Time locked, sealing him in that moment of connection with a presence he couldn’t begin to comprehend; it was his only world, alien and terrifying.
But then the bubble burst and everything rushed in with an unbearable frenzy. The thing on him became a whirlwind; limbs lashed (he couldn’t be sure if they were arms or legs or tentacles or something else), their sharpness tearing through his clothes, his skin. Desperately, he kicked and scrambled to free himself. Sickening sounds burst around him, at times high-pitched, then a low bass rumble, moving off the register; hot wetness suffused his clothing.
It lasted for only a few seconds and then the thing was away from him, bounding out of the pit with a single leap. Shattered by the attack, with blood seeping from him and the pain only just making its way to his brain, he was vaguely aware of the others yelling. Someone was shouting, ‘Attack! Attack!’ over and over again. Someone else was urging them to scatter. A crashing and splintering as the barriers were torn up was followed by a scream of agony, suddenly cut off.
Mallory’s consciousness returned with a lurch. However badly wounded he was - and he didn’t want to begin to check - he knew he had to get out of there quickly before the thing returned. He threw himself to his feet only to feel his legs turn to jelly, pitching him back down on to the ground. His head spun; nausea turned his stomach upside down. With a tremendous effort, he managed to find enough equilibrium to get him to the side of the pit, where he hauled himself up on his hands and knees.
At the surface it was as unbearably dark as it had been at the bottom. Night had fallen, the thick cloud cover obscuring all moonlight. It made the sounds even worse: cries off in the blackness, panicked, pained, the terrible thrashing of something enormous and unimaginably wild moving too fast for its size.
One thought surfacing above all others: We were led here, to find this.
Briefly, he wondered what he was going to do, but there was no way out apart from the way he had come in. It was all he could do to pick out the path amongst the rubble of the smashed branches and torn bramble. He had taken some sharp blows to the head and it felt as if concussion was coming on fast. Every time he moved he lost more blood; he could feel it running into his trousers, puddling in his boots. It made him light-headed, broke his thought processes even more, so that he could only really concentrate on the here and now: getting out of there as quickly as possible.
He lurched along the path, desperately trying to keep his balance so he didn’t plunge into one of the other pits, while at the same time continually wiping the stinging blood from his eyes. There was more frantic movement ahead, running, the sound of boots on grass, more crashing.
He blacked out briefly, waking to find himself face-down in the mud.
Somewhere there were screams. It felt like a nightmare, as if he wasn’t really there at all, merely watching himself going through inexplicable motions from a vantage point deep inside his head. Why was he trying to escape? Why was he there? What was moving just beyond his perception? And then the image of the fire in the dark, urging him to go forwards, not back.
Pulling himself to his feet once more, the brambles tore at his hands. One of the jagged branch-spikes ripped through his trousers into his calf. Away to his left he heard whimpering, instantly drowned out by the wind. ‘Miller?’ he called out feebly.
Before he could turn in search, there was another explosion of movement as the hunting thing launched itself from the periphery of his field of vision. He ducked just in time, but he felt it pass only inches over him to crash into the barriers ten feet to his left. He scrambled on, almost slipped into another pit, caught himself with his legs dangling over the abyss. More movement, more running, sounds bursting from periods of silence like explosions on a battlefield. His foot kicked something that bounced a few feet ahead of him: a severed hand, now caked in mud. It was impossible to tell which knight it belonged to, but the sight of it filled him with a deep dread, and he knew he would never be able to shake the image of it lying there, like discarded rubbish.
Somehow, he found himself near the display of skulls that marked the boundary, and then he was out, crossing the hill-fort, tripping over the holes in the turf, sliding down the ditches. He could barely walk, barely think. No one else was around, and he couldn’t help believing they were all dead.
He was too weak to walk far. He went down the hillside head over heels, ricocheting off tree trunks, crashing through bushes that ripped at his skin and hair, using his body weight to keep the roll going as die only way to put distance between himself and the monstrous thing that still roamed the hilltop.
Finally, he came to a halt, lying on his back without the slightest strength to move, staring up into nothingness. The night was torn by sounds that could never have come from a human throat. Mallory felt as if he was in hell.
Consciousness came in the grey light of morning. His body was a web of agony and he was frozen to the bone, but he was still alive, though he didn’t know how much longer that would be the case. From the state of his clothes he could tell he’d lost an inordinate amount of blood, and more leaked out each time he shifted. Shakes wracked his body repeatedly. His head felt stuffed with cotton wool as if he were on the verge of a debilitating migraine.
Nightmarish images flashed back from the previous night. He felt sick with shock, could barely believe he was still alive. A little joy filtered through, but it was dampened by the pain and his doubts for the safety of the others. He thought of the severed hand: one of them was certainly dead from blood loss. Could any of them have survived such an onslaught? He forced himself not to think about it, or the emotions that came with it.
Apprehensively, he peeled open his shirt. A gaping wound ran across his stomach, filled with blood. Other gashes lay open on his chest and arms, and for the first time he was thankful for the classes the Church authorities had inflicted on him during his training. Moving as carefully as he could, though still punctuated with devastating bursts of pain, he managed to free his haversack. At the bottom of it was the small medical kit they all carried with them for basic treatment on the road. First, he removed the small jar of antiseptic salve created in the medicines quarter that lay off the cathedral’s herb garden. Unscrewing the lid, he recoiled from the potent odour, as strong as any smelling salts. Then he removed the tin that contained the large needle and sturdy thread. This was going to test his willpower.
Dipping three fingers into the jar of salve, he gingerly dabbed it on the stomach wound. The pain made him cry out, but he could instantly feel the area numbing. He left it a couple of minutes before threading the needle. He didn’t have anything to sterilise it with, so he hoped the salve would do its job.
The first stitch was agony. His stomach turned as he watched it pulling the two flaps of flesh together. By the fourth stitch, the sight was not so disturbing and he learned to cope with the pain by chewing on the end of his leather belt. When he had finished, he tied a knot as he had been taught, then rested for five minutes before moving on to the next wound.
It took him an hour to finish the entire job. By then he felt like a shadow; he didn’t want to guess how much blood he had lost. He really needed a transfusion, a few days’ bed rest. Instead, he was lying on wet ground in the middle of the countryside. He just hoped he had the strength to mount his horse and reach one of the villages that bordered the Plain.
It took him fifteen minutes to get to his feet using a tree trunk as support, and even then he felt as if he was going to collapse with every step he took. At first, he lurched from tree to tree, pausing every now and then to dry-retch, but after a while he found it in himself to stagger unsupported. Even so, he lost his footing several times before he reached the bottom of the hill. There he found the remains of the horses; it looked as if they had been hacked to pieces by a chainsaw. He fought back the despair; it wouldn’t help him. He’d just have to walk.
The day was a little brighter than the previous one, with no sign of rain, but it was still windy
. He remembered where they had seen the church steeple poking above the trees and thought he would use that as a marker and head for it. Yet when he eventually skirted the foot of the hill there was no sign of the steeple anywhere. It made no sense to him at all, but he didn’t have the energy to consider what it meant. Using the occasional glimpses of the sun as a guide, he set off in what was undoubtedly the right direction. In his weakened state he could barely keep his eyes on the horizon; his concentration was mainly occupied with staying on his feet, staying alive. Many times, his consciousness slipped sideways so that he was moving in a dream-state, observing his surroundings without being aware of them; this condition became more and more the norm, and the remaining rational part of him knew that he was dying.
He should have reached the neighbouring village within the half-hour; it never materialised, nor did any of the roads he knew skirted that edge of the Plain. He wondered if he had somehow got turned around and was heading back into the wilderness, but the surrounding landscape told him otherwise. Rolling grassland lay all around, rich and fertile, punctuated by copses and small woods. The trees were oddly fully leafed as if it were midsummer rather than crisp autumn, and there was an abundance of wild flowers scattered across the area in blues, reds and yellows.
He slept regularly, usually where he stumbled, and on one occasion he attempted to eat some of the travel biscuits, but he immediately vomited them straight back up. In his daze, time slopped in haste. He would close his eyes in a moment’s thought and clouds would have scudded across the sky, or the quality of the light would have changed.
He came to a small, winding track of well-trodden earth and without thinking began to follow it. It eventually led to a quaintly constructed small stone bridge over a tinkling brook where he was suddenly overcome with a tremendous thirst. He made his way tentatively down the side of the bridge, through the thick brookside vegetation, and scooped up handfuls of water, splashing it into his mouth and across his burning face. He was stunned at how wonderful it tasted, vibrant, with complex flavours, like no water he had ever sampled before. He immediately felt a little better, his thoughts sharper, his limbs a tad more energised. He continued along the track beyond the bridge with a little more vigour.
Twilight came sooner than he anticipated, the trees growing ghostly as the grassland turned grey. Most of the clouds had disappeared, so he could clearly see a crescent moon gleaming among myriad glittering stars. It was surprisingly balmy, with moths fluttering above the grass.
Where am I? he thought, without really giving the question much weight.
A little further on, he noticed a light glowing amongst the trees away to his left. Hope filled him that at last he might be able to find somewhere to rest. The path forked and he took the track that led directly towards the light, the other branch heading in a near-straight line across the landscape.
As he approached the trees, other lights became visible, like golden fireflies in the growing gloom. Lanterns had been strung amongst the branches and from their vicinity he could now hear voices, some raised though not threatening, others lower in conversation. It brought his consciousness another step back from the misty region where it had retreated, so that he was alert enough to experience surprise when he saw what lay ahead.
Amongst the trees, illuminated by the hanging lanterns, lay a large market stretching far into die depths of the wood. On the periphery there were only a few stalls and browsers, but further into the depths he could see that it was bustling. The air was filled with the aroma of smoke and barbecued meat, along with unusual perfumes and spices he couldn’t quite identify. The raised voices were the traders encouraging people to examine their wares, and somewhere there was music, singing voices accompanying some stringed instrument that set his spirits soaring.
Obliquely, he knew how strange it was for a market to be held at that time of evening in such an isolated location, but he was so attracted by the sights and sounds it barely registered. Nor did he truly notice how unusual some of the market-goers were. They were dressed in ancient attire that echoed a range of periods - medieval robes and Elizabethan doublets, wide-brimmed hats, long cloaks, broad belts and thigh-high boots - while some were unusually tall and thin, and others uncommonly short. Their features were the most striking. Every face was filled with character, eyebrows too bushy, noses too pointed, eyes astonishingly bright or beady, so that they resembled pictures of people from another time rather than the familiar blandly modern features he was used to. Indeed, some of them were almost cartoonish in appearance, and if Mallory had looked closely, he would have seen that their skin had a strange waxy sheen, as if they were wearing masks over their true faces.
His attention wandered as he entered the market. The detail of his surroundings was almost hallucinogenic, the sights, sounds and smells miasmic after the tranquillity of the countryside. But while he was lost in the swirl of life, he was unaware that many of those around watched him carefully and curiously, with only a hint of suspicion, and occasionally a hint of threat.
After the initial fascination had worn off, Mallory grabbed a passer-by by the sleeve and mumbled, ‘Where is this place?’
The man he had stopped was thickset with a long bushy beard and piercing dark eyes. He wore a beige cloak, fastened at the throat with a gold clasp, over clothes that reminded Mallory of an Elizabethan pirate. ‘Why, this is the Market of Wishful Spirit,’ he said in an oddly inflected voice, as if Mallory were sub-educational. Mallory didn’t notice how the man’s words came a split second after his lips moved.
Mallory staggered on his way, his concentration coming and going. In that place, everything seemed like even more of a dream, the light from the lanterns too golden and hazy, the music growing louder then softer as though someone were tuning in a radio station.
Mallory’s attention was briefly caught by the produce on sale at the stalls. On many there were items he might have expected - vegetables, clothes (though strange in appearance), gold and silver jewellery of unusual design, furs, perfumes in wondrously designed bottles of multicoloured glass - but others displayed goods that left him thinking it really was a dream. There was a rock in a gilded cage that spoke with the voice of a small boy, a purple jewel encasing a tiny man and a woman of dismal expression who hammered at the walls of their prison, a hat that supposedly made its wearer invisible, a mirror showing continually changing views of alien landscapes, and many more, some too astonishing to comprehend.
‘Here! Over here!’
Mallory looked around at the call. A skeletal man in a black robe that appeared to be made of tatters was beckoning to him. Mallory drifted over.
‘A Fragile Creature,’ the trader said in a rasping voice, ‘abroad in the Far Lands in these times. I thought I was mistaken.’
‘I need to get some medical help.’ Mallory supported himself on the edge of the trader’s stall. The world was growing dark on the fringes.
‘First examine my wares,’ the trader said. ‘They come from distant Kalashstan on the edge of the Terminal Waste. Very rare, very wondrous.’
‘I don’t have any money,’ Mallory said, distracted. He needed to move on, find someone to aid him quickly.
‘There are many ways to pay,’ the trader said slyly. He held up a pair of scissors with long golden blades. ‘Here. The Extinction Shears that cut the weft of existence. Very rare, but within your grasp for a very small consideration. Very small, barely noticeable. Or here.’ This time he raised a face mask of a screaming man constructed from silver and studded with emeralds. ‘A Gon-Drunning. It will allow you to see into the dreams of your friends and enemies.’
‘No.’ Mallory looked around, bewildered. The darkness was even closer now, like the shadow of an enemy sweeping up on him from behind. ‘I have to go. I have to …’
The market began to swim. He was vaguely aware of the trader leaning forwards to peer at him closely with predatory eyes, and then others nearby stopping to stare, smiling malignly as if a pretence were
no longer necessary. They began to move forwards just as the darkness rushed in and he collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER SIX
into heaven
‘Although we cannot choose what happens to us, we can choose how we respond.’
- Epictetus
Mallory woke on a pile of furs on a long, low bed in the corner of a darkened room. The windows were flung open, revealing the silhouettes of trees beneath a starry sky. The perfumes of a summery wood floated in on the breeze.
Cautiously, he raised himself on his elbows. It took him a second or two to comprehend his state, but more important than his location was the realisation that he felt astonishingly well: refreshed, free from pain, his thoughts once again sharp and focused. He swung his legs off the bed and sat on the edge before examining the injuries on his chest. His clumsy stitches were all gone and the deep wounds themselves had almost healed. It didn’t make sense to him at all. How long had he been unconscious?
In confusion, he went to the window. He was in a wing of a low building made of stone with a timber and thatched roof that stretched out for a hundred feet on either side; the architecture was unfamiliar. It was in a large clearing in a wood. Close-clipped grass ran down to the trees, and here and there torches blazed. There was no sign of life.
Instinctively, Mallory went for his sword - it was no longer there.
‘No weapons are allowed in the Court of Peaceful Days.’
Mallory whirled at the sound of the voice, though it was melodic and gentle. A woman stood in the open doorway, smiling enigmatically. When Mallory looked into her face, it took a while before he understood what he was seeing. At first he thought it was his mother, who had died ten years ago, then the Virgin Mary, then the dinner lady who was always kind to him during his lonely, troubled days at school. Finally, her features settled into those of a woman in her late forties, long black hair framing a face that was still beautiful, with lines of happiness around her mouth and eyes. She was wearing a dark blue dress that appeared to be made of velvet yet reflected the light of the torches filtering through the window. A mysterious quality to her made him feel instantly at ease.
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