'No, they can't!' Refusing any sign of weakness, she quickly brushed away a tear.
Jack took her hand. 'My memory's back now. I know what happened. Snatched from my mum when I was a baby and taken to the Court of the Final Word where they worked on me.'
Tom winced.
'They made me into a weapon,' Jack continued. 'The ultimate weapon. The Wish-Hex that they buried inside me is like…' He fumbled for words to describe a concept he could barely comprehend.
'Like a nuclear bomb that can devastate the very fabric of reality,' Crowther interrupted.
'So it's there,' Mahalia said. 'So what? That doesn't mean it has to be used. You can have a normal life-'
Jack silenced her with an affectionate squeeze of her hand. 'You know I've got a part to play.'
'All right!' she snapped. 'So you release the Wish-Hex. There has to be a way you can do that without destroying yourself.'
Jack's sad smile stung more than any words could have.
'We all want a little happiness, but sometimes we have to give that up so everybody else can have a chance to be happy,' Miller said. Tom saw in him an echo of Shavi's inner peace.
'Shut up, you simpleton.' Mahalia sighed.
Refusing to be deterred, Miller took a seat across the aisle. 'I've got something inside me too, but mine heals. You don't know what it's like to have these gifts, Mahalia-'
'Gifts!' she snorted.
'They are! Jack's too, though it's hard to see it at the moment. They speak to us in a way I can't explain and they tell us we've got a job to do. If there's a chance we might be able to stop the Void-'
'Might, might, might!'
'We've got to try! To have an ability and not use it… and everybody suffers because of it — how could you live with that?'
'I could,' she said.
'We're the Keys,' Jack said. 'Miller… me… there's no chance of winning without us.'
'There's no chance with you!' Mahalia stormed down the carriage so no one could see her tears. Jack and Miller followed, trying to comfort her. Crowther watched Tom's face and saw an echo of Mahalia's desire for peace and happiness after a long period of responsibility.
'They say you have the Second Sight,' Crowther said.
'One of my many wonderful attributes.'
'And the tongue that never lies?'
'Oh, yes. But that doesn't mean I have to answer.'
'Can you see how all this plays out?' Crowther asked hesitantly. 'Victory or defeat? Who lives, who dies?'
Tom smiled tightly, rose and made his way to the opposite end of the carriage where he sat with his back to the others and closed his eyes. The gentle rocking of the train should have calmed him, but nothing did any more. Instinctively, his fingers went to the gold ring in the shape of a dragon eating its tail that the goddess Freyja had given to him in Norway. Known as Andvarinaut, it was cursed to bring misery to anyone who owned it. He had bartered away his future to help Church, Laura and the rest, and soon enough he would be forced to pay the price.
'Don't worry.'
Jerked alert by the voice, Tom saw a boy of about nine or ten sitting opposite him. He was black, his hair shorn to a bristle, and a little overweight, but he had the most expressive eyes Tom had ever seen.
'Who are you?' Tom growled.
'My name's Carlton.'
Tom glanced back at Crowther and the others.
'They can't see me,' Carlton said. Tom searched the boy for any suspicious signs. 'You don't look like one of those damnable fairy folk.'
'I'm not.'
'Then you're with the Enemy.'
'I'm a friend. I've come to help you.'
Carlton's face was open and honest, but Tom wasn't going to be fooled. He smoked, and waited.
'Time is running out. The Devourer of All Things is almost here. His army sweeps across the Far Lands. His assassins are abroad, attempting to kill or disrupt key elements of your opposition.'
'You know, little children do not talk like that,' Tom noted acidly.
'But there is one important thing you must know: in the battle to come, there will be people you can trust, and people you can't.'
'And you're going to tell me which is which, I suppose.'
'Even those closest to you are not above suspicion.'
Tom snorted.
'I want to help-'
'You'll forgive me if I don't trust you.' Tom returned to Crowther and the others, and when he glanced back, the boy was gone. When he described his encounter, Mahalia's face filled with sadness, and then anger.
'You're lying.' Her voice broke. 'That can't have been Carlton. Carlton's dead!'
4
In the great debating hall in the Palace of Glorious Light, Mallory and Decebalus were distracted from their strategy meeting by cries coming from the direction of the city gates. A crowd of excited Tuatha De Danaan flooded into the courtyard outside the palace where Lugh and an anxious cadre of the city guard waited uneasily for a caravan speeding up the winding streets. The golden-skinned outriders wore heavy armour, their faces grim, but several of the horses had empty saddles. Behind them, the royal carriage clattered so wildly over the cobbles that it was in danger of careering into the surrounding buildings.
'The first of them,' Lugh said when Mallory arrived at his side. The god stood tall and handsome and was filled with the burning power of the sun, but since he had discovered the true extent of his sister Niamh's betrayal, it was as if a dark cloud had gathered within him. 'The twenty great courts of the Golden Ones are answering our call.'
'All of them?'
Lugh still barely believed he had gained the support of his unruly people. 'We have received responses from all, save three,' he replied. 'The Seelie Court, who wander the worlds eternally; their dark brethren, the Unseelie Court, but they will never follow our path; and the Court of the Final Word.' As Lugh watched the gathering riders, the weight of his leadership lay heavy on him. 'I am concerned. We sent a messenger to the Court of the Final Word, but he reported it sealed and silent and cold. I fear the worst.'
Reining-in their mounts, the outriders leaped down as the royal carriage skidded to a halt. With a resounding crack, the rear axle shattered, the carriage sagging, the horses rearing up. Guards ran to help the occupants. The remainder of the caravan trailed through the palace gates and down the steep hill to where they had entered the court from the Great Plain, aristocracy and soldiers, merchants, musicians and magicians.
'Who are they?' Mallory asked.
'The Court of the Yearning Heart. Beware them, Brother of Dragons. Though they are my people, they are sly, untrustworthy and dangerous.'
From the carriage climbed the queen, exuding a supernaturally charged eroticism so powerful that a tense silence fell over all those present, of either sex. She wore a transparent gown that only served to draw attention to her breasts and pubis.
Accompanied by two young women-in-waiting, she approached Lugh. No love was lost in the curt bow they exchanged, but she found time to cast a curious, sexually predatory gaze towards Mallory.
'I trust your journey was safe,' Lugh enquired.
'It was not. We left as my court was overrun, and from there to here we were harried continually. Many of my subjects were slaughtered in the process,' she noted without a hint of sadness. 'Imagine — Golden Ones eradicated! How can this abomination come to pass?'
'There are worse things ahead, I fear.'
'Is that a Brother of Dragons I spy?'
'Leave him alone,' Lugh said sharply. 'He is an ally.'
The queen snorted contemptuously.
'More than an ally,' Lugh continued. 'He may well be our saviour, and he has more to concern him than being idle sport for you. The season has turned, sister, and Fragile Creatures have joined our kind at the high table. You must adapt to this new arrangement.'
The queen batted a dismissive hand. 'See also what has been wrought upon our kind.'
She marched to a covered wagon surrounded by heavily arm
ed guards who kept the curious at bay. Haughtily, the queen snatched back the cover to reveal six of her guards writhing in indescribable pain. Their bodies had been transformed by some disease, sprouting scales, horns, patches of exposed bone and weeping sores.
'What could do this to our kind?' the queen asked.
'Rangda.'
Behind them stood a young man of about twenty, tall and thin, dressed in a green, crushed velvet suit with a hat, a cane and sunglasses. The whiff of the sixties lay heavily on him.
'What can you tell us, Doctor Jay?' Mallory asked.
'We had a run-in with her in Haight-Ashbury in sixty-seven.' The Doctor tapped the brim of his hat with his cane to emphasise his words. 'The demon-queen of Bali, they call her. She leads an army of evil witches and spreads plague wherever she goes. The Enemy sends her out to spread chaos.' He peered into the back of the wagon. 'There's nothing you can do for them. It's just a matter of time.'
Refusing to believe, the queen raged impotently. Mallory, Decebalus and Doctor Jay left Lugh trying to calm her and returned to the Doctor's chaotic apartment in the palace. It was packed to the brim with magickal items, crystals, boxes and parchments, potions, candles and skulls, all moved from Math's tower before the sorcerer had departed with Hunter. The curtains were drawn and it was too hot and claustrophobic.
Jerzy moved studiously around the room, reading from several volumes as he mixed a concoction, his bone-white skin and rictus grin glowing spectrally in the half-light. When they entered, he gambolled over and danced around them like a child. Mallory had a sense of a second Jerzy behind the fool he had been made into by Niamh and the Court of the Final Word: secret, real, serious and hidden, with his own agenda.
'Are you ready to try again, good friend?' Jerzy said to Doctor Jay.
'We'll give it a rest for a while, Mister Mocker. I need to refuel my mojo, if you know what I mean.' The Doctor flopped wearily into a large chair and put his head back. He kept his sunglasses on despite the gloom.
'Still no success?' Mallory prompted.
'Man, if you only knew what I'd achieved here,' the Doctor replied.
'Wonders and miracles! It's this place… the Blue Fire… all stirred up together. I'm supercharged!' He sat cross-legged. 'But yeah, you're right — not the wonders and miracles we need.'
Decebalus growled an epithet. 'You cannot contact the king? Church?' 'I can't contact Earth, man. It's like it's closed off, all the shutters pulled down. The Void's made sure no one's getting in or out of our home, at least not yet. And no information's getting through, either.'
'We don't even know if Church or the others are still alive,' Mallory said.
'Good friend, Jack Giant-Killer will not be defeated. He will be with us soon,' Jerzy said.
'Is that a platitude, or a snippet of information from your mysterious friends and allies?' Mallory asked suspiciously. 'Those higher powers you're secretly working for?'
Jerzy looked hurt.
'Sorry. I'm an idiot. Ignore me.' Mallory rested one hand on his sword, Llyrwyn. In times of stress, it calmed him, whispering mysteriously through the Pendragon Spirit they shared. 'You think there's hope for Church?' he asked the Doctor. 'Because if he doesn't turn up with the Two Keys, there's no hope for us, even if by some miracle we do locate the Extinction Shears.'
Doctor Jay shrugged. 'I've been reading, researching, talking to people out in the city. All the races out there have their own myths about these times. The End of the World myth, you know? They're all in code, like all stories, but with the information we've got now, you can read them in the right way. It's all the same story, just told with different emphasis. The battle between two great kingdoms. The light and the dark in the Tuatha De Danaan version. The fight between a spider and a snake that destroyed the universe, for Jerzy's people.'
'The Christians talk of the Apocalypse… and the Antichrist,' Decebalus mused.
The Doctor nodded. 'It's all over our world too. Prophecies… hints… Who is the Antichrist, or is that just another symbol?'
'The Libertarian?' Mallory suggested.
'Revelation talks of the people of God opposing the Evil, and two prophets called the two witnesses. Is that the Two Keys?'
'I thought Revelation was supposed to refer to some Roman Emperor or something back when the Bible was written?' Mallory mused.
Animated, the Doctor fetched more books from the shelves. 'The patterns, man. They're everywhere. The true template behind reality. See the patterns and you get what it's all about. A trip, the biggest trip of all. Numbers are the key, see.' He giggled. 'The key. Numbers are the key in music. Music is the key to the universe.'
Mallory sighed. 'You're having a rush, Doctor.'
'Sorry, man, sorry. But it's the numbers! Science and magic… maybe it's the same thing. The pattern is everywhere. The Aztecs had the Legend of the Five Suns. Five was an important number to them. Each sun was an age, and when a sun died, there was chaos and the gods destroyed the world and started again. We're on the fifth sun now. The last one. This is the sun of movement, Tonatiu, the Rising Eagle, and when it's over the world gets torn apart.'
'If that's a prediction, it doesn't sound like they've got a lot of faith in us,' Mallory said.
Doctor Jay hesitated. 'Maybe we don't fail. Maybe we cause it.'
'Your brain is addled,' Decebalus spat.
'The Indian myths are like the Aztec one, in a way. The universe goes through cycles of birth and death and rebirth. The Hindus believe that Vishnu, the Preserver of Order, comes during times of chaos to save humankind. He appears in a different form each time… an avatar… and he will appear in ten forms before the universe ends.'
'You're saying that number is significant?' Mallory asked. 'Like the number of the last two groups of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Except… except there are only nine…' He rubbed his forehead where the familiar painful emptiness had risen again.
'Don't know, man. But Vishnu has appeared in nine of his forms already. For the tenth, he will come as a man riding on a horse, to destroy the Earth.'
They considered this for a moment. Sensing a darkening mood, Doctor Jay moved on. 'The Norse had their myths of Ragnarok, the end of gods and humans, when the world is destroyed after a final battle. There's more, from all over the world, but I think you get the picture.'
Decebalus snorted. 'Patterns can be broken. And stories are like the gods. They tell you one thing but mean another. The truth is slippery.'
A sudden crash made them all jump. Jerzy had pitched forwards, sending phials and bottles flying. Spasming on the floor, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites were visible. Mallory, Decebalus and the Doctor struggled to stop him hurting himself.
'A seizure?' Mallory said as Jerzy finally grew still.
'The Court of the Final Word changed him so much, it's impossible to tell what's going on inside him,' Doctor Jay said.
Jerzy remained unresponsive. But as Mallory carried him to the bed in the adjoining quarters, a low-pitched hum emanated from the Mocker, growing more intense by the second until it set all their teeth on edge.
'What the hell's that?' Mallory reeled away from the bed.
Doctor Jay clamped his hands over his ears. 'Strange days are upon us, man. It sounds like some weird radio signal.'
All attempts to revive Jerzy failed. A silvery substance, like mercury, emerged from his tear ducts and slid across the surface of his eyes until they were like mirrors, reflecting the troubled faces of Mallory, Decebalus and Doctor Jay.
'Get all the court's medics together,' Mallory said. 'I want to know what's happening to him, why it's happening now and what it means.'
5
With a screech of metal and a billowing cloud of hissing steam, the Last Train juddered to a halt at the gates of the Court of the Soaring Spirit.
'You ready to face all those bastards again?' Leaning on the window, Veitch watched the massive obsidian gates creak slowly open as puzzled guards emerged, weapons drawn,
to investigate the arrival.
'We're on the same side now,' Church replied. 'This war is going to make a lot of difficult allies.'
'Tell me about it.' Veitch flashed a knowing glance at Church. 'Common aims, right?'
'Whatever's happened, you're one of us, Ryan. You always were and you always will be.'
Veitch grunted noncommittally, but the brief glance he exchanged with Laura as she made her way along the carriage ahead of Ruth and Shavi spoke clearly of the problems ahead.
'Congratulations, dude,' she said. 'You finished a whole train journey without killing one of us.'
'Leave him alone,' Ruth snapped.
'Oh, yeah, you would say that. Is there a man around here you haven't tapped?'
Her cheeks flushing, Ruth's eyes flashed angrily. Shavi stepped in with a gentle hand on her arm. 'It's just Laura,' he said softly.
Amidst an odour of loam and a sound like dry insect casings rattling, Ahken arrived, his obsequiousness undiminished.
'Your journey on the Last Train is over,' he said, 'and it is time to make payment.' As he spoke, Tom, Crowther and the others made their way into the carriage.
'What's the price?' Church asked.
'More than you can bear!' Tom raced up, thrusting himself between Church and Ahken.
'Most peoples of the Far Lands and the Fixed Lands only ride the Last Train once, and their destination is always the same,' Ahken continued with an unsettling edge to his voice. 'Out of deference, I have allowed the Seelie Court free passage on their flight back to their homeland. They will join me again shortly. But you, Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, have journeyed on the Last Train three times, and three times is the limit.'
Outside the window, on the dusty approach to the city, the members of the Seelie Court waited curiously for the other passengers to join them. Instinctively, Church felt that the train had already started moving imperceptibly, gradually building speed.
'You must let them alight,' Tom insisted. 'You allowed them passage from the Fixed Lands-'
'The Last Train was summoned by blood,' Ahken said.
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