The Burning Man, page 11
part #2 of Kingdom of the Serpent Series
Church turned to Shavi, who was eyeing the barman. ‘You got us here, but can you see the way forward?’
‘Flashes, here and there. I am attempting to make sense of what they mean, but so far it has been too confusing.’
‘What I don’t get,’ Ruth said to Church, ‘is why your friend the Puck doesn’t actually give you some help you can use. A hint here, half a clue there – it’s all game-playing. Are you sure he’s on our side?’
‘Robin Goodfellow is on no one’s side.’ Tom removed a tin from his haversack and began to construct a roll-up. ‘He moves things around to his own ends, whatever they may be. He cannot be trusted.’
‘I don’t trust him,’ Church said, ‘but I think at the moment his aims and ours coincide, and for now that’s good enough for me.’
Shavi sipped his beer thoughtfully as he watched the flames leap up the chimney. ‘It seems to me from what you have said that the Puck has been playing a long game, for millennia. There has always been purpose in his mischief.’
‘What’s that? Leading humanity off the edge of a cliff?’ Laura finished her beer and took Tom’s when he wasn’t looking.
‘A creature of wild magic like the Puck could not be content living in a universe ruled by the Void,’ Shavi mused. ‘Those other figures you saw, Church – the Caretaker, the man and woman with the cauldron – they appear to represent powers above and beyond gods like the Tuatha Dé Danann. An alliance, perhaps, against darkness and despair.’
‘But we’re just pawns to them,’ Ruth said. ‘They don’t care if we live or die as long as we serve their ends.’ The bitterness in her voice surprised them all.
‘If there is one thing we have learned,’ Shavi began soothingly, ‘it is that there are currents of meaning all around us, shifting forces that we cannot comprehend but which guide us in a subtle way. I do not know what those forces are, but I do know we are not alone in this battle.’
‘Listen to him,’ Tom grunted. ‘He’s the only one of you lot that talks any sense.’
‘None of it makes any sense to me!’ Ruth’s voice cracked and she stalked off in the direction of their rooms.
‘Looks like Miss Frosty’s got the painters and decorators in.’ Laura sniffed. ‘I’m going to have her beer.’
3
As midnight approached, Tom and Shavi went out to sit on the hotel porch. Gas heaters roared but did little to dispel the bitter cold. They braved the temperature for the view: the moon transformed the frozen landscape into a shimmering white dream.
Shavi took a deep breath that filled his lungs with ice. ‘Do you know why I have such hope for us?’ he said softly.
‘Because you’re deluded?’
‘This world is too amazing to be ruled by the essence of despair. Everywhere I look I see wonder – resting beneath the gentle drift of snow, in a city street steaming in the summer sun, in October rain on a factory window. Magic, just waiting for us to release it.’
‘Very poetic. Now, have you turned that incisive human eye on your own comrades?’ The ember of Tom’s roll-up glowed red as he inhaled.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you have two who are deranged by their own hormones, and two who are facing a rising obstacle between them, which they cannot yet see. If they don’t sort themselves out and focus on what really matters, disaster will creep up like a thief in the night.’
‘You can see that with your precog abilities?’
‘I don’t know what I see any more,’ Tom replied bitterly. ‘When the queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart arranged to torment me through the abilities I was given, I had centuries to adjust to the visions of the future that came to me. Yet there were none beyond a certain time because I was fated to die. Now everything has changed. I see new things all the time – flashes of terrible events – but I do not yet have a context for them. And so I am useless.’
Shavi was saddened to hear the raw emotion in Tom’s voice. ‘Yet you sense something bad is going to happen?’
‘Oh, yes. Very bad indeed.’
Shavi’s attention was caught by a flicker of movement far out across the snowy waste near the dark line of fir trees. He couldn’t tell if it was man or beast, for it appeared to move first on two legs, then on four. With it came a palpable sense of apprehension.
‘I think we should go in now,’ he said.
4
Church followed Ruth back to their room where he found her staring disconsolately out of the window. Since they had landed in Norway she felt more distant than she ever had at any point during their two-thousand-year separation.
‘Look at it,’ she said without turning around. ‘It’s such a bleak, frozen place. I hate it here.’
Church rested a hand on her shoulder, but she remained rigid. ‘Tell me what’s on your mind.’
‘No point,’ she said. ‘There’s no space for you and me. We’ve got a job to do and that sucks every iota of energy out of everything.’
‘What is it? You weren’t like this when we first got back together.’ With an aching clarity, he recalled her kiss that had woken him from the Sleep Like Death, and the joy of their time together as they travelled to Cornwall for the confrontation with Veitch. And then, with a chill, it hit him: that was when it had all changed. So subtle at first that he hadn’t noticed it, but now he could trace the lines of dislocation directly back to that point.
When Ruth turned, he could see she’d reached the same conclusion. ‘He got his revenge in the end, didn’t he? One last attempt to ruin something good.’ She brushed away a stray tear. ‘When Veitch leaped on his sword to kill himself, that bolt of black lightning burned through the three of us. What did it do? I feel it inside me now … drawing me away from you.’
‘Fight it,’ he said.
‘For some reason, it’s growing stronger.’ She stared at her hands as if she would be able to see what had infected her. ‘I feel cold, distant, tired, negative. I feel tearful, irritable and depressed. I can’t see any good in anything any more, just at the point when I’ve finally found it.’ There was a moment of silence before she added, ‘If Veitch wasn’t dead, I’d kill him with my own hands.’
5
By the fire, Hunter and Laura had moved on from the beer and were working their way through a bottle of tequila.
‘You enjoy doing this?’ Hunter lounged in his chair, boots on the table. ‘Risking death. Fighting a war you can’t win. Going up against things that would give most people nightmares.’
‘Life’s about living, dude. What’s the point in inching forward just so you can arrive at death safely? Experience, that’s what we all want.’
‘If you want experience …’ He held out his arms.
‘What kind of women do you normally get, Hunter? Do they fall for that big-man act?’
‘What do you fall for?’
‘I’m class. I expect dedication, hard work, attention to detail and complete adoration. Because I deserve it.’
Hunter thought for a moment as he weighed his shot glass in one hand. ‘I might be able to do that.’
‘I’ll get back to you.’
Laura shivered. It felt as if the door had been thrown open, but it was firmly shut and there was no discernible draught. She looked around the bar. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘It’s just you and me—’
‘Stop being a dick.’ The hairs on her neck tingled. ‘Something’s up.’ Her attention fell on a clock in the shape of a sunburst over the fire. It showed two minutes to midnight.
‘And the clock’s stopped.’
6
From the ruins of the ancient watchtower stretched a pastoral landscape of fields and woods, winding lanes, sparkling streams and small hamlets where wisps of smoke drifted up from thatched homesteads.
‘I think I’ve been here before.’ Caitlin shielded her eyes from the glare of the morning sun. ‘Or was it a dream?’
After they had crossed over from the cathedral, Caitlin, Mallory and Sophie had taken a long time to come to terms with the delirious new world that had been presented to them. Every sight, sound and smell was heightened, rendering their own world a pale copy.
But Jerzy was insistent that they move on quickly, warning of the many dangers that lurked in the Far Lands. Stripping off his mask and coat, his true appearance shocked them all – a bone-white face with a permanent rictus grin – but he revelled in the freedom to be himself, performing tumbles and dances whenever the mood took him.
‘I feel strange here, too,’ Sophie said. ‘Almost like coming home.’
Mallory was distracted by the odd shadows that clustered around trees, the unnatural way the grass moved when there wasn’t a breeze. ‘This place creeps me out. I feel as if someone’s watching us all the time. Oi!’ he called to Jerzy. ‘Stop dancing like a loon. Are you sure we’re going the right way?’
‘Oh, yes. I could never forget the way to the Court of the Soaring Spirit.’ The Mocker grinned. ‘The home of my former mistress. For so long a prison. But now … sanctuary! We need a safe place in these troubled times.’
At the foot of the hill on which the ruined watchtower stood, they passed a small farmstead, the long, low building half-set into the hillside. A small man with berry-brown skin and dark, furtive eyes was tending the vegetable patch beside the house. When he saw them coming, he bolted inside, slamming the door and all the shutters.
‘Brigid says everyone round here is scared,’ Caitlin said in her little-girl voice. ‘Now I’m scared, too.’
7
From a distance, the Court of the Soaring Spirit looked like a block of obsidian beneath the night sky. Against the foothills of the rising mountains, its monolithic bulk gave it an unpleasant gravity that set their teeth on edge. Fires blazed along the black walls that soared hundreds of feet above their heads, and occasional bursts of flame through the slit windows that dotted the walls suggested that a mighty foundry thundered within.
‘Is this it?’ Mallory said. ‘Not what you’d call welcoming.’
Jerzy was filled with uncertainty, but gave a quick nod.
Fumes filled the air as they made their way to the gargantuan front gates. Everything was on a scale that made the individual feel insignificant.
The gates were opened by furtive guards in silver and ivory armour. None of them would engage Mallory and the others directly but a messenger was quickly despatched.
‘They look very afraid, too,’ Jerzy whispered to Mallory. ‘The Army of the Ten Billion Spiders must have brought the threat right to the gates of the court.’
Within minutes Evgen, the captain of the guard, arrived, his hawk-helmet giving his face a raptor quality. ‘The Mocker,’ he said with dark amusement. ‘We did not expect to see you here again.’ He cast his cold eyes over Mallory, Sophie and Caitlin, opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it. ‘I am sure our queen will make you most welcome.’
‘I’ve been to a city just like this before,’ Sophie said to Mallory as they followed Evgen through the gates. ‘I’m starting to remember. Except … it didn’t look like this. That makes no sense, I know.’
The oppressive atmosphere grew more intense once they had left the outside world behind. Cobbled streets barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast wound steeply upwards between overhanging buildings that hid all but the slightest sliver of night sky. Constant twists and turns made it impossible to see far ahead or behind. Sewage ran in the gutters from emptied chamber-pots and the stench was only kept at bay by the greasy smoke of the flickering lanterns that barely illuminated their way.
The Palace of Glorious Light was in the centre of the sprawling city. It was a fortress, not a palace, and the name was rendered even more ironic by the roaring cauldrons of fire that lined the courtyard and were spaced out along the ramparts. They gave off thick, choking smoke and their scarlet flames added a hellish tint to the shining black walls.
Evgen led them into the palace and up numerous flights of claustrophobic stairs and along winding corridors. Eventually they came to a gloomy throne-room. It was unbearably hot, and filled with the constant hissing and crackling of the numerous braziers spaced around it.
From an antechamber emerged a beautiful, golden-skinned woman in a dress of such pure white that she glowed like a spectre.
Jerzy bowed. ‘My queen.’
‘You are always welcome here, faithful servant,’ she replied in a gentle voice before turning to Mallory, Sophie and Caitlin. ‘I am Niamh, queen of the Court of the Soaring Spirit. I bid you welcome.’ She grew puzzled as she looked them up and down. ‘You are Brother and Sisters of Dragons?’
Mallory was entranced. Sophie gave him an unnecessarily hard pinch. ‘Ah … yes,’ he stuttered. ‘We … uh—’
‘Your majesty, we are here to seek your help,’ Sophie interjected forcefully. ‘We’re looking for a powerful weapon—’
‘—that will help us defeat the Devourer of All Things,’ Jerzy said. ‘The object of power is known as the Extinction Shears.’
‘I know of this thing,’ Niamh said, ‘but the Shears have been missing since they were encountered by my good friend Church, your Brother.’
‘The Extinction Shears are held in the Market of Wishful Spirit. Find the market, you find the Shears.’ Mallory had regained his composure.
‘Then I will give you all the help you need to find the travelling market. Now tell me of Church,’ she said brightly. ‘Is he well?’
‘He would have come with us, but he’s needed back in our world,’ Sophie replied. ‘He is well. But it’s a hard fight.’
Niamh nodded, and gave a smile shadowed by a fleeting sadness.
Chairs were brought and Niamh motioned for them to sit. She despatched Evgen to arrange for food to be brought from the kitchens.
‘These are dark times in the Far Lands. War draws ever closer.’ Niamh sat on a carved wooden throne between two braziers, oblivious to the heat. ‘On the edge of this realm, the fortress of the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders sits brooding. Bigger than this court. Bigger than the twenty Great Courts. Its forces have swelled to an incalculable number. Lament Brood. Redcaps. Gehennis. The foulest things known to Existence. They march far and wide, leaving despair in their wake. Soon they will be upon us, and then …’ She waved the thought away. ‘It is not the numbers. It is the great powers they control. And in the sky above the fortress something is beginning to appear.’
‘They have other gods working with them,’ Mallory said. ‘Janus. Loki. Apollo—’
‘They may call themselves gods …’ Once again she caught herself. ‘Old habits die hard. The truth? The Golden Ones are driven back at every turn. Our power and influence wane. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I wonder if our time has passed.’
Caitlin sat with her legs tucked under her and her arms wrapped tightly around her. ‘I’m still scared,’ she said. ‘Where’s the Morrigan?’
‘Don’t worry about her,’ Mallory said to Niamh. ‘She’s not … well.’
‘The Morrigan helped me once.’ Caitlin rocked in her chair. ‘I need her to help me again.’
‘The Morrigan is one of my dark sisters,’ Niamh said. ‘She has great power. She deals in blood and death.’
‘And birth,’ Caitlin added. ‘And sex. New life.’
‘She would be a great boon to us in the struggle ahead, but she has not been seen for a long time.’ Niamh sighed. ‘And she is not the only one. Over many generations, Church rescued Brothers and Sisters of Dragons from certain death and brought them here for sanctuary. One night they left as one, their mission unknown. They have not been seen since.’
‘We were counting on them to help us,’ Mallory said.
‘There is something you should see.’ Niamh whispered to an aide who hurried out of the throne-room, returning a moment later with a large case covered by a velvet cloth. He placed it on a table in front of Niamh and retreated.
Niamh hesitated, then plucked the cloth aside, uncovering a glass case edged with gold. Inside was a spider. Once revealed, it threw itself furiously at the glass, attempting to break free.
‘This was placed inside my head to control me.’ Niamh passed a hand across her eyes, troubled. ‘I know not how it came to be there, but it took all the skills of my people to remove it. I keep it here to remind me that even the Golden Ones can succumb to the powers of the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’
‘Have they tried to control any more of your people?’ Mallory asked.
Niamh fell silent for a moment. ‘Not that I know. But some Golden Ones have gone missing. My advisors suggest they may simply have fled the coming war, but I fear the worst.’
Promising to put all she had at their disposal, Niamh had Evgen provide rooms for the four of them.
‘I like her,’ Mallory said, once they were in their cramped, too-hot quarters.
‘You would. You’re a man.’ Sophie examined Caitlin, who had already fallen into a deep sleep on the couch. ‘I’m worried about her. She’s retreated into her other personalities ever since we came here. And what was all that about the Morrigan?’
They were interrupted by a sound like distant thunder. The north window led onto a small balcony. Standing there they watched bursts of fire in the sky far to the north, punctuated by deep rumbles.
‘This is a scary place,’ Sophie said. ‘I thought it was supposed to be Fairyland. It’s more like hell.’
She edged closer to Mallory and he unconsciously slipped an arm around her waist. It surprised them both.
‘I remember now,’ she said. ‘You and me.’
‘My combat honey.’ The words sprang from nowhere. Mallory gently traced his fingers across her face as the memories surfaced, slowly at first but then gaining intensity as if a barrier had been breached. ‘We met in Salisbury. The Church was trying to establish a new order of Knights Templar. I signed up.’
Sophie giggled. ‘You were such a lad!’
