The Hounds of Avalon tda-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  Only Hunter had reached any kind of accommodation with the dilemma. For him, it was simply a matter of acceptance. Samantha’s death had removed any link he had with the rest of the world. He had no need of softness or any care for his own survival. Now it was simply death or glory.

  And so they arrived at Brasenose. At first glance it appeared deserted, though lights glared from the windows. No sounds of life greeted them as they ventured into the echoing corridors.

  ‘Maybe they all evacuated when the Lament-Brood came,’ Mallory hissed.

  Hunter shook his head. ‘When the Government first moved here, they restructured this place for high security. It wouldn’t make sense for them to leave — they’d be safer here than anywhere else.’

  Caitlin stopped moving and sniffed the air. ‘There are people here. Down below.’

  ‘You can smell them?’ Mallory said incredulously. ‘You know what, sometimes you are an extremely creepy woman.’

  Her smile was a challenge. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘Then we should proceed with extreme caution,’ Hunter said. ‘Either they’re gathered for the execution, or they’re barricaded in waiting to blow the heads off anyone who turns up.’ He crept stealthily to the end of the corridor and sneaked a glimpse around the corner.

  ‘You’ve done this kind of thing before, haven’t you?’ Mallory said wearily.

  ‘Once or twice. Luckily for you.’

  ‘Me, I’d just charge in with sword swinging.’

  ‘Like I said, luckily for you one of us knows what they’re doing.’

  Hunter led the way down a short flight of stairs to the lower level. At the bottom step, Caitlin caught his arm. ‘Someone’s nearby,’ she mouthed. She paused, raised her head slightly. ‘It’s-’

  ‘Over here.’ Sophie beckoned them urgently. At the end of the corridor, she was staggering under Shavi’s weight, who was pale and a little delirious. The others ran up to relieve her.

  Mallory grabbed her by the shoulders, unable to restrain his joy. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ She forced a smile, but Mallory could see that she was lying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You don’t fool me. Spit it out.’

  She pulled him towards her and kissed him with a surprising passion that spoke of desperation and loss. When she broke off, she said quietly, ‘Don’t ask me any more. I can’t tell you. Not now.’

  ‘Later?’

  She nodded, but there was a deep sadness shadowing her smile that Mallory didn’t notice. He was distracted by Hunter gently slapping Shavi’s cheeks to bring him round.

  ‘He’s been in a trance,’ Sophie said. ‘There were some things he needed to find out. But then he started raving, as if… as if what he saw was too terrible to believe. And then he ended up like this.’

  ‘Have you found anyone down here?’ Hunter asked her as he continued to try to bring Shavi back to consciousness.

  ‘There was a lot of commotion along that way.’ She motioned in the direction of the high-security wing. ‘We found some guards dead… butchered. That’s when we decided to come back to look for you. If there’s anyone left alive, they must have locked themselves in somewhere secure.’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘That’s what we thought, too.’

  ‘Then maybe they haven’t had time to carry out the execution,’ Hunter said with some relief.

  Hunter’s insistent efforts finally brought Shavi round, his eyes gradually focusing. He tried to support his own weight, staggered, then succeeded in propping himself against the wall.

  ‘The things I saw,’ he said, shuddering at the memory. The horror in his voice chilled them all.

  ‘What’s up, Shavi?’ Mallory clapped the arm of the man he had come to consider a good friend.

  Shavi managed a wan smile. ‘I saw the Cailleach Bheur filling the universe with ice and snow. The White Walker has failed. The Fimbulwinter…’ He gasped, took a deep breath. ‘The prophecy of the Fimbulwinter at the end of the world, the coming of the Void — both are linked. The End-Winter comes because the final days are near… and the final days are near because the Void has come. But the Void needs the extreme cold to exist. It can’t abide heat. It comes from beyond the edge of the universe where there is no light or warmth. It has been here, gestating in the cold, waiting until the moment is right-’

  ‘Here?’ Hunter grabbed Shavi’s arm. ‘Where?’

  Shavi shook his head. ‘I saw so many things… I saw the followers of Veitch prepare a ritual of such magnitude that it sent ripples through the world. Black T-shirts, red V, faces like rainy city nights.’ His eyes were glazing over again as the images paraded across his mind. ‘They were drawing on the dark energy the Void brought in its wake, trying to bring him back, calling to his wandering spirit, corrupting it with the blackness, sucking all hope and chance of redemption from it.’

  ‘Veitch is coming back?’ Mallory asked. ‘Are you saying he’s becoming part of the Void?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know…’ Shavi was slipping away again.

  Hunter shook him roughly. ‘Come on. Focus. We need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘And I saw… I saw…’ Shavi looked at Sophie and fell silent at the expression in her eyes. ‘There is no more I can tell you. The Void is here. It is ready to do what its nature has prepared it to do. The rest is not important.’

  Hunter turned to the others, his face grim. ‘We need to find the fifth quickly. Then get out of here and locate the Void… before it gets us first.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Can’t you say the name yet?’ Mallory said.

  ‘No!’ Sophie gripped his wrist so tightly that her nails raised blood.

  It was clear to Mallory that she knew more than she was saying; he accepted her plea with a silent nod.

  ‘Leave me here,’ Shavi insisted. ‘This is no longer my business. It is the time of the new Five now. Only you can save… everything.’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ Mallory said, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice, ‘there’s only four of us.’

  Shavi slumped into a cross-legged position, his back against the wall, and lapsed into unconsciousness once more. That was the way they left him, a faint transcendental smile on his face, like a saint about to be led to his death.

  The four of them made their way towards the high-security wing. All the cells were silent, their once-noisy occupants either dead or stilled in the gloom. They came across the corpses of many guards in various states of butchery, but whatever had slaughtered them appeared long gone.

  ‘Is it me or is it colder in here?’ Mallory said.

  Caitlin exhaled heavily; a white cloud bloomed from her lips. ‘It’s colder,’ she said.

  Hunter drew his sword; Mallory followed suit, the flames of Llyrwyn painting the walls and ceiling a brilliant blue. Caitlin balanced an axe carefully in each hand; the light of the Morrigan began to come on in her eyes. Sophie followed behind, head slightly bowed, her hands at her sides.

  They turned into another corridor and were shocked to see the walls glistening with a rime of frost; it was as if they’d stepped into a butcher’s meat locker. The lights here were eerily dimmer, and further on the corridor progressed into darkness.

  ‘Looks like this is it,’ Hunter said redundantly.

  The words had barely left his lips when a security door crashed shut behind them. They started in shock, but it was too late: their exit had been cut off. As they turned back, another security door, this time barred like a jail cell, slid into place ahead of them.

  Hunter took point as doors further along the corridor opened slowly. Reid was one of the first to emerge, but behind him Hunter could just make out the shadowy figures of Government officials, the Cabinet, senior advisors who had once been the captains of industry, the aristocrats, the financial sector’s biggest players.

  ‘Open the doors,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re here to protect you.�
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  Reid stood before them, carefully surveying Mallory, Caitlin and Sophie before moving his attention to Hunter. ‘Still only four of you?’

  ‘Reid, time is running out.’ Hunter attempted to moderate his voice against the urgency that was straining every fibre of his being. ‘The thing that’s behind the invasion is already here. We need to find it — destroy it — before it wipes everything out.’

  ‘I know exactly where it is.’

  Hunter was struck dumb by the quiet confidence in Reid’s voice.

  Reid motioned further down the corridor. On the edge of the crepuscular zone, Hunter saw the frozen door that he had noticed when freeing Mallory. ‘It’s been here for a long time, Mister Hunter.’

  Realisation crept up on Hunter, but not comprehension or acceptance.

  Mallory, a man who mistrusted all authority, grasped the situation instantly. ‘You’re working for it.’ His eyes blazed as brightly as his sword.

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘It’s controlling you,’ Caitlin ventured. ‘It’s a very seductive power-’

  Reid silenced her with a simple shake of his head. ‘People who deal with power on a daily basis are pragmatic. That is the most vital quality for any political leader-’

  ‘What about honour?’ Mallory interrupted, his voice cold and hard. ‘Integrity, ethics?’

  ‘Unnecessary,’ Reid replied. ‘Oh, lovely, lovely qualities, of course. No one would disagree with that. But completely useless for the job of leadership. The traits you mentioned are useful for winning one great battle. But then you have to retire. Politics is about winning battles every day, little ones, mundane ones. You need to be pragmatic to retain power so that you can continue to do that.’

  ‘Politics,’ Mallory sneered. Behind him, Caitlin was checking the security door for a way out.

  ‘Oh, politics is the most important thing of all, because it’s about the way we live our lives. Every decision is a political decision. Most of us who work to keep things running can’t afford the luxury of fighting for a cause, like you, however worthy that cause might be. We need to make sure that we stay in power so that we continue to live our lives the right way.’

  ‘Which implies that your way is the right way.’ Hunter was trying to buy the others time to find a way to break free; it was a clumsy attempt, but Reid didn’t appear to mind.

  ‘It is the right way. It’s been proven by time. It’s been accepted by the majority of the people, and consequently it is, by definition, normal. Any opposing view is therefore aberrant, and something to be resisted.’ The most chilling aspect about Reid was his calm expression of his views. There was no hatred there, no contempt or anger, not even any superiority. He was like someone patiently explaining a scientific fact to the uneducated.

  In a display of impotent anger, Mallory crashed his sword against the bars. The flames surged at the impact, but the blade left no mark. ‘You’re thinking you can use the Void to maintain power?’ he raged. ‘You’re insane! It’s Anti-Life. You can’t control it. It wants to wipe out us, the world, the universe!’

  ‘Not in the way you suggest.’ Reid summoned two guards and motioned for them to train their guns on Caitlin, who was clearly considering throwing one of her axes through the bars. She reluctantly lowered her weapon. ‘The Anti-Life it represents is not an absence of life. It’s more abstract than that. I suppose I could wallow in the depths of philosophy, but to put it simply, you have to consider what life actually means. As a concept. This is all profoundly pretentious, is it not?’ He gave a small laugh.

  ‘You’ve communicated with it?’ Hunter said incredulously.

  ‘I wouldn’t say we exactly sat down over beer and sandwiches, but yes, after it sent its advance guard to prepare the way, we found it a place to wait. And then we entered into negotiations.’ He shook his head. ‘If you knew what we went through, you would find that almost laughable. Negotiations. The Void, as you call it, is not a thing. It’s not a life form. It doesn’t exist in any physical way you or I could comprehend. But even so, it connected with us, and we with it. And… ’ He held out his hands and gave a small shrug that made Mallory even angrier.

  ‘So you gave in to it?’ Caitlin said.

  ‘You have to understand, we couldn’t win. That was never on the agenda. It’s too powerful. It’s like trying…’ He searched for the words to describe the magnitude of what he was attempting to say. ‘Like trying to punch the universe. No point even beginning to fight. So… pragmatism, you see. We found out that what it wanted wasn’t actually very far from what we wanted. Certainly it was something we could live with. And that’s when we decided on the most beneficial course of action. If you can’t win everything, you should at least try to win something.’

  Hunter looked past Reid to the shadowy figures hovering in the background. ‘You betrayed the whole of humanity just to save yourselves?’

  ‘You’re missing the point,’ Reid said. ‘Our aims are the aims of society. What’s best for us is best for you. It’s the same. We did the right thing.’

  Hunter could see that Reid completely believed what he was saying, and that all those waiting behind him believed it, too. Flickers of dread rose in his heart. They’d lost the fight the minute they started; the seeds of that defeat were buried in the heart of what they were fighting to save. The enemy — the true enemy — was all around them. But they didn’t look like the enemy, and didn’t believe they were the enemy. How could anyone fight that?

  ‘We went to the PM with our plan,’ Reid continued, ‘but he refused to reach an accommodation. He had to be… removed.’ He saw the looks on Hunter and Mallory’s faces and added with annoyance, ‘If he’d been allowed to do what he wanted, the human race would have been extinct. How could that be right?’ He loosened his tie, took a deep breath. ‘You were the only real threat to everything. You Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’

  ‘There’s no logic in what you’re saying,’ Hunter stated. ‘If we defeat the Void, you won’t have to reach any accommodation.’

  ‘We weighed up that option, and for a while it was certainly a possibility. But in the end we decided that the risks were too great. The chances of outright victory seemed extremely thin, and anything less would likely result in complete eradication. So-’

  ‘So you decided to get us out of the way.’ Hunter tried to ignore Mallory, who was pacing the confines of their prison like a tiger, occasionally rattling the bars or attempting to prise open the security gates with his sword.

  ‘There was no attempt at violence.’ Reid looked horrified at Hunter’s implication, completely ignoring the irony that he was complicit in the assassination of the country’s leader. ‘Your young friend, Mister Campbell — Hal, wasn’t that his first name? I feel quite sorry for the way we had to use him. He’s a rather naive chap. Not cut out for any of this business.’

  Hunter’s temper flared. ‘What have you done with him?’

  Reid chewed his lip for a second, and it appeared that he wasn’t going to answer. Then he changed his mind. ‘Once we realised you were a Brother of Dragons, our route to controlling you was easy. Your long friendship with young Hal was obvious. We were able to use him to direct you to where we needed you to be.’

  ‘Here,’ Hunter said. ‘So you could trap us.’

  ‘Exactly. We framed him for the assassination in a very clumsy way, knowing that he would realise I had organised the plot. When we allowed him to escape from custody, we knew he’d go directly to your hiding place, and that once he met up with you, he would identify me or someone in the Government as the chief suspect. Then when we let his young female friend accidentally discover information about his impending execution, we knew you’d realise that I would do anything to hide my complicity. Kill him even sooner to silence him. And so you would rush here to save him, even though all sense would tell you to stay away from my base of power and concentrate on the more pressing task of locating the Void. You’re very easy to manipulate, Mister Hun
ter.’

  ‘Not as easy as you think.’ Hunter was relieved to discover that Reid still hadn’t found out that Hal was the fifth, the real reason all of them had rushed to Brasenose. ‘Is Hal dead?’

  ‘The execution was set to take place half an hour ago.’

  ‘Have you seen the body?’

  ‘Two men with guns. One young, frightened, bookish man. Do I really need to?’

  Hunter turned to the others and said quietly, ‘There’s still hope. Don’t give up.’

  Reid must have guessed what Hunter was saying, for he added, ‘I’m sorry, but you really mustn’t think you stand a chance. I don’t know what it is about the Pendragon Spirit that makes you a threat to such a vast, unknowable force as the Void, but here you are close enough for it to work its ways on you, yet, unfortunately for you, not close enough to harm it.’

  ‘That was always the plan,’ Hunter noted.

  ‘That was always the plan,’ Reid confirmed.

  Kirkham emerged from the grey background. With a cough to gain Reid’s attention, the chief scientist said, ‘It’s time.’

  Reid nodded to him. Pulling a torch from his pocket and shining it ahead of him, Kirkham proceeded towards the growing gloom emanating from the door behind which the Void existed. As he drew closer, he began to shake from the extreme cold. Frost began to form down his front.

  ‘What are you expecting to get out of this?’ Mallory shouted. ‘What do you think the Void’s going to give you?’

  ‘A new world,’ Reid said. ‘The Void’s world.’

  ‘A world ruled by the opposite of life?’ Mallory was incredulous. ‘How could anyone exist in that?’

  ‘You think this one is any better?’ Reid said. ‘The country’s falling apart-’

  ‘People still have their lives, their freedom,’ Mallory replied, urging Reid to change his mind.

  ‘There’s magic everywhere,’ Caitlin continued. ‘Wonder. Endless possibilities. All the things people hoped for before the Fall-’

  Reid cut her dead with a cold stare. ‘It’s unpredictable, uncontrollable. We can’t govern. None of the things we had before the Fall can thrive here. You can’t work hard to better yourself. You can’t have rules and regulations. You can’t have a strong society producing for the common good. No one’s going to get rich here, or fat, or live out their lives in luxury. This isn’t the world we spent thousands of years of human civilisation trying to form.’