‘Not all of our kind believe that,’ Dian Cecht added coldly.
Ceridwen came over and took Sophie’s hand. Her fingers were cool and delicate; up close it appeared that her skin exuded a thin golden light. ‘You are important, Sister of Dragons. To everything.’
Ceridwen led Sophie to another room where there was bread and fruit on crystal platters and a decanter of water. ‘Eat and drink freely and without obligation. You must build your strength, for we have a long journey ahead of us.’
Ceridwen moved into an adjoining room where she fell into deep discussion with Dian Cecht. Sophie was so hungry that she didn’t listen to the conversation at first, all her attention focused on the food, but eventually it intruded on her thoughts.
‘Is it true?’ Ceridwen was saying.
‘It is. The Devourer of All Things is here. The prophecies are coming to pass in these days,’ Dian Cecht replied.
‘Is that the end of this song? The seasons have passed for Existence and all things under it?’
‘Here in the Court of the Final Word, the very heart of Existence has been probed,’ Dian Cecht said. ‘Secrets and mysteries have been laid bare. Know this: nothing is ever truly destroyed, and nothing new is created. There is only change. That is the one rule above all rules.’
There was silence for a moment and then Ceridwen said quietly, ‘And what of death, then?’
Dian Cecht’s reply was barely audible. ‘There is no death.’
‘You say that, even now? The Golden Ones have always been strangers to it. But in recent times…’ Ceridwen fell silent. ‘Is there coming an end? Is there nothing we can do, or will the Devourer of All Things abide?’
Another long silence, then, ‘I have already taken steps.’
And then Dian Cecht and Ceridwen must have left the annexe by another door, for after that there was only quiet.
Sophie fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of Dian Cecht, though at times it appeared to be more than a dream, as if she had half-woken and seen or spoken with him before drifting into sleep again. In his red, red robes she saw him striding across worlds, taking a scalpel to the heart of the sun; nothing could contain him. He scared Sophie deeply, for she felt he would do anything to achieve his ends, and that he knew more, much more than everyone else. Secrets and mysteries. Mysteries and secrets.
And then his face filled her entire vision and he whispered, ‘The next time you see me, you shall not see me.’
It was still light when Sophie woke. She ate and drank some more, maintaining the surface calm that had served her so well throughout the many devastating upheavals since the Fall. But inside she fought desperately for equilibrium in the face of gods and legends and the suggestion that she was something greater than the scared little girl she felt like in her worst moments.
Once Sophie had recovered enough to walk, Ceridwen led her through the Court of the Final Word with a troubling degree of urgency, Dian Cecht shadowing them. For some unspoken reason, he steered them away from certain corridors that led deep into the heart of the gleaming complex, and eventually they came to a massive entrance hall constructed from more white marble. Here there were windows five storeys high, all of them glazed with glass stained in various shades of red so that the hall appeared to be running with blood.
Ceridwen turned to Dian Cecht and said, ‘Are you sure you will not accompany us?’
He shook his head. ‘They will not come near the Court of the Final Word. Of all the great courts, this one is immune to any attack.’
Ceridwen nodded. ‘All know what lies within.’
A cold smile crept across Dian Cecht’s lips and once again Sophie was afraid. ‘The Court of the Final Word stands alongside Fragile Creatures,’ he said to her, but his words were hesitant. ‘Go in peace and go with speed. The Far Lands are no longer safe, for any of us.’
‘Where are we going?’ Sophie asked Ceridwen.
‘To one of the last bastions of the last hope for all Existence, Sister of Dragons,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘A place where we can make a final stand, if needs be, or to plot with our allies a way to save everything.’
There were so many questions Sophie wanted to ask, but she could sense that it was not the time. Instead she focused on being patient until she could successfully find a way back to her own world and Mallory.
As they approached the gigantic doors, they swung open soundlessly to reveal a vista over a glorious countryside of rolling green, forests and streams, a landscape of romance and mystery that made Sophie’s spine tingle. It appeared to be late September, still warm, the leaves turning gold and red and brown. In the hollows, mist was rolling.
Tethered just outside were two chestnut mares with bridles of onyx and ivory. Ceridwen motioned to Sophie to mount one and then climbed on to the other mare easily.
‘Go well, Daughter of the Green,’ Dian Cecht said to Ceridwen. The warmth in his voice made Sophie reappraise him. He was too complex to judge, too unpredictable.
Ceridwen smiled sadly and then spurred her mount down the path that led from the court across the countryside. Sophie followed, glad to leave the Court of the Final Word behind.
The path wound like a golden ribbon over the green, but after a short distance Ceridwen eased her horse off into the long grass. ‘We shall avoid the main byways,’ she said, ‘and make our way through the quiet, secret places, the silent forests, the mist-filled valleys, the whispering heart of the land.’ She flashed a comforting glance at Sophie. ‘Those places belong to me.’
The wind traced liquid patterns in the grass as the two horses eased down the slope towards a stream that Sophie could see glinting in the light. At that moment the sun came out from behind a cloud, transforming the entire landscape into a transcendent, hazy temple. The hairs on Sophie’s arms prickled as the quality of light and the subtleties of scent and temperature worked their spell on her.
‘I’ve dreamed of this place,’ Sophie said to herself, surprised at the force of the realisation. ‘When I was a girl, this was always where I wanted to be.’
‘The Far Lands stay in all our hearts,’ Ceridwen said. ‘It is the place from which we all spring and to which we all return, eternally.’
Sophie understood in that moment how she had been shaped as a woman by the thoughts that had come to her during her childhood, the yearning for a place where nature truly lived, where mystery was a part of daily life and where there was a profound sense of meaning underpinning everything. Without truly knowing, she had been on a quest from her earliest days; and it was this land that had called to her. The swell of emotion was so shocking that she couldn’t prevent a fugitive tear.
‘This place is your home?’ Sophie asked.
‘It is our home now. The Golden Ones are a race ruled by infinite sadness. Our true homelands are lost to us; we may never return. But the Far Lands and the Fixed Lands make adequate replacements.’
‘So much has changed since the Fall,’ Sophie mused. Images of the dark days following the gods’ return rushed through her mind: the burning cities, the failure of technology, the riots, the economic collapse, the desperation of people unable to accept the new rules reality had thrust upon them. In the end, only a few had the ability to adapt and survive, those defined by a particular worldview, perhaps; Sophie wondered if the ones who were truly at peace since the Fall were those who had been on the same inner quest as her. In the newly re-formed world, she had an abiding sense of coming home, despite all the upheaval and the suffering.
‘You talked about some kind of threat?’ she said eventually.
‘There are threats all around us,’ Ceridwen replied enigmatically. ‘Threats from within. Threats from without. For my people, the greatest threat is ourselves. We are at war. The battles rage even now across the Far Lands and no Golden One is safe. Never would we have thought to see this day.’ The devastation in her voice was heartbreaking.
‘Why are you fighting each other?’
Ceridwen raised her sad face high
so that the wind made her hair billow behind her. ‘Because of you, Sister of Dragons. You and all your kind.’
‘What do we have to do with it?’ Sophie asked, baffled.
‘Fragile Creatures are at the point of rising and advancing… of becoming like the Golden Ones-’
‘Gods?’
‘Some of my people think that is the way of Existence. We have always had a close relationship with your kind. We would shepherd you to the next stage. Others…’ The word caught in her throat. ‘There are those who think you should never be allowed to attain your potential. That you should be eradicated as a race so that the Golden Ones can never be supplanted.’
‘So the fate of the human race depends on which side wins?’ Ceridwen’s silence was all the answer Sophie needed. A chill crept over her, for she sensed from Ceridwen’s conversation with Dian Cecht that things were not going well for those who had sided with humanity. ‘What about the threat from without?’
‘It is also the way of Existence that our races are tested to the extreme. Crisis heaped upon crisis. And the threat from without is the greatest crisis of all.’ Ceridwen’s horse carefully picked its way down a tricky bit of the slope where rocks and stones protruded from the grass. At the bottom of the incline, the stream trickled soothingly. ‘Something has crawled up from the very edge of Existence; it is the opposite of everything that lives — and it has noticed you Fragile Creatures. It sees your potential and it does not want you to shake off your shackles and become something greater, for to do so would make you a threat to its very reason for being.’
A dark shadow fell over them both, but when Sophie looked up, the sun still shone brightly. ‘What is it?’ she asked uneasily.
‘It is an idea, a notion of negativity. Where we see a threat, some would see nothing at all, for it is only defined by what it is not. Darkness and despair enfold it.’
‘Does it have a name?’
‘Many names, but none capture its essence, for how can you describe something that is not? Legends call it the Void. Even now it exerts its subtle influence on the Fixed Lands, attempting to eradicate all Fragile Creatures like an infestation. It is greater than anything you can imagine, yet smaller; more powerful, yet in the true and blinding light of the Blue Fire, completely powerless.’
‘And it was controlling those warriors who attacked us at Cadbury Hill?’
‘The Void’s very nature is to corrupt, to strip life and hope from a being and to control it. The act of giving up personal freedom is to surrender to Anti-Life. Even the gods are not immune.’
Sophie was lulled into a deep introspection by the motion of riding. She knew how powerful the gods were, had heard tales of them destroying entire army units with a wave of a hand. If the Void could take control of them, what chance did Fragile Creatures stand?
‘But if it’s so… vague, how are we supposed to fight it?’ Sophie asked.
‘Only the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons may repel it. The Quincunx, the Five Who Are One. But therein lies the problem.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The answer to that question lies ahead of us, and you will discover the truth for yourself. But for now, enough talk of dark things. Let us celebrate the life and the green that surround us.’
They moved into a thickly wooded area, the trees pressing hard along the banks of the brook, their branches crossing overhead to form a cathedral roof of leaf cover beneath which Sophie could feel the sanctity with every echoing splash of her horse’s hooves. Once the reverberations died away, there remained an abiding silence too sacred to shatter.
And so they rode quietly, with Ceridwen leading the way, and after a while Sophie began to wonder if she had indeed come to heaven.
The journey along the winding course of the stream continued for more than an hour. After the initial stretch where the trees bustled tightly against the banks, the wood thinned enough to allow Sophie a brief glimpse of a green world where fantastic fungi swarmed in ochre patterns over fallen trees and tiny, gleaming purple flowers sprang up in a carpet of colour that shimmered in the filtering light.
But after a while, the mist that had occasionally drifted across their path grew more constant until a heavy greyness lay over everything, sapping echoes and distorting birdcalls. The trees presented themselves like dark spectral figures before they were swallowed up again in the passing.
Sophie shivered in the damp air and wished she had brought some warmer clothes with her. ‘How much further?’ she asked. She instinctively lowered her voice to a whisper that was lost in the mist.
‘A while,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘We will follow the course of the stream through the Winding Wood to the great plain. And there, beyond it, we shall find the Court of Soul’s Ease.’
‘Is that like the place we’ve just visited?’
‘Each of the twenty great courts has an atmosphere that is peculiarly its own, but even so, nowhere else is like the Court of the Final Word.’ Ceridwen’s hesitant voice made Sophie think this was perhaps a good thing. ‘The Court of Soul’s Ease has been through a great many changes. Now, though, its destiny has been made plain.’
The low, mournful baying of a hound rose up somewhere away in the mist. The sound made Sophie shiver, but she couldn’t tell if it was near or far.
‘Should we be worried about that?’ Sophie asked. As soon as the words had left her lips, another howl arose, and then another, until soon there were several dogs baying.
‘They are the Hounds of Avalon,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘Also known as the Hounds of Annwn. Sometimes they join with the Wild Hunt, pursuing lost Fragile Creatures through the night. At other times, they roam between the worlds, questing for who knows what. Some say they hunt the answer to a question that could shatter Existence. But they are most active at times of greatest threat to your world, the Fixed Lands. Our stories say that at the end of all Existence, they will be all that remains, baying for what has been lost. Their howls will join together into one shattering note of despair.’
‘So when the Hounds of Avalon come, that’s it? Game over?’ Ceridwen’s story made Sophie feel sad and troubled, but eventually the howling of the dogs faded away and Sophie gradually forgot them.
Twilight began to draw in, though in the mist the only way to tell was by a subtle shifting of the quality of the grey. By this time, Sophie was chilled to the bone and felt a deep urge for a warming campfire.
‘Should we make camp for the night?’ she asked.
Ceridwen, who had been distracted for a while, shook her head. ‘There are dangerous things loose in these parts. Better to be on horseback ready to flee than trapped on the ground and forced to fight a battle we would certainly lose.’
Sophie did not like the feeling of powerlessness that had descended on her since she had awoken in the Court of the Final Word. The realisation that she had been transported somewhere else while she hovered between life and death had been destabilising, and everything that had happened since only underlined that feeling; she was operating in an alien world where all the rules were hidden from her, surrounded by beings that had the power to eradicate her in the blink of an eye. Yet in her own world she had never felt powerless, not before the Fall, and certainly not since, when her use of the Craft had become supercharged in whatever new state now existed. Silently, she urged herself to take control.
The truth was, her use of the Craft had grown stronger by the day. Where once it had taken hours of ritualistic preparation, she could now control and direct the subtle energies of the Blue Fire with a visualisation of sigils and words of power, simple keys that operated in the secret language of the unconscious. She wanted to know what was out there that was making Ceridwen so uneasy, sure that the simple act of knowing would give her a feeling of control over her environment.
But when she muttered the word that would trigger a shift in her perception, she was surprised by the result. There was the familiar sensation of her consciousness creeping out of a door at the back of h
er head, the feeling of taking a step aside from her corporeal form and becoming like the mist that swathed them. But as she drifted out from the horses amongst the ghostly trees, it felt as though a drill was being driven into her skull. She knew the sensation — a warning — but this was more heightened than anything she had felt before.
As she rushed back into her body, she jolted with such a sharp intake of breath that Ceridwen looked around. ‘What is wrong?’ the god asked with concern.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Sophie replied breathlessly. ‘Can’t you feel it?’
‘I feel… something.’ Ceridwen looked around hesitantly, then whispered, ‘They are masking themselves from me. They know we are here.’
As if in answer to Ceridwen’s words, all the alarm bells in Sophie’s mind rang at once. The mist along the brook began to thin out enough to allow her a view deep into the woods, and then it retreated further still. It was like a thing alive, swirling around the boles, rising up and over shrubs to pause briefly on the other side as if waiting.
But then, just when it appeared it was going for good, the fog stopped for a moment, wavering as if breathing, before beginning to creep back towards Sophie and Ceridwen. This time, though, the mist was not empty.
Here and there, where it thinned and twisted around obstacles in its path, Sophie could glimpse small, dark figures. At first they kept low to the ground, using the mist as a cloak, but as they neared they stood erect.
Sophie initially thought they were children, then wondered if they were just tricks of her imagination, for she would focus on one and it would seem to fade as the mist shifted.
Something whistled past Sophie’s cheek. She looked around to see a crude arrow embedded in a nearby tree.
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