The Devil in green da-1

by Marc Chadbourn

  Once he'd slammed it behind him, he cursed profusely.

  'What's wrong?' Sophie asked breathlessly.

  'This is the way up,' he said angrily. 'To the spire. There's no way out here.'

  'Well, we can't go back,' she said. 'If they recapture us, we won't have another chance.'

  Dismally, Mallory took the steps two at a time with Sophie following close behind. It was an exercise in futility, but that had never stopped him before. The advantage of height on the stairs would mean that at least he would be able to take a few of the Blues out with him. Strangely, Sophie didn't appear in the least depressed that they were going into a corner.

  The door crashed open behind them and the sounds of pursuit followed quickly. Mallory held back so that Sophie could go ahead, leaving him space to protect her back.

  'How high are you planning on going?' he said sourly. 'Or are you just trying to give me a work-out before the last?'

  'Shut up, Mallory,' she said, without looking back. 'Goddess, you don't half moan.'

  With the air burning in their lungs, they raced up the interior of the square tower. It was two hundred feet to the top of the second stage — Mallory had climbed up there once for a peaceful view over the city. Timber stays and iron ties and braces held the structure steady. They passed the windlass at the base of the spire that had been used to raise stone from the ground when it was being built, and then Sophie led them out of a door to the base of the octagonal spire.

  They were met by a sharply gusting wind so cold it felt as though their skin was being flayed. Snow was driven into their flesh like needles.

  'Why don't we stay inside?' Mallory yelled above the gale. The wind buffeted him against the cold stone. His head spun when he looked out across the dark landscape; it would be easy to get blown off the tiny walled area and dashed on to the ground far below. 'I can make a stand better at the top of the stairs. It's harder to defend this area.'

  'We're not defending,' Sophie shouted back. Her hair lashed across her face, making a mockery of her constant attempts to pull it away from her eyes. She was shivering from the cold. Mallory went to put his arms around her to warm her. His heart felt like a cold rock at the thought that they wouldn't be able to spend any time getting to know each other. What a stupid way for it to end.

  But Sophie fended him off, then pointed over his head. 'No. Keep climbing.'

  He followed the direction of her finger. Iron rungs had been hammered into the stone of the spire. They appeared to rise up to the summit one hundred and sixty feet above their heads.

  'Are you mad?' The simple act of looking up brought a rush of vertigo. If he attempted to climb, he would be blown off in an instant. Besides, it led nowhere. The Blues could afford to wait until they fell, froze or climbed down. 'Or are you looking for some spectacular way to commit suicide? Personally, I'd-'

  She took his hand. The sounds of pursuit could now easily be heard through the door. 'Just trust me,' she said.

  He looked into her eyes, which were wide and honest, and he surprised himself by realising that he did trust her, more than himself. Cursing, he turned and gripped the first icy iron rung and hauled himself up.

  Ten feet up and it took all Mallory's strength just to hang on. The wind attacked like a wild animal, throwing him from side to side. He had to hook his arms inside the rungs to prevent himself from being thrown off the spire. He feared for Sophie, who was physically weaker than him, but though he sensed she was close behind, the stinging blizzard prevented him from looking down long enough to see her.

  The crash of the door swinging open, though, came loud enough to rise above the gale. The bark of their pursuers was angry and disbelieving, and he could just make out a furious debate about what should be done.

  'Keep going,' Sophie called up to him.

  Mallory felt delirious. The weakness from his incarceration and lack of food combined with his incomprehension to make his head spin. If he kept his eyes fixed on the dwindling stone column in front of him, he was OK. But the snow made the landscape bright and his eyes would repeatedly be drawn to the white roofs and rolling hills, and then down, down, down to the cathedral compound a dizzying fall below.

  It was just as his stomach turned at the contemplation of the drop that a particularly strong gust of wind tore over the peaks and troughs of the new buildings and wrenched at his legs. They were ripped away from the security of the rungs, flying out horizontally away from the spire. The shock tore the breath from his throat. He yelled out, tried to grip on to the rungs, but he couldn't feel his numb fingers, couldn't tell if they were holding or slipping.

  He heard Sophie scream, then saw his knuckles sliding over the edge of the rung. The wind tugged harder; the snow lashed his face. He felt the fall before it happened, experienced the air being sucked from his lungs, that final shattering impact, his body exploding at every joint…

  An eddying gust whipped around the spire and caught his legs just as his fingers were about to let go, slamming him back against the hard stone. Winded, he lost his grip completely and slid down the spire, almost knocking Sophie from her handhold. Somehow he caught on to a rung, yanking himself to a sudden stop, wrenching his shoulder.

  He clung there for a second, his heart pounding so hard it felt as if it was going to burst from his chest. But the wind didn't relent and the sounds of the knights below didn't fade; he couldn't rest. With small gusts pulling him to one side, then the other, he continued to climb.

  Below, he could occasionally catch the sound of Sophie talking, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Fifteen minutes later, the rungs ran out: the end of his journey, and probably the end of his life. The spire was now just a couple of hand-spans wide and he could feel it moving in the now unbearable wind, adding to the sickening vertiginous pull. He felt unconscionably weary, didn't have the energy to climb down even if he'd wanted to; he could have put his arms around the spire and hugged it until the end came. Just above his head, the cross on the very top appeared to glow.

  Exhausted, he rested his head against the stone, sliding back and forth. His whole body was numb, yet strangely starting to grow warm. He couldn't feel any of it; it was just as if he was enveloped in steam.

  Something whizzed past his ear, jerking him alert. A shower of dust fell against his face: a chunk of stone had been dislodged.

  As he struggled to work out what was happening, something else whipped past him. This time he saw it: a crossbow bolt. The knights were firing at diem, trying to dislodge them. The bastards! he thought. They couldn't even wait for me to freeze and fall.

  'Are you OK?' he yelled out, realising at the same time how stupid it sounded. Sophie's response was lost to the wind.

  And then there was only the view, the pristine whiteness of the hills, beautiful in their simplicity. He began to fantasise that he could fly, that he could just kick off from the spire, soar out over them and keep going to a place where there was no hardship and he could spend the rest of his days in idyllic bliss with Sophie.

  Movement caught his attention away over the hills. It became lost to the stinging snow for a while before he caught it again. A cloud, he thought, caught in the rolling wind. It continued to move, free of the subtie undulations of the elements. With purpose.

  Something was moving inside the storm. Drawing closer.

  He was mesmerised. It was natural, yet not natural, dark behind the snow. Another crossbow bolt rattied against the stone. How long before one hit him?

  'It's coming!' Sophie yelled. Jubilation sounded in her voice, but a hint of fear, too.

  A burst of colour in the black and white world. He was back in that moment that would haunt him for all eternity. But no, no… Now he knew what it was. Yet it made no sense: it was dead. More fire exploded in an arc, so brilliant that it lit the rooftops red and orange and yellow. The shadow so big now, beating slowly up and down. Enormous wings riding the night winds.

  'We killed it,' he whispered into the howling gale. Bu
t all he could feel was wonder surging up inside him like a golden light, a sense of connection with all Existence.

  'Stay with me, Mallory!' Sophie ordered. There was an insistence to her voice. Did she know something he didn't?

  The Fabulous Beast soared on the turbulent currents, up and down and then to the side, gouts of flame erupting from its mouth at regular intervals like the birthing of stars in the bleak void. Mallory was transfixed. As it neared, he could see that it was not the one they had slain. Something about it appeared younger, sleeker, the emerald, ruby and sapphire sparkling of its scales more pronounced.

  It came directly towards the spire. The beating of its wings was deafening, like the wind in the sails of a mighty ship, and the conflagration of its breath was like the roar of a jet. Mallory could see its eyes gleaming a fiery red, and for an instant he thought he saw something there: an intelligence, certainly, but also a contact, an understanding.

  He thought, It's going to get its revenge for the death of the other one. It's going to wipe the whole of the cathedral from the face of the earth. A purifying flame.

  Languidly, it began to circle the spire. Mallory was on a level with it, and at times he thought he could just reach out and touch it, feel the roughness of the bony protuberances on its head and spine, the hard sheen of the scales; he felt as though he could walk across the air to it.

  'Mallory!' Sophie yelled.

  He jolted alert. From far below he could hear the panicked cries of the knights. They were calling for support, but found time to loose another bolt. It missed Mallory's temple by a fraction.

  The Fabulous Beast went down, rose up, went down again, then turned and soared towards die cathedral.

  This is it, Mallory thought.

  It passed beneath him. The flame gushed out in a torrent, painting the roof far below a hellish red. In its illumination, Mallory saw everything clearly. Two of the knights dived back inside for cover. The other remained rooted in terror. The fire hit him full force. It drove him off the tiny landing, and as he fell he burned only briefly before the fury of it consumed him and he turned to dust, sprinkling with the snow.

  The other knights were out in an instant, one firing at the Fabulous Beast which had returned to its circling, the other, bizarrely, shooting once more at the two of them.

  How they must hate us, Mallory thought.

  'Get ready, Mallory!' Sophie shouted.

  He had no idea what she meant, didn't have time to consider it. The bolt hit his shoulder as if he had been smashed with a mallet. Pain drove through his arm and side. Everything went with that — his sense, his grip — and then he was falling, turning slowly, seeing Sophie's desperate, loving face, seeing the snow, going down with it.

  He hit hard, though he had only fallen for an instant, and then he was being swept sideways. Desperately, his thoughts tried to make sense of what was happening, but before they could, he was mesmerised by the sight of Sophie floating down towards him.

  Time appeared to hold still, then speed up. She crashed at his side, then began to slide. Frantically, she raked her hands back and forth, gulping air in terror as she slipped.

  Finally, her fingers closed tightly around a bony ridge; her face blazed with jubilation and she began to pull herself up.

  The queasy sensation of being whipped along caught them both as they clung on for dear life. From the corners of his eyes Mallory saw the beating wings, and the retreating spire, the angry knights like flies. Far below, Salisbury was laid out like a fairy city, glorious in white, and beyond it the spectral landscape, beautiful and terrible.

  The Fabulous Beast rode the currents, taking them to an uncertain fate.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CryIng In The wilderness

  'Do you want to be good? Then first understand that you are bad.'

  — Epictetus

  Mallory woke from a dream of flying to feel heat on his face and the crackling of fire in his ears. At first he thought he was still with the Fabulous Beast, soaring high over the magical landscape. But there was no wind in his hair and no rolling sense of motion deep in his gut. Only hardness and stability lay beneath him.

  Nearby, the blazing ruins of an old barn melted the snow in a wide circle, providing warmth in the chill of the grey morning. A farmhouse with a sagging roof and broken windows stood across a courtyard. Mallory lay on boards under cover of the eaves of a disused cow shed. Old sacking had been thrown across his legs. He looked up to the lowering clouds and felt a brief, affecting sadness for what was gone.

  The cold the previous night had left him almost delirious, and his memories of what happened after their escape from the cathedral were fragmented. More than anything, he recalled the flight, seeing the world in white flash by beneath, hearing the beat of the Fabulous Beast's wings and the roar of the otherworldly fire. Transcendental, wondrous, an abiding feeling of something greater.

  They had descended on the eastern fringes of the city, and that's where his memories had started to dissolve. He couldn't remember the landing or much of dismounting, though he had a clear image of the Fabulous Beast rising up into the sky, limned by the moonlight as it disappeared into the snowy night.

  'Finally.' Sophie emerged from a nearby copse, clutching what appeared to be twigs and leaves. Her ordeal in the cells had sloughed off her with remarkable ease — the effects of the Blue Fire, he guessed — and she appeared bright and hearty. She wandered over to him, shivering slightly. 'I thought you were going to sleep the day away.'

  'You controlled it,' he said in amazement.

  This amused her. 'Don't be silly. You can't control something as wonderful and elemental as that. I asked for its help. It answered.'

  'You're full of tricks.'

  'Yes, I'm just all-round wonderful.' She squatted down next to him and examined his shoulder where the crossbow bolt had struck. 'You've warmed up. I was worried last night.'

  'Stefan didn't provide many creature comforts in the cells. Like food.'

  Her face darkened. 'Revenge doesn't achieve anything, but I really want to pay that bastard back for everything he's done… to my people, to me. To you.' She looked back towards the city. 'I hope most of them managed to escape. They'll regroup. The Celtic Nation is stronger than that weak, scared…' She shook her head, overcome by emotion as the memories of the attack on the camp returned to her.

  'We're out of it now.'

  She laid the leaves and twigs next to him. 'Most of the goodness is frozen in the ground at this time of year,' she said. 'It's not a season when you should be homeless. But I managed to scrape together a few bits and pieces. If we can find some kind of pot, we can melt some snow and I can boil up a soup-'

  'Yum.'

  'OK, it won't exactly be Jamie Oliver,' she snapped, 'but it'll give us some energy, at least to keep on the move until we can find some proper food. I think the bolt might have chipped a bone in your shoulder. At least it didn't embed. But you're a tough guy… you'll get over it.'

  'And the twigs?'

  'They're for a ritual to keep us safe. As safe as we can expect to be in this place.' She looked around at the snow-draped landscape. A few birds flapped desolately amongst the stark trees; it appeared as if all human existence had been swept away.

  Mallory took her hand. 'One advantage to nobody being around… we could always warm up under this… uh… sack.'

  Sophie extricated her fingers from his. 'I know you place a lot of faith in your charm, Mallory, but really, it's not as winning as you believe.' Despite her haughty expression, some of the depression that had hung around her since the attack on her camp lifted slightly. 'I don't sleep with just anyone. I need wine… and flowers… and wrapping in warm towels. And even then my suitor has to meet my exceedingly high expectations. And frankly, Mallory, I shouldn't hold your breath.'

  Mallory watched her wander towards the farmhouse in search of pots and pans. He felt at peace, he felt free, and both seemed so unusual for being absent from his life for so long
. They'd escaped, and he could barely believe it. Above all, though, he was relieved that the Caretaker had been wrong — they'd escaped with their lives and sanity intact, and there hadn't been a price to pay at all.

  'Which way are we headed?' Mallory asked as he sipped on the foul- tasting stew that Sophie had laboured over for the past hour. It warmed his limbs and gave him renewed energy, just as she had promised, though the process was slow. 'We could head west… maybe go to Exeter. Some of the smaller cities might not have been affected as badly as the larger ones.'

  She spooned in silence for a moment and then said, 'You know I can't leave here, Mallory.'

  His heart sank. He did know, although he had tried to resist believing it.

  'I'm the tribe's leader. They're counting on me. I need to get them back together… lead them away to a safe place where we can regroup. You're welcome to come with us,' she added, without looking at him, though the hope in her voice was clear.

  'OK… of course.' He was loath to go anywhere near the cathedral, with its weight of bad memories and the possibility that he might once again be sucked into its awful gravity. He'd hoped it could be just the two of them, insulated from the demands of a hard world, but he knew that had always been a fantasy.

  She appeared honestly pleased by his response, and that warmed him. 'Besides, what about Miller?' she added. 'I thought he was your friend. Don't you want to get him out of that awful place?'

  'He's no friend. He's just some stupid kid who was always hanging on my coat-tails.'

  Sophie watched him carefully; Mallory felt as though she could see right inside him, all the lies and the terrible things he'd done.

  'That's you down to the ground, isn't it, Mallory? Pretending nothing and nobody matters… pretending it to yourself. When are you going to learn that everything matters? That people matter most of all.'