World's End

by Mark Chadbourn

  “I am who I am, Miss Boring Pants. Like it or lump it.”

  “Really? You expect me to believe DuSantiago is your real name? Lots of South Americans in Salisbury, I suppose. And you really haven’t tried hard to build up that cool, hard exterior? Yeah, right.”

  “Nice sermon. Pity you’re talking out of your arse. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “That’s the problem. If you opened up, we could start trusting you … if you really want to help.”

  “Don’t go getting all touchy-feely, New Agey on me. I’m not one for hugs and baring my soul.” A stone bounced off the bonnet of a Volvo and set the car alarm blaring. Laura turned back to Ruth, her face lit by the flashing indicator lights. “I’m as committed to this as you are. That’s all you need to know.”

  “No, it’s-” Ruth caught her tongue as Church emerged from the pub.

  “So … a night in the car. Should be very restful,” he said ironically.

  “Lucky me. I get the bijou back seat.” When Laura dropped into step next to Church, Ruth felt an odd twinge of loneliness, as if she were slowly being cut out.

  “You think we’ll be safe there?” she said.

  “As safe as anywhere. At least we’ll be able to drive off if anything happens.” He laughed quietly to himself.

  Ruth trailed behind them, overcome by the sudden knowledge that her friendship with Church had become deeper than she realised. How had that happened? she wondered. Their situation was complicated enough without bringing emotions into the fray, but somehow the whole stupid mess had blindsided her. She looked at Laura and hated herself for feeling a twinge of jealousy that the cosy relationship she had with Church was being interrupted. She just hoped she was level-headed enough to prevent her feelings from getting in the way during the difficult times ahead.

  Church woke at first light. His joints ached, his feet felt like ice and there was a band of pain across his thigh where his leg had been jammed under the steering wheel. Sleep had been intermittent, troubled by the discomfort of his quarters, nightmares and fears of things off in the dark. He resolved to buy a tent for any future emergencies. But the moment he wiped the condensation from the window with the back of his hand, any grumbles were swept away by the beauty of the early spring day. The sun was just breaking above the horizon, painting the few clouds golden beneath a sky that was slowly turning blue. Among the stones a faint mist rose and drifted, and a stillness lay across the whole area. From his viewpoint, there was no sign of the twentieth century; it could have been anytime. The thought sent prickles down his spine, adding to the haunting quality of the moment that left him feeling like he had been cut adrift from the life he once knew.

  Ruth and Laura were still sleeping. He was instantly struck by how beautiful they both looked, in their own ways, once the troubles of the day were stripped from their faces.

  But as he wondered if he should wake them, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye that jolted him alert. A man was perched on a fencepost next to a hawthorn hedge, eyeing the car intently. Church had to look twice to convince himself it was what he had seen; the watcher was old, thin and angular with skin so sun-browned he seemed almost like a spindly tree growing out of the hedge. He was holding a long, gnarled wooden staff that must have been at least six feet tall, and his grey-black hair hung lank and loose around his shoulders. Apart from his clothes-mud-spattered sandals, well-worn, baggy brown trousers and a white cheesecloth shirt open to the waist-he resembled nothing so much as the pictures Church had seen of the men who helped raise the stones and build the longbarrows that were scattered across the landscape.

  “Who is that?” Ruth’s voice was sleepy. She rubbed her bleary eyes as she leaned close to Church to peer at the onlooker.

  Laura stirred and after a few seconds she too was up, resting her elbows on the backs of their seats. She already had on her sunglasses. “Probably just a peeping tom,” she said throatily. “Thought we’d been having a little three-way here in the car. Let’s put on a show-see if he goes blind.”

  “Just some local,” Church muttered. He opened the door and climbed out. The air was chilly despite the sun, and he couldn’t prevent a convulsive shiver. The only sound was that of the birds in chorus. Ruth and Laura joined him, pulling their coats tight about them, stamping their feet to start their circulation.

  The old man’s eyes never left them as they walked the short distance to the fencepost. Up close, the most startling quality was the colour of his eyes, which were as blue as a summer sky, and given more power by the brownness of his skin. Church couldn’t tell his exact age, although he guessed from the wrinkles on the man’s face that he was in his sixties.

  “Morning,” Church said.

  “Morning,” the man replied impassively.

  “Early start,” Church noted.

  “Aye. Same as you.”

  Church wished he had some idea of exactly what they were trying to unearth. Although the lantern had brought them to Avebury, it didn’t seem to be much help in establishing an exact location. “Seen anything strange going on round here recently?”

  “Depends what you mean,” the old man said slyly. “I see lots of strange things in my travels. I’ve covered the country from Orkney to Scilly a hundred times in my life and every place I’ve stopped there’s been something strange.”

  “You’re not a local?” Church gave the man a renewed examination; there were none of the slightly odd features or waxy skin that disguised what the woman in the Watchtower had called the Night Walkers, but Church felt suspicious nonetheless.

  “I’m local wherever I go.”

  Church was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable in the old man’s presence. There was a faintly threatening air about him and his gaze was becoming more dissecting, as if he knew exactly who Church was.

  The old man glanced away across the stones and when he looked back, his eyes were cold and hard. “You cause any trouble here and there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Who are you?” Ruth asked.

  “I guard the old places. Keep an eye on the hidden treasures, the undisturbed burials, the sacred spots. From the Scottish Isles to the South Downs, Land’s End to the Fens.” He grabbed his staff tightly with hands that looked much stronger than his years suggested. “Sleeping under the stars, watching out for the grave robbers and the sackers and the vandals. Tending to the land, you might say. Some call me the Stone Shepherd-“

  “The Bone Inspector.” Ruth recalled Tom’s account of the man who had first alerted him to the crisis. “Tom mentioned your name.”

  “And where is he?” he said gruffly.

  Church and Ruth glanced at each other uncomfortably.

  “He’s fallen already, has he? And you are the ones he was looking for?” His expression suggested he wasn’t impressed.

  “Who are you exactly, and what do you know about what’s going on?” Church insisted.

  “And who are you to ask questions of me?” As Church began to answer, the old man waved him silent dismissively. “There’s been a Bone Inspector since these stones were put up. When one dies, there’s always another ready and waiting to take over. In the old days there were lots of us. The keepers of wisdom, we were, worshipping in the groves, tutoring the people. Now there’s just me.”

  In his eyes, Church saw the flat, grey sky over Callanish and the green fields around the Rollrights. In his voice there were echoes of the solemn chant of ancient rituals. But there was the hardness of nature in him too, and Church knew he would be a fool to cross him. The old man held the staff more like a weapon than a walking aid, and his lean limbs were sinewy and powerful.

  “How did you find out that everything had changed?” Church asked.

  “I felt it in the land. In the force that sings to you if you’re of a mind to listen.”

  “The blue fire?”

  “Aye, that’s one way of seeing it.” He banged his staff gently on the turf. “It’s all changing, going
back to the way it was. The cities haven’t felt it yet, but out in the country they’re starting to know. People are keeping clear of the quiet places, specially after dark. There’ve been a load of disappearances and a few deaths, all put down to accidents so far. They’ll know the truth soon enough. I was up at Arbor Low in the Peaks the other day and I saw a wolf that walks like a man. Just a glimpse, mind you, away in the wild. But when I went to look I found an arm. Or what was left of it.”

  “Gross!” Laura made a face.

  “That’s when I knew for sure, even though I’d felt the change long before. Soon they’re going to have to redraw all the maps. No one will know this land, see. It will be all new, and terrible. Even some of the lost places are coming back. I saw …” He caught himself and looked into the middle distance. “Well, there’ll be time enough for that later.”

  There was an uneasy note in his voice that made them all feel uncomfortable. They shifted from foot to foot, not really knowing what to say.

  Eventually he broke his reverie and turned back to them, his face dark. “And now you three rabbits are here. You look like troublemakers to me. Maybe I should be seeing you off.” He raised his staff menacingly. Church held up his arm in instinctive protection and instantly the staff was performing a deft, twisting manoeuvre that was so fast it was almost a blur. It flicked Church’s arm to one side, then cracked him obliquely on the elbow, too gently to hurt. But in an instant fiery lances of pain ran up to his shoulder and he crumpled at the waist in agony. Ruth stepped in to help, but the Bone Inspector thrust the staff between her calves and twisted, knocking her to the floor. In one fluid movement, the staff came up to point directly at Laura’s throat. “Now you better be telling me what you’re doing here,” he said in a voice like flint.

  Church drew himself upright, rubbing his elbow furiously, and then took a sudden step back when the staff was levelled at him. “Take it easy,” he said as calmly as he could muster. “We’re not here to cause any trouble for you.”

  “We’re looking for something,” Ruth added hastily. “One of the four talismans.”

  The Bone Inspector knew exactly what she meant. “You’ll never find them.”

  “We have to,” Church said. “Or else- Well, you tell me the or else bit.”

  The Bone Inspector lowered the staff and looked at them slyly again. “Who are you to think you can do something about it?”

  A thought jumped in Church’s mind. “We’re the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons,” he said.

  It was the confirmation for which he was obviously waiting. “So Thomas did find you,” he said thoughtfully. “You don’t look like much. How do I know you’re who you say you are?”

  “Wait here.” Church returned to the car and came back with the lantern. “Would I have this if I wasn’t?”

  The Bone Inspector laid down his staff and approached, almost deferentially. Gently, he reached out his hands until they were on either side of the lantern, though being careful not to touch it. The flame flared brightly, painting his skin blue. “The Wayfinder,” he said in awe. “I’d heard it was no longer of the land.”

  “It wasn’t,” Church said. “I brought it back.”

  The Bone Inspector cursed under his breath. “And you don’t know what you’ve got, do you? Leaving it in the bloody car! Are you mad, man?” Church shifted uncomfortably. “Keep it with you at all times,” the Bone Inspector said with irritation. “Don’t ever let it fall into the wrong hands.”

  Now it was out in the open, close to the circle they could see the flame was gradually rotating. “That must mean we’re in the right place,” Ruth said. “But where do we start looking? And what exactly are we looking for?” she added with exasperation.

  “And why here?” Church said.

  The Bone Inspector shook his head, contemptuous of their lack of knowledge. “Stonehenge may be better known, but this is the place. It doesn’t look like much now, thanks to those Bible-obsessed fools in the last century who pulled all the stones down because they thought they were the Devil’s work. But it’s the most important place in the land, the source of all the power. That’s why I’m here, now, to be in the most important place at the time when I’m most likely to be needed.” He knelt down and marked out a wide arc with his arm. “Imagine it getting on for five thousand years ago-a sacred site stretching three miles. Here was the main temple, two stone circles surrounded by a circular ditch twenty-five feet deep with a bank fifteen feet high. And approaching it from either side were two gently curving avenues, a mile and a half long, each of them, marked out by ten-foot-high stones. Can you imagine the work that went into that? And they wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t have a reason.”

  “This is the source of the blue energy?” Church asked. “The Earth Magic?”

  “This is the place where it’s strongest. It’s a Dracontium, a Serpent Temple, so called because of the way the avenues snaked. There were no straight lines back then-we have the bloody Romans to thank for that. But that’s not the only reason-the dragon is the symbol of the Earth’s power.”

  “And the Fabulous Beasts are drawn to it too,” Ruth said thoughtfully as she tried to imagine the scene without any of the houses cluttering up the line of sight.

  “You’ve heard of them, have you?” Ruth could tell from his expression that he suddenly saw her in a different light. “Well, that’s another reason why this is the Serpent Temple.”

  “What do you mean?” Ruth said.

  “Sometimes,” he said with a sly smile, “when you put your ear to the ground you can hear it roar.”

  Church, Ruth and Laura looked at each other, unable to tell if he was joking. Before they could ask him further, he stiffened and turned suddenly in the direction of Windmill Hill, the ancient site which looked over the village a few miles away. His brow furrowing, he stared hard, although none of them could tell what he was seeing. After a moment, he said, “We’re being watched.”

  They followed his gaze, but could see nothing across the countryside. “Where?” Ruth asked.

  “Up there. On top of the hill.”

  “Right,” Laura mocked, sneering at the distance that turned the hill to a blur of green beneath the blue. “Tell me what’s happening in Birmingham while you’re at it.”

  The Bone Inspector ignored her, squinted, concentrated. “I see a tight flurry of crows, swirling madly like a black cloud. And at their heart is a man. Not a man, a monster. And with him are more monsters.”

  “Monsters.” The breath caught in Church’s throat.

  “They’re here for us,” Ruth said. “You have to help us.” He stared at her coldly. “Please help us.”

  “How should I know what to do?” he replied sourly. “I know as much about the resting place of the talismans as the next man, and it’s something I wouldn’t want to know.”

  “But one of the talismans is here somewhere. The lantern is telling us that,” Ruth continued. “You know the place better than anyone. Where do you think it would be?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, weighing up her worth, then he said, “In a hidden place.” His pause carried his doubt about revealing too much, but something in Ruth’s face prompted him to continue. “All the old sites have hidden places. It’s part of my job to make sure they stay hidden, away from prying fingers that might destroy them, and by doing so destroy the land itself.”

  “You have to show us,” Ruth said with passion. “If we don’t find the talismans the land will be destroyed anyway.”

  “You better not be making an idiot of me.” He made a clicking sound at the back of his throat, then whirled on his heel and strode out powerfully across the grass. He came to a stop five minutes later beside a large megalith which cast an imposing shadow across the land in the dawn sunlight. “The Devil’s Chair,” he said, nodding to it. “The villagers here say if you run around it a hundred times you’ll hear the voice of the Devil. But it isn’t the Devil they hear.”

  “If I ran ar
ound it a hundred times I’d hear the sound of my stomach coming out through my mouth,” Laura said.

  “Three times widdershins will do,” the Bone Inspector said, leading them around the stone. They felt stupid, traipsing in line like primary school children, but by the third revolution they experienced the buzz of the earth energy in the air, creating a resonance which began to creep along the meridians of their bodies from the base of their spines. “Now, quickly, along West Kennet Avenue,” the old man said.

  He hurried up a steep embankment and skidded down the other side before crossing a road and darting through a gate. Two rows of concrete markers led to the largest group of megaliths they had seen, stretching out in an avenue across the fields. As they moved forward, shimmers of blue shot out from beneath their soles and the tingling in their spines had now reached the base of their skulls. Church felt like he was hallucinating; the dappled patterns of light and shadow across the landscape seemed to move fluidly and unusual bursts of sound kept breaking through into his ears. When the ground began to open up in the centre of the avenue ahead of them, he at first thought it was a vision. But the Bone Inspector hurried them along and then they were scrambling down into the dark as the turf and soil closed behind them with a rumble.

  As the Bone Inspector had seen them, the creatures on Windmill Hill had seen the strange ritual that opened the secret way to the hidden place. They were prevented from venturing into the station of light and life, but when the earth spewed out the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, they would be waiting. Rapidly they moved towards Avebury, keeping to the hedges and ditches and whatever feeble shadows the landscape offered. But the occasional villager who glanced out of their window at that early hour would have seen only one thing: a cloud of crows churning so tightly, it was impossible to tell how they could keep aloft: a vortex of black, beak and talon, man-shaped and moving with resolute power.

  “Where are we?” Church asked, blinking in the gloom. He held up the lantern, which provided enough eerie blue light to see. The air was dank and filled with the odour of loam. The hollow echo of dripping water resounded from somewhere nearby.