Destroyer of Worlds

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Destroyer of Worlds Page 35

by Mark Chadbourn


  ‘You can’t have him,’ Miller croaked futilely.

  ‘He whispers on the edge of death. I hear him now, when I could not hear him before. His whispers ring out across the mountains of this place, and deep into the darkest places beneath the mountains. He is death, and I am death, and we share a destiny. He can teach me. He can give me purpose.’

  Miller realised that a connection had been forged between the giant and Hunter once the healing had been withdrawn.

  ‘Give him to me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Give him to me, and I will give him life, so he can join me in the pursuit of death.’

  ‘You . . . you can save him?’

  ‘That I cannot do. But I can give him life.’

  Hesitating for just a moment, Miller stumbled through the thick snow to the giant without a thought for his own safety. The giant took Hunter from his arms with surprising tenderness and turned back down the slope. Miller followed.

  In the lee of some rocks, there was a large cave entrance that Miller had not come across before in his random searches for food. Striding into the dark, the giant continued into a tunnel large enough to accommodate his height. It drove deep into the heart of the mountain through a series of forgotten chambers once occupied by the Drakusa, their floors now covered with shattered masonry and discarded weapons.

  For what felt like miles, the tunnel sloped down sharply until Miller became convinced they were going to the core of the world. Finally, they entered a chamber in the deepest part of the complex. It stretched far into the dark on all sides, the echoes so dim it could well have gone on for ever.

  Fear gripped Miller when he saw that the chamber was filled with an army of Fomorii warriors, waiting silently in ranks, their black skin gleaming over shields and weapons grown from their own bodies. They could have been glorious obsidian statues except for the humming waves of power that washed off them.

  Miller trembled as he followed the giant amongst the horde, but they never even acknowledged his presence. Can the giant control so many ferocious beings? he wondered. How powerful is he?

  The giant came to a halt before a large stone well more than twenty feet across. Blue light radiated from the depths, shimmering like the sun off water. Miller could feel the rejuvenating force of the Blue Fire long before he neared the lip.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked in awe.

  ‘The Well Between Worlds.’ Standing with his head bowed and his body tense, the giant remained in the shadows just beyond the pool of light. ‘This was the last desperate act of the Drakusa. Their last great act. While they created me to destroy the Caraprix, they also constructed this conduit to the very heart of Existence itself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They thought if they could not destroy the Caraprix, they could return them to the Source.’

  ‘The Caraprix come from Existence?’

  ‘The Caraprix are Existence.’

  ‘But I . . . I thought they were a danger. They destroyed the Drakusa, didn’t they? How can they belong to Existence if they go against Life?’

  After a moment of humming silence, the giant said, ‘The well shows that the Drakusa were capable of miraculous things, yet they were given over to war and destruction. This . . . To reach into the very heart of all there is . . . How great is that achievement? So many have tried to touch Existence, even to begin to approach it, and in their last desperate hours the Drakusa did what no other had.’ An odd note of regret laced his voice.

  ‘Bring Hunter here, then,’ Miller said excitedly. ‘I can use this to heal him.’

  ‘I cannot approach. The Blue Fire is anathema to me. I am death.’

  Miller took Hunter from the giant’s arms and staggered towards the well, his head reeling from the tremendous sense of well-being that rose up from it. As he rested Hunter on the small stone wall, he had a moment to reflect on the irony of the situation - death giving life to the dying - and then he placed one hand on Hunter’s chest and thrust the other into the aurora of sapphire light. His instant invigoration was overcome by the sensation of the currents of power moving through him. The cold touch of the giant in his head disappeared, and in its place he heard warm whispers; though he couldn’t make out the words, he felt reassured and at peace. He looked down into the brilliant light and thought he saw things swimming there, deep down; whatever they were, they uplifted him too.

  Hunter spasmed and coughed, and slowly the pale-blue tinge of his skin flushed a healthy pink. His eyes flickering open, he looked into Miller’s face.

  ‘Hunter - you’re going to be okay.’

  Hunter’s lips moved so weakly that Miller couldn’t hear what he was saying. He pressed his ear close.

  ‘I said, “Bring me wine and a woman. I’ve got some catching up to do.” ’

  3

  The warm midsummer night was filled with the exuberance of the feast, but Ruth pushed her way through the revellers with mounting frustration. ‘We’re never going to find Rachel in this chaos,’ she said. The campfires blazing amongst the makeshift huts only illuminated the milling bodies, and beyond their light the shadows were deep.

  ‘I do not understand why she is of any interest to the Enemy now,’ Shavi replied. ‘In the Far Lands, yes - she was the key to our returning here, but now?’

  ‘I don’t even get why they wanted to stop us coming home,’ Veitch said. ‘You’d think they’d be happy with us running away.’

  Tom muttered something acerbic under his breath.

  Shavi came to a halt when he saw Laura was falling behind. ‘Keep up. In this crowd it will take all night to find you if you get lost.’

  Laura smiled, didn’t reply.

  With an exclamation of irritation, Ruth stopped outside a roundhouse. ‘Keep watch outside,’ she said at the doorway. ‘I’m going to fly.’

  Puzzled, Shavi began, ‘But you do not have any of the balms . . . and the ritual takes—’

  ‘I don’t need any of that here.’ Her eyes blazed.

  ‘You need any help?’ Veitch said hesitantly.

  Ruth smiled. ‘I’ll be fine. Just watch over my body. I don’t want the Enemy attacking it while I’m out of it.’

  In the cool of the roundhouse, she sat cross-legged against one wall and closed her eyes, letting her breathing become measured as the sounds of the revelry receded. Reaching deep inside herself, she became still, concentrated, focused. She was surprised, and a little scared, by how easy it was becoming to use the Craft. When she was being tortured in the Court of Endless Horizons, she had put her ability to fly down to the pain and the fear disengaging her mind. But now she knew the truth: she was getting stronger; she was getting better.

  But the power was seductive. Once before it had almost consumed her; could she control it now, even though she was older, wiser, honed by experience?

  She reached down even further, through her body and into the earth where she could feel the gentle, reassuring pulse of the Blue Fire. Her fears faded, and were supplanted by the rightness of what she was doing. In the cool cavern of her mind, the primal sanctuary of the human against the terrifying dangers of the unknown beyond, she envisaged the symbol that had come to represent both the Ritual of Flight and a word of power; it was a blazing blue mandala that was image and word and will and act rolled into one.

  A second later, her essence rushed up out of her head, through the roundhouse roof and into the night sky. In the first hallucinogenic dislocation, she felt a wave of affection for Shavi, Laura, Veitch and Tom, waiting anxiously by the door, and then another wave of love for the wild, feasting throng; she didn’t know any of them, but she was linked to them all, individually and as a group, on the deepest levels.

  Rising up higher, she saw the campfires and the village in the context of the broader landscape, the dark canvas of fields, the strips of roads, the lights of Salisbury and the subtle lines of Blue Fire connecting it all. Her chest swelled as she took it all in, and understood, deeply, for the first time in a lon
g while, why they were fighting so hard.

  With an effort, she wrenched herself from the revelation and swooped down low over the camp, seeing everything, hearing all. Systematically, she searched until she reached the fringes of habitation, where the lonely countryside eventually lapped up against the well-lit A-roads. The full moon painted the grassland a magical silver, against which lay the charcoal strokes of trees and hedges.

  Flying low over the ancient, grass-covered monuments of the ritual landscape, Ruth scanned for any sign of movement. In a dense copse, her attention was distracted by a large owl, seemingly watching her from the low branches.

  In its huge eyes, she saw echoes of her own familiar, slaughtered by the Libertarian in Greece, a companion, if not a friend, whom she still missed acutely. She was not surprised when it spoke to her: ‘Sister of Dragons. You know what I am?’

  Ruth floated an inch above the ground in the centre of the clearing. ‘Not exactly.’

  More owls flapped down to settle on branch after branch, and there was constant movement in the grass as a flood of cats, rats, hares, frogs, snakes and mice drew near to observe her with eerily intelligent eyes.

  ‘Our kind are as old as time.’ The owl had developed unsettling human characteristics during the time her attention had been on the other creatures. ‘We have always shepherded the sisterhood of the Craft, guiding and teaching, and punishing where necessary. Every sister needs a guide on the dangerous path you walk. This is the role we have been given, and some of our kind have even developed a fondness for those we shape. Some. We have demanded little in return, save obeisance to the weft and the weave. When all is connected, to harm one harms all.’

  Ruth shivered at the weight behind the eyes that lay upon her. In her spirit form, sometimes, when she looked askance, she could almost glimpse their true shapes, but it was too frightening for her to give it her full attention.

  ‘You, of all our charges, understood that. You, of all, have proven yourself the greatest, and the most deserving of our guidance. After the death of our cousin, your companion, you were left bereft. The bond, unfulfilled. That slaughter, the first in long years, struck at the very heart of our kind, and so the Council of Yekyua was summoned.’

  Ruth was now surrounded by people with the characteristics of animals, squatting like beasts, yellow and green and red eyes ranging, fur, and talons, and fangs.

  ‘This world is in peril. This magickal land that we have helped protect for so long, this crucible for Existence’s greatest force in the long war.

  And so we must act. Sister of Dragons, you no longer stand alone. You do not have one companion on the hard road, you have many. The Blue Fire burns in the Craft. The Blue Fire burns in our hearts. Know this world will be protected, come what may.’

  Silence fell across the assemblage. Ruth was surprised and empowered by the clear respect she could sense they held for her. ‘Thank you. I’m grateful. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons need your help now more than ever.’ She paused, looked deeply into the faces before her, seeing endless possibilities. ‘Then I have a request for you.’

  Not long after, as Ruth returned to her body, the moon-washed countryside was alive with wildlife sweeping out into every hidden nook and cranny. Overhead, the owls flew, majestic, fierce, with eyes that could see an insect a mile distant.

  Beneath the turf, the Blue Fire pulsed, and grew stronger.

  4

  Rachel regained consciousness on a public footpath winding across Salisbury Plain to where a silver BMW was parked on the side of a quiet lane. Dragged across the turf by her wrist, every joint in her body burned. Her left eye had closed up. Blood ran from her nose and into her mouth from her pulped lips. One tooth was chipped. There was a sharp pain in her ribs, and her right knee had ballooned.

  ‘Please, Scott,’ she began, but it hurt so much to talk that her voice was little more than a rasp.

  ‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’ he growled. He was angry; bloodstains spattered his neatly ironed blue shirt.

  Not so long ago, she would have cried and begged for his forgiveness, offered him her body, promised he could do whatever he wanted. ‘I can do whatever I want.’

  He stopped and kicked her sharply in the side. Pain shot up her spine bringing hot tears, but she hid her face from him.

  ‘I’m not going back with you,’ she blazed.

  He punched her on the side of the face. ‘Why do you keep opening your stupid mouth? Can’t you see? Every time you say something moronic, it hurts. You don’t want pain, you keep quiet.’

  ‘I’m not staying quiet any more,’ she gasped. ‘I’ve got a right to be who I want to be.’

  Letting go of her wrist, he grabbed a handful of her hair, dragged her a few more feet and then threw her down on the turf. Standing over her, he said with conviction, ‘You need me. You can’t survive without me.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘That’s the way it’s always been. Women need men. We have to do all the things you’re too weak and pathetic to tackle. You try to drag us down, but we’re the real power.’ He bunched both his fists. ‘I don’t want to do this. I love you, Rachel. Despite all your stupid ways, I love you. But you’ve got to learn that you can’t carry on like this or we’ll never be happy.’

  As he prepared to swing his fist, he realised Rachel was looking past him with an expression of awe.

  The first thing he saw were the roiling clouds, and jagged bolts of lightning dancing wildly across the grassland, though the rest of the sky was as clear and star-sprinkled as it had been all night. Thunder boomed, and then out of the tightly localised storm walked a woman, her hair flowing around her like snakes, her face blazing with an inner light. She was a ghost, a demon; she terrified him. On either side of her, a carpet of animals undulated towards him, their eyes glittering.

  Her face, he thought. I can’t look into her face.

  As she rushed across the landscape towards him, an unaccountable feeling of dread filled him. Rachel was forgotten; and when he saw that the woman was floating an inch or so above the grass, he wanted to turn and run, but his legs would not respond.

  ‘You’re going to get it now,’ Rachel croaked, with a note of glee.

  Old instincts surfaced and he cursed and ran towards her, ready to punch and kick. A blast of wind smacked him in the chest with the force of a car, flipping him up and over. He heard a rib break, as he had heard Rachel’s crack earlier.

  His fear obscured any pain, and he scrambled to his feet too late. The woman was upon him, her eyes filled with fire.

  He swung out, but she ducked and brought the staff of the spear she was carrying up hard against his chin.

  ‘My name is Ruth Gallagher.’ Her voice appeared to be echoing from the bottom of a well. ‘The rules have changed now. No man gets to do what you’ve done here.’

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ he pleaded.

  Ruth examined the mess he had made of Rachel, barely recognisable as she attempted to heave herself up to her feet, and when Ruth looked back at him there was no hint of compassion in her gaze.

  ‘Your kind can’t be taught,’ she said. ‘You can’t be socialised, or have the violence drained out of you. It’s who you are. People like you . . . you’re the ones who give the Void the power it needs to keep ruling this place.’

  Scott whimpered, and shook his head pathetically. Just as Ruth thought he was about to fall to his knees and beg, he lashed out at her with a short kitchen knife he’d pulled from his belt.

  The knife lanced towards her belly and came up hard. She watched his bovine expression as he tried to force it into her, then the flicker of fear when he realised he couldn’t withdraw his hand either.

  ‘The Libertarian brought you here, didn’t he?’ she asked.

  When Scott didn’t answer, one of his fingers uncurled from the knife against his will, bent back and snapped. He howled in pain.

  ‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘Yes!’

  ‘He wanted you to hu
rt Rachel. He wanted you to mess her up badly.’

  ‘Yes!’ Scott shouted.

  Ruth snapped another finger for good measure. Scott howled again as the knife fell to the ground.

  Ruth thought of Callow slicing Laura in the back of a van so long ago, of Demetra and the women in Greece, brutalised but trying to carve a life for themselves, of the pain she’d suffered in the Court of Endless Horizons, and she said, simply, ‘I’ve had enough.’

  Rachel hesitated, but Ruth nodded to her to make her way to the BMW. Limping, she set off and never looked back, even when she heard the screech of the owls, the spitting of the cats and the fierce rending of claws and fangs, even when she heard Scott’s scream, high-pitched and reedy, going on too long.

 

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