The Demonata 6-10. Darren Shan
this. I’d have given myself eyes if we were.”
“Time travel’s impossible,” I say slowly, as if explaining something obvious to a young child.
“So is flying,” Beranabus says, “but you’ve soared like a bird.”
“That’s different,” I snap. “What you’re talking about…” I shake my head.
“How did it happen?” Kernel asks. “I believe you, Beranabus – at least I think I do – but how? You always said the past was the one thing we could never change.”
“It is. I mean, it was. Demons can’t do it. Magicians certainly can’t. But the Kah-Gash…”
Kernel draws his breath in sharply. “Are you sure?”
“It has to be,” Beranabus insists. “The ultimate power… the ability to destroy an entire universe… Why not the potential to reverse time too?”
“But if you’re right, that means…”
“Grubbs and Bec were the missing pieces. And there must have only been three. It couldn’t have worked unless all the pieces were assembled. At least I don’t think it could…” He frowns.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I hiss. “What’s a Car Gash?”
“Kah-Gash,” Kernel corrects me. He’s trembling, but not from the pain or cold. “It’s a mythical weapon. You’re meant to be able to destroy a universe with it, ours or the Demonata’s. It was split into an unknown number of pieces millions or billions of years ago. Various demons and magicians have searched for it since then, without success. Thirty years ago we discovered one of the pieces. In me.”
“You’d been implanted with something?”
“No. I am a piece of the Kah-Gash.”
“I don’t understand. How can you be part of a weapon? You’re human.”
“I’m magical,” he disagrees. “The Kah-Gash is a weapon of magic, not physics. It can take the form of anything it chooses.”
I think that through, putting it together with what they were saying a few minutes ago. “You believe Bec and I are part of this weapon too?”
“You have to be,” Beranabus says. “The stars don’t lie — we’ve gone back in time, to the night the tunnel was reopened. You three did it. We saw it happening. No force in either universe could have accomplished that, except the Kah-Gash.”
“How?” Kernel whispers. “And why? If this is the work of the Kah-Gash, where did it find the energy to alter the flow of time? And why bring us back to this specific moment? Why stop here, not a hundred years ago or a million? Why not shatter the laws of time entirely?”
Beranabus scratches the back of his neck. “What did you feel when it was happening?” he asks.
Kernel shrugs. “Great power flowing into me.”
“From where?”
“All around.”
“Grubbs? Can you be any more specific?”
“The ground,” I mutter. “The power came from the rocks, from beneath.”
“And did it flow into you or through you?”
“What’s the difference?”
“You’d have exploded if you drew in that much energy and didn’t let it out,” Beranabus says. “You had to channel the magic. But where to? The demons? The sky? Where?”
“The cave,” Kernel answers after several seconds of thoughtful silence. “The power came from the ground, then went through us, back down into the rock, to the cave… the tunnel.”
“Yes,” I agree, thinking back.
Beranabus smiles. “The Kah-Gash – you, Kernel and Bec – acted as a kind of magnifying lens. You drew energy from the tunnel, then focused it back.” He goes to stroke his beard, realises he doesn’t have one and taps his chin instead. “I can’t be sure – maybe I never will be – but this is how I think it worked.
“Opening a window between the Demonata’s universe and ours is like making a hole in a dam — matter flows from their universe to ours, generating energy. Space, time, gravity, the forces which hold our universes together… they seep across every time a demon or one of us makes a rip.
“Windows are small, temporary. The energy generated is minimal. But in this case a tunnel was created, open twenty-four hours a day. A huge river of magic flowed through. You three tapped into that. No… you must have done more than tap into it. You…” He clicks his fingers. “You rode it! It was like a wave of energy. You caught the wave and rode it back to its source, converting and channelling it at the same time.”
“Rode it back to its source?” Kernel echoes. “You mean back to the universe of the Demonata?”
“No,” Beranabus says. “You followed the wave back in time, transforming it and eradicating it, back to when the tunnel was created.” He looks at me, his eyes bright with excitement. “This is the night of the full moon. The night Lord Loss returned to Carcery Vale. The Kah-Gash brought us back in time to the night when the tunnel was reactivated, so that we could prevent it ever being opened in the first place!”
He seizes my hands and squeezes tight. “Don’t you see? We’ve been given a second chance. Not just to heal the damage done by the demons, but to stop it happening at all.”
“But… no… it can’t…” I mutter, head spinning.
“Grubbs,” Beranabus says softly. “At this time, Dervish and your brother are still alive. We can help them, but only if we accept this and act fast. Now, are you going to stand there denying what your senses tell you, or are you going to help me save the world and all the people you love?”
And when he puts it like that…
TIMELY INTERVENTION
→ Beranabus has entered the hole, but only advanced to the point where it widens into the shaft. He’s squatting there, eyes closed, sensing the cave beneath, determining exactly who and what we have to fight.
I wish we’d travelled back another few days. We could have called on the Disciples for support. But Beranabus said we couldn’t have come back any further. Because we were riding the wave of energy generated by the opening of the tunnel, we could only follow it back to its origin. He likened it to coming to the end of a train line — when you run out of track, that’s it, end of ride.
There’s been no sign of Bec. I’ve kept a close eye on the rocks and listened for her strange whispers, but she hasn’t shown. I know Beranabus is concerned for her. He thinks she might have perished to help send us back, sacrificed herself for our sake. I don’t see the big deal if she did – she was dead already! – but I don’t say that to Beranabus. That girl seems to be the one person in the world he gives a damn about. I doubt he’d appreciate wisecracks at her expense.
Kernel is walking around, hands by his sides, trying to navigate like a bat. Only instead of emitting radar beams (or whatever bats emit), he sends out magical impulses, which bounce back, letting him know what’s around him. At least that’s the theory — but with all the trees he’s crashed into during the last few minutes, I’m not sure it works.
“Ouch!” Kernel bumps into another low-hanging branch and steps back, rubbing his head.
“Why don’t you give it a rest?” I snap. “You’ll poke–”
I brake to a halt. I’d been about to say he’d poke an eye out if he wasn’t careful, but I guess it’s a bit late for warnings like that.
“I have to learn,” Kernel mutters. “Beranabus needs me. There are demons to kill.”
I