World's end taom-1

by Mark Chadbourn

  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 around 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.

  "The heart of the mystery," the Bone Inspector said icily. "Don't betray my faith in you. Or you won't be in a position to tell of this experience to anyone." His bald threat unnerved them and they refused to meet his piercing stare. Instead, they turned their gaze ahead where a low tunnel dipped down gradually into the depths of the earth. The Bone Inspector led the way with Church at his shoulder, holding the lantern aloft, all of them maintaining an anxious silence.

  They walked for about fifteen minutes, the tunnel widening almost without them noticing it; the light no longer played on the walls, merely faded into the oppressive dark, and the quality of the echoes of their footsteps became duller. It was getting brighter; the lantern's light was being dwarfed by another, more fulsome blue glow from further ahead. With a jarring mixture of wonder and apprehension, they crept forward until they stood on the lip of a ledge overlooking a lake of the blue energy, churning and roiling as if it was boiling water. Ruth began to ask what it was, but the Bone Inspector shushed her with an impatient wave of his hand. Resting his hands on his knees, he peered into the depths of the blue lake and, as they followed his gaze, they gradually saw a dark shape deep in the azure depths. It was rising; slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, churning the energy even more, until suddenly it broke the surface with its long, serpentine neck before dipping back down below. It was only the briefest glimpse, but they had a sense of something magnificent, of scales gleaming gold and green on a body filled with elegant power.

  "This Fabulous Beast never left," the
Bone Inspector said. "It merely slept."

  The others cautiously drew themselves upright, listening to the unnatural echoes that bounced around the cavern. "Are you sure it's safe?" Ruth asked. "It could fry us in a second here."

  "It could if it wished," the Bone Inspector said, offering no comfort.

  "It's the king of them all," Laura said in a tone which surprised them; it was something she felt instinctively. She pushed her way past them to the edge, but the creature was lost beneath the blue waves.

  "It is the oldest," the Bone Inspector agreed. "When all the creatures of imagination departed in the Sundering, this one stayed behind to protect the land, keeping the fire alive here in the furnace of the planet. Ready for the time when the power would flow freely again." He looked at Church knowingly.

  "Is that one of the things we're supposed to do?" Church asked. The Bone Inspector shook his head contemptuously.

  "We don't know what we're supposed to be doing!" Ruth protested. "We have no idea what a Brother or Sister of Dragons is. Why everyone thinks we're one. What's going on at all!" The stress brought a snap to the end of the sentence.

  "Don't lose it," Laura chided.

  "I'm not your teacher." The Bone Inspector walked to the edge and began to scan around the cavern. "I'm giving you a helping hand here, but after this you're on your own. To be honest, I don't think you're up to the job."

  "What do you know," Laura muttered.

  When he turned she thought he was going to hit her with the staff, but instead he used it to point to the wall of the cavern nearest to them. "There's a path that goes right round the edge of the lake to the far side. You might find what you're looking for there. Or you might not."

  Church squinted to see where he was pointing. "It looks a bit precarious. It's only about a foot across."

  "Better not look down then," Ruth said.

  The Bone Inspector caught her arm before she could walk away. "Just one of you."

  "Why?"

  "Because the one whose home this is will only let one of you go."

  They stared into the blue depths for a moment, considering this, and then Church said, "I suppose we have to trust you. But how can we be sure it won't attack even one of us?"

  "It senses the dragon-spirit," the Bone Inspector said. "One ofyou will be safe."

  "What are you saying? We're family?"

  "Not in any way you'd understand," the Bone Inspector replied curtly.

  Church sighed. "Looks like-"

  "Not so fast, leader-man," Laura said. "I admire your chivalry and all that, but I want to do this one."

  "No way!" Ruth was shaking her head forcefully. "She's probably after the talisman for herself-"

  "So you don't trust me," Laura snapped. "But you had better start doing so, because this is a partnership and I have an equal say. If you believe what Mystic Meg said and you believe I'm one of the five big cheeses, then you have to at least listen to me."

  "I don't know …" Church chewed on a knuckle.

  "I say no," Ruth said firmly.

  The Bone Inspector snorted with derision. "There isn't a hope."

  "He's right." Church scrubbed a hand over his face, hoping he was making the right decision. "We can't start off this way. We have to have some kind of faith in ourselves."

  "I appreciate the vote of confidence," Laura said with a broad grin.

  "I still say no," Ruth added a little childishly.

  Without a backward glance, Laura headed over to the path. She caught her breath when she saw it. Church had been right: barely a foot wide, with a precipitous drop into the roiling blue energy. Without showing her nervousness, she pressed her back against the rock wall and confidently stepped out on to the ledge.

  Anxiety had turned Laura's shoulders and stomach into knots of steel cable, but she had been unable to resist the pull that had forced her to look down at the surface of the lake. The sinuous body of the Fabulous Beast occasionally broke the surface, as if it were shadowing her progress, but even the slightest glimpse filled her with excitement; she felt like a child again.

  The inside of her mouth tasted metallic from the blue energy which spouted up from the surface in an effect which reminded her of a lava lamp; every tiny sound she made was strangely distorted by the cavern and the energy into something that was almost hallucinatory. She had to keep clinging on to the wall, feeling with her foot as she took each step. It was laborious and terrifying, but she was making good progress. Church and the others were lost to the blue haze and now the cavern walls had started to close in on both sides, allowing her to see things which both chilled and intrigued her. Human bones protruded from the rock, as well as the remnants of other skeletons which were not remotely human, nor animal either; they were yellowed and pitted with great age. Cor roded helmets, swords and chain mail hung from ledges, next to axes and rougher tools from older times. And there was treasure, jewels beyond imagining, gold artefacts which still gleamed, mysterious objects: it was like a magpie's nest of historical plunder, all scattered on rocky outcroppings or lower ledges.

  The cavern grew smaller and smaller until the walls were less than fifteen feet apart and Laura feared she would eventually become trapped. Then, as she made her way into what appeared to be a separate cavern, they widened out once more. This cave was much smaller than the other, and the ledge opened on to what Laura could only describe as a beach, where the blue energy lapped like surf.

  Cautiously, she explored towards the rear wall of the cavern. As she neared, she saw the sheer face was intricately carved with symbols and shapes that were unmistakably Celtic: spirals, circles interlocking, infinite lines, faces, stylised animals, a dragon. It seemed to have some sort of meaning beyond simple design, but she had no idea what it was. Further along the wall was an alcove framed by two carved trees forming an arch with their intertwined branches. At the foot were severed heads, hollow-eyed with bared teeth; peering through the branches was a face made out of leaves.

  Although the alcove appeared to be shallow, it was heavily shadowed and she couldn't tell what lay within its depths. There seemed little else of note around, so she stepped in for a better look and instantly realised her mistake.

  With a deep rumble, some hitherto hidden door slammed behind her, shutting her in utter dark. A second later there was movement, a tremor of a touch at her ankle, her back, her neck. Something like bony fingers closed tightly around her wrists, yanking her arms up and to the side, caught in her hair, pinched her waist. Laura couldn't help herself, she opened her mouth and screamed.

  The sound stifled in her throat as, with a brutality that surprised even her cruelly disciplined, modern, mature self, she forced calm on the frightened little girl struggling to escape. Don't be pathetic, she thought furiously. But it was so dark, and so claustrophobic, and she had no idea what was gripping her: things that felt like fingers, felt like bone, felt alive yet dead.

  The door at her back was solid rock; no amount of pushing would budge it at all. She estimated a gap of six inches in front of her face, and if she moved from side to side her shoulders brushed the walls. It was a tomb. She choked back panic again. Stay calm, stay calm. Surely the Fabulous Beast wouldn't have allowed her to this secret spot just to have her sealed in a stone wall. Frantically, she tried to remember the carvings on the wall in case they had offered any instructions to escape the trap. Steel bands seemed to be closing across her chest and she was sure it was getting harder to breathe. Was the alcove airtight? She struggled against whatever was gripping her, but that only made it tighter. The panic started to come again, black waves that threatened to drown her, until she was gasping, feeling everything fall apart. And then, suddenly, a moment of lucidity that she clung to with the desperation of a drowning woman. She suddenly went limp, relaxing every muscle as she slumped forward. In response, the hands loosened their grip and, as she continued to play dead, they eventually fell away: the trap was for a threat who would fight, not for a friend who would offer themselv
es supinely. Or perhaps it was more than that, she thought. Perhaps it was a test of some kind.

  "Abracadabra," she said hopefully. She ran her fingers over the wall in front of her. It was uniformly smooth, except for one area where there were faint indentations. In the impenetrable dark, she could focus on her sense of touch without any distractions: a circle, and within it two smaller circles. On the left, a line snaked out and ended in a hole as big as her fingertip. On the right, another line started to snake out, but was abruptly curtailed. Laura pictured the outline in her mind, and after a moment of deliberation she realised what it was: a map of the Avebury Dracontium; except the curving right hand line should have extended, mirroring the one on the other side. She continued tracing it to where it should have ended and felt a small lump.

  Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She pressed hard and the raised area sank in. A second later, there was a corresponding click and a small hatch opened at head height, flooding the alcove with a diffuse blue light. In the newly exposed area lay a shiny black stone as big as the palm of her hand. When Laura plucked it out, she was surprised, and a little disturbed, that it felt like skin, warm and soft. As she slipped it into her pocket, the doors slid back and, with a relieved gulp of dank air, she stepped back out into the cavern.

  "This waiting is terrible." Church sat with his legs dangling over the edge above the lake of blue energy; he had the disturbing feeling that if he pushed himself off he would be able to walk across its surface.

  "Now you know how I felt in Salisbury." Ruth was still annoyed he had allowed Laura to go on such an important mission; she was more angry at herself for feeling that way. The Bone Inspector had left them alone and was waiting silently in the shadows near the tunnel through which they entered.

  Church stared into the blue depths, his hand unconsciously going to the Black Rose in his jacket; since they had gone underground it had felt horribly cold, like a block of ice burning his skin, and now the discomfort was starting to make him a little queasy. "Brother of Dragons. What does that mean exactly? I wish somebody would give us a look at the script. Why are we so special?"