His night vision showed him that in one direction there lay an empty landscape made only marginally more interesting by distant hills and the odd thorn bush that sprouted out of the dry land. The signs were in Spanish. Turning to look the other way, he saw a small town that boasted one garage with all of two pumps on its small forecourt, one bar complete with two old men on the step and the sound of pool balls hitting each other, and one mini-market from which an old lady with tanned skin and a flowery dress was emerging, arms full. Five cars, old and battered. Three motorbikes. One bicycle.
A quieter town he had never seen. And nowhere for strangers to hide. The land around was entirely exposed. If someone took up residence here with a good sniper gun and telescopic sight, nobody could get in or out.
The perfect place for Gabriel to sit out a siege. Sam went to the bar, ordering a beer and taking his bottle outside to sit on the steps near the old men. He found himself grateful that he couldn’t hear their thoughts at least. Equipped with his beer, and the squatting rights got by it, he unsheathed his dagger and laid it casually at his feet for all to see. The old men were quick to hurry away.
Sam hummed a little tune under his breath. He wrapped his coat tighter round his shoulders, leant his head against the wall and went on humming. He waited.
The town had little night life, save for the scratching sounds of insects and the distant murmur of the drinkers in the bar. There was the crack, crack of a boy playing a shoot em’ up game on the bar’s one machine. There was the clink of glasses. People saw Sam, saw his dagger, steered clear. Sam waited.
He spotted a battered old car heading towards him. Under normal circumstances he would have given it no attention. But this truck had spells inscribed on it – he could see them blazing out to his magical eyes even as he felt them trying to nudge his mind aside. He forced himself to look and study them, ignoring the magic which whispered that he should turn away. A general scry-shield, a distraction spell and a standard ward. The car had three occupants. All were spirits.
It came to a stop in front of him. Three pairs of eyes regarded him through the windows. A door opened and a voice called out in English, ‘Put the sword in the boot.’
‘Prove to me this isn’t another trap, like Kaluga,’ he retorted.
‘We can’t prove anything. You’ll just have to believe us when we say Gail sent us. Keep the dagger if it makes you feel better.’
Shrugging inwardly, Sam did as they said and got into the car.
‘Were you followed?’ he asked.
‘No. No one has been able to get inside the shield yet.’
‘How come?’
‘Gail isn’t taking any chances. But it’s good you came. We felt the release, you know.’
Sam said nothing. He was watching the empty landscape rush past his window. ‘Where are we?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Mexico. Gail moved here fast when she heard that Andrew had been taken. She knew you wouldn’t be far behind, though.’
‘How?’
‘You’re not the only one with spirit friends, you know,’ said the driver with a faint laugh.
Sam felt his fingers tingle. He knew that laugh. ‘Adam? What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’
‘Got recruited, didn’t I?’
They’d turned off the main road and were now winding through muddy tracks barely wide enough to accommodate the car. Sam peered ahead through the gloom, and saw a small farmhouse. An oil-lamp burned on the porch and the windows were lit with a faint yellow glow. They pulled up in front of the house, and Sam quickly scryed the area before getting out. The place was loaded with magic. Spells casting the attention elsewhere, spells shielding huge swathes of land all around, spells to divert scrys, spells to warn of approaching danger – and all worked with such an expert hand that Sam found himself wondering if his mother hadn’t been wrong and he didn’t have an unsung brother or sister.
He retrieved his sword and bag and followed Adam up the stairs into the house. There was no electricity, but the dusty old rooms with their tattered sofas and moth-eaten curtains were lit by oil-lamps. Sam advanced, wary of treachery even at this late stage.
Three armchairs, their stuffing erupted out through the ancient fabric, were placed before the fireplace with their backs to the door. Two were occupied. Sam took the third without asking.
‘Evening all,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Well done,’ said Gabriel. ‘You made it.’
‘You didn’t make it easy. And whoever did your spells was truly brilliant.’
‘Thank you,’ said Buddha.
TWENTY-ONE
Open Conspiracy
F
or all that they smiled, and spoke to him in light voices that belied their fatigue, they were afraid. Sam saw it at once. Something in their eyes echoed his own fear and doubt.
‘Why have you dragged me here?’
‘We need you,’ replied Gabriel. ‘You are the necessary one. You’re also the one who knows where to hide. We’ve not had your experience with either Hell or Earth.’
‘Tell me what the hell is going on.’
Buddha gave a shaken smile. ‘That phrase was better chosen than you know.’
In the end, it was Gabriel who told him. She hadn’t changed since he’d last seen her, several centuries before. She had close-cropped mousy hair and an attitude of daunting pragmatism. Though she sat cross-legged on her chair, her slight frame hardly filled it. She met everyone’s eye at all times, and when she spoke she gave no inflection to her story, nor bothered to hide her fatigue.
‘At first I helped in the search for three of the Pandora keys. I was not told by Jehovah that Seth and Odin were also looking for them. I was told to find the key to Suspicion’s prison.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘For the same reason that Michael tried to kill you.’ She shrugged. ‘Same reason too that Uriel has blinded herself to the real danger of this situation. Jehovah commanded it. And to us, Jehovah is… was… like a God. There are some – Uriel, Rafael – who know in their hearts that he’s doing something foolish. But he is also a Son of Belief, and after thousands of years’ exposure to his power, it’s hard to turn away. It hurts more than you’d think.’
She sighed, her mind far away, her voice on automatic. ‘I didn’t know much about the keys, back then. All I did know was that they’d been lost, and were rumoured to open doors to great power. I wanted Jehovah to have that power, I really did. I thought he was good, so that if anyone was to have it, it should be him.’
‘Why didn’t he tell you he was working with others?’
‘For exactly the reason that I worshipped him, and him alone. To tell me there were others would be, in a way, to… defile the sanctity of our search. It would also have increased the doubts already blooming in my mind as I found out more about the Pandora spirits. Did you know that the city of Atlantis, the one on Earth, not the Feywalker kingdom, was sunk to the bottom of the sea because Suspicion got loose in the minds of its sea wizards?’
‘No. What happened next?’
‘One day I was recalled to Jehovah’s presence, to describe to him how I’d sought high and low for the key, but so far in vain. He spoke more fervently than ever of the power that the Pandora spirits might offer. “We must find the spirits, Gabriel. And when we have them we must show the world what true justice is.” He’d often spoken that way, but never had he seemed so close to achieving his desires.’
Sam could already hear the rest of her tale in his mind’s ear. Three of them, playing with fire.
‘You thought it was wrong,’ he prompted. ‘In your search you’d found knowledge about the keys, you’d began to realise exactly how dangerous the power was that you were playing with. You went to Freya, who called on her mortal allies. I imagine you were instructed to play it cool, pretend you were searching for the keys while in reality you tried to find out who the other two seekers were. At the same time, Andrew tried to forestall the others’ pro
gress by finding the keys first, by finding them and moving them, racing against the combined powers of my brothers. Am I right?’
She nodded. ‘Andrew was to do my research for me. While I spied on my master he supplied me with cover stories as to where I was searching and reasons why, so that I would not be suspected, and, if possible, so we could get to the keys first. Meanwhile Freya tried to get Time to intervene. But Time would not. Time said that futures were spinning off in all directions at once and only one future could be allowed to happen, and that one must happen of its own accord.’
‘So,’ Buddha said, ‘Gabriel turned to me. And I agreed to help her, even though I did not completely believe her tale.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Gabriel, ‘I discovered that Seth and Odin were the others seeking the Pandora keys. But Andrew had beaten them to it. He’d found out their location – not Cronus’s key, but the other three. He destroyed the book that held this information, but not before he reported what he knew to Freya. And she passed on what she knew to her other, able assistant. Her granddaughter, Fran.’
‘Fran? But Fran denied all knowledge of the event, Fran was the one who —’
‘Who betrayed us,’ said Buddha. ‘Freya had been careful, I give her that. She referred to Gabriel as Gail at all times. She didn’t mention my involvement even once. When Andrew sent his last report she tried to get a message to you, to bring you in with us as discreetly as possible.’
‘But it was too late,’ murmured Sam, again ahead of the story. ‘Andrew began to run, the librarian who’d helped him was killed. Fran had told whoever she told that Freya knew too much – knew identities, locations.’
‘Freya was murdered, so involving you,’ said Gabriel. ‘Buddha and I began to shield Andrew from discovery until you could get to him and bring him to safety. You are, after all, the master of surviving in hard places. But we were unable to shield him completely. After he was poisoned and caught, he was revived enough for him to confess to my role. Again, he was not aware of the part played by Buddha. Freya had been careful enough about that.
‘The dogs were now on my tail. Buddha came to my help again, lending his powers to my shields until such time as you were here.’
‘You came,’ said Buddha. ‘That was the important part. To survive we needed you.’
‘Why?’
‘They have the keys, you know. Seth, Odin and Jehovah – each has a key of his own and is prepared to unleash the spirits. When that happens, you are the only one who can stop them.
‘You are the Bearer of Light, you can destroy the Pandora spirits. Love targets Hate, Trust targets Suspicion, Charity targets Greed – and you are the only one with the power to channel these thoughts. The Light taps human minds, it feeds off their thoughts, the timeless concepts. If you enter the minds of other living creatures, and focus them on just one aspect – on Love, say – and then direct that power at its opposite – at Hate – then Hate itself becomes something you can destroy.’
‘By the same principle I can destroy a Greater Power,’ said Sam. ‘But Greater Powers are spawned of all life. If just one person remained to feed Hate or Greed or Suspicion, it would have been for nothing. To do what you describe, I’d have to tap the mind of every living thing. And that’ – he smiled, but his eyes could have frightened snakes – ‘would not be pleasant.’
‘Then we’ll have to stop those three from freeing the spirits. Which is why the Light – and, unfortunately, you – suddenly become so important,’ said Buddha.
Unfortunately for my sake. Thanks a million, brother.
‘There’s more,’ murmured Buddha, seeing Sam’s eyes go distant. He leant forward and spoke urgently. ‘Cronus. If Seth releases Cronus, who besides you can prevent Cronus from overthrowing Time? Time defeated Cronus once before, but there’s little chance of a repeat victory. He’s too stretched; too much of his energy is focused merely on sustaining the universe. If Seth decides that the threat of Cronus isn’t enough in itself – if he were fool enough to actually free him, you’re the only person who might stop him.’
Sam was silent for a long moment. Then he said, ‘I have been told as much, although I don’t know how this might be. But if I’ve suffered near burn-out simply in repulsing Odin or in reading Uriel’s mind, then fighting Cronus is likely to be the last battle. Cronus is anti-Time, anti-life. In order to destroy him I would have to channel everything that is life. Not just human thoughts but the life of ants and birds, trees and grass. Hell, there are a lot of ants around.’ He stared at Buddha, daring and begging him all at once to deny it.
But the Son of Wisdom said nothing, and Sam’s heart sank further. ‘Seth surely wouldn’t release Cronus?’
‘He’s mustering an army in Hell, isn’t he?’ said Buddha. ‘He’s going to march into Belial’s territory, he’s going to dig up the key, wherever it is, and he’s going to say, “Hey, look, all my brothers and all my sisters, I’ve got the key, do what I tell you.” And when they say, “Nah, you’re bluffing, you’d never dare”, how do we know he wouldn’t free Cronus, just to spite them? All we do know is that he’s done a lot to get this far. Who’s to say his momentum won’t carry him further?’
Sam opened his mouth to speak, then stiffened. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘I heard nothing,’ said Gabriel.
‘Nor I.’
Sam sat on the edge of his chair, craning his head up as though he might see through the ceiling. ‘I heard something.’
Buddha was already on his feet, eyes closed. ‘My shields are intact.’
‘Mine too,’ said Gabriel. ‘There’s nothing inside the shield that could move without our consent.’
Sam was also on his feet. He passed to a shuttered window, and hesitated. ‘If I open this, I won’t get fried by any spells, will I?’
‘You’re the master of magic,’ said Buddha. ‘You tell me.’
He opened the window and peered out.
His back was to the others, but they still saw him freeze.
‘Sam?’ demanded Buddha sharply, hastening towards him as Sam’s mouth opened in a wordless cry. ‘Lucifer!’ He caught his shoulders, shook him hard, glancing only briefly out of the window to see what Sam had seen. But the night looked the same to him as it had before.
Gabriel was also by Sam’s side, a frown on her face, and she was the next to stare out of the window. So she was the next to see it. ‘Oh, Light,’ she breathed. ‘Look at the sky!’
Buddha glanced back out at the clear, star-speckled sky. He was not one given to showing alarm, not even to cursing, but his eyes grew distinctly wide. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘you don’t see that every day.’
Sam moved, pulling himself free of Buddha’s grasp where before he’d been a statue. Staring wildly from one to the other, he almost tripped in his haste to back away.
‘Can’t you hear it?’ he demanded. ‘They’re here! Can’t you hear them? They’re everywhere!’
‘Sam, calm down,’ said Buddha, reaching out to his brother.
Sam swatted his hand away. ‘Listen! Just shut up and listen, won’t you?’
Buddha obediently stood still, listening intently.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ said Gabriel, impatient as always. She hadn’t moved from the window, and stood framed in a sky discoloured by numberless blood-red stars and one louring, blood-red moon. Humans would call it atmospheric disturbance; they always did. But Sam knew better. Whether because of his magic, or the Light in particular, to him the voices were clearly audible.
Judging by Buddha’s wide eyes, he could hear them too. He started forward, grabbed Gabriel by the arm and yanked her from the window.
‘Move!’ he yelled. ‘Get everyone out of here! Tell them to Feywalk, tell them to get as far from this place as possible.’ He turned back to Sam, who was standing motionless in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing with all-seeing eyes. ‘You’re hearing them through the Light, brother,’ he hissed as Gabriel burst from the room in a co
nfused run. ‘How strong is their song?’
‘Growing louder.’
‘How fast?’
‘Fast.’
Buddha grabbed Sam’s shoulders again, and this time Sam didn’t pull free. ‘You’re hearing the Pandora spirits. The Pandora spirits are free! They can affect anyone except you.
‘The Light inside you is created by thoughts – without minds to tap, there would be no Light. From the first moment you discharged it you’ve been part of the Light, another mind drifting in a sea of thoughts. Part of you has been imprinted on every mind the Light has touched – and vice versa. So for the Pandora spirits to touch you is like saying they have to enter every mind in the universe. And they can’t do that because, as they extend their power, it grows thinner.
Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series Page 25