World's End

by Mark Chadbourn

  “It’s a good thing this mission is based on trust,” Laura said ironically before slipping off her boots and planting her feet on the windscreen.

  “Bet that position feels familiar,” Ruth said sharply. Laura showed her middle finger over her shoulder.

  Church rested one hand on the crate they’d picked up from the grocer’s to store the stone, the sword and the cauldron; it seemed faintly sacrilegious, but the need for easy, well-disguised transport was more pressing. He could almost feel the power of the talismans through his fingertips. And sometimes it was like he could feel them talking to him, incomprehensible whispers curling like smoky tendrils around his mind. Part of it made him tremble with awe; another part of it made his skin crawl. “I feel nervous carrying these things around with us.”

  “The Fomorii can’t touch them,” Tom noted.

  “They’ll just get somebody else to do their dirty work.” He paused. “Now we’re out of Glastonbury, does that mean we’re meat for the Wild Hunt again?”

  Tom nodded.

  “We’d better make sure we’re somewhere secure by nightfall,” Ruth said.

  “How about some music?” Laura went to turn on the radio. Ruth told her to wait while she pulled a cassette out of her bag and threw it up front. Laura made a face, but put it in the machine anyway. A second later Sinatra began to sing about flying off to foreign climes for excitement and romance.

  Church’s face brightened with surprise. “I thought we’d lost this!”

  “Even the Wild Hunt didn’t want it,” Laura said sulkily.

  Ruth flashed him a grin and he smiled thankfully; he found real comfort in the way she seemed instinctively to know him. If nothing else, the previous few weeks had given him a true friend.

  The Wayfinder led them back to the M5 motorway and then north in the bright, warm sunshine. The van ran as good as new after the repairs, but the cost had made them worry about their funds. They all had credit cards and made their monthly payments by phone transfer from their savings accounts, but their reserves weren’t endless.

  Shavi was talkative on a range of subjects and Laura kept the banter going, but Veitch hardly said a word. His confrontation with the results of his actions seemed to have had a profound effect on him; above all, it appeared to have confirmed his own worst fears about himself. Church began to worry that Tom’s assessment of Veitch had been correct and he resolved to talk to him as soon as he could get him alone.

  They picked up the M4 and headed west into Wales, which, as Shavi noted, was an obvious destination, with its rich Celtic history and links to Arthurian legend.

  “So, we’re talking themes here,” Laura noted. “Church has got his sword, so that makes him the big, fat king. I guess the tattooed boy here is Lancelot, the old hippie would be Merlin, Miss Gallagher back there acts like Queen Bee so I suppose she’s Guinevere.” She slapped a hand hard on Shavi’s thigh. “Don’t know what that makes you and me, though.”

  “Is that it?” Ruth said with the excitement of someone who’s just seen the light. “We’re, like, some kind of reincarnation-“

  “No, that’s too literal,” Church said insistently. “And I keep saying this, but those are just stories. There was no Round Table or chivalrous knights. Arthur, if he existed at all, was a Celtic warlord-“

  “So the historians say.” Tom pronounced the word with faint contempt.

  “I’m not even going to begin talking to you about it.” Church waved his hand dismissively. “You’ll keep us talking round in circles and then tell us nothing new.”

  Laura grabbed the rag Shavi used to wipe the windows and threw it hard at Tom’s head. “Come on, you old git. Spill the beans or we’re going to tie you up and drag you along behind the van.”

  He glared at her and readjusted his glasses.

  “Brothers and Sisters of Dragons,” Shavi mused. “Could that have something to do with Pendragon, Arthur’s family name?”

  Church shook his head. “Pendragon is a mixture of Celtic and old Welsh meaning Chief Leader. The word root has nothing to do with dragons.”

  “Or perhaps,” Tom said, as if he were dealing with idiots, “it’s simply another manifestation of the duality which is at the heart of everything.”

  “That means double meanings, Laura,” Ruth called out.

  “Come on, Tom, you can’t do this to us,” Church protested.

  “Yeah, come on, Tom.” Laura looked around the dashboard for something else to throw.

  Tom noticed her and said hastily, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you now. You’re almost there anyway. You’re not reincarnations in the literal sense that you mean, but you do carry within you the essence that the legends speak of. The Pendragon Spirit. It is a subtle power, a state of mind, an ability which is gifted to some to defend the land. That’s the true meaning of the legend.”

  “So Arthur and the knights are also a metaphor for this Pendragon spirit?” Church said.

  “So we’re descendants or something?” Laura said quizzically.

  Tom shook his head. “The land gifts it to the most deserving. It chooses the ones who’ll defend it the best.”

  “It screwed up this time, didn’t it.” Veitch continued to stare out of the passenger window.

  “That is … a tremendous burden,” Church said.

  “Yeah, if you believe this,” Laura said.

  “You’re still at the start of your journey.” Tom delved into his knapsack for the tin where he kept his drugs. “The journey that the Tarot delineates. At the moment you’re all the Fool. When you come out at the other end, you’ll be aware of the true meaning of the Pendragon Spirit.”

  “The ones who survive,” Church said. He fought to damp down a sudden flash of the portent of his death.

  “The ones who survive,” Tom agreed.

  “There is something happening here,” Shavi interrupted. They felt the van slow down sharply and Ruth, Church and Tom clambered forward to peer through the windscreen. The motorway ahead was blocked by a row of emergency vehicles. Police were directing traffic up the slipway at the next exit. Ominously, Church could see army trucks on the deserted road ahead and some troops with guns discreetly positioned near the central reservation and the opposite bank. “Where are we?”

  “Just past Cardiff,” Shavi said.

  As they pulled off slowly, Shavi wound down the window and asked a policeman what was wrong. “An accident,” he said with a face like stone. “Now be on your way. And keep to the diversions.”

  “I’ve never seen the army brought in for an accident,” Veitch said.

  “They’re covering it up, aren’t they?” Ruth sat down behind Shavi’s seat. “They know what’s going on. Or if they don’t know exactly what’s happening, they know something out of the ordinary has hit the country. They’d have to know. And they’re trying to stop everyone finding out so there isn’t a panic.”

  “Like holding back the waves.” Tom’s voice was quiet, but the words fell like stones.

  “What do you think’s happened down there, then?” Laura seemed suddenly uneasy.

  “Must be something bad to close off the whole motorway,” Witch said. “It’ll be causing chaos on all the roads around.”

  “It seems like a great deal has happened during the two weeks we were away,” Shavi said darkly.

  An uncomfortable silence filled the van as they joined the queues of traffic.

  Although the Wayfinder continued to point west, they found it hard to follow its direction; a whole section of the country seemed to have been closed off with police and army barricades. But although they constantly checked the radio news broadcasts, there was no information about what was happening.

  Just as they were considering abandoning the van and setting off on foot, they finally managed to break away from the main route and weave along deserted country roads through the soaring Welsh hills and mountains. There was an unearthly desolation to the countryside; no tractors in the fields, no pedestr
ians, although they could see lights in houses and smoke curling from chimneys.

  Eventually they started to swing south-westwards until they hit one of the main tourist drags to the coast. Their speedy journey marked how effective the authorities had been at driving traffic away. Veitch, who was in charge of map reading, pointed out a small town, Builth Wells, which lay ahead of a long stretch of open countryside. They all agreed it would be a good place to stop for food, rest, and to see if any of the locals had any idea what was happening nearby.

  But the closer they got to the town, the more they realised something was wrong. Even on the main road in there was no traffic, while the only sign of movement was a flurry of newspaper pages caught in the wind sweeping across the huge showground where the Welsh agricultural fair was held each year. They all fell silent as they crossed the old stone bridge over the River Wye that marked the entrance to the town proper, faces held rigid as they scanned the area.

  “It’s a ghost town,” Veitch said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

  The van swung on to the one-way system that took them up the High Street where shops which should have been bustling at that time of day stood eerily empty. Cars were parked on the right, but they could have been left there days ago for all they knew. Nothing moved anywhere. Shavi wound down the window in the hope of hearing something they were missing, but the silence was so intense it made them feel queasy.

  “Do you think they’ve been evacuated?” Ruth asked.

  Church didn’t give voice to what his instincts were telling him.

  They followed the one-way system round to a nearly full car park alongside the river where Shavi pulled into a bay and switched off the engine.

  “What are you doing?” Veitch said. “You could have left it anywhere.”

  Shavi shrugged. “What can I say? In situations like this, I find comfort in following old routines.”

  “Head-in-the-sand dude,” Laura chided, but they were all reluctant to get out.

  Eventually Church led them from the car park up a side road to the High Street, where they argued about what to do.

  “Wake up,” Laura said. “It’s deserted. Looting is an option.”

  “That’s just what I’d expect from someone with your easy morals,” Ruth snapped. “It’s still stealing.”

  Veitch emerged from a health food store chewing on a cheese and onion pastie. “It’s still fresh,” he said. “Wherever they’ve gone, it’s only just happened.”

  Shavi looked up and down the street, noting the open doors. “If they were evacuated, they would have locked up at least.”

  Despite Ruth’s initial opposition, they agreed to take some of the fresh food which would spoil quickly. Veitch and Laura picked up a couple of bags and headed into the health food store, the baker’s and the butcher’s with what Ruth noted as undue glee.

  “Least you won’t need your gun this time,” she said sourly to Veitch as he passed.

  Church and Shavi left her with Tom while they explored further up the street. Church had quickly learned to value the Asian’s quick insight and measured views; Shavi’s obvious intelligence and ability to keep a cool head under pressure made Church feel some of the weight had been taken off his shoulders.

  “What do you think, then?” Church turned and looked back down the length of the High Street and beyond to the dangerous face of nature rising up in thickly wooded hills all around.

  “I think everything out there is getting braver. Villages, small towns … they do not seem concerned by them any more. The problem is, the enemy is not one group-it is a complete existence that is so alien to us any contact is destructive.”

  “So can we hold back the new Dark Age?”

  “This is a world of the subconscious, of nightmares and shadows. Those things are always more powerful than their opposites.”

  “So we’re wasting our time?”

  “We are doing the best we can.” Shavi smiled wanly.

  They were both suddenly alerted by a faint sound which seemed to emanate from a tiny cobbled alley which ran at breathtaking steepness upwards between two shops; it sounded like a firecracker in the silence.

  “What was that?” Church asked.

  They both moved forward to the foot of the alley. At the top they could see a parked car, a house, blue sky; no movement. Church put one foot on the cobbles, but Shavi placed a restraining hand on his arm. They stood motionless for a minute until they heard the noise again; the inhuman sound was like an insectile chittering laid over the cry of a baby. A second later a grey shape flitted across the other end of the alleyway, too quick to make out its true form.

  “We should get out of here,” Church said.

  Another movement; there seemed to be more than one of them.

  They sprinted back down the High Street, where Ruth was leaning against the wing of a car. She caught their expressions and asked what was wrong.

  “Where are the others?” Church snapped.

  “The criminal fraternity are back in the health food store. Tom’s gone into that clothing store.” She pointed across the street. “Are you going to tell me what’s happening? Is there something here?” She jumped off the car, glancing around anxiously.

  “You two get Veitch and Laura and head back to the van. I’ll find Tom.” He sprinted into the clothing store, past racks of waterproofs and outdoor wear. Tom was in the back, trying on a pair of walking boots.

  “Come on,” Church said. “We don’t have time for that. Bring them with you if you want.”

  Tom stood up instantly at the insistence in Church’s voice. “Fomorii?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Tom didn’t need any more prompting. He hurried behind Church to the entrance, but as they stepped out into the street they both saw movement at the top end of the High Street: fleeting shapes that looked almost ghostly flashed back and forth across the road.

  “You’re the expert,” Church said. “What are they?”

  Tom stared for a second, then shook his head. “I have no idea. The twilight lands were filled with all manner of things. I had more to do than study them all.”

  As they ran across the road, movement erupted in the shops all around. The shapes seemed to be emerging from the backrooms as if they had awakened from their rest in the shadowy interiors and were now intent on seeking out the trespassers on their property. Church caught a glimpse of green eyes and gnashing teeth. A sudden wash of fear spurred him on.

  With Tom close behind, he ran down the side road to where Shavi had the van warmed up and waiting. They piled in the back and the van took off with a screech of tires, going the wrong way through the one-way system.

  “Changed your mind about sticking to routine, I see,” Veitch said to Shavi. The Asian smiled tightly.

  As they careered out of town, Church, Tom and Ruth glanced back through the rear windows to see the High Street now swarming with the grey shapes in a manner that reminded them of a disturbed ant hill. It was a scene that filled them all with the utmost terror.

  “Where do you think the residents have gone?” Ruth asked feebly.

  Church and Tom took up their seats without answering. The atmosphere had become even more dark and oppressive.

  When eventually they reached Carmarthen, they were relieved to see the town buzzing as if nothing were wrong. “It shows the size of habitation that is safe,” Shavi noted. They followed the Wayfinder along the side of the river and then on the main dual carriageway to the coast, through green fields, past caravan parks, and by 4 p.m. they had reached the palm trees that marked the entrance to the holiday resort of Tenby.

  The mediaeval walled town lay perched on cliffs of brown shale and hard grey limestone, offering panoramic views along the rugged Pembrokeshire coastline. Amongst its twisty-turny streets, pastel-painted bed and breakfasts slumbered beneath a powder-blue sky in which seagulls soared and turned lazily. Looking up, Ruth also fleetingly spotted her owl companion skimming the ancient tiled ro
oftops, although she found it hard to believe it had followed the van from Glastonbury, or even that it had got out of Tir n’a n’Og unseen.

  The streets were too small to negotiate effectively in the van, so they parked at the South Beach and returned through the five arches that formed a gateway in the soaring stone walls. Veitch and Shavi carried the talisman crate between them while Church went in front with the Wayfinder held within the fold of his jacket where it couldn’t be seen by passers-by. It took them down Tudor Square, bustling despite the unseasonal time of year, and along a winding road to a picturesque harbour where rows of boats bobbed gently on the outgoing tide. At the harbour wall, Church halted, puzzled. The lantern’s flame seemed to be pointing out to sea.

  After a brief discussion, Veitch set off to scout the area, returning only five minutes later to herd them along a path past a tiny, white-walled museum to a bandstand on the headland overlooking the beach and the brilliant blue sea.

  “There,” he said. Basking in the sun in the bay was a large island.

  Caldey Island was home to an order of Cistercian monks. Regular boat trips were despatched from the mainland several times a day so tourists could experience the isolation-and contribute to the monastery’s upkeep-but they had missed the last boat of the afternoon. Their only option seemed to be to find somewhere to hole up until morning and hope they could stay safe through the night.

  They checked into one of the pretty bed and breakfasts in the backstreets of the old town, not too far from the front, relishing the opportunity to have a shower and sleep in a bed for a change. After an early dinner, Tom retired to his room where he agreed to oversee the talismans, although he wouldn’t go near the crate. The others opted to look around the town while daylight was still with them. Church took the opportunity to steer Veitch away for a heart-toheart, leaving Shavi, Ruth and Laura to pick their way through the streets dominated by pristine ice cream parlours and restaurants. After all they had witnessed, the place seemed uncommonly happy, untouched by the dark shadow that had fallen across the land. It both raised their spirits and made them feel uncomfortable, for they knew it couldn’t last.