Mark pushed his way through the crowd that was starting to form around the stricken aircraft. Looking over at Phoebe, he smiled.

“It’s not long from here, only a few streets over” he said, gesturing down the alleyways that criss-crossed Lyonesse. As he started crossing the road, he could hear the haggling start.

“Piss off Gav, it’s not for sale!” yelled Ostig.

“BUT IT’S SAT THERE AND IT’S SHINY” yelled Gav. Gav wasn’t his real name, apparently it was unpronounceable by most humanoid races without sounding like you needed a doctors appointment. But where there was shiny objects, Gav and the goblins would turn up and – unless someone stopped them – the shiny objects would be rapidly disassembled or relocated somewhere you’d never find them. Or you would, but usually as a part of a new frying pan or kettle or some other useful item. To them, Mark supposed, the miraculous aeroplane falling out of the sky was like winning the lottery.

Ostig would have his hands full shortly, so Mark and Gosgun took formation either side of the bewildered looking guests and sped up a bit.

After a few minutes, they arrived at the Rest. Mark pulled out the cast iron key ring, opened the main door and threw the keys over to Gos.

“Third one along from the big one, opens the back gate at the beer garden.”

“Third one along, aye” agreed Gos.

“I want the mugs back afterwards, make sure you get them all in”

Gosgun put his hand to his chest in mock indignation

“Mark, you wound me. Like I’d ever try to do otherwise”

Mark raised an eyebrow.

“So, last summer when we had the street fayre you didn’t tell Bryn to, and I quote “Stick them on the wagon and don’t tell Mark” when he was loading up afterwards?”

Gosgun blushed a bit and looked down at his feet, mumbling.

“Thought as much, I’ll see you later” said Mark. He opened the door and gestured for his guests to enter.

“After you ladies”

Compared to the brightness of outside, the inside of the Travellers was positively gloomy. The Travellers was old, like really old. Mark reckoned it probably dated back around one thousand years in some places but various bits had been tacked on and repaired over time. Thick, dark wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling, lamps on the tables and the lanterns hanging overhead provided illumination which the heavily leaded windows couldn’t along with a fine layer of smoke from the candles which Mark seemed to spend a ridiculous amount of time maintaining. The Aelvar had some glowy purple crystals which emitted energy and could provide something akin to electricity but Ost and Gos told him to steer clear of those because …

“Our mate Gunnar got his hands on one and wired it up to a cannon. Let’s just say they make a hell of a bang. We were picking bits of him, and the cannon, out of the walls for weeks”

Mark didn’t sleep well that night.

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts, he walked round behind the bar.

“Whiskey was it? Think I’ve got a decent vintage here. Fell through on the Andrea Gail I think it was.”

The history teacher raised an eyebrow at the mention of a ship that had gone missing. Phoebe for a moment thought he was taking the mick out of her before she glanced around again. “The ship that went missing off the coast of Canada ten years ago?” Phoebe asked taking in everything around them. It was like someone had mashed together several genres into one place and then created a pub. It was wholesomely British it put her at ease despite the strange mixture of creatures around them.

Mark laughed as he scanned along the top shelf to find the bottle he was looking for. “Ten years ago? Feels like it was only a few weeks ago. Time moves funny in the Knot, things don’t necessarily arrive in any sort of order. If you want to go out and see it, it’s a bit of a tourist attraction now. Quite a few locals haven’t seen ships of that size, let alone metal hulled ones”.

His hand settled over a slightly dusty, slightly scratched bottle and he pulled it down.

“Ah, yeah, here we go. Bottle of 1981 Jura alright?”

Phoebe glanced at Claire and offered a simple shrug. It did not seem at all like there was anything else to do about it all than have a drink to settle the nerves after what had happened. “Sure. I think at this stage anything will do.” The woman commented lowering the hood of her uniform down.

“Now, now,” Claire tutted at the insistence that any ol’ whisky would do. “’81 Jura will do.” She was familiar enough with the brand to be confident that this wasn’t one of the bad vintages. “Quite an establishment you have going here.” She looked around the crowd, knowing she wasn’t normally one to speak, but most of the patrons had distinguishing appearances.

“Yeah, the weird thing about Earth appears to be across the multiverse it’s very, very different,” Mark said as he grabbed a few spirit glasses. “It tends to go along the same line as ours for the most part, so you’ll find a lot of humans around Lyonnesse, but some Earths have gone off on a very different path. There’s a place out west where all the dinosaur descendants live, others have dwarfs and goblins, others have literal fish people. Still, ” he shrugged as he poured a double measure into each glass in front of him “the one thing they’ve all got in common for the most part is they like a beer or two. Unless they’re a blood-drinker but they tend not to live in the city for long. Anyway, Ice in your whiskey?”

“Please.” Phoebe frowned at Claire. The headmistress might have opinions on her booze but Phoebe had no issues at that moment but said nothing. They could discuss tastes when they were back on their Earth.  “Is this another Earth?” Phoebe wondered quietly. It looked like a combination of places but she was not 100% sure with her logic at the moment. “It looks like a combination from the way you are speaking and if it is that means we could get home again.” As the drinks were passed over the history teacher took a large gulp and sat down in one of the chairs. The place reminded her of the pubs in town which made her think of Matt and how far she was from him and everyone else right then and there.

“Don’t you dare put water in my whisky.” Claire immediately pulled the tumbler closer the moment the whisky had been poured in. The day that she would stop caring about the proper way to drink was a dire day indeed. She was of course intrigued by the whole ordeal and how they would go about going back. Were it not for the multi-million quid worth of experimental tech that they flew in on and the fact that she wouldn’t be able to take Phoebe with her she’d try to simply teleport back. She turned to Mark waiting for his response to Phoebe’s questions.

“Another Earth? No. Nothing of the sort,” Mark said as he pulled up a chair and leaned under the table to unfasten his boot. “The best way I’ve had it described is a bit like this … ah, there we go. Apologies if my feet smell”. He reappeared with his boot lace in his hand and laid it on the table

“So this is space-time yeah? Flows as a continual thing. Or so you’d think”. He quickly tied a double-knot in his lace leaving a loop.

“Every so often, something happens that causes it to get a bit confused and it loops and whirls and in some places, gets knotted up. Not that we’d notice because we’re a tiny speck on this thing. Sometimes it unfastens itself, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, you’re left with this bit in the middle here,” he said as he stuck his finger in the loop. “The multiverse, for all it’s apparently got loads of empty space between stars, isn’t that empty? So when stuff like this happens, it tends to not like it, so you get holes opening up all along this bit of the knot trying to fill the gap. Some of that stuff ends up here. The Aelvari say it’s a bit odd that it’s “Mostly Earth”, but trying to get an explanation from them as to what they mean is like trying to convince a Troll that I can’t drink sulfuric acid.”

Mark took a sip of his drink while he looked at the two ladies sat across the table.

“I know that’s a lot to take in, but basically this is everywhere and nowhere. Lyonnesse itself was a city in Cornwall that apparently sank beneath the waves about a thousand years ago when I’d left my Earth. What actually happened is whatever caused this knot to form made a giant hole underneath the city so it did just disappear overnight and landed here. Since then holes have opened up, people and things have fell through, and they’ve stayed here. As to whether you can get home again? I’ve seen a few people try some crazy things to get home, but they usually end up either dead or accepting that they can’t.”

Ending up dead seemed a bit much for trying to get back to Avalon. The people would probably worry about their absence, but Claire had everything set up properly so the school would continue on even without her. Contingencies she wasn’t fond of thinking on, but had made sure were thought on. Just like now she had noted that their plane, Nessie, would probably have enough thingamabobs to get them some starting capital of whatever the local currency was, “You ever tried to get back?” She tried to distract her thinking.

Mark laughed, “Nah, I’m not a clever bloke like that. I was just running a pub in Northampton when I opened the cellar door one day and it went a bit deeper than it usually did. Sometimes wonder what happened to my family, but to be honest it was just me, my sister and mum. Dad was a bit of a tosser y’know? Didn’t really talk to him much”

Claire knew all about dysfunctional relationships with fathers. Hers was actively campaigning against her freedom. “So, if we were to find a way, you’d not be interested?” Neither of them were really well versed in these sort of shenanigans, but perhaps combining their abilities Phoebe and Claire might be able to run some ethical and safe tests. Loads of what if scenarios one could run through with a pre-cog right next to you.

”Now I know why MI-13 warned me about things like this.” Phoebe noted to herself taking a deep breath which caused her to wince as her wound from the window being smashed in New Cresthill tinged. London was full of the weird and  wonderful things and people always warned of things like this which really annoyed her now that she owed several older officers some booze now.

“Nah, thanks for the offer but I’ll be good here. I’ve got no reason to … oh, hang on. You know how I said earlier about not being sure how you’d get home? I might know a man who knows about it. Well, I say man … how are you with giant robot things that might be technically considered alive?”

“We’ve spent the start of the school year running away from a giant robot, it only seems appropriate that we take the time to run towards one.” Claire didn’t want to spend too much time thinking on the Sentinels that were deployed by Trask and his Mutant Registration Agency. Besides, what were the odds that something like that would be considered a good source of intel here?

“Well, drink up,” Mark glugged his whiskey “there’s someone we probably need to meet”

Claire finished the rest of her drink in an impressive swig before sliding off the stool. “By all means, lead the way.”