“A part of me is. I’m insane. I can’t control myself.” I indicated the landscape. “And I’ve been sent to Hell.”
“You’ve been hallucinating.”
“I gutted Tsillanda Ma’ara with a sword.”
“You did no such thing. Look around you. Are the Yatsill still with us?”
“Yes.”
“Is the one called Tsillanda Ma’ara among them?”
“Yes.”
“Then obviously you didn’t kill it.”
“The experience was real.”
Kata said, “Not was, but will be. The valley shows the future, not the past.”
“Then it is the same. I saw the dead creature. It had been slaughtered in the same fashion as the Ripper’s victims and I was standing over the corpse with a long blade in my hand. The meaning of the vision is obvious—I was responsible for the murders in London and I will be responsible for more.”
Clarissa reached out and gently touched me. “Do you actually remember killing any of the women in Whitechapel?”
“No. I black out when Jack possesses me.”
“You’re talking absolute rot. You’re leaping to conclusions with no proper evidence to support them. It’s a hysterical reaction. A hallucination is a hallucination and nothing more. The fact that you stumbled upon the corpse of Polly Nichols that night is explanation enough for your vision. Anyone who suffered such a shock would have difficulty in processing the experience. Their memory would return to it again and again.”
“Where was I when the other atrocities occurred?” I asked.
“Out performing your duties.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, but the fact that I can’t vouch for your whereabouts on those nights doesn’t make you a maniacal killer. I have absolute faith in your sanity and goodness.”
I sat silently digesting this, then asked, “And you? You ate the meat, too. Did you experience a vision?”
“I saw myself driving an autocarriage through a London street. My passenger was wearing a Viennese mask. That’s all I remember.”
I accepted a skin of water from Kata and slaked my thirst.
“We are close to the Cavern of Immersion,” the Koluwaian informed us.
Passing the skin back to her, I examined my hands, expecting to see blood on them. There was none.
Something occurred to me.
“Clarissa, if our visions were of the future, then we will be returning to our own world, for we both saw ourselves in London.”
My friend shrugged. “If that’s true, then Tsillanda Ma’ara will also be transported to Earth. Do you really believe a creature such as that would be left alone long enough for you to murder it? Of course not! As I said, just a hallucination.”
The sound of falling, dripping, and trickling water, which was all around us, took on a hollow quality and the mist suddenly darkened.
“We are entering the cavern,” Kata stated.
I peered through the vapour and gathering gloom and saw mighty stalagmites rising up to barely discernible points high overhead. Pools were dotted about. Some of them bubbled and steamed.
The Ptall’kor sank to the ground. Tsillanda Ma’ara crossed to us. “Please escort the children to the pool. We will protect you.”
The Wise Ones disembarked and stood with their spears poised. One of them had a long length of rope coiled around its left shoulder.
“Protect us?” I asked Kata. “From what?”
The islander and her fellows began to guide the children off the Ptall’kor.
“We are sheltered from the Eyes of the Saviour here,” she replied. “There are Amu’utu.”
“What are they?”
“Dangerous.”
I helped Clarissa down and we waited while the islanders pushed the children into a tight group then herded them forward along a trail of worn stone. I followed behind, with my companion holding on to my arm. The Wise Ones walked to either side of the path.
“Kata, you keep mentioning the Saviour,” I said. “Do you mean God?”
“A god, yes. The Saviour watches over the Yatsill and protects them. The Saviour is good.”
As we penetrated deeper into the cavern, the light slowly faded and hundreds of small, glowing indigo-coloured beetles swarmed around our feet, darting in and out, narrowly avoiding being trodden on, as if playing a game of “dare.” At first, I took each step awkwardly as I attempted to avoid them, but then I noticed that Clarissa—who, unable to see the insects, was moving more naturally—hadn’t crushed a single one, so I relaxed a little, allowed the insects to look after their own welfare, and turned my attention to our surroundings.
The walls and roof of the vault were closing in around us. The space was pierced through by a great many stalagmites and stalactites, and was increasingly illuminated by the little beetles, which streamed across the rock in incandescent rivulets, shining through