World's end taom-1

by Mark Chadbourn

  "Even so," Church pressed, "you're pretty much on top of it."

  Veitch hung his head so his hair obscured his face. Church thought he was being cold-shouldered, but his companion was obviously thinking, for a moment later he looked up and said bluntly, "I've been dreaming about these sorts of things all my life. It's like I knew they were out there. The biggest sur prise was that I wasn't surprised when I saw them. It was almost like I expected to meet them."

  "Dreams?" Church felt a tingle of recognition.

  "Yeah. You see these tattoos? They're my dreams. When I was a kid they used to make me miserable. I couldn't get them out of my head. I screwed up school, had trouble making friends, couldn't keep any bird on the go for too long-anti-social tendencies, they said. Attention deficit. Half a dozen other excuses. But it was the bastard dreams. I think I'd probably have topped myself by now if I hadn't found some way to get them out of my head." He nodded to the tattoos. "Every time one came into my head and wouldn't leave I went to this place in Greenwich and had a picture of it done somewhere or other. That night it'd be gone. I tell you, this body is a picture book of my screwed-up head."

  Church peered hard through the gloom and saw what seemed to be a tower floating in space. "I had dreams too," he began. "Nothing like yours, but-"

  Veitch flashed him a strange, intense look that stopped him dead. "Dragons?" Veitch said, his eyes searching Church's face. "Brother of Dragons?" Church nodded. "Those words've been doin' my head in for weeks now. Just floating there. In fire, on a black background. What do they mean?"

  Church shrugged.

  Veitch looked truly disconcerted. "I jacked in my job to come here. Didn't mind that too much. Renovating houses near the Dome for some tight landlord to make a mint on. I just thought I'd get some bleedin' answers-"

  "But what made you come here?"

  "A little bird told me." His crooked grin was engimatic but disarming.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I thought it was a dream at first, but now I'm not so sure. Some Judy turned up in my room one night and told me to head out west if I wanted to find what I'd spent all my life looking for." He laughed sourly.

  A shiver ran through Church's body. Cautiously he described the woman he had met in the Watchtower. "Yeah, that's the one," Veitch said. "So she is real. How'd she get in my gaff then?"

  Before Church could answer there came a sound like a tolling bell, echoing dully through the walls from somewhere distant. The reverberations continued for a full minute and then slowly died away, leaving a strange, tense atmosphere.

  "What's that about?" Church asked.

  Veitch looked uncomfortable. "Something's going on down here. I've seen things. There's a big cave full of oil drums. Some other place that looks like a church, only not one you've ever seen before. And those things … what do you call them?"

  "The woman in the Watchtower called them Night Walkers. God knows what they really are."

  "Right. Well, I don't know what they're eating, but I've seen bones …" His voice trailed off, Church didn't press him further.

  They fell silent for a while, then Church asked, "So how did you see the place? They don't let you out for a walk, I presume."

  "Every now and then they take me out for a good kicking. My exercise, I suppose. Beats walking round in circles." He winced, then masked it with a smile. "It's like they expect me to tell them something. They keep grunting at me in those gorilla-voices, but I can't understand a bleedin' word they're saying. Not very bloody smart, are they?" A shadow passed across his face and he added, "There's one of them who can speak English, though. He's scary. Doesn't look like the others. He's almost … beautiful." The word seemed to catch in his teeth. "Until you look in his eyes. The others make me feel like my head's bein' pulled inside out, but he's scary in a different way." Veitch glanced at Church curiously. "If he talks to you, just give him what he wants, all right?"

  At that moment, the lantern flickered and died.

  In the dark it seemed harder to talk. But the bond Church felt with Veitch was unmistakable, even though it was operating on some deeply subconscious level; they were both Brothers of Dragons, after all.

  Their distracted, mumbled conversation turned to the past. Witch told of his childhood in south-east London, the youngest of six children struggling in a household where their mother had died when he was just a baby. His father had fallen to pieces in the aftermath and the boys had been left to keep the household running, cooking and cleaning, trying to scrape together a meagre living in any way possible. Now three of his brothers were in prison, one for drug dealing, the other two for a bungled armed raid on a building society in Kilburn. Veitch's life sounded harrowing, punctuated by brutal explosions of mindless violence, but he had a tremendous affection for his home and upbringing which Church found incongruous. The hardness of his environment had shaped his character into what seemed a mixture of knotted muscle and scar tissue, but beneath it Church sensed a basic decency with which he could connect. He could do worse than having someone like Veitch along for the rideif they ever got out of there.

  For his part, he told Veitch very little about himself-even in those extreme circumstances he couldn't bypass his overwhelming need for privacy-but he did fill him in on everything that had happened to them since that night beneath Albert Bridge.

  As they began to exchange theories about what was really going on, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed loudly once again and then the door was flung roughly open. Church snapped his eyelids shut as the silhouette appeared in the doorway, his gorge rising even at that brief glimpse. The beast's voice was guttural, vibrating on bass notes so low Church could sense them in the pit of his stomach rather than hear them; the tone was insistent and grew noticeably angrier as the cell was opened. Church felt the presence approach him like a cold shadow until he caught that deep, nauseating stench. Crushing, bony fingers snapped around his jaw, digging into the soft flesh of his cheeks until they burned like hot pokers and slowly Church's head was forced round. The pressure was so great he felt his face was on the verge of disintegrating; he had no choice but to open his eyes.

  He looked into deep-set eyes with red slit pupils, something that could have been scales or a hideous skin deformity, monstrous bone formations, but the overwhelming terror he felt didn't come from the hellish appearance; in some uncanny way it was like he was looking deep within the creature, and what he saw there was too terrible to bear.

  His mind screamed for an instant and then flickered out.

  Church woke on the floor in the stinking straw, vomit splattered all around. His wrists ached as if they had been plugged with nails, but the sudden knowledge that he was no longer manacled came like a reviving draught. Although his head thundered, he sat bolt upright and glanced hastily around, ready to dart for any opening that presented itself.

  "Save it." Veitch sat in the corner, spooning something grey and watery from a rough wooden bowl. "The cage is still locked-there's no way out." He slurped the soup and grimaced. "Now I know how those people in the plane crash in the Andes could eat their dead mates. You'll force down any old shit if you're hungry enough."

  Church noticed another bowl nearby. "What is it?"

  "Don't know. Don't want to know. Don't even want to think about it, so don't mention it again."

  Church slid over and picked up the spoon and bowl, his stomach contracting with hunger. Circles of translucent grease floated on the top of the grey liquid; the smell was like sour milk. Dunking the spoon in, he swirled it around, but there was no substance in it at all. He half-raised the spoon to his mouth, thought for a moment, then let it drop. "Obviously I'm not hungry enough."

  "You will be, mate," Veitch said ominously. He drained the bowl and threw it to one side in the straw.

  "I don't intend being in here that long."

  "What's your plan?"

  "I'll know it when I see it."

  Veitch laughed. "Bleedin' hell! An optimist!"

  Chu
rch hauled himself to his feet and tested the cell door. The bars were iron, solid and unshakable, the lock enormous, looking impossible to pick, even if he had the faintest idea how to go about it.

  "I haven't worked out yet if this is the larder," Veitch said darkly.

  Church followed the bars along to where they were held fast in the slick, living rock. "That might be the end of the line, but right now we're too important to be an appetiser. We're the key to stopping them and they know that. I think they're a little scared of us. Well, not of us exactly, but of what we represent, what we can do."

  "And what's that exactly?" Veitch tried to mask his incredulity, but it broke through nonetheless. Church wasn't offended; he knew exactly how Veitch felt. He lived a normal life, thought normal thoughts; there was nothing that set him apart from the ordinary. The suggestion that he was destined to become some kind of hero of mythic proportions, foretold in prophecies millennia ago, diverged from his own reality so much that it seemed laughable. But all the evidence seemed to be guiding him in that direction: the magical coincidences, the dreams, the talk of Brothers of Dragons which suggested some aspect of him that he hadn't seen.

  "Brothers of Dragons," he muttered.

  "What is it? Like the Masons?"

  "I think it's a catch-all for five of us who are supposed to come together in Britain's darkest hour. Or, more rightly, something that binds us together." He cast his mind back to the carnage on the M4 and told Veitch about their encounter with the Fabulous Beast.

  "Maybe it means we can talk to them, like Doctor bleedin' Doolittle."

  Church rested his back against the hard bars and slid to the ground. "I think it's something more symbolic. The dragons are linked to the earth energy, the magic that we were shown at Stonehenge. They feed off it, swim in it, follow it. I can't explain it, but the energy seemed to be a part of nature. Almost a living part."

  "Its blood."

  "In a way. And dragons have always been used to represent the power in the earth, going back to the ancient Chinese. Maybe it means we're supposed to be defenders of that energy. No, of the planet itself. We're the brothers of the dragon-energy, the blood of the world." Church surprised himself by his logical progression; even in that environment he was still capable of it.

  "That's a big job," Veitch said dismissively. "Don't you think they'd have chosen somebody up to it?"

  "I don't think choice came into it," Church replied. "I think this was something laid out years ago, long before any of us were born. The onus is on us to live up to that responsibility."

  "And here we are stuck in a bleedin' hole in the ground, waiting to die. I can't stand it in here!" he yelled as the repressed anger at his captivity finally bubbled to the surface. "You bastards!"

  Church was shocked to see the rage transform his face; there was so much of it within him, so close to the surface, that Church knew he was dangerous. "Calm down," he said. "You don't want to bring them in here."

  But it was too late. The noise coming towards the door suggested several beasts were on their way. Church moved to a corner, bowing his head so he wouldn't have to look into their faces. When the door burst open with a crash, Veitch cursed quietly under his breath. There was something almost terrified in that small sound and Church couldn't help a brief glance up. Several of the creatures hung back in the shadows, but Church was shocked to see the one at the front was not monstrous. He presumed it was the one Veitch had mentioned before, for his face would have been beautiful if it had not been spoiled by a veneer of cruelty. Church forced himself to focus on the strange creature so he did not have to look into the terrible faces of the others: his skin was faintly golden, his face oval and delicate. The eyes were almost like a cat's, with purple irises, and his silver hair was long and lustrous; there was something about him which reminded Church vaguely of the woman in the Watchtower. And where the other beasts had bodies which were huge, misshapen and filled with an inhuman power, his was almost weak and effeminate, slim-hipped, small-waisted, with thin legs and arms that hung loosely from his joints. But although he didn't resemble them, the foul animal stink that came off him still marked him out as one of them. He wore what appeared to be a silk blouson and strange, heavily stained breeches, like some pastiche of a human. For the briefest instant, Church thought he was no threat, but then his eyes came back to the creature's face and he felt a chill run through him.

  Slowly the visitor turned towards Veitch and said softly and with a faint sibilance, "You are making too much noise again, little dear." Church expected Veitch to unleash some of his pent-up fury, but instead he simply looked away.

  The creature turned his attention back to Church. "My name is Calatin. Among the tribes so many tales had been told about you, Brother of Dragons, or, as you are known to us, Arith Urkolim."

  Church felt a sudden frisson. That was the same phrase the creature at Heston Services had used when it had tried to abduct Ruth.

  "So many prophecies and portents delivered by our fathers' fathers' fathers, but here before me you are diminished. I see you are as weak and frail as all your kind." He stroked his chin elegantly with a long, slim finger that ended in a dirty, broken nail. "A cautionary tale about the validity of myths."

  Church couldn't understand the disparity in appearance nor his grasp of English when the others had only ever spoken in that incomprehensible mix of shrieks and roars.

  Calatin moved forward until the reek of him was almost overpowering. "All that energy expended in clearing you from the board. The Fabulous Beast, I must admit, was draining in the extreme to bridle. They are so independent, it takes an exhaustive ritual to direct the will necessary to control them. And the Wild Hunt demanded a price that was almost too high to pay. But pay it we did. And then you deliver yourself to our door." He shook his head in mock disbelief. "I still cannot decide which would have been the best outcome for you. To be cut down by the Hunt, brutal but mercifully swift. Or to end up here, with us." He smiled coldly.

  Church's head buzzed; Calatin seemed to be radiating some kind of energy field that made him uncomfortable. "And now you have me the Hunt can go back to wherever it came from?" He hoped Calatin didn't recognise his concern for Ruth and Laura.

  "Oh, there is no way to call off the Hunt until they have been sated," Calatin replied with obvious cruelty. "Wild magic, once unleashed, cannot be controlled."

  "But-"

  "And now we have to decide what to do with you," Calatin continued. "There are those who feel your head will provide powerful magic if it is built into the walls of our citadel once all our plans have been achieved. Others believe a choice meal of your brains would allow your prowess, however well hidden it might be, to be passed on to the Cadrii, our greatest warriors. We can afford to take our time in deciding. In the meanwhile, there are certain matters which need to be resolved."

  He nodded, and the others moved out of the shadows to grasp Church's arms. He tried to hide from their faces, but it was impossible and within a second or two he plunged into unconsciousness once more.

  The smell of some indescribable meat cooking to the point of burning filled his nose. Wherever he was, the suffocating heat was so overpowering Church almost blacked out again the moment he regained consciousness. Leather straps held him fast to some rough wooden bench, but he could lift his head enough to look around, and instantly wished he hadn't. The room had been hacked out of the bedrock like his cell, and was lit by a red glow that emanated from a furnace roaring away in one corner. One of the hideous creatures tended it with his back to Church, moving what looked like blacksmith's tools around in the blazing scarlet heart of the fire. In another corner a large black cauldron boiled away over an open fire. It was stained by thick, brown juice which slopped over the side with each viscous, bursting bubble and it was from here the heavy meat smell emanated. Next to it was a heavily discoloured bench with a variety of cleavers embedded in it, obviously where whatever food was in the cauldron had been prepared. His eyes were drawn
back to the cauldron by something he hadn't first noticed. Church squinted, then looked away in disgust from the torso and head hooked over one side by a trailing arm.

  Fighting back the nausea, he continued to scan the room as best he could. It quickly became apparent what its use was. Various torture instruments he had only ever seen on display in mediaeval castles hung in the half-light between the outer shadows and the furnace's ruddy glow: an iron cage, a large studded wheel, a rack of cruelly tipped tools whose uses he could only guess at, a curtain of hooked chains that hung from the ceiling, and more that he couldn't bring himself to examine.

  Before his terror had chance to take root, a heavy door in front of him ground open, framing Calatin and two other beasts in the outer light. Although Church couldn't bear to look at them, he didn't feel so close to blacking out; he could only imagine he was growing numb to their horrors which upset him more than he could have believed.

  Calatin glanced at him in a manner that suggested Church was almost beneath his notice before turning his attention to the creature at the furnace. They spoke briefly in that yelping, bizarre language, and from the body language and tone Church guessed Calatin was in some position of power. But as he advanced, Church saw he was shaking as if he had an ague and his face had the drawn, wearied expression of someone battling against illness. When he reached the table where Church was strapped, Calatin allowed himself one brief look which was filled with such contempt it was as if all the sourness brought on by that inner struggle had been flushed out in Church's direction.

  "What now?" Church said. The two words were all he could manage without the knot of fear in his stomach breaking his voice and cracking the mask he had drawn on to protect his dignity; he had to fight to prevent his eyes being drawn to the cruel tools hanging on the wall, to prevent the images of blood and suffering flooding his mind. But deep inside him there was a place that the fear couldn't reach, where he was calmly aware of his responsibilities and of keeping his humanity intact in the face of an evil that wanted to see it broken and debased. The essence of the hero he had denied was in there too, and it startled him to recognize it, as if someone had shone a searchlight to reveal a new, pristine room in his flat.