Tales from the Triverse

The creature: part 7

London.
1973. February.

The British & Empire Museum was a place for quiet contemplation, away from the noise and the bustle and the fumes of the city. Inside its colonnaded entrance were broad, tall corridors displaying the cultural heritage of countless civilisations across the triverse, each room a clean, freshly painted white with marble plinths and polished display cases.

Henry enjoyed bringing the family. He and his wife, Sarah, had always enjoyed touring museums and galleries; it was how they had met, after all, suddenly noticing each other standing before the same painting. The children were trickier, of course, always rushing through at top speed and resistant to the idea of taking one's time and reading the curated descriptions. That said, they were older now, at seven and nine, and displayed more patience than they had even the previous year. Paul, the elder, had started to take a real interest in history, though Ellie still had a way to go. Henry had to remind himself that he had never been into this sort of thing when he was a child.

Still, lay the foundations and all that.

It was a busy day at the museum, visitors all shielding themselves from the cold February air by taking a walk through the exhibits. Henry had taken the kids from the Ancient Greece exhibit into the Palinor wing of the building, while Sarah stayed behind to continue savouring the remarkable sculptures from Athens. The Palionr wing was an astonishing collection of artefacts from many of Palinor's city states, mountain tribes and aen'fa nomads, most gather during the early days of the Joining, before Palinor started restricting what could be taken through the portals. There had been something of a gold rush in those early decades after the portals opened, with some families becoming very rich indeed. The museum was also home to a range of Palinese fauna, mega and not-so-mega. It always struck Henry as odd that the place had some of the same animals - dogs, cats, horses - while also having the sort of beasts that would otherwise be confined to fiction.

There was a distant sound of items falling, or crashing together. Perhaps shelves tipping and depositing their items onto the floor. It was muffled, seemingly from elsewhere in the museum.

"Did you hear that, dad?" asked Paul.

"Sounds like someone is going to be in a lot of trouble," he said, ruffling the boy's hair and smiling. "Make sure you don't knock anything over."

"Maybe they can glue it back together," said Ellie, taking his hand.

The double doors at the end of the gallery, painted to look like they were part of the wall, didn't so much open as shatter. The doors themselves flew off their hinges, crumpling like paper, while the solid frame cracked and bent, plaster crumbling to the floor. The debris flew into the room, toppling exhibits, smashing glass displays and shredding paintings. Hundreds of years of Palinese history disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Henry froze, feet entirely rooted for a second, brain unable to process what had happened. Paul and Ellie shrieked and clutched at him, which jump-started his mind. He checked them for injuries, though the explosion had been at the far end of the room from where they stood. It was only then that he recognised bodies lying on the floor, some moving, some not. He spun the kids around to look at him, rather than the chaos. "We need to go and find mummy," he said. "Hold my hands, both of you."

There was another thundering crack and more of the wall collapsed. Through the haze of dust and disintegrated plaster he saw a shape: huge, solid, unfamiliar. Bigger and broader and taller than a horse.

"OK, let's go," he said, his voice emerging higher pitched than he'd anticipated. There was a deep, primal fear welling up inside that he would have to try to hide from the children. Making his grip firmer, he pulled them away and towards the doors at their end of the gallery. Behind there were snarls, and screams, and crunching.