'There's a Caraprix in all of us? Like the gods?'
'The Caraprix is in you. The gods only get to be friends with them for a while. What did you think they were, Mallory? Where do you think they came from?'
'No idea. Don't care.'
'The Pendragon Spirit is an amazing thing. A shard of Existence lodged in every human being, a reminder of their potential and their potential all wrapped up in one. But it's even more than that. It's a seed, waiting to be nurtured. Every experience a human has in their life is sunlight and water to that seed. It grows, and develops, and becomes something wonderful.'
'The Pendragon Spirit becomes the Caraprix?'
'Humans tend them, and grow them, and then, at the point of their death, set them free. And if they've done a good job in their life, the Caraprix thrives and moves off to its destiny. That's the point of life, Mallory. That's the reason for the tough road, the hardships and the suffering and the misery. As you fight to overcome them, you're growing these wonderful, brilliant things.'
'But what do they do? What are they for?'
'You'll see, Mallory. You'll all see. And then you'll understand why human beings and their fragile, hard lives, and their loves and friendships, their troubles and strife, their passing irritations and great achievements, their lows and highs, their fears and wonders and awe, are all so absolutely vital, and so amazing, and so much more important than you ever dreamed while you were going through them.'
'There's one in me?'
'There's one in you, Mallory. It'll be emerging soon, and it'll be a remarkable thing because you've nurtured it so well. It'll be one of the strongest, and it will have a part to play.'
'Well, that's weird… and… unexpected. And I still don't believe in stuff, but…'
Carlton laughed.
The world had grown dark.
'You close your eyes now, Mallory, and be content. You've done a great job, everything that was expected of you and more. You're a hero, Mallory. You won't be forgotten, ever.'
Mallory died.
Carlton watched him for a moment, studied the growing light and then gave a satisfied smile. He had been right.
Afterwards, he picked up the Wayfinder and blew on the dying spark that burned at the end of the wick. It winnowed into a small flame, and then grew larger and stronger until finally it burst from the lantern as it had when Hal attacked the Hortha with the last of his strength.
This time the flame folded in on itself and disappeared with a zzzzip, leaving a bemused Hal staring at his hands in incredulity. He was human, exactly as he had been up to the moment when he gave up his body to enter the Blue Fire.
'What?' he said, dazed. 'I'm here.'
'I'm sorry to pull you from the Blue Fire, Hal. I know exactly what you've lost. But you had it for a while, and that's more than anyone else.'
'Of course,' Hal said. 'But… I thought I was dying. I'd given up every part of me.'
'Exactly. Like every Brother and Sister of Dragons, you've been on your own personal road to enlightenment and transformation. Everything you've experienced has been preparing you for this moment. And your last, great sacrifice was… the final exam, I suppose. You passed.'
'Yeah?' Hal thought for a moment, and then said, 'I miss it, but in a way I'm still part of it. I was a part of it for all time.'
'Exactly.'
'What now?'
Carlton handed Hal the Wayfinder. 'Existence needs a Caretaker, Hal. Someone to walk the boundaries, watch over the fabric, close some doors, open others. Someone to turn on the lamps of hope in the dark of the night, and extinguish them when dawn's light touches the sky. Will you accept?'
Hal took a moment to assimilate the magnitude of what Carlton was offering him, and then he beamed. 'Of course I will!'
Carlton grinned. 'I knew you would. Now pick up the Extinction Shears, and let's be away. Everything is coming to a head, and you'll want to be there at the end.'
Chapter Twelve
Once And Future
1
When Church looked back at the cemetery cavern, it wasn't a cemetery at all, just bare rock covered by a thin, grey dust. Lost in the shadows of the upper reaches, the Morvren flew, calling to each other in voices that reminded Church of grief-stricken mourners at a funeral. The three gods were nowhere to be seen.
A distant roaring was revealed to be an underground river that lay at the end of a short tunnel. Their path continued along the bank.
'Don't go near the water — it's poisoned,' Tom cautioned as he examined the oily, foul-smelling flow.
Church took him to one side and asked, 'I understand you can't tell me any details of what your visions are showing you, but is there anything you can give me that might help?'
'Everything hangs in the balance. It could go either way.'
'If I choose to become the Libertarian.'
'Yes.'
'The Void wins.'
'For all time. Existence won't recover.' Weary, Tom's shoulders sagged. 'I'm sorry. It was always my role to be your guide. I was supposed to help you become the person you were always meant to be, but I'm not much use.'
'You made the right choice in Norway when you did that deal with Freyja. We wouldn't have the Two Keys, Ryan would probably still be a threat to us and Ruth could well be dead.'
'It might be better if she was dead.'
Church flinched. 'How can you say that?'
'Love has two faces. It gives us the power to do remarkable things, and it can turn our minds from the right choices and damn us for ever.'
Church gripped his shoulders. 'Let me teach the teacher. I've learned a lot of things since I found myself back in the Iron Age. It's not about good and evil — it's not that simple. Everything has two faces, like Janus, like Cernunnos, like me with the Fabulous Beasts and the scary, carrion-eating Ravens of Death. Different views of the way forward, one always influencing the other. The trick is walking a fine line between the two. It all comes down to how skilful we are at staying on the path.'
'It sounds odd.'
'What?'
'Wisdom coming out of your mouth.'
'I've got one more question.' Church steeled himself. 'Is anyone else going to die?'
Tom hesitated, then replied, 'Yes. Don't ask me any more.' He walked quickly away before Church could pursue that line of questioning.
'It's getting hot,' Ruth said. A mist rolled across the river and the walls dripped with moisture. 'Does that mean we're getting closer to the Burning Man?'
'There is movement ahead.' Shavi came to a halt, two fingers resting against the bottom of his alien eye as he searched deep into the dark.
A low, mournful, wolf-like howl rolled along the rocky walls.
'I know that sound.' Church recalled a smoky London night in the middle of the Blitz.
Bounding from the shadows on all fours came a lithe figure that could have been either man or beast. Grey hair trailed behind it, pupils glowing golden in the gloom. Snarling lips curled back from rows of gleaming fangs.
'Loki!' Church called to the others. 'Trickster and shape-shifter! Don't trust what you see!'
As Veitch braced himself, sword drawn, the god barrelled towards him, shifted onto the rock wall without missing a step and then continued forwards along the tunnel roof. Wrong-footed, Veitch clumsily swung his blade upwards, but Loki had already passed overhead. He dropped behind Veitch, lashed out with a long, muscular arm that sent Veitch flying towards the river's edge and turned instantly on Shavi.
Shavi dived beneath raking claws that would have taken his head off. Rolling along the ground, he helped Veitch to his feet.
As Church attacked, Loki flashed a lupine smile and disappeared.
Baffled, the next thing Church saw was a golden eye mere inches away from his own, and then pain erupted in his chest as claws raked upwards. Staggering back, he saw blood spread across his ragged shirt. Loki lashed out again, and though Church pulled back at the last, he caught a glancing blow that made him se
e stars. His vision cleared when he was on his back, Loki hunched over him, ready to tear out his throat.
The blast of Blue Fire blinded him.
Blinking, he saw Loki's smoking, twisted body lying on the river's edge. The god was still alive, but he had lost control of his form; it oozed like melting toffee into turrets and sticky strands. The golden eyes still rolled in a head filled with holes.
Ruth moved towards him, though it took a second for Church to recognise her, so altered was she by the raw power of the Craft, her eyes all black, her hair snaking.
'You won't hurt him!' she raged.
The transformation had been so rapid that Church was stunned. How close to the edge was she if she could become so elemental so quickly? She reminded him of the Ruth who had almost been consumed by her power during the Battle of London, the same erosion of rational thought, the same passion for the sheer coruscating force she wielded.
Clutching at his stomach wound, Church sat up and croaked, 'Ryan, she's losing it. Talk her down.'
'Ruth, darlin', you've beaten him, all right?' Veitch ran to her side.
She turned her fierce gaze on him, and for a second both Church and Veitch thought she was going to kill him on the spot.
After a moment some connection was made and her power receded, her eyes returning to normal.
'Oh, bravo.' The Libertarian stood further along the river's edge, clapping mockingly. 'What a fine fighting force you are! A conflicted leader, a psychopath, a woman on the edge of a breakdown and…' He glanced curiously at Shavi and Tom. 'Not quite sure what you two are. Irrelevant, I suppose.'
With mounting unease, Church saw the crackling force around Ruth begin to grow more intense again; her face darkened, her eyes glared.
'Oh, look. The trickster has torn open your true love,' the Libertarian said to Ruth mockingly. 'Why, it's a miracle he still lives. Ah, but then wait and see what little surprise I have waiting for him next-'
In her anger, Ruth lost control once more. Eddies of Blue Fire crackled above her head as she levelled the Spear of Lugh and released a blast of energy that the Libertarian avoided easily.
'Is that the best you can do? He'll be dead before you know. Frankly, you all will.'
'Ruth!' Church called. 'He won't kill me! If I die so does he!'
Filled with fury, Ruth didn't hear. Floating an inch above the floor, she raced towards the Libertarian, who stood, arms folded, unmoved.
Church couldn't understand what the Libertarian had planned until he saw emerald clouds unfolding rapidly further along the river channel. Rushing forwards, churning, the clouds were accompanied by the sound of doors being slammed open.
Lurching to his feet, Church called Ruth's name as Janus appeared from a door in the air beside the Libertarian, his dual faces shifting between black and white.
As Ruth bore down on the Libertarian, Janus used his key with a flourish and another door opened in the air directly in front of her. She disappeared into the gulf, and after a brief, mocking wave, the Libertarian followed, shouting, 'I really do need a new queen — that last one got a little damaged. And now I have one!' Within a second, Janus was gone too, and the only sound was the door in the air slamming with a terrible finality.
2
Time passed, though Ruth was no longer aware of it. Her eyes rolled back so that only the whites were visible. Behind her, Mictlantecuhtli extended a skeletal hand to draw the misty tendril that would play with her memories of grief and loss, corrupting her thoughts with their toxic load.
The Libertarian watched with a faint, mocking smile, as bogus as everything else about him. Inside, he was in turmoil. The peaceful equilibrium he had achieved since he had accepted his transformation was gone. Apart from the odd stray memory, he had thought that every part of his old life had been wiped away, but ever since he had been compelled to kiss what he thought was a just-dead Ruth in Greece, he had felt incomprehensible stirrings. Apparently, love crossed more barriers than he'd thought. He didn't want to believe that was true, for it would set up a disturbing sequence of self-analysis that could destroy his reassuring sense of what he had become: better. It meant he was still grounded in all that had gone before. It meant he was still corrupted by the foul stuff that eventually destroyed humans.
Yet now he could see a certain symmetry. Niamh and Ruth, the opposing faces of his former romantic life. One had come and gone, and now he could have the other, finally. By transforming her to become like him, they could be together, and the past could once again be eradicated.
And, as he had long believed, it would be the final act in his becoming. If Church could not have Ruth as a human, and could only gain her as the Libertarian, it was a choice he would always take. The future was sealed. All hope was gone.
3
'Church, mate, you've got to get a grip,' Veitch urged.
They'd raced along the bank of the stinking river until the roof had become too low to proceed further, and then had been forced to take winding, rough-cut steps back into the Fortress. The entire city-wide building appeared to be on fire. Choking smoke swept through the gloomy corridors, and the heat was rising by the minute. They had to shout to be heard above the noise of warfare, the blasts of fire from the Fabulous Beasts, the collapse of massive buildings that shook the ground, the constant, jarring rise and fall of the siren.
Church was consumed by his fears for Ruth, all thoughts of the destruction of the Burning Man now gone. With Caledfwlch drawn, he ran ahead of the others, moving inexorably towards the heart of the complex.
Veitch eventually caught up with him and dragged him to a halt. Church rounded on him, on the brink of striking out until Shavi interposed himself between the two. 'Church, we will rescue Ruth-'
'Don't you get it?' Church raged. 'This was the Libertarian's plan all along… my plan. Ruth will be consumed by her dark side and join with the Libertarian. I won't have lost her to you…' He shook his sword at Veitch. 'I'll have lost her to the worst aspects of myself. The only way I'll ever get her back is by becoming the Libertarian.'
Tom and Veitch's briefly exchanged glance was not missed. 'That's right,' Church continued. 'The only way you're going to stop me is by killing me.'
Weaving through the corridors ahead of them, he emerged from a large door into a vast circular area in the centre of the Fortress. It sloped down to an abyssal pit from which emerged the Burning Man, a wicker structure towering so high that the top was lost in the pall of smoke. Within the flaming structure, the bodies of gods writhed, their essence fuelling the focus of power that would soon attract the Void. The portion of the wicker structure Church could see was already filled with flames; the moment of arrival could not be far off.
Overhead, the Fabulous Beasts released random blasts of flame before they disappeared back into the smoke. Everything was painted with the hellish red glare of the fire.
Surging into the arena from every door on the perimeter was the Army of the Void, thousands upon thousands of Lament-Brood, marching with their mechanical undead step, Redcaps, roving like packs of wild beasts, and a tidal wave of the sallow-skinned brutish creatures.
'Okay, then.' Veitch had arrived at Church's shoulder. 'We just need to get through that lot and we're on course to give the Burning Man a bit of what-for.'
Shavi searched the surrounding buildings. 'No sign of Mallory and Caitlin with the Extinction Shears or Hunter with the Two Keys.'
Above the milling army, the air boiled, and amidst a thunderous sound of slamming doors that drowned out all other noise, Janus appeared. Floating in the air, he brandished the gold key, and from another door emerged a figure whose image eventually coalesced into that of a rotund oriental man at least ten feet tall, with a white moustache that drooped down to his feet. He was naked apart from a loincloth, but strands of human skulls hung down his body, clattering every time he shifted his bulk.
'Who's that git?' Veitch asked.
'His appearance suggests he is Yen-Lo-Wang, the Chinese god of
death and ruler of the Fifth Level of Hell,' Shavi replied. 'A very powerful god, with an aptitude for tormenting souls.'
As Yen-Lo-Wang raised his arms, the chaotic army became instantly silent and fell into step, as though he were a puppeteer pulling their strings. As one, the army turned to face Church and the others.
'Ragnarok,' Tom whispered. 'This is it — all the prophecies lead here.'
Shavi was distracted by the white stone flags of the arena. 'Something is not quite right here.' Deep in concentration, he caressed the flesh around his alien eye before he said, 'Beneath the flagstones there is a force, like the Blue Fire, but opposite. Black as the flames on Veitch's sword.'
'The Libertarian calls it "the Bad Blood",' Veitch said uncomfortably.
'It comes from the Void, like the Blue Fire comes from Existence. Normally there's not much of it around, but it's been getting stronger the closer the Void gets. You step anywhere near that, you're dead.'
'How are we going to get across there?' Church said.
'There is some kind of pattern,' Shavi said hesitantly. 'But I cannot see it.'
The Army of the Void moved forwards.
'Holy fucking shit,' Veitch said. 'What are we going to do now?'
'We fight,' Church said.
'I thought I had a bleedin' death wish.'
'I think I can beat you all on that front.' Hunter was sitting on the edge of a balcony above them. Behind him, Laura stood sheepishly, with Miller and Jack hanging back where Hunter had ordered them to wait. 'Come on, a little applause at the very least. I've fought my way through… ooh… thousands of these ne'er-do-wells. And I got the girl. That amounts to Epic Win in my book.'
'Shut up and get down here,' Veitch said. He nodded to Laura. 'You better now?'
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