Always Forever taom-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  There was something so naive about him, even in the face of such terrible surroundings, Ruth felt a surge of love. "We'll get out of this," she said gently.

  Her words were lost as a shadow crossed Church's face. "Did you hear that?"

  She hadn't heard anything.

  Church was suddenly consumed with anxiety. He dashed up a few steps and threw open a door on the outside of the tower. It was empty apart from piles of burning rubbish before irregular windows looking out over the Thames. Flying Fomorii were zipping around without, diving down on something that was below their range of vision. A tremendous shock rocked the entire tower. Liquid flame gushed past the window.

  Church tried a door on the inner wall of the stairway. It was locked. "I've got to look in here," he said anxiously.

  "We haven't got time," the Bone Inspector replied harshly. He was contin ually peering up and down the stairs for any sign of attack. "It's already morning. The gates will be opening in a few hours."

  "There's time for this." Church tried to force the door.

  "I told you not to be so stupid. The hour's almost here!" The Bone Inspector made to drag Church away, but Church knocked his blackened hand off. They squared up to each other.

  "This isn't helping," Ruth pleaded. "Why is this room so important?"

  Raw emotion flickered across his face. "Marianne's in there. I heard her."

  Ruth stepped in before the Bone Inspector could began a rant. "You have to let him do it," she begged. "There'll still be time."

  After a moment, the Bone Inspector relented. Overcome with apprehension, Church stepped back and levelled the Sword at the lock. It burst with a resounding crack and the door swung open.

  The room was not like any they had seen before. It was spacious, about fifty feet square, with smooth walls lined with black stone. A single torch burned on the far side. The flagged floor had been marked out with an intricate pattern of lines and geometric shapes, along with bizarre symbols that suggested an alien language. The effect of the relationship of the various elements was so intensely disturbing it made Church's head spin. A large block of black stone stood in the centre of the design, and on it was a stoppered green-glass bottle.

  "Be careful." The Bone Inspector held out a hand to stop Church stepping over the threshold. "Don't go blundering in."

  Church scanned the room one more time. "Can't see anything that might be a problem. What makes you worried?"

  "Instinct."

  Church fixed his eyes on the bottle. "That's it. That's where she is." He set down the head and the Wayfinder, but held on to the Sword. "I'm going to have to chance it."

  "Bloody stupid. All this at stake and you're taking risks," the Bone Inspector muttered.

  "It's an obligation to someone I loved. Don't you understand that?"

  There was a long pause before the Bone Inspector replied quietly, "Maybe." Then: "Get a bloody move on! Time's running out!"

  In the room the temperature was inexplicably below freezing. Church's breath clouded, his body protesting with shivers after the intense heat. Church let his foot hover over the design, but couldn't think of any other way to reach the bottle. Slowly he brought it down.

  "You okay?" Ruth called out.

  "Fine. No problem." He took another step.

  "Just keep that big head and big mouth in check," the Bone Inspector growled. "And stop dawdling."

  As Church took the third step, he felt a strange tingling sensation in his extremities. Ruth noticed his surprised reaction. "What is it?"

  "Nothing. Just the cold. It's like the Arctic in here."

  With the next step, he lost the feeling in his fingers and toes. He shook them for warmth and was surprised to see them glisten in the torchlight.

  "Tread… careful-" The Bone Inspector's voice was oddly distorted before disappearing completely. Church was too fixated on the bottle to be concerned about it. All he could think about was Marianne and everything she'd suffered because of his unwitting involvement in the events now being played out. He had made her a promise to free her spirit and he would not fail; his own redemption was tied up in his success.

  The words of warning and encouragement from Ruth and the Bone Inspector had ended; they must have realised he was doing okay.

  Several more steps passed unnoticed, so much did the bottle fill his mind. Memories of Marianne and the time they had spent together traipsed across his head until the black stone chamber almost faded from his perception. He was there with her, happy, as they always had been.

  It was only when he realised he was having trouble moving forward that he jolted back to reality. What he found was so shocking it took him a few seconds to assimilate. His arms and the parts of his body he could see were strangely white. His dulled thought processes eventually told him the truth: he was covered in rime frost. It sparkled across his limbs, so thick his joints would barely work against it. Even his eyelashes were heavy with the weight of it, shimmering so that he found it hard to see past the glare.

  If he had not had the Blue Fire coursing through him, he would most certainly have been dead; even now he was close to it. If he turned back there was still a chance he might actually survive. Yet the bottle was only a couple of paces away. How could he leave when he was so close? He couldn't abandon Marianne.

  In his mind, there was no choice. He forced another step. Almost there. He couldn't feel any of his body now; his mind was disembodied, recalling a dream of being trapped in a person. Oddly, that helped him. With no physical sensations to distract him, his thoughts were pure and strengthened. He slipped easily into the perception where he was aware of the Blue Fire, and was surprised to see that even in that awful place the spirit energy still flowed, though much weaker.

  By force of will, he drew some of it to him; a little but it was enough. He took the final step and swept the bottle off the stone with the back of his hand. It shattered on the floor to release the gentlest breeze; he could feel it even through the thickening frost. With it came the scent of a woman he once loved, of a hot day in the Caribbean and a warm night on a boat on the Thames when they had kissed. And something else: the faintest touch of an intelligence, like a lover reaching out to reassure themselves their sleeping partner was still there in bed, still breathing. It was a small thing, but filled with so much. Church felt enormous gratitude that swelled his emotions, and admiration for him and his abilities, and forgiveness; and love, but not the love of a young couple, a spiritual thing that sent his soul soaring.

  Emotions that had been held in stasis for so long finally rushed through him; it felt like someone had plunged a hand deep within him and dragged out every shadow, every shred of misery, every tear. The burden that shifted left him as light as air. Finally, an ending for something that had manacled him for so long.

  She was free. And he was finally free of the burden her death had placed upon him. A tear squeezed out of the corner of his eye and burned a path through the white down his cheek.

  After that the getting back was easy, despite the cold and the weight of the frost, both of which appeared to be increasing. The shock of the heat outside the room made him lose consciousness for a moment, and when he came round he was lying on the floor, his clothes soaked, with Ruth wiping his face. Her concern was unmissable, but it faded when he forced a smile.

  "It was the Kiss of Frost," he said, recalling the Fomorii spell that had almost destroyed him on the Isle of Skye. "Mollecht had obviously left it there for me, knowing I'd undoubtedly attempt to free Marianne's spirit. To remind me of how I screwed up last time. His final malicious act."

  "Well, you showed him, didn't you?" She brushed his hair away from his face. "How do you feel? About Marianne?"

  He knew what she was saying. "It made me realise how much I love you. The relationship I had with Marianne was strong, but it's all in the past. What I felt in there was about something different."

  "Care to elaborate?"

  Church looked at the Bone Inspector, who a
ppeared to be considering whether he should clout Church with his staff. "I don't think this is quite the time."

  He pushed himself to his feet, pleased at the recuperative powers the Blue Fire gifted him. What lay ahead would be much, much worse.

  After Veitch had torn the grille away from the stone, he stumbled out into the cold waters of the Thames. The mist and smoke that had blanketed the city for so long was drifting away, leaving a sky that was golden and pink. The rooftops of the buildings along the south bank gleamed in the early morning light. Everything hinted at a beautiful day.

  The quickest way to his destination was obviously to swim; he was thankful he now felt curiously immune to the chill. He kept to the shallows where he could not be seen from the bank and let the current push him along.

  The spirit energy had raised his spirits, but there was still a dark area at the back of his head where all his worst traits lay. It was there where the selfloathing multiplied at the thought that he had failed again, not just Ruth, but Church, everyone, the world, and that was such an enormous failure he couldn't keep out the seductive fantasies of suicide. And it was there, where his consuming anger generated a dull heat.

  Eventually the black tower was in view. He rounded a bend in the river to see Wave Sweeper launching an attack on Balor's lair. Bizarre flashes of energy lanced out from strange weapons positioned around the deck. The flying Fomorii dived and soared like crows over food, but the Tuatha lle Danann didn't allow them the slightest opportunity to get through.

  As he drew closer, an enormous shadow passed over him. He craned his neck expecting to see another Fomorii creature, and was transfixed. A Fabulous Beast glittered like a jewelled brass robot in the sunlight, wondrous and terrible at the same time. It swooped down towards the tower to release a blast of fire that atomised a host of the flying Night Walkers. More of the serpentine creatures were approaching from all directions; Veitch had never dreamed there were so many. Columns of searing flame lanced down across the capital. As he drifted in the current, he saw the financial district engulfed in a fireball, Docklands decimated, pillars of billowing black smoke shoot up from the West End. Wherever the Fomorii had made their nests, the Fabulous Beasts sought them out.

  Though he would dearly have loved to have joined in the simple battle of black and white, good versus evil, he passed unseen. He entered the Tower of London at the foot of the black tower through a riverside gate that opened on to a sandy area and a flight of stone steps where so many important men and women had trod before him.

  Veitch still had his dagger, but it was little enough defence against what lay ahead. As he reached the top of the steps he came across a pile of items obviously discarded by the Fomorii as worthless. Amongst the broken doors and ripped tourist guides, jewels shimmered brilliantly. It was only when he fished out a crown bearing a remarkable diamond that he realised he was looking at the Crown Jewels. He considered-for a brief moment-prising out the diamond to slip into his pocket, but then his eyes fell on an ornate sword protruding from the bottom. He dragged out the Curtana, the Coronation Sword of Mercy. It was blunt, but it would still be a better weapon than his dagger.

  As he made his way through the Tower, he was almost disappointed that he didn't meet any Fomorii. He was desperate to release some of the anger burning away inside him, an unpleasant sensation that was only getting worse.

  At some point he left the historic castle and found himself in the black tower that circumscribed it. There, a pitched battle was taking place, and at the heart of it were Shavi and Laura.

  Veitch was so overjoyed to see his friends, he rushed in with a whoop, whirling his sword around his head. His intervention cheered them immeasurably for they had reached a point where they feared they might be overwhelmed. Vegetation tangled everywhere, but Laura hadn't learnt enough to utilise it in close quarters. Shavi used a sword hesitantly, but his hatred of violence hampered him severely.

  Once Witch had hacked a Fomorii warrior into a pile of seeping chunks, the battle turned, although both Laura and Shavi were a little concerned at the glee with which he despatched his enemy.

  Yet it was a short-lived victory. More and more Night Walkers began to stream in from outside. "They're trying to force us downstairs," Veitch said. "That means we go up."

  It was easier for them to hold their ground as they fought while edging backwards up the steps. The Fomorii could stand only two abreast and as every one fell it made it harder for the others to clamber over the bodies.

  "I hope we do not meet any more coming down," Shavi said.

  "I'm more concerned about what happens when we get to the top," Laura replied.

  Church was beginning to wonder exactly how high the tower soared above the cloud cover. It felt like they had been climbing for an hour or more, although the heat hadn't diminished at all. Increasingly, explosions rocked the construction to its very core; chunks fell from the ceiling and walls. Through the windows he occasionally caught glimpses of Fabulous Beasts laying waste to the city and was stunned by both their number and diversity. He had never seen so much grace and power in one form, so many gleaming colours. How could humanity have traded them away, and all the wild magic that came with them, for the brutal rationalism of the twenty-first century?

  The Fabulous Beasts provided an uplifting counterpoint to the oppressive presence of Balor looming darkly. The rising sense of threat was putting a huge psychological strain on all of them. There was a perpetual feeling of Balor always standing one pace behind them, ready to strike.

  In a sense, that was true. Church could feel Balor's essence throbbing in the very walls; it was all a part of him. The dark god of the Fomorii was an amorphous evil that pervaded everything, even the very air; Church could taste the sourness when he swallowed. The atmosphere was almost painfully pregnant; despite the power it already held, Church knew the Beast was waiting for the Doors of Samhain to open so it could claim the undreamable force it needed to destroy all life. It could afford to wait; they were insignificant beside it.

  The steps opened out on a wide, flat area covering the entire floor space of the tower. It was the first time they had come across a room like it, but they could tell from the windows around the circumference that it wasn't the top. After the claustrophobic gloom, they were pleased to see the rough holes cut in the walls provided a pleasant amount of sunlight, but there was still not enough to illuminate the shadows at the centre of the room.

  As they tentatively crossed the floor in search of the next flight of steps, they noticed a figure sitting hunched in that dark zone, next to a shimmering motion in the air. With weapons at the ready, they approached until they saw it was Niamh. Church laid down the head and the Wayfinder and hurried over, but she was so locked in her thoughts she didn't see him until he was almost upon her.

  When she did look up, her face was filled with such a terrible grief that Church stopped short. The movement all around her were golden moths rising up to the ceiling. On the floor lay the gradually disappearing bodies of the Tuatha De Danann guards.

  Church dropped down and put his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against him, oddly frail for such a powerful being. "I'm sorry for your people," he said. "Did the Fomorii hurt you?"

  "There were no Night Walkers."

  "Then what happened?"

  She raised her head to look at him deeply, her face haunted, her eyes damned. "I happened."

  As her meaning gradually dawned on him, he looked around at the brutally slain bodies uneasily.

  "Do not think badly of me, Jack." Every part of her was shaking. "I have committed a crime that will ensure my name is despised by my people for all time. I never thought I had it within me to commit such a monstrous act. But I did, Jack, I did."

  Church tried to console her, but she would have none of it.

  "I did it for you, Jack. For all Fragile Creatures. I did it for all existence. And I have lost myself in the process."

  Church looked round until he saw th
e chest a little way away. "The Wish-Hex?"

  "I attempted to prevent them unleashing it. They ignored my pleas. And so I… I…" Her face fell into her hands; her sobs were silent and racking.

  "I know it's a terrible burden," Church said gently, "but you did do the right-"

  "You do not understand, Jack. I failed. The Wish-Hex has been set in motion."

  He stared at the chest, suddenly cold despite the heat. "In motion?"

  "There is no stopping it now. Soon, very soon, it will begin."

  Church fought back a wave of despair. The odds had always been incalculable, but now it truly was hopeless. He began to ask her how long it would take for the energy to drive the plague across the world, then caught himself; it didn't really matter. The Tuatha De Danann would get what they wanted: a universe free of competition.

  He helped her to her feet. "Don't worry. You did your best." He looked across at the others, wondering whether to tell them that whatever they now did was futile.

  Niamh took his hand. "There will be an ending, Jack, but it might not be how you imagine," she said as if she could read his mind.

  "But what can we possibly-"

  He was interrupted by the sound of violent fighting rising from the stairwell. Ruth rushed over to investigate before calling back excitedly, "It's Shavi, Ryan and Laura." The hope in her face made him feel even worse.

  "We need to keep going," he shouted.

  The Bone Inspector sniffed the air like an animal. "I think we're nearly there."

  "Then they'll do anything they can to try to stop us."

  "Time's running out," the Bone Inspector continued. He looked more worried than Church had ever seen him. "Not long left now."

  "Will you stop it with the countdown!" Church snapped.

  Laura and Shavi emerged at the top of the steps. Veitch was just below, holding back the Fomorii. "There's bleedin' millions of them now!" he yelled. "They're not bothering with the ship any more. They just want us!"

  Ruth came running up to him. "The next flight of steps are just over there."