in heaven..."

Carnegie reached across the table and gripped the cuff of Vaughan's tweed jacket. "Do you really think so, my friend? Do you think that out there, or somewhere maybe in the future, there exist races and civilisations of which we with our puny intelligence can but dream?"

His eyes burned, and something about the intensity of his sentiment sent a shiver down my spine.

Vaughan smiled and filled his pipe. "Carnegie, I don't just think there is more to the universe than we have ever imagined, I'm certain of it."

Carnegie nodded. "Good. Excellent." He raised his glass. "To the mysterious universe," he declared, "and all who live in it!"

We raised our glasses. "... to all who live in it," we echoed.

"And tomorrow," Carnegie went on, "I want to show you... something. Be prepared for a hike, my friends,"

This was the last coherent sentence we heard from him, as shortly thereafter he slipped into unconsciousness. We eased him onto the chesterfield before the fire and retired to our respective rooms.

The following morning we breakfasted in the library, Carnegie seemingly none the worse for his excess of the night before.

As Vaughan and I helped ourselves to kippers, Carnegie excused himself and told us that he would be back presently with something we might find of interest.

When he had departed, I asked, "What did you make of all that talk of other worlds and times last night?"

Vaughan smiled. "I could say that he's been reading too much Wells and Vaughan," he said. "But, coming as it does on top of whatever he's brought us here to look into..." He gestured with a corner of toast. "We'll no doubt find out in due course."

Two minutes later Carnegie returned with what looked like a portfolio tucked beneath his right arm. He cleared a space on the table and laid it before us.

"I would like you to take a look at some photographs, gentlemen, and see what you make of them."

Intrigued, we leaned forward as he opened the cover of the portfolio like some vast trapdoor to a magical underground kingdom.

He shuffled through a pile of perhaps a dozen large, glossy photographs, then handed us one each. I stared at mine, attempting to make sense of the image. I passed it to Vaughan, raising my eyebrows in mystification. Vaughan gave me the photograph that he had been studying, evidently with the same perplexity as I felt myself.

The first picture showed what appeared to be a flash of light, surrounded by darkness; the second displayed much the same, though in this one the flash was not so bright, and shapes in the surrounding darkness could be discerned, though quite what those shapes might be, I could not rightly say.

We considered each of the dozen pictures; they were very much alike, all showing the ubiquitous light upon a dark field, with the light varying in intensity from one photograph to the next.

"Well," Carnegie said, glancing from Vaughan to myself. "What do you think?"

I exchanged a quick look with the novelist. "H'm," I began. "Interesting, but what are they?"

Carnegie beamed. "That, my friends, is what I too would like to know."

Vaughan leaned over the photographs now spread upon the table-top. He pointed to one or two. "In the darkness here, and here, I can make out shapes - they almost look like branches. Trees."

Carnegie was nodding. "They were taken at night in Hopton Wood," he offered.

"And the light?" I asked.

"Look more closely at the light, especially in these two photographs." He pushed two images across the table towards us, and Vaughan and I bent to inspect them.

"Can you make out shapes, outlines? There, and there..."

Now that he mentioned it, I could discern the very vaguest of patterns upon the print. In the bright explosion of light upon each photograph was the faintest shadow.

"Do the shapes suggest anything to you, gentlemen?"

I frowned, and glanced at Vaughan; his perplexed expression must have mirrored my own. He shook his head. "I suppose, if one stretched one's imagination... one might almost convince oneself that they might be faces. But, then again, they might be many things."

If I squinted, and employed sufficient imagination, I could almost persuade myself that the shadowy shapes within the light did resemble, ever so slightly, ghostly visages.

"Faces," Carnegie declared. "Exactly. That's exactly what I thought!"

"I take it you took these photographs yourself?" Vaughan asked.

Carnegie nodded, and I burst in, "But in that case you must know what you were taking pictures of, surely!"

Carnegie tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his waist-coat and leaned back in his seat. "Gentlemen, I set up the equipment to take these photographs, but I was not in Hopton Wood at the time they were actually taken." He gathered the pictures together and closed the portfolio.

"If you would care to explain..." Vaughan began.

"That walk I mentioned last night - after lunch we'll take a stroll over to Hopton Wood. There is something there that I think you might find of interest.

We set out after lunch at one o'clock, and I had to admit that I was more than a little intrigued. I considered Carnegie's claim, that the shapes in the photographs were faces, as far-fetched to say the least. But the fact was that something in the wood had prompted him to haul a good amount of heavy photographic equipment all the way from the Grange, and I could not hazard a guess as to what that might be. There was always the possibility, of course, that Jasper Carnegie was mad.

There can be few more beautiful landscapes than the English countryside when adorned with a fresh fall of snow. A bright winter sun was shining and the effect upon the brilliant white mantle was almost blinding. When my eyes adjusted to the glare, I made out, stretching out before me, hills and vales softened by snowfall: for as far as the eye could see not a blemish marred the pristine perfection. The only contrast was provided by the vertical trunks of distant trees, dark strokes against the untouched canvas of the snow-covered land. It was almost a shame to mark the fall with our footsteps.

Carnegie led the way, and I had to admit that he cut a somewhat comical figure in his ankle-length waxed coat and deerstalker. Vaughan and I followed, he striding out with his hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket and his pipe thrust resolutely before him.

Carnegie had packed a haversack with a thermos of coffee and, for good measure, a bottle of brandy. I felt like a schoolboy again, embarking upon some adventurous holiday outing.

Cranley Grange stood amid the rolling slopes of the Chilterns, with extensive beech woods covering the crests of the surrounding hills. We climbed for a time towards the distant trees, our compacting snow in a series of high, musical notes. There was not a breath of wind in the air and the sunlight upon our heads was unseasonably warm.

After perhaps thirty minutes we paused to take in the view. I turned and stared down the incline at the Grange, reduced by perspective to the size of an architect's scale model. I was impressed, I recall, by the absolute stillness of the scene, the air of calm and solitude. The cares and concerns of London seemed a million miles away.

We resumed our trek, Carnegie pointing the way with his shooting stick and panting as he climbed the hill.

"Ancient woodland," he panted, gesturing up ahead with his stick. "It's seen the history of England played out before it; if only trees could talk!"

We came to the tree-line on the side of the hill, and Carnegie paused. "Hopton Wood," he said. "Not far now, perhaps a mile, and the going will be easier under cover of the trees."

We entered the wood, going single file down a narrow track between short ferns and tall beech trees. For the most part the snow had not penetrated the tree cover, and the effect was as if we had stepped from one world to the next, or from one season to another: we had left winter behind us, and were approaching spring.

The air was musty, something almost tobacco-like in the aroma of humus and dead wood. Sunlight slanted through the denuded branches, falling in columns and illuminating dust motes like swirls of smoke. The effect was almost fairy-tale. Thirty minutes later we came to a clearing in the trees, a circular area perhaps thirty feet across. I knew, then, that there was something... peculiar about the place, but at the time I could not quite define what made me think this. Only later, in conversation with Vaughan back at the Grange, did it come to me: despite the lack of tree cover, not a flake of snow had fallen upon the clearing.

"This is it, gentlemen," Carnegie declared. "This is where it happened."

We were silent for a time, and then Vaughan asked, "Where what happened, Carnegie?"

He did not immediately reply. As if in a daze, he wandered off into the middle of the clearing and gazed about him, first looking up into the sky, and then around at the enclosing trees. At last he regarded the ground at his feet, and nodded to himself. He prodded his stick against the soil, as if having satisfied himself upon some point.

I glanced at Vaughan and shrugged.

Carnegie looked up, staring at us.

"Step forward," he commanded.

We did so, and he said, "Do you feel it?"

I said, "Feel what, Carnegie?"

"The change, the subtle shift."

I concentrated. Undoubtedly it was warmer in the clearing, but this was accounted for by the fact that we were now standing directly beneath the midday sun.

"There's a charge in the air," Carnegie was saying. "Something almost... I don't know... electric. Look at the hairs on the back of your hands."

Feeling ludicrous, I did so. I noticed that Vaughan was also inspecting his hand.

I started as I realised, improbably, that Carnegie was right: the hairs on the back of my hand and wrist were standing to attention. As I stared, I convinced myself that I felt a frisson, almost a shiver, pass across my flesh.

I stepped back into the shade of the trees and again inspected my hand. No longer were the hairs standing upright. Vaughan conducted the same experiment and frowned at me. "Very strange," he murmured.

I stepped back into the clearing, and this time I told myself that I did feel something, a charge in the air, a certain heat that could not be accounted for by the presence of the sunlight alone.

"Would you mind telling us what's going on?" I asked.

Carnegie paced to the far side of the clearing and stood with his back to us for a time, apparently deep in thought. At last he turned and said, "It's a strange tale, gentlemen, and to be honest I don't rightly know what to make of it myself. I can but describe the events as they occurred, and see what you think." He paused. "I'll begin at the beginning, or the beginning as far as I can tell."

I accommodated myself against the broad bole of a tree, and Vaughan joined me. Together we sat while Carnegie paced back and forth like an actor upon a stage, which in effect was what he was.

"I first noticed the phenomenon twenty-four days ago, though I dare say it had been occurring long before that. I'm in the habit of walking at night - there are times when sleep does not come easily, and I find that a turn around the countryside for an hour or two tires me sufficiently so that I can get a night's rest. On this particular occasion I had retired around ten, but could not sleep. I rose, dressed, and set off towards Hopton Wood. It was a clear night, and the moon was almost full. There was no snow, and thus the going was relatively easy. I was perhaps half a mile from the wood when I noticed the light."

"The light?" Vaughan echoed.

"It was a brilliant blue radiance that seemed to emanate from the very heart of the wood. It appeared as a great fan-like aurora above the tree-tops, pulsing in a slow, regular rhythm. As I approached, I could see that the light was at its most intense at ground level, as it shone brilliantly through the trees, silhouetting their trunks."

"Had you any idea at the time what it might have been?" I enquired. "Weren't you apprehensive?"

He shook his head. "No, to both questions. I had not the slightest idea as to what might be causing the light, but I did not feel the least concern. Rather, I was excited by the possibilities..."

As I listened to him, I realised that I was more than a little intrigued by the fact of Carnegie's strange encounter. "I hurried through the trees, following the glowing light. By the time I arrived at the clearing, I was exhausted, and realised that I had run the last few hundred yards."

"What did you see?" Vaughan asked.

Carnegie smiled and shook his head. "At the very second I approached the clearing, the light ceased, vanished as if it had never existed. The clearing was in darkness, but for the light of the moon. I searched for any sign of the device that might have been responsible, but of course found nothing. However, I did become aware of the atmosphere in the clearing. The air was charged, more so than it is now, and there was a certain aroma in the air - almost a burning scent. Have you ever turned on an electric fire which has stood unused for a time? The reek of singed dust which arises then was something similar to the scent that pervaded the air that night."

Vaughan was leaning forward, hands clasped, his pipe long since extinguished. "Mysterious indeed," he murmured. "Did you investigate the clearing by the light of day?"

Carnegie smiled. "I returned home - though I could hardly sleep for excitement. At first light that morning I set off again..." He paused, staring around the clearing as if recollecting what he had discovered.

"And?" Vaughan prompted. "What did you find?"

"At first, upon arriving here, I noticed nothing untoward. There was still a certain charge to the air, and the singed aroma persisted, but that was all. Or so I thought. Closer inspection revealed a number of dead animals: an owl, a few moles and voles - and a fox. They seemed in good condition: that is, not subject to the attack of other beasts. They lay upon the ground as if in sleep. I know that the discovery of dead animals in a wood is to be expected from time to time, but the fact that I had happened upon so many in the same area, where the night before a singular light had manifested itself, struck me as significant."

"Did you by any chance recover the remains of these animals?" Vaughan asked.

"Of course - I returned with a sack and transported them up to a veterinary surgeon in Aylesbury. I explained that I had found them on my land, but of course refrained from recounting the exact circumstances surrounding their discovery, and requested that he attempt to find out what had caused their deaths."

"And he did?" I asked.

Carnegie frowned. He was standing before us with his hands in the pockets of his ankle-length coat, his deerstalker pushed back on his head to reveal his sweat-soaked forehead. "He reported that he was mystified. The animals seemed to be in perfect health - at least, they were free from any disease which might have caused their deaths. I could see that he was intrigued: he questioned me about where and when I had discovered them, but I merely repeated my story about having found them on my land."

"Stranger and stranger," Vaughan said, abstracted. He was slowly filling his pipe with Old Holborn, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb.

"Like something from one of your books," Carnegie smiled. "Now do you understand why I had to bring you here?"

I recalled the photographs he had shown us back at the Grange. "When did you set up the photographic equipment?" I asked.

"It didn't immediately occur to me that I might make a photographic record of the phenomenon," he said. "Every night for the next week I returned to the clearing and lay in wait. I was about to give up my nightly vigil - thinking that the light had been a unique event, never to be repeated - when it occurred for a second time, or at least for a second time to my knowledge. It was midnight, around the same time I had noticed the light on the first occasion. I was on the very margin of the clearing, in a sleeping bag I had brought along against the cold, when I heard a high whining sound in the air. I climbed to my feet, and at that second experienced an almighty explosion which knocked me to the ground and rendered me unconscious."

"You were injured?" I exclaimed.

He shook his head. "When I awoke, it was daylight. Hours had elapsed. I examined myself, but seemed to be in one piece, though I did feel nauseous and dizzy. I examined the clearing, discovering a few dead animals, mice and a vole or two."

Vaughan removed his pipe and used it to point at Carnegie. "The blast must have killed them," he said. "And I venture that if you'd been any closer, it would have accounted for you, too."

Carnegie nodded grimly. "I dare say you're right. The same thought occurred to me at the time."

I said, "So you decided to keep away from the clearing at midnight, and install the cameras instead?"

"I kept my distance from then on. I returned nightly, but nothing further occurred. Then it struck me that, perhaps, for some reason the light might keep to a regular rhythm. That is, that it might appear a third time eight days after its second appearance, which was eight days after I first noticed it. Rather than risk life and limb again, I had the idea of setting up the cameras. I rigged up a device to take a photograph every few minutes, then retreated to the perimeter of the wood and set up camp. Sure enough, the light manifested itself that night, eight days after the last occasion. I watched from a distance, afraid to venture any closer. The light lasted perhaps twenty minutes, after which I retrieved the cameras, and you have seen the resulting photographs."

Carnegie stopped there, and we contemplated his words in the eerie silence of the clearing.

It was Vaughan who spoke first. "Corposants," he declared. "Will-o'-the-wisps. Ball lightning. Something of that nature."

"But," I said, "then how do you account for the eight-day cycle and the dead animals?"

Vaughan pulled on his pipe, industriously surrounding himself in a pungent fug of smoke which coiled, blue, in the sunlight. "No doubt natural phenomena, such as ball lightning, might account for small creatures," he said. "But I am perplexed by the eight-day cycle. There must, by necessity, be a logical, scientific explanation for what occurred here. First, we need to exhaust the probabilities known to the rational, natural world. Only when we have discounted these can we move on to more bizarre hypotheses, which our understanding of science has yet to embrace."

"There is a little more to add," Carnegie went on. "A couple of days following the first incident, I wired Charles in Bombay with a brief account of the event. His letter in reply reached me only the other day. He was sufficiently intrigued to bring forward his annual leave, and should arrive here next week."

We chatted for a while longer, over mugs of coffee laced with brandy, and then Carnegie suggested we make our way back to the Grange. He took us on a roundabout route, passing through Fairweather Cranley and Lower Cranley.

As I walked, I thought back to what Carnegie had told us.

I made a rapid calculation, and then cleared my throat. "If the light does indeed manifest itself on an eight-day cycle," I said, "and it first appeared, as far as you're aware, twenty-four days ago... then it should be due to reappear tonight."

Carnegie was smiling. "Why do you think I invited you down here yesterday?" he asked. "If the light does appear, then it really would be too great an opportunity to miss." He indicated a cutting in the hedge.

We arrived at the Grange as the sun was setting light to a spinney on the far horizon and a gibbous moon was rising in the east, as insubstantial at this early hour as a paper doily; later, when we set off for Hopton Wood, it would cast an even stronger light to guide our way.

Over a dinner of jugged hare and baked potatoes, accompanied by two bottles of Carnegie's excellent claret, we formulated a plan of action.

"It is essential that we take the cameras in order to have an objective record of what we might find," Vaughan said. "Our subjective senses cannot be relied upon in times of stress, even if there are three of us to corroborate each other's story."

"I'll pack supplies," Carnegie said. "Coffee and brandy, as well as bed rolls. There is no need for us to go without."

"How far from the actual clearing do you think we should place ourselves?" I asked. "Considering what happened to the animals..."

Vaughan turned to Carnegie. "How far away were you when the blast rendered you unconscious?"

"On the very edge of the clearing itself."

"It's very difficult to judge," Vaughan said. "Perhaps it would be wise to put the solidity of a tree trunk between ourselves and the clearing, so that when - or rather if - the light appears we will be afforded some measure of protection."

I nodded. "That sounds like a sensible idea."

Carnegie looked across the room at the grandfather clock. It was nine-thirty. "It's high time we were setting out, gentlemen."

While he filled three haversacks with provisions and bed rolls, Vaughan and I fetched cameras and tripods from the room next to my bed-chamber. Ten minutes later we pulled on our overcoats and left the Grange, following the tracks we had made earlier that day, which now showed as dark streaks leading uphill through the moonlit snow-field. Speaking for myself, I was more than a little light-headed from the wine I had consumed at dinner, and at the prospect of what might lie ahead.

At one point, as we trekked up the incline, burdened down with cameras and tripods, I could not help but laugh out loud.

Beside me Vaughan said, "What amuses you, Jonathon?"

"It's just occurred to me what we are doing," I said. "If I'd told myself, a week ago, that I'd be toiling up a snow-covered hillside in order to photograph some mysterious light in an ancient forest... I don't think I would have believed a word!"

"We might," Carnegie declared portentously, "be on the verge of a momentous discovery."

"Or then again," Vaughan put in, "we might be embarking upon the proverbial wild goose chase."

Panting, Carnegie enquired, "You don't doubt that I did see something in the woods eight days ago?"

"Oh, I don't doubt that you saw something, Carnegie. But I rather think that that something might turn out to have a simple and rational explanation."

Like this, with much good-humoured banter and speculation, we made out way towards the wood and, one hour later, reached the tree-line.

We paused to catch our breath and consume coffee fortified with a shot of brandy. In the light of a paraffin lamp, Carnegie consulted his fob watch. "Eleven-fifteen," he said. "We ought to press on if we're to reach the clearing by midnight."

Carnegie led the way through the darkened wood. It was well that he had bethought himself to bring along the lamp, for the moon shone only intermittently through the cover of the trees. The orange flame flared up ahead, sending grotesque shadows dancing lively gavottes all about us. I brought up the rear, behind Vaughan's substantial form, and I must admit to experiencing a spine-tingling frisson at the thought of the expanse of dark forest that lay in my wake.

Ten minutes later we gained the clearing.

It possessed a magical quality that it had lacked earlier in the day, for the pewter light of the moon gilded its every detail like a stage set. I stood upon its perimeter, reluctant, now that the time had arrived, to set foot within its mysterious precincts. Carnegie had no such qualms. He looked at his watch and declared, "Ten to midnight. We had better look sharp."

Together we set up the three cameras on their tripods, equidistant apart so as to form the points of a triangle, and Carnegie primed the mechanical devices to activate the cameras at intervals.

As we went about the clearing, I paused to note the effect of the place upon my skin. Sure enough, the hairs on the back of my hands were bristling, and I was aware of a certain heat alien to the ambient coldness of the rest of the wood.

Not soon enough for me we had the cameras set up, and retreated from the clearing. Vaughan marched back along the path and paused perhaps five yards away.

"This looks as good a place as any." He indicated a fallen tree trunk, which would provide some measure of cover. We positioned ourselves behind a mossy log and spread out the bed rolls, Carnegie breaking out the coffee and the brandy bottle. From where I sat, I had a clear view of the moon-lit clearing, the three cameras standing there like incongruous interlopers upon this sylvan scene.

From time to time Carnegie dragged his deerstalker from his balding head and mopped his brow, when not nervously consulting his fob watch. Vaughan proceeded, with commendable calm and patience, to fill the bowl of his pipe and set the aromatic blend alight. Soon he was puffing away, as if ensconced in an armchair in the domestic comfort of his front parlour.

I, for my part, was overcome with an intense nervousness. It was all I could do to stop myself from cowering behind the log. Against my better judgement, I kept watch on the clearing.

An eerie calm and silence pervaded. Our measured breathing provided the only sound. The minutes seemed to take an age to pass.

At last Carnegie broke the silence, startling me. "It's twelve-ten," he announced, peering at his watch.

"Perhaps," Vaughan whispered, "last week's was the final son et lumière?"

"I must admit," I whispered in return, "that I cannot bring myself to feel much disappointment."

"Are you sure that the light manifested itself at midnight precisely on the previous occasions?" Vaughan asked.

"To the best of my knowledge, a matter of minutes either way," Carnegie said.

Another five minutes elapsed, and I experienced a perverse sense of anti-climax - contrasting with my earlier fear - that our vigil would come to nothing. I knew that, in the cold light of day, I would rue the fact that we had missed out on witnessing something extraordinary.

I glanced back at the clearing, and at this precise moment it happened.

The light exploded from nowhere - or, rather, it expanded from a point source that seemed to hang in mid-air six feet above the clearing. One second all was stillness and moonlight, and the next a great coruscating membrane of brilliant lapis lazuli light filled my vision. In a fraction of a second it expanded into a vast oval perhaps twenty feet high and half as much across, and with it came a blast of heated air that singed my face. Carnegie shouted aloud as his deerstalker was snatched from his head and blown into the undergrowth. Vaughan gazed ahead in slack-jawed surprise, and I too stared in wonderment at the thing in the clearing.

"Oh, my God..." Carnegie whispered to himself.

I felt an excited grip on my elbow: Vaughan, his face washed in the electric glow from the clearing.

Together, transfixed, we could do nothing but gape at the great swirling oval of sapphire brilliance that hung in the air of the clearing.

Only then did I become aware, by degrees, of the low droning sound which accompanied the light: it was the almost sub-audible note of an electric generator, an effect felt more in the diaphragm of the torso than in that of the middle ear. It seemed to throb to a rhythm which, I noted, had its counterpart in the steady pulsing brightness of the light itself.

Carnegie was on his feet now. As I glanced at him, he stretched out his arm and pointed. "Look!" he cried.

"Christ Almighty," Vaughan breathed.

I was struck dumb as I beheld that which had provoked the cries of my friends.

There was no doubting it: I could discern a series of shapes moving behind the membrane of the light. Tall, humanoid figures passed back and forth, like the grotesque, elongated caricatures in an Indonesian shadow play. They were fleeting, and faint, but indubitably present - perhaps as many as four distinct figures moving with mysterious and ill-defined purpose behind the illumination.

Then, before I could stop him, Carnegie had stepped over the log and was approaching the light.

"Get back here, man!" Vaughan cried, transfixed, like myself, by either fear or fascination.

Carnegie entered the clearing, dragging the deerstalker from his head and clutching it before him. In an effect at once terrifying and comic, I saw the little hair that he possessed stand upright in the strange energy field created by the supernal oval.

He was moving ever closer, his right arm raised as if to shield his face from the intense heat.

"Carnegie!" I yelled, and then forced myself from the paralysis that had pinned me to the spot.

I vaulted the log and sprinted forward. The energy belting from the light was intense. I felt my hair stand upright, and the heat burn my exposed face. I raised an arm to protect myself and staggered forward. Behind the light, I fancied that I saw the singular figures pause in their business and turn to peer through at us. I reached Carnegie and grabbed at his arm; he resisted me, shrugged off my hand.

"Don't you see!" he yelled, beside himself in some transport of ecstasy. "Don't you understand, Langham? They represent all that is powerful, all that is knowledgeable! If I could only join them!"

With a strength that seemed super-human, he pushed me off again and strode on. His absurd brandy glass physique was silhouetted against the light as he sought to leave this world for good. Behind me, Vaughan called at the top of his lungs and dived forward. He caught Carnegie just as he was about to step into - or maybe even through - the field of light, and I have no doubt that Vaughan's timely intervention saved Carnegie from an unknown fate.

At that second, as Vaughan wrestled his friend to the ground, the light collapsed with a great inrushing roar of air, diminished to a tiny point no larger than a mayfly, and then popped out of existence.

What followed, the events of the next hour or two, are unclear in my mind. In a daze we left the clearing and somehow made it across the snow-covered downs to the Grange, where we collapsed exhausted in the library and sought resuscitation in copious drafts of wine.

"The light," Carnegie said. "I almost..."

"Be still," I counselled, forcing wine past his lips. His face was red and raw from the heat of the light, and Vaughan and I took turns in bathing his exposed flesh with wet towels.

"There were figures behind the light, moving figures!" He stared, in either wonder or fright. "Tell me I'm not dreaming, man!"

Vaughan said, "We saw them, too. There can be no denying that."

I shook my head. "But what were they, Vaughan? What on Earth did we experience back there?"

Vaughan smiled to himself. "What on Earth, indeed. Or what not on Earth..."

"There were intelligences behind the light," I went on. "We cannot deny that. It was no mere natural phenomenon, such as we supposed before."

"But what was the light?" Carnegie asked.

"Perhaps," Vaughan offered, "it was a portal between worlds, between this dimension and the next, and the figures we saw were the dwellers in that mysterious realm."

My head swirled; I had the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. "What in God's name have we stumbled upon!"

"What indeed," Vaughan said quietly.

Carnegie stirred himself. "Next week... in eight days from now, the process will repeat itself. Promise me that you'll return! We must investigate this further!"

Vaughan glanced my way, then nodded to Carnegie. "We'll be here, rest assured on that score, old friend. We'll be here."

It was almost dawn before we talked ourselves into exhaustion and retired to our rooms, and midday when we awoke and gathered in the library for a late breakfast. There we once again went over the events of the night before, and made plans to return within the week.

We resolved to keep our discovery to ourselves, and at two o'clock Vaughan and I left Carnegie - scarred and battered from his encounter with the inexplicable, but otherwise unbowed - and arrived in the capital as darkness was falling.

My life in London, the novel I was attempting to write, now seemed distant and unreal, the stuff of another life entirely.

* * *

One week later I met Vaughan outside Waterloo station and we drove from London through a heavy fall of snow that made the roads treacherous and the going painfully slow.

The back seat of his Austin was loaded with a large timber box which he told me was a home-made Morse machine, with which he hoped to communicate with the beings beyond the blue light. He had also penned a ten thousand word treatise on the history of the human race, which he had sealed in a Jacob's Cream Cracker tin. He informed me that he intended to hurl the tin through the portal, should it happen to open again.

It was almost six o'clock by the time we reached Cranley Grange. For the last hour our progress through the narrow, snow-bound lanes had been slowed even further by the rapidly deepening twilight.

The library, with Jasper Carnegie roasting his brandy glass physique before the fire, was a welcome greeting as we staggered through the French windows with our baggage and the Morse machine.

"Gentlemen!" Carnegie cried at the sight of us. He poured two stiff measures of brandy and thrust them our way. He was already the worse for drink, rapidly questioning us as to the hardship of our journey and demanding a weather report.

"The snow is coming down without pause," Vaughan told him. "Some of the smaller roads are impassable. An hour later and we might have had to stay the night in Aylesbury."

"And miss the midnight show!" Carnegie cried.

"If," Vaughan reminded him, "the creatures of the light decide to favour us tonight."

"Have faith, my friend!" Carnegie laughed, in his finest Micawber-fashion. "Charles and I thought ahead and transported the cameras, bedding and provisions across to the wood this morning, before the worse of the snow came down."

"Charles is here?" I asked. I had not seen Carnegie's younger brother for almost ten years. We had been friends at Cambridge, though I had always found Charles, if pleasant enough, somewhat reserved: he was as unlike his older brother as it was possible to be, in both physical aspect and psychological make-up. Whereas Jasper Carnegie was short to the point of absurdity, Charles was as tall as a grenadier, and wore his handsome good looks with a certain degree of flinching diffidence, which gave him a continual manner of stammering apology.

Charles had studied medicine at Cambridge, and upon graduating had sailed to India, where he now worked as a surgeon in a military hospital in Bombay.

"He's upstairs, changing for dinner," Carnegie said now. "He'll be down to join us presently." He glanced at his fob watch. "Almost seven," he reported. "I suggest we clean up, have dinner, and then draw up a plan of action."

He showed us to our respective rooms, and while I washed and changed I considered the night's imminent vigil. After the familiarity of London life, the everyday ordinariness of domestic routine, I still found the juxtaposition of this and the fantastic a little hard to believe: it was almost as if at any second I might wake up and discover the incidents at Hopton Wood to have been a dream - or more likely some collective hallucination or illusion. Had I alone witnessed the blue light, then I would surely have doubted not only my senses but my sanity.

My reverie was interrupted by a soft knocking upon the door.

"Come," I said.

The door edged open and a head appeared nervously in the gap.

"Charles!" I said. "Good to see you, man! It must be ten years or more!"

"A decade almost to the month, Jonathon. You haven't changed a bit."

Would that I could have said the same for my friend. As he ducked through the door and stepped towards me, hand proffered with characteristic diffidence, I saw that ten years, or else the depredations of the subcontinent, had wrought substantial changes upon his person. I recalled him as tall and slim, but now he was stooped and thin to the point of emaciation. His face was lean, his cheeks sucked in to reveal the bones beneath, and his once fine head of hair was receding.

I could not hide my shocked expression.

"Malaria," he informed me. "And just a month ago a brush with dysentery. A while in England should do the trick."

"When did you arrive back?"

"Flew in stages from Bombay," he said. "The last leg from Paris to London yesterday. I... I received Jasper's cable last month, and frankly didn't know what to believe."

"I sometimes think the same," I said. "And I witnessed the phenomenon with my own eyes."

Charles hesitated. He had the nervous habit of plucking at his prominent Adam's apple, a gesture I recalled from his student days. "That's what I wanted to see you about, actually."

"The light?"

"More Jasper," he said. "I must confess to being a little concerned about him."

"I assure you that he hasn't taken leave of his senses," I said. "We really did witness everything he claimed."

"It's not so much the veracity of his claims that concern me, rather his wild plans concerning the phenomenon."

I sat down on the bed and Charles accommodated himself on a nearby stool.

"Go on," I said.

"Well, on the few occasions I've seen Jasper over the past few years, he has always appeared the model of sobriety, quiet and somewhat staid. Imagine my surprise when I met him yesterday. He seemed hyperactive, possessed of an illimitable nervous energy. And he seems never to be without a drink."

"What we saw in the woods would drive a saint-" I began.

Charles was plucking at his Adam's apple pizzicato fashion. "Jasper surmised that the light represents some kind of portal or doorway which might conceivably lead to another realm - don't ask me where: he isn't clear on this point. However, what he does seem certain about is that this other place represents an improvement upon our own reality. Don't ask me to unravel the logic of his presumption. I think he believes that because these beings possess the ability to manufacture the blue portal, then somehow their world is therefore more advanced not only technologically, but culturally and morally also. At any rate, that's what he seems to think."

"I can see that his thesis might not hold water," I said. "But I'm not sure that I would worry too much about it, if I were you."

"I wouldn't worry at all," Charles went on, "if that were the extent of his rantings."

I felt the sudden chill of unease grip me. "What has he been saying?"

Charles rose and strode to the window, where he stood and stared out at the flurry of snow still cascading thought he pitch black night. He turned to me.

"This is between you and me, Jonathon," he said. "But my brother plans to somehow attempt to transfer himself from this world to the other realm via the blue light. I gather that he attempted some such action last week."

"He told you this?"

Charles nodded. "He said that, but for the intervention of Vaughan, he would have walked into the light."

"And likely killed himself in the process," I said. "The heat coming off the interface was terrific. He would have been fried alive upon the instant of contact."

"So you perceive the grounds for my concern, Jonathon. If he attempts the same tonight, and we fail to..."

I nodded. "I'll have a word with Vaughan. Together we'll devise some plan of restraint."

"Perhaps it would be wise not to go through with the vigil?"

I considered his words. "Charles, we are on the verge of discovering something unique, fantastic. It would be a criminal shame to spurn the chance now. Anyway, can you imagine Jasper's reaction if you suggest abandoning the expedition? If we ensure that he is immobilised when the time comes, then all will be well."

Finally Charles nodded. "Splendid. But I felt I had to tell you."

"You did the right thing, my friend."

He pulled at his Adam's apple for a few seconds more, then nodded. He glanced at his watch. "They'll be wondering where we are. Shall we join them?"

When we entered the library, Vaughan and Carnegie were already seated at the dining table, and the former was telling the latter about his Morse machine. It stood beside the table, a mysterious wooden device of lenses and small electric bulbs.

Charles and I seated ourselves and Carnegie introduced his brother to the novelist. The table was already spread with a feast fit for double our number.

"I was just explaining the workings of the Morse machine," Vaughan said, helping himself to slices of roast beef. I followed suit, adding potatoes and parsnips. "We seemed to have arrived independently at the notion that the blue light is some kind of portal between realms, and that communication between the realms is not only advisable but imperative."

I glanced at Charles. "Just so long as it is carried out at a safe distance," I said.

Carnegie seemed not to heed my warning. He was opening a portfolio beside his chair and drawing from it a series of large photographs.

He passed these around the table. "Of much greater clarity and detail than the first lot," he said. "Though I take no claim for that."

The photographs showed the great explosion of light, rendered white upon these prints, and in three or four pictures the vague outlines of what were unmistakably tall, humanoid shapes.

"These figures," I told Charles between mouthfuls, "were much more clearly defined when seen with the naked eye. They seem almost abstract here. In reality they were frighteningly real."

"I'll vouch for that," Vaughan said. "The photographs quite fail to capture the otherworldly quality of the experience, as you will hopefully observe tonight, Charles."

"I'm anticipating the experience with somewhat mixed emotions," Charles said, glancing my way.

"I'm sure that we have nothing to fear, gentleman," Carnegie said. "Surely if the beings beyond the light harboured hostile intentions, then they would have acted before now?"

Vaughan pushed away his plate and considered his empty pipe. He glanced around at us, and there was an air in the room of the expert being asked to propound. "I feel," he said, "that we cannot second-guess the motivations of creatures entirely unknown to us. I think that to imbue human rationality to beings manifestly not human might prove to be a grave mistake. My advice would be to assume nothing until we have sufficient proof for an hypothesis."

This set the agenda of the debate for the next hour, with Charles and myself chipping in with our own comments from time to time. I, for my part, wholly agreed with Vaughan, while Charles remained neutral. I could see, however, that from his expression of concern he was worried that his brother's views might prompt him to rash action later tonight, if indeed the blue light appeared.

We had consumed during the course of the meal perhaps more wine than was advisable, and at ten o'clock Carnegie announced, somewhat drunkenly, that we had better think about setting forth.

We donned stout boots, thick overcoats and headgear, and paused before the French window to peer at the blizzard still raging outside. Jasper Carnegie and Charles equipped themselves with a paraffin lamp apiece, and Vaughan and I carried the Morse machine between us.

With Carnegie leading the way and Charles bringing up the rear, we left the Grange and proceeded slowly up the snow-covered incline. It was well that the Carnegies had thought to transport the cameras and provisions to the clearing earlier that day, for I would have resented having to shoulder more of a burden than the Morse machine. The snow was a foot deep in places, far too thick to stride through with ease, and consequently every step was a labour.

With Jasper way ahead, I thought it an opportune time to apprise Vaughan of Charles' fears.

Vaughan heard me out and nodded, his craggy visage illuminated by the light of his glowing pipe. "I thought earlier that we'd better keep an eye on him," he said. "Between the three of us we should be able to forestall any mad dash he might choose to make."

"I can fully understand his being dissatisfied with this world," I said, "but to trust one's future to the blue light on the off-chance that it might lead to a better one..." I shook my head. "Has the man taken leave of his senses?"

Almost an hour later we came to the edge of Hopton Wood and paused beneath the shelter of a beech tree in order to regain our breath. In the light of the paraffin lamp, Jasper Carnegie's round face was animated. "Do you feel on the cusp of destiny, my friends?"

I glanced at Vaughan. "I trust that our hopes won't be dashed tonight," I said. "We are banking on the beings manifesting the light once more. But what if, for some reason, they decide that they've seen enough of this world?"

Charles said, "The truth to tell, I would be unable to say whether I'd feel relief or disappointment."

"If we were never to see the light again," I said, "then I for one would be disappointed. To have the miraculous appear almost within one's grasp, only to have it cruelly snatched away..."

"You are being unduly pessimistic, gentlemen," Jasper said. "I feel that tonight a breakthrough will be made. Perhaps the appearance of the blue light thus far has been but a prelude, a rehearsal as it were for the true opening of the portal."

Charles stared at his brother. "You think that tonight the beings you saw might actually step through?" He sounded fearful of the prospect.

Jasper laughed. "The wonderful thing is," he sand, "that we don't really know what will happen!"

We proceeded into the wood. The going was considerably easier now that we had left the snow behind and we made good time. Ahead, Carnegie's paraffin lamp swung back and forth and sent magical shadows racing this way and that through the contorted shapes of the trees. I was filled with anticipation, and not a little fear. I could not help but hear again Vaughan's warning that we could not second-guess the motivations of creatures unknown to us.

Presently we came upon the clearing. There was no full moon to illuminate the arena tonight and the orange glow of our lamps cast it in an altogether more ruddy and eldritch aspect. It was as if I were seeing the clearing for the first time, and thus I noticed stunted trees that I had missed before, as well as the curious absence of ground cover.

The trio of tripod-mounted cameras stood gazing into the centre of the clearing like mute spectators. Carnegie dashed from one to the other, fussily checking and rechecking his calibrations. At last he was satisfied, and returned to where Vaughan and I were setting up the Morse machine. It consisted of a box on legs, with a lens at the front and a lid that hinged and allowed access to its interior. Vaughan was adjusting something within, by the light of a paraffin lamp which I held high. Five minutes later he was finished, and we retreated from the clearing and settled ourselves behind the fallen log.

Carnegie distributed brandy-laced coffee, and I huddled in my bed-roll and warmed my hands on the brew.

"Have you remembered your missive to the beings?" I enquired of Vaughan.

From the deep pocket of his tweed great coat he extracted the Jacob's Cream Cracker tin, which he opened to reveal a scroll of quarto, weighted with a sizeable stone. "At the first available opportunity," he said, "I shall attempt to communicate with the creatures."

"And perhaps next week," I said with levity, "we might receive a reply contained in just as singular a casing."

"Fifteen minutes to midnight," Carnegie reported, squinting at his fob watch. "All quiet so far."

Vaughan and I had positioned ourselves on either side of Carnegie, in case he might attempt another rash move towards the light. Vaughan winked at me as Carnegie gave the time signal, reminding me to be vigilant.

Midnight came and went. "Don't be downhearted, gentlemen. Remember last week: it was almost a quarter past the hour when the portal appeared."

As minute after minute elapsed, I willed the light to appear, for something to happen. I think we all did, and the tension in the air, along with nascent disappointment, was almost palpable.

Twelve-thirty came and went, and I settled deeper into my bed-roll. Charles began talking of his time in India, telling Vaughan of his experiences of working as a medic for the Raj.

"Did you encounter much opposition to the British rule out there?" I asked.

"It is constant among the educated Indian classes, and rightly so," Charles stated. "I give the Raj another ten years, fifteen at the most, before the subcontinent is granted self-rule, and no bad thing."

Their voices lulling me, I slipped into sleep. I awoke a little later; Carnegie informed me that it was one o'clock. Vaughan and Charles were still conversing, evidently about the portal.

"But if it does manifest itself," Charles was saying, "and we do somehow establish communication with the beings, then how should we proceed? Have you considered the protocol of the situation? I mean, should we make our finding public? Whom should we tell?"

Vaughan stared at him, his face grim in the light of the lamps. "We should keep the findings to ourselves until such time as we can discern the motivations of the beings," he said. "I would be loath to tell the world and his wife immediately."

"I was thinking more in terms of informing the relevant government body," Charles said.

"I rather think," Vaughan replied, "That his Majesty's Government has yet to set up a department for trans-dimensional affairs! And anyway, what if these beings are innocent and peace-loving? Surely you'd be the last one to advocate our government getting wind of the portal? By God, they'd be through in no time and subjugating the natives there just as in India..."

I dozed again, only to be woken by a hand shaking my shoulder. "What?" I cried, sitting upright. Charles too had been dozing, and looked as startled as I.

Vaughan said, "It's almost three, gentlemen. I've been discussing with Jasper the wisdom of beating a retreat. What do you think?"

"I'm happy to remain till dawn," I said. "Perhaps the creatures are running late."

Charles nodded. "I haven't come this far to give up so easily."

"That settles it, then," Jasper Carnegie said. "We stay."

Five minutes later he was pouring more coffee when, suddenly, we were startled by a brilliant flash of sapphire light from the clearing, and the sudden raging gale of intense heat. I turned and saw the portal expand and hang in the air, accompanied as before by the almost inaudible thrumming sound that vibrated within my chest.

"My God!" I said.

Charles stared in slack-jawed wonder, unable to bring himself to exclaim aloud.

His brother, for his part, was struggling to his feet. Vaughan and I did likewise, and each held him by a shoulder. He seemed totally oblivious to our restraining grip, being more intent on the pulsing portal not thirty feet before us.

"It's come again!" he cried. "I'd almost given up all hope!"

It was even more magnificent in reality than the image I retained of it in my memory. It seemed larger than I recalled. I had thought the oval on the first occasion to be in the region of twenty feet high and half again across; now it stood perhaps thirty feet high, its lower ellipse beginning in the air at the height of a man, and its topmost curve as tall as the treetops. It pulsed and shimmered with the same effulgent lapis lazuli light as before, but was it this time more intense? Perhaps my thwarted anticipation invested it with greater properties, now that it had actually deigned to show itself.

One thing was for sure: none of us had ever perceived its like in the everyday natural world, and we stood agape like children as it radiated before us.

Carnegie strained against our grip, his eyes almost popping to take in the details. "I see no shadow-beings this time," he observed.

Vaughan said, "They did not show themselves immediately on the first occasion, as far as I recall."

I stared at my friends. In the electric wash of the portal's light, their faces were transformed, thrown into stark shadow, their expressions of mingled fear and wonder seemingly exaggerated as if by the pen of some phantasmagorical caricaturist. No doubt my expression was likewise distorted; certainly, I was hardly in control of myself. My heart beat wildly, fit to burst, and my limbs were taken by a violent trembling that I could not quell.

Charles, until that second standing beside us behind the fallen tree, at that moment climbed over the trunk and stared in astonishment. At first I thought that, like his brother on the first occasion, he too was being drawn by some hypnotic compulsion towards the portal; but my fear was quashed as he halted, then looked back at us and shook his head in wonder.

Jasper struggled to join his brother, but we held him back. "Easy!" Vaughan counselled. "You will gain nothing from getting too close!"

Carnegie made some half-strangulated noise in protesting reply, but did not increase his struggle. Still, Vaughan and I were gainfully employed in keeping him at a safe distance.

I noticed that the cameras were clicking away, and that Vaughan's Morse machine was projecting its series of coded messages. I wondered what the beings behind the light - if indeed there were any beings there tonight - made of the code, or of the staring cameras, or if indeed they were aware of our own shadowy presence among the trees.

"There!" Charles cried, pointing. "Did you see...?"

Indeed I had; within the light, but fleetingly, I had observed a shape: it was tall, its limbs monstrously elongated like some attenuated creation by Giacometti. It appeared briefly at the periphery of the oval interface, face on, for all the world as if it were staring out at ourselves and our world. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it retreated off-stage again, frustrating us.

We were not disappointed for long, however; a minute later not one but three humanoid shapes showed themselves. They seemed to float across the face of the portal, two tall figures and a third, this one perhaps half the other's height. The tall creatures' arms appeared longer than they should have, gangling tentacles reaching almost to their knees, if indeed they possessed such humanoid features.

"Charles!" Vaughan cried, startling me. "Here!"

Charles spun around, and, on realising what Vaughan intended, joined us behind the fallen tree. He held his brother's arm while Vaughan, relieved of custodial duty, drew the biscuit box from his greatcoat.

I watched, my heart racing, as Vaughan approached the interface.

I realised then, and it struck me again later, that this must rank as one of the most primitive, not to say absurd, attempts at communication in the history of our race. There was something at once wonderfully courageous, and at the same time pathetically optimistic, in the sight of a man with a biscuit tin endeavouring to effect inter-species dialogue with beings in control of technology at which we could only marvel.

Vaughan was approaching the interface by painful degrees. He had one arm raised to cover his face, the other drawn back in order to launch the biscuit tin. At last he could approach no further, the energy of the portal beating him back, and he chose this instant to hurl the tin towards the blue light.

I watched the track of its trajectory, its slow arc against the pulsing glow, and it seemed to take an age to arrive at its destination.

And then, of a sudden, it made contact and, instead of passing through as we had hoped and Vaughan had planned, it seemed to hang for long impossible seconds in the membrane of light before bursting into sudden and voracious flame.

"And to think," I called out to Charles, "that that might have been the fate of your brother!"

Between us, Jasper seemed not to have noticed my words. He was straining forward, seemingly oblivious to the fate of the biscuit tin.

Vaughan beat a quick retreat and joined us behind the trunk.

His face was red raw from the heat of the interface, and the reek of singed hair hung about his person. "So much for that little idea," he muttered. "Let's hope the Morse machine effects better results."

Jasper cried aloud. "But if it is indeed a portal between the realms, then how is it possible to step across?"

"Maybe your speculation the other week was correct," Vaughan said to me, "and the beings can tolerate great heat."

"But are they going to step into our world?" Charles asked.

Perhaps Charles and I had relaxed our grip on Jasper, assuming that even he would not now venture forth towards the interface, having witnessed the fate of the biscuit tin. If so, then we assumed in error. No sooner had Jasper perceived a lessening of our grip, than he pulled himself free of our grip.

I have no real notion of what his intentions might have been as he staggered across the clearing towards the portal, the shadow of his plump person thrown back towards us in elongated exaggeration.

Before we could shout aloud in warning, much less move ourselves to effect a rescue, Jasper Carnegie was within feet of the light.

I am certain that his life was saved a second time - not by Vaughan on this occasion, however - by pure happenstance. For whatever reason, the beings in control of the interface chose that precise second to effect a change in the nature of the membrane.

As we stared, convinced that we were about to see our friend reduced to ashes, the blue light vanished...

It did not, as on the other occasions, shrink to a point and pop from existence. This time, the light disappeared but was replaced by something equally as fabulous - if not more so, to judge by subsequent events.

Just as it seemed that Jasper Carnegie was about to take a flying leap into perdition, the blue light changed instantly and became a scene of midnight calm. Not only did the light cease, but also the heat, and the low thrumming vibrato, and instead there came from the portal an absolute silence, and then the waft of a warm wind freighted with some heavenly, otherworldly scent such as I had never experienced before.

Jasper, brought up short by the transformation, came to a comical halt and stared.

Vaughan and I, released from stasis, ran forward and wrestled Jasper to the ground. We caught him by surprise, and his opposition was minimal; we succeeded in hauling him from the clearing and back behind fallen trunk, where we gathered ourselves and took stock of the situation.

As my eyes adjusted to the sable membrane of the interface, in contrast to the blinding blue of earlier, I realised with amazement that the portal now framed a scene, an otherworldly landscape, much as a picture frame encloses a canvas: but no earthly canvas had ever depicted such a scene as this!

"Oh, my God..." Vaughan breathed in awe.

"What is it?" Charles said.

"Perhaps," I ventured, "the blue light was just a precursor to this, a stage through which the process had to pass before the true other world was revealed."

For through the portal we made out what could only have been another world. It was in darkness, but as we stared we gradually discerned a string of lights around what might have been a bay, for the lights were duplicated with a ripple effect on the surface of the water. Around the shore stood dwellings, but dwellings the like of which were novel to us. They were bulbous and squat, like wasps' nests, with circular lighted windows positioned centrally upon their protuberant walls.

"Perhaps," Vaughan speculated, "this is some far future vision..."

I pointed, my hand trembling as I did so. "If this is the future of our planet," I said, "then how do you account for those?"

For riding high in the sky of this tranquil scene were two large moons, one quite orange and the other crimson.

"Perhaps," I said, "now that the heat is no more, we might take a closer look?"

We glanced at each other, desire fighting with trepidation as we considered the advisability of a closer inspection.

Jasper was the first to speak. "I can see no harm in doing so," he said, "so long as we stay together. We might even chance a step through to the other side."

"Let's merely take a look, first," Vaughan cautioned.

"I'll second that," Charles said.

We released Jasper and moved cautiously from behind the log, walking in line four abreast towards the magically transformed interface.

We slowed as we neared the alien scene. The warm wind was stronger here, and with it the fragrant scent; it reminded me of honeysuckle, but with an undertone of spice.

I heard a sound, then: the gentle lapping of water, and the distant calling of what might have been an animal.

Vaughan placed a restraining hand on my arm as I ventured near. "The interface was opened for a purpose," he said. "Perhaps in order for beings to pass from the other side. Beware!"

"I see no one abroad," Charles said. "There's no sign at all of the earlier figures."

We were perhaps five yards from the portal now, and edging closer like children playing dare with the waves of the ocean. I expected the strange beings to appear at any second and accost us.

The closer we came to the portal, so the wider our view of the strange land became. By the light of the double moons I made out a range of hills to the right, dotted with lights that I took to be dwellings. I wondered what manner of being might inhabit this place.

Jasper Carnegie was closest to the portal. Its lower lip hung at the height of his head. He stood on tip-toe and peered over. "I see the ground," he reported. "Some kind of dark, course sand."

I joined him and looked over the lip. What appeared to be a beach shelved down to the water; on the black sand sprouted many-headed silver blooms, which glowed in the moonlight.

More than anything I wanted to suggest that we climb through for a closer investigation, but at the same time a more cautious part of me recalled Vaughan's words. The portal had been opened for a purpose; it would not do to be apprehended by the controllers of the interface.

"Look," Vaughan said. "There, in the sky."

We looked up. Something passed before the double moons, some kind of flying machine. As we watched, it turned and headed towards the bay. It was like a plane without wings, a graceful tear-drop shape that moved with alarming speed. Indeed, hardly had I observed this than I realised that it was heading directly for the portal.

It swooped low over the bay, skimming the surface, and at speed approached the interface. Charles gave a cry and dived to pull his brother out of the way, lest he be decapitated by the hurtling craft.

I ducked along with Vaughan, but not before witnessing yet another remarkable sight. Along the beach, two tall, attenuated figures appeared from the darkness and ran towards the portal.

Seconds later, with an eerie drone, the tear-drop craft flashed overhead and into our world. It side-swiped the trunk of the first tree in its path, caromed off a second and gouged a great furrow in the undergrowth mere feet from the log behind which my friends and I had earlier taken refuge.

No sooner had it come to rest than a segment of its upper integument flipped open and a being struggled out, no doubt dazed from its crash-landing.

I had no time to register the appearance of this creature before I made out sounds behind me and, on turning, saw the appearance of the two tall creatures above the lip of the portal. I felt rough hands grab me, and thought for a second that a third member of their party had waylaid me, until I heard Vaughan hiss into my ear, "Hide yourself, man!" and so saying dragged me to the floor and pulled me along the ground towards where Jasper and Charles were cowering beneath the great hovering ellipse of the portal.

From this relative sanctuary, we watched the drama enact itself before us.

The being from the craft had managed to jump free and hide behind the fallen tree trunk: it was an ugly little brute, a dwarfish manikin with a great domed head, no neck worth mentioning, and a thick torso. No sooner had I made this inventory than it disappeared from sight, evidently attempting to conceal itself from the two elongated beings in pursuit.

For here they came now, swarming over the lip of the portal and landing - mere feet from where we cowered - with a sinuous, lizard-like agility. It was all I could do not to shout aloud in terror, for if the first manikin had possessed all the hallmarks of ugliness, then these creatures were a match and more besides.

Their legs were long and thin, but bent as if in readiness to spring: they reminded me of the legs of lizards, scaled and oleaginous - as was the rest of their anatomies. They stepped forward, and walked with a cautious, bobbing gait, heads flicking this way and that. They carried what I assumed were weapons, silver, stylised things like futuristic rifles. Their headpieces were encased in globular helmets, so that it was impossible to make out their faces, but if the rest of their bodies were any indication, than I imagined the elongated jaws and snouts of the saurian genus.

By some method of detection unknown to me, the leading saurian aimed its weapon at the fallen trunk and fired.

A beam of white light sprang from the nozzle of the weapon and made short work of the trunk, which vanished in a blinding glow. I caught a quick glimpse of the stunted being as it rolled from its now non-existent cover and took refuge behind its flying machine.

Another white beam sprang forth, this time from the dwarfish manikin. It connected with the leading lizard, which hardly had time to issue a guttural cry before it vanished in an inferno of blinding light.

Its mate ran to the edge of the clearing and fired again, and I heard a cry from behind the flying machine as its erstwhile pilot received a hit - but not before loosing an almost simultaneous beam of light which found its target: the second saurian flashed before us and vanished in an instant, and seconds later I made out the charcoal reek of cooked flesh pervading the air of the clearing.

All was still, quiet, in the aftermath of the extraordinary battle played out before our disbelieving eyes.

I was lying on the ground, face down, with Vaughan and Charles beside me, and Jasper to my rear. My pulse was racing and I was trembling with fear and exhilaration. My mouth was so dry that words would not come, and my mind was racing as it sought to explain the nature of the events we had witnessed.

Jasper was the first to move. Slowly he crawled forward, past us and beneath the lip of the portal. He stood cautiously and looked around him. He walked towards where the first lizard-like beast had met its end, and bent to inspect what little remained, a mere scattering of ashes upon the ground.

As I watched him, I made out a movement beyond the clearing. I opened my mouth to call a warning, but words would not come. As I stared, pointing, I saw the stunted manikin crawl out from behind its tear-drop craft. It was on all fours, in evident distress, and hauled after it a weapon not dissimilar to the lizards' silver rifles.

It collapsed onto its stomach, facing us, then raised its rifle and aimed.

"Watch out!" Vaughan cried to Jasper, who stood oblivious to the danger he was in.

But the manikin did not intend Jasper as its target. It fired, aiming high, and above us the interface detonated with an explosion of blue light, then vanished.

We cowered with our arms about our heads as intense heat and sparks rained all around us.

Seconds later, it was over. A preternatural silence reigned; only the dim light of the stars provided meagre illumination. Jasper fell to the ground and scrambled back to us.

"It still lives!" he hissed. "For all we know it might be a berserk mercenary bent on slaughter!"

"It would have wiped us out by now, if that were the case," Vaughan pointed out. "We're sitting ducks."

I noticed, not ten feet from where I lay, a paraffin lamp which had fallen and extinguished itself in the mêlée. Cautiously I crawled across to it, found matches in my pocket and set about providing a light.

My friends joined me and, huddling together within the orange glow of the lamp, we peered into the darkness in the direction of the injured manikin.

Presently my vision adjusted and I made out the small figure lying face down beside its craft.

Only then did I hear its cries. They were in a tongue wholly incomprehensible to the human ear, and yet even so heartrendingly pitiful. They sounded like the hopeless mewling of a trapped kitten, and yet with a sense of structure, like some form of language.

"Eeee, ah rah-na... Vee-ha. Ka!"

Charles took my elbow in vice-like grip. "What should we do, for pity's sake!"

Vaughan said, "Let us approach, but slowly. Raise our arms in the air, to signal that we mean it no harm. Then we might get close enough to assess the degree of its injuries and determine whether it might be saved."

We nodded encouragement to each other, and yet each of us was reluctant to make the first move. After perhaps half a minute of vacillation, first Jasper and then Vaughan stepped forward and slowly approached the manikin. Charles and I followed cautiously, myself ready to flee at the first sign of hostile intent from the creature.

In the light of the lamp, I stared at the manikin. It looked up, regarding us with great round, seemingly lidless, eyes.

It still held its rifle, and as we drew near the manikin moved. It lifted the weapon, and we froze, fully expecting to be reduced to ashes. Then the being flung the rifle with all its feeble strength into the undergrowth, and with that simple gesture signalled its lack of hostility.

We hurried forward. Jasper took the lamp and held it high while Vaughan and Charles with painstaking care examined the manikin, and then eased it on to its back.

I stared. Evidently the beam of light had not scored a direct hit - otherwise the being would have been annihilated like its opponents - but had caught the manikin a glancing blow. The flesh of its right hip and upper torso was a flash-burned mess, with pale spars of broken bones projecting through the wound.

Charles produced a pen-knife and proceeded to cut away, ever so gently, the creature's jerkin. "Rah-na... Vee-ha," it mewled in pain.

I turned away, unable to watch any more. I was standing beside the tear-drop shaped craft, its open fuselage inviting inspection. I peered inside, noting many strange devices and implements for and aft of what looked like a narrow sling or seat.

As I peered within, I happened to touch the skin of the craft, and to my surprise the entire thing rocked. I pushed it again. Sure enough, the craft was astonishingly light. And yet, as I stood back and stared at it, it looked as substantial as anything of its equivalent dimensions on Earth.

My friends were conferring. "I can do nothing for it out here," Charles was saying. "If we can get it back to the Grange without causing it greater trauma..."

"But if we try to carry it back," Vaughan said, glancing at the doctor, "do you think it will survive the journey?"

"It's our only hope," Charles said.

"One second," I interjected. "What if we replace the creature within the craft?"

Charles interrupted. "It's barely conscious. I doubt if it could control-"

"If we put the creature back in the craft and carry it to the Grange," I finished.

"Carry it?" Jasper echoed.

"Look," I said, and taking the vehicle in two hands lifted it over my head.

"Good God!" Vaughan exclaimed. "Whatever next?"

I lowered the craft next to the alien. Charles knelt and attempted to gesture our intentions to the manikin. "Hah ro," it said, which we chose to interpret as assent.

Fortunately the being was as small and light as a child. With Vaughan taking its shoulders, and Charles its legs, while I hoisted the lamp aloft and Jasper held open the cover of the fuselage, we managed to transfer the manikin from the ground and into the sling of its craft with a maximum of care and a minimum of delay.

We agreed to take turns in bearing the craft. Vaughan and I would take the first shift, while Charles and Jasper bore the lamps fore and aft. Later we would exchange duties.

I took the nose of the vessel, Vaughan the rear. At a nod from my friend, I lifted, and proceeded to walk forwards with the ludicrously lightweight craft held at my back.

Like this, bearing the creature in its craft as if it were some injured dignitary in a sedan-chair, we made our way through Hopton Wood.

The going was difficult, mindful as we were of making the ride for the manikin as smooth as possible. We proceeded slowly, choosing our steps with care; the dancing shadows cast by the lamps did not help: the path seemed like an obstacle course with hummocks and protruding roots I had failed to notice when walking unburdened. Nevertheless we walked for twenty minutes without mishap, and then at a call from Jasper slowly lowered the craft to the ground. Charles and his brother took up the burden, back and front respectively, while Vaughan and I carried the lamps.

Twenty minutes later we emerged from the wood and paused before the snowfield that extended away from us, almost violet in the light of the stars. The Grange was a distant irregularity against the whiteness, the lighted French windows of the library promising warmth and comfort at journey's end.

Again Vaughan and I took up the burden, this time myself at the rear and Vaughan in front. We took an experimental step forward, but the depth of the snow impeded a smooth ride for our injured guest. We lurched about like drunken men, the craft rocking perilously to and fro.

"Halt!" Vaughan cried. "I have a better idea. Lower the vehicle."

We did so, and it sat upon the snow like a sledge - which was precisely Vaughan's intention.

"Now, Charles and Jasper - you stand at the front and make sure it doesn't get away from us. Jonathon, we'll guide it from the rear."

In just such a fashion did we begin the journey down the gentle hillside. The craft skated over the snow like the finest toboggan, the ride far smoother than when Vaughan and I were staggering with the craft. We galumphed through the deep snow alongside, merely having to touch the vessel from time to time in order to keep it on course.

"I've been considering what we saw back there," I said at one point. "Have you any idea as to what was going on?"

Vaughan peered at me over the curved top of the vehicle. "It might be easily explained in a number of ways," he said. "Perhaps what we saw was simply a case of cops and robbers, our friend here being the fugitive. Then again, the reptilian beasts might have been the antagonists, and the homunculus some unfortunate hero."

"Or perhaps," I said, quoting Vaughan himself, "it might be a mistake to impute human motivations to alien beings."

Vaughan laughed at this and called out, "Touché!"

I marvelled at the cavalier fashion with which we were discussing that which, in the cold light of day, we might come to see as momentous.

"And what about the portal?" Charles said over his shoulder. "What was happening when it was in its blue phase, and who or what were those shadow creatures we beheld?"

"The big question," Vaughan said, "is where the deuce did the portal come from, or lead to, whichever you prefer?"

"The moons in the sky seemed to preclude a future planet Earth," I said.

"Then how about Mars?" Charles offered. "That planet has two moons."

"But one orange and the other red?" Vaughan said.

"It's a possibility we cannot discount," Jasper said. "Who would have thought of it, the red planet...?"

Like this, with much banter and speculation back and forth, we made the last leg of the journey towards the lighted library of the Grange...

The story will be continued in Eric Brown's novel 'The Kings of Eternity'.

Coming in April 2011 from Eric Brown and Solaris Books...

1999, on the threshold of a new millennium, the novelist Daniel Langham lives a reclusive life on an idyllic Greek island, hiding away from humanity and the events of the past. All that changes, however, when he meets artist Caroline Platt and finds himself falling in love. But what is his secret, and what are the horrors that haunt him?

1935. Writers Jonathon Langham and Edward Vaughan are summoned from London by their editor friend Jasper Carnegie to help investigate strange goings on in Hopton Wood. What they discover there - no less than a strange creature from another world - will change their lives forever. What they become, and their link to the novelist of the future, is the subject of Eric Brown's most ambitious novel to date. Almost ten years in the writing, The Kings of Eternity is a novel of vast scope and depth, full of the staple tropes of the genre and yet imbued with humanity and characters you'll come to love.

"A gripping sci-fi noir tale."

SciFi Now on Necropath

"A good old page turner - you start reading with few expectations and suddenly find yourself enthralled in it in such a way that you read it through the night without noticing"

Post Weird Thoughts on Helix

"Vivid, emotional, philosophical, this is a work to feed the mind, heart and soul."

Stephan Baxter on Kéthani

Table of Contents

Titles

Indicia

The Blue Portal

Eric Brown's 'The Kings of Eternity'