“Telephones don’t need wires any more.”
“Then how does anyone hear you? And how do you dial? Where are the numbers? It’s a very small object to be capable of doing many wonderful things, don’t you think?”
“It does much more than that,” Valkyrie said, opening up a game and showing it to him.
His eyes widened. “What wonder is this?”
“It’s called Angry Birds. Now do you believe me?”
He took a moment. “Mortal technology, eh?”
“They’ve been allowed to flourish,” she said, pocketing the phone. “A Dimensional Shunter sent me here. In the reality I’m from, Mevolent’s been dead for a very long time. Without him enslaving everyone, civilisation has evolved.”
Meritorious nodded. “And this, these Angry Birds, is the pinnacle of mortal evolution?”
“Uh,” she said. “It’s one of them, I suppose...”
“Astonishing. Please forgive my scepticism. From what I know of Shunters, the applications for their powers are limited. The chance of any Shunter even finding another dimension that is liveable is quite remote, never mind a dimension that has run almost parallel.”
“I know how rare it is,” said Valkyrie, “but this guy managed it, and he sent me here.”
“Unfortunate, to say the least. And in your world, Mevolent is dead?”
“Yes. You were there when he died. You were part of it.”
He laughed. “Well, that is heartening to hear. At least some version of me didn’t fail. And you know that version of me, do you? I’m still Grand Mage in your world?”
“You were,” Valkyrie said after a hesitation. “Then you died.”
“Ah.”
“Bravely.”
“So, in the dimension where good triumphs over evil, I’m dead. And in the dimension where evil triumphs over good, I’m in a dungeon. I can’t help but feel slightly aggrieved. Existence, it seems, is a harsh mistress.”
“I think it was Mevolent. That’s the one big difference. In my history, he died. In yours, he didn’t. And then he took over, and everything changed from that moment on.”
“Well, as you can see, in this dimension, he won the war,” said Meritorious. “He either killed or imprisoned those who fought against him. Some escaped his clutches, but not many. From what I’ve been told by my fellow prisoners, the Resistance is not quite as strong as one might believe.”
“If he’s so powerful, how come he hasn’t brought the Faceless Ones back?”
“Thankfully, he hasn’t been able to. Some secrets are still beyond him.”
“What about the Book of Names? Can’t he use it to find out whatever he needs? Or he could just find out his true name, and eventually he’d be so powerful he’d just have to want them to come back and they’d be here.”
“All true,” Meritorious said, nodding. “But the Book of Names has been safely hidden away, and I’m the only one who knows where it is. Why do you think he hasn’t killed me yet, the same way he killed Morwenna and Sagacious?”
“Sagacious Tome?”
“The bravest man I ever met. They tore him limb from limb and he still wouldn’t betray me. Does Sagacious live, in your world?”
Valkyrie thought about going into detail, then decided against it. “No,” she said. “Neither of them does.”
“My poor friends,” Meritorious said. “But at least for them it’s over. He tortures me every few months now. I’ll never tell him, of course, and his psychics will never be able to break my mind. I think he tortures me more out of habit than anything else.”
“But he has Teleporters, doesn’t he? And if he has Teleporters, then he can just open a portal once he has the Grotesquery.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what a Grotesquery is.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, in my history, Vengeous found the remains of a Faceless One and it was later used as an Isthmus Anchor to—”
“Stop!” he whispered suddenly. “Don’t say anything. If you know where the remains are in your reality, then they’ll find them in this one and—”
“But I don’t,” Valkyrie said, keeping her voice down. “Vengeous found the remains during the war. I don’t know where they were originally.”
“Then that must be another difference between the timelines,” Meritorious said. “So the point where our realities diverge was not Mevolent’s death, after all. It was something else. Interesting.”
“Is the whole world like this? Is everywhere as bad?”
“Some places it’s even worse. Africa is no more, did you know that? They were the last to fall, and Mevolent made an example out of them.”
“It sounds like hell.”
“It has similarities. And your home, to me it sounds like heaven. A paradise where the mortals control their own destinies and fire angry birds at pigs in little boxes. May I see them again?”
She took out her phone. “How about we listen to some music instead? I’m thinking ‘Apple of my Eye’. Do you have Damien Dempsey in this dimension?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Well, then,” she smiled, “this’ll be an education.”
She had dozed off with her back to the wall. When someone shook her awake, she opened her eyes to a figure in darkness.
“Valkyrie Cain?” the man whispered. “Your reflection asked us to get you out of here.”
Before she could answer, he stood and moved further into the gloom to wake another prisoner. The dungeon was suddenly a very quiet hive of activity. People hurried through the torchlight, chains rattling as shackles were unlocked. It was a prison break.
Hope flaring in her chest, Valkyrie sprang to her feet. There was a man on his knees, his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. A rope was tied around his neck like a leash, the other end gripped by a man she knew.
“Dexter Vex,” she said.
Vex frowned and smiled at the same time. “Do I know you?”
She resisted the urge to hug him. “Sort of. Kind of. Not really. You’ve seen my reflection?”
He nodded. “It’s waiting for us at the rendezvous point.”
“You’re the Resistance?”
“That we are,” he said. “And it’s thanks to you that we can free our brothers and sisters.”
“Me? What did I do?”
Vex grinned. “You gave us our way in.”
He pulled back on the leash and the kneeling man raised his head to the light. Alexander Remit glared up at her.
“You left him on a roof, and the poor fella was so disorientated when my friends arrived that he didn’t even have time to teleport away.”
Remit growled something behind his gag.
“We’ve been after one of their Teleporters for years,” Vex continued. “But we never expected to get one like this. He’s been everywhere. Every part of the City, every part of the Palace. We were given our opportunity, and we took it. Thanks to you.”
“Happy to help,” Valkyrie said. “So who’s going to release Meritorious?”
Vex