Always Forever taom-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  Church threw himself across the heaving deck, grappling the tentacle in an attempt to prise it free. The skin had the sickening consistency of decaying rubber, and it smelled like a compost heap with a few fish heads thrown in. But it was too strong for him to budge it even an inch.

  Then the strangest thing happened: in the middle of the creeping pain, Baccharus's eyes locked on his. At first Church saw confusion in them, then curiosity and finally something he couldn't understand at all, but it appeared to drive the pain back. A second later a scurrying sensation moved over Church's waist and quickly up his chest. He jumped back in shock as Baccharus's Caraprix scuttled on to the tentacle and clung on with spider legs, the silver orb of its body glowing in the gloom.

  "Take it," Baccharus yelled.

  Church fought back his natural distaste and held out a hand towards the symbiotic creature. It instantly moved and changed, so quickly his stomach knotted in shock, slipping perfectly into his grip as it transformed into a cruelbladed short sword, still brilliant silver. Church had seen the things' wild shapeshifting before, but it never failed to astound him.

  At the moment before impact, the sword grew a row of serrated teeth that became a snapping jaw tearing into the rubbery flesh with remarkable ease. A shudder ran through the tentacle. Church struck again, this time with more force, then again and again until the air was filled with the flayed flesh of the G'a'naran. Finally the tentacle unfurled sharply, catching him in the chest. Winded, he slumped to the deck, but still found it within him to catch Baccharus as the god fell forward. Gratitude flooded his face.

  "How are you?" Church asked.

  "Not well, but well enough to recover. The Golden Ones are nothing if not resilient." He smiled, and once again Church was surprised to see none of the usual arrogance of the Tuatha De Danann.

  At that moment Church became aware of a change in the atmosphere, subtle at first, but becoming more apparent. It took him a second or two to realise what it was: the storm was gradually moving away, the lightning flashes becoming less intense, the winds dying down, the thunder no longer hurting his ears. Subsequently, the waves dropped and the inches-deep water on the deck flowed away. Within a minute the storm had gone completely; the sea lay saucer flat, the night sky clear and sparkling with stars. The only wrenching motion came from the still-flailing tentacles of the G'a'naran.

  Church peered along the deck to the aft where Ruth leaned against the rails, exhaustion hunching her shoulders. There was a faint nimbus of energy around her that disappeared so rapidly Church couldn't tell if it had truly been there or if it had been his imagination. He looked up at the clear skies, still not truly believing, but the rapidity with which the storm had receded had not been natural.

  Baccharus levered himself up on his elbow. He was healing before Church's eyes, muscle and bone knitting, energy levels rising. "Look." He motioned towards the poop deck. "Your intervention has swayed the battle."

  Manannan had doubled his attack, his attention no longer diverted by keeping the ship afloat in the face of the storm. There was a sound like silver foil rustling, then ripping. A smell of hot engines and baked potatoes. The air folded in, then ballooned out, a translucent rainbow rippling like oil in a roadside puddle. With a thunderous whip crack, the light ripped towards the G'a'naran. Church anticipated some coruscating display of energy, but there was only the noise of the G'a'naran's flesh rending as a furrow opened up across the rubbery side of the creature.

  Church saw no mouth, and there was no real sound, but suddenly he was driven to his knees by a high-pitched noise stabbing into his ears. When he was finally able to raise his head, there was only a sucking section of the sea where the G'a'naran had plunged beneath the waves.

  Church dragged himself to his feet, shaky, and then Ruth was at his side, smiling wearily.

  "You did it," he said. He held out an arm and she slipped into it, coming to rest hard against his body.

  "I wasn't sure I could, even at the last. But then when I opened myself up to it, it all came rushing out. It's like it's all battened down inside, things I've only half-heard but somehow fully formed. Fully remembered. Understood even." Her eyes had grown wide and wondrous. "The things I can do!" She caught herself, looked down modestly. "I think. I mean, I feel I have a lot of potential."

  "What was it? A spell?"

  She didn't seem quite sure herself. "Remember when we were talking about magic being the cheat code for reality? It was like that, like I could suddenly focus to peel a layer back and move things around behind the scenes."

  Church kissed her on the forehead; that surprised them both. "Maybe you can conjure up sausage, bacon and eggs for breakfast."

  They both felt the temperature drop a degree or two, and when they looked up Manannan was there. "Sister of Dragons," he said in his sea-tossed voice, "you are true to your heritage." He gave a little bow that, in his restrained manner, looked as if he was proclaiming her greatness to the heavens.

  "Thank you," she said shyly.

  "And you, Brother of Dragons," he continued to Church, "you aided this Golden One in his moment of need. Wave Sweeper is the better for your presence." He paused for a moment, then added, "We must talk about great things-"

  Whatever he was about to say was snapped off by a cry of alarm from the other end of the boat. There was a note of terror to it that shocked them all into immediate action. Church and Ruth sprinted until they reached the raised area where Church had earlier sat with Niamh. At the top of the steps one of the younger Tuatha De Danann was rigid, his normally plastic features shifting like smoke. Church pushed past him to get a better look.

  Cormorel was slumped half over the railings, his eyes staring, blank. His body appeared to be breaking up like a cracked mirror. Where the fracture lines spread out across him, a brilliant white light shone through, taking consistency, shape, becoming something like moths that fluttered wildly around the body before rising up and up to become lost in the night sky. Hunched over Cormorel was the shadowy form of the Walpurgis, his bony hands clutching at the god's shirt, his hot coal eyes growing brighter than ever. His mouth was stretched wide, the jaws distended inches away from the body so he could suck up some of the flapping moths. They swirled around frantically before disappearing into that black maw.

  Church felt sick to his stomach. He knew exactly what the Walpurgis was doing; Cormorel himself had said it: the Walpurgis eats the souls of the dying.

  Manannan and the other Tuatha De Danann surged up the stairs. Church moved aside, fearful of the transformation he saw come over them. Their bodies were like knives, like light, like a maelstrom of howling faces. And the sound they made was terrifying: a screech filled with desolation and elemental fury. As they rushed towards the Walpurgis, the creature broke off its feeding, looked around briefly like a cornered animal, then ran towards the rails. He vaulted over them to the lower deck, hanging briefly like a sheet billowing in the wind. Within seconds he had disappeared through the door that led down into the bowels of Wave Sweeper.

  Instead of pursuing him, the Tuatha De Danann gathered around Cormorel, his body now little more than fragments in a pool of white light. Church and Ruth couldn't bear to hear their howling grief, if that was what it was, and hurried back down the stairs to the far side of the deck.

  Ruth had a disturbed, queasy expression. "How could that thing kill him?" She looked around, grasping for understanding. "I thought they couldn't die."

  Church shook his head, still trying to come to terms with what he had seen. He had witnessed Calatin's death and knew what a monumental thing it was; to all intents and purposes the gods went on forever, their vital energy unquenchable even if their forms were destroyed. It took something special to wipe them from existence.

  "It doesn't make any sense," he said. "Why would the Walpurgis murder Cormorel? He would know he wouldn't get away with it."

  "Maybe he couldn't control himself. Driven by hunger…?"

  He turned and rested on the ra
ils, looking at the reflected starlight glittering on the waves, thinking how much it reminded him of that disappearing essence of Cormorel.

  "How's this going to affect things?" he said. "At least we know we're going to die, even if we don't want to face up to it. It's no great shock. The Tuatha De Danann think they're going on forever. Seeing something like that, it's a blow we can't even begin to comprehend. What will it do to them?"

  The question hung in the air, but after all they had been through it was too much to consider. Ruth stepped in next to him and again he slipped an arm around her shoulders. They both felt like they were huddling together for warmth in a world grown cold and dark.

  Chapter Four

  Empty Cisterns, Exhausted wells

  The noises echoing around the ship that night were terrifying to hear: shrieks and howls, grunts and roars; at times it was as if a pack of wild animals roamed the cramped corridors, things not even remotely human loose on board. Church and Ruth chose to stay together in the same room for security, but they did not feel safe, even with a huge chest pulled across the door.

  Although the sounds were impossible to track, they knew the Tuatha De Danann were hunting the Walpurgis into the depths of Wave Sweeper. But Ruth knew how futile that exercise was, even if the gods understood the twisted confines of their ship. And so the questing continued into the small hours until it eventually died away. The silence was bitter and they knew the quarry had not been located.

  They woke in a beam of sunlight breaking through the bottle-glass windows, entangled like lovers, although they had only held each other for comfort. Their position brought embarrassment and they quickly hurried to opposite ends of the bed. Eventually, though, in the warmth of the morning sun and their relief that all was calm without, their legs were soon draping over each other as they chatted lazily.

  "You don't think he did it, then?" Ruth asked as she brushed with crooked fingers at the tangles in her hair.

  Church threw open the windows so they could look out across the foamtopped waves. "There's something about it that's troubling me. When the Walpurgis was poking around in my head I got a sense of him. It wasn't quite a reciprocal thing-he had all my mind laid out before him-but I felt…" He fumbled for words. "I don't think he kills, however black Cormorel painted him. He certainly feeds on souls-"

  "So you think he found Cormorel dying?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then who killed Cormorel? Who would have the power to kill him? What possible motivation could there be?"

  Church held up his hand to stop her questions. "You've seen all the wild, freakish things travelling on this ship with us. God knows what's lurking down there in the darkest depths."

  "The Malignos," Ruth mused.

  "There was plenty of opportunity in all the chaos for something predatory to attack. Perhaps whatever did it thought we were going down and it had nothing to lose."

  "I hope it's not going to deflect us from what we've got to achieve." Ruth leaned on the windowsill, filling her lungs with the salty air. "There's so much at risk, we can't afford any-"

  "You don't have to tell me."

  The dark tone in his voice made her look round. "What is it?"

  "There's something else. When the Walpurgis was in my mind he pulled something out."

  "That's right he said he had a message." Her eyes narrowed as she scanned his face for clues. "Something bad?"

  "He kept replaying the scene just before Marianne's murder in our flat, the one I stumbled across in that time-warping cavern under Arthur's Seat. The same thing over and over again. Someone entering the flat, a shadow on the wall. It wasn't just images-I could smell it too, hear, feel. He knew exactly what he wanted to show me, but I think he felt it was important I found it out for myself."

  "More impact that way." She chewed on a knuckle apprehensively; Church watched, wondering. "So did you get it? I know how dense you can be," she asked.

  He nodded. "Part of it anyway." He weighed his thoughts, not sure how much he should tell her, then hating himself for even thinking it. "One of us killed Marianne."

  "One of us?"

  "Laura, Shavi, Veitch-"

  "Or me?"

  "Everything went pear shaped before I had a chance to piece it all together. But I saw a shadow that I recognised. I smelled something-"

  "What? Like perfume?" she said sharply.

  "No. It was unusual. But familiar. Subtle. I don't know what it meant. Instinctively I was certain it was one of us. If I'd only had a few more minutes-"

  "You're sure?"

  He thought for a moment. "I'm sure."

  She sucked on her lip. "So who do you think it is?"

  "I don't know."

  "Who do you think?"

  "I don't know. Honestly."

  "Do you think it was me?"

  He looked her full in the eye. Her gaze was unwavering, confident, perhaps a little hurt. "I'm about as sure as I can be that it wasn't you."

  That pleased her immensely. Her mouth crumpled into a smile before growing serious a moment later. "That ties in with what the Celtic dead told us about a traitor in the group. Whoever it was, they were there from the start."

  "We mustn't start jumping to conclusions."

  "No, but it makes sense."

  And he had to admit that it did, but it was too upsetting to consider. The five of them had been friends through the hardest of times. They had saved each other's lives. He trusted them all implicitly, knew them all inside out, or thought he did. None of them had the capacity to be a traitor on the scale implied, he was sure of it. But if he could be fooled through such intimate contact, what did that mean? That the traitor was truly evil, and truly dangerous.

  He could tell Ruth was thinking something similar; she rubbed her arms as if she were cold despite the warmth of the sun. "There's no point in guessing," she said eventually. "If we could piece it together from what we've seen we would have done it already."

  "I know, but…"

  "What is it?"

  "It casts a shadow over everything. I know that sounds stupid with what's going down, but the fact is, the five of us… six, with Tom… we were the calm centre, something I could rely on to make everything else bearable."

  "It's just the two of us now. We're the calm centre."

  Any further discussion was curtailed by a sharp knock at the door. It was Baccharus carrying a tray filled with cold meats, fruit and bread. "I thought you might like to break your fast," he said quietly.

  They ushered him in, then refused to let him leave while they hungrily are everything on the tray. They questioned him about what was happening elsewhere on Wave Sweeper.

  "The Master has called a meeting of all who travel upon Wave Sweeper, on deck shortly. There is a feeling for…" He chose his word carefully. "… retribution."

  "Have you found the Walpurgis?" Church asked.

  Baccharus shook his head. "There are many scouring the boat, even as we speak, but it is…" He made an expansive gesture.

  "How serious is this?" Ruth said.

  "How serious? To the Golden Ones it is a crime against existence. We dance amongst the worlds; stars pass beneath our feet. We are a part of everything, of the endless cycle. We are not meant to be eradicated-"

  "But it is possible," Church said, remembering Calatin. "You know that."

  "Anything is possible." Baccharus's voice had grown even quieter. "But there are some things that should not happen. One could imagine the whole of everything falling into the void before they came to pass. The eradication of a Golden One is one of those things. Cormorel may have appeared young to you. But he was enjoying his wild ways when your world was a steaming rock in the infinite dark. What you saw last night was something beyond your comprehension. A star exploding would not have matched one atom of its import."

  "I'm sorry." Ruth rested a hand on his forearm. "I know Cormorel was your companion. We know what it is like to lose a dear friend." His expression brought her up sharp; it said
she could never understand the slightest of what he-all the Tuatha De Danann-were experiencing.

  "There are two issues here," Baccharus continued. "The Master is concerned that the Walpurgis had not only the power, but also the knowledge of how to use it to end Cormorel's days. And that he had the inclination."

  "Do you believe it was the Walpurgis?" Church pressed.

  Baccharus looked at him thoughtfully. "You saw as well as I-"

  "I saw him drain Cormorel's soul. I didn't see him commit murder."

  Baccharus shrugged. "The Master believes it to be the Walpurgis-"

  "Isn't justice important?"

  "Of course." Baccharus's voice grew cold for the first time since they had known him.

  "Well, isn't it?" Church pressed.

  "Justice is above us all."

  An uncomfortable silence descended on the room until Ruth couldn't bear it. "That thing which attacked last night-"

  "The G'a'naran." Baccharus was staring dismally across the waves.

  "The G'a'naran. What was it?" She looked to Church. "It reminded me of old stories, mariners' tales-"

  "More race memories, things that slip between the worlds."

  "A sea monster?"

  "The G'a'naran is unformed, from the age when all flowed freely, finding its shape," Baccharus said. "Its home is not beneath the waves, though sometimes it takes refuge there. It navigates amongst the stars-"

  "Like you?"

  Baccharus looked at Ruth. "No, not like us."

  Church was troubled by Baccharus's description. "I don't understand why it attacked the ship if it's not some kind of mindless animal, which I presume it's not. Is it a predator?" He was surprised to see Baccharus was concerned too. "What is it?"

  The god made to leave without answering, but Church dragged the reply from him. "The G'a'naran would not have attacked Wave Sweeper unless it was provoked. Or summoned."