World's end taom-1

by Mark Chadbourn

  "And the water?"

  "An oblation to be offered at the point where we find ourselves."

  "You call it ritual, but it sounds like magic to me," Ruth noted.

  "Perhaps." Shavi put an arm around both their shoulders, an act that would have seemed too familiar from any other man they had just met, yet from him it simply suggested friendship and security. "We think of magic as something from children's stories, but it may simply be a word for describing that activa tion of the earth force you have seen. New knowledge which we have no frame of reference to understand. Magic is as good a word as any."

  "Sometimes you sound just like that old hippie," Laura said with an acidity that was transparent to both Shavi and Ruth.

  They continued to discuss the tor and the mysteries they had uncovered for the next half hour, yet none of them touched on the matter that was most important in all their hearts; the sense that they were on the verge of something profound, a turning point which would finally reveal the truth about the events that were shaping the world, about the forgotten past and the hidden future, and, above all, about themselves.

  The closer the sunrise drew, the more they seemed to feel an electric quality in the air which resonated deep within them. Barely able to contain their anticipation, they sat against a wall and watched the eastern sky for its lightening. It was a magical moment that stilled conversation, of stars, and wind and the sound of the trees at the foot of the tor, and for a while they seemed to feel the axis of the heavens turning, as they knew their ancestors would have done millennia ago.

  It was during one such lull in the conversation that they were startled by the noise of something heavy hitting the ground and a strange liquid, flopping sound. It was incongruous enough to set their hearts racing, and they hurried around the tower to search for its origin.

  But as they rounded the western flank of the tower, they were brought up sharp by a bizarre sight that sent their heads spinning: three figures floundered like fish on the slopes of the tor, soaked to the skin and retching up sea water.

  "Oh great," Laura said sourly. "The old git's back."

  Chapter Fifteen

  a day as still as heaven

  Ruth reached Church first. "We're on the highest spot in the area and they're drowning," she said incredulously. Without giving it a second thought, she jumped astride him and began massaging his chest to free the water trapped in his lungs.

  The others reacted slightly slower-Laura gave the kiss of life to Veitch while Shavi administered to Tom-but within five minutes the three new arrivals were sitting up, gasping and wringing out their sodden clothes.

  Bafflement at the bizarre situation was washed aside in a rush of emotion. Ruth threw her arms round Church and hugged him tightly. "God, I'm so glad you're alive!"

  Although still dazed by the situation, his relief at seeing her was palpable. He kissed her affectionately on the cheek, then glanced up at Laura who was standing uncomfortably a few feet away.

  "I knew you were too stupid to get yourself killed," she said.

  He smiled; the message between the lines was obvious. "I missed you too."

  Their brief introductions dissolved into a mess of garbled comments as they struggled to understand what had happened. Church described the confrontation at Tintagel and their plunge into the ocean, while glancing at Glastonbury's lights. Then he caught Tom's eye. "What do you know about it?"

  Tom's grey, drawn face suggested the experience had affected him more than the others. "I moved us along the lines of power." He sucked in a deep, juddering breath.

  "You transported us here?" Church said incredulously.

  "It was always theoretically possible. A matter of shaping the energy to do your bidding, forcing a connection between two nodes. I'd been taught the ritual movements, the correct vibrational sounds to make-"

  "Magic!" Shavi said, his face alight with excitement.

  "— but I'd never achieved anything like this before. Desperation must have focused my mind."

  "Who taught you?" Church asked. "You owe us a lot of explanations-"

  "There is no time now," Shavi interrupted. He explained the impending sunrise ritual and the events that had led them to it.

  "Don't we get a bleedin' rest?" Veitch flopped back on the grass.

  "We can rest later." Church retrieved the sword from where it lay and made a tear in his jacket, slipping it in between the lining; the handle protruded above his right shoulder where he could reach it easily. "Two down," he said, "and two to go."

  Huddled in the tower away from the wind, they made hasty introductions and exchanged fuller details of their experiences, but any excitement they may have felt at their reunion was muted by the apprehension of what lay ahead. Twenty minutes later the first faint silvering in the sky brought with it an oppressive silence. Shavi rose and led the way to the Living Rock, a standing stone that marked the entrance to the labyrinth. While the others waited uncomfortably behind him, he bowed his head silently in meditation. Then, when the first rays of dawn crept across the grass to hit the stone, it seemed to ignite with blue fire. A gasp of amazement rippled through the others, but Shavi simply rested his hand upon it for a moment before setting off along the first terrace; the others followed in a solemn procession.

  The going was not easy. They weaved back and forth in horseshoe patterns around the tor, slowly rising through the terraces as the sky exploded in gold, purple and powder blue. Though none of them spoke, the dawn chorus soaring from the trees at the base of the hill provided an epic soundtrack. Whatever power lay in the ground reinvigorated Church, Veitch and Tom, but there was still a hard lump of fear in all their hearts.

  It took them nearly two hours to complete the serpentine route. At the final turn, the path seemed to disappear, leaving a precipitous, near-impassable way to the summit. Veitch opened his mouth to question, but Church silenced him with a wave of his finger. At that spot, the underlying rock broke through the short grass to reveal a large boulder.

  The others waited patiently while Shavi produced the plastic bottle containing the Chalice Well water and, after another moment of meditation, he poured the oblation upon the boulder. A strange dual tone emerged from deep within the tor, like falsetto singing merging with a bass rumble. Tiny threads of blue fire spread out across the boulder and then into the other exposed rock. It fizzed and licked for a moment while the noise grew in intensity and then, with a sudden roaring, the rock drew aside to reveal a dark tunnel winding down into the black depths.

  They could remember nothing about that journey through the dark. Sometime later, they found themselves in a place that took their breath away; not some dingy cavern lying inside the tor, but green fields and thick woods, rustled by a slight breeze in the heat of a summer's day. Nearby they could hear the faint babbling of a brook. The air smelled sweeter than anything they had experienced before; to breathe it in was so fulfilling it was almost as if they had eaten a hearty meal. Ruth caught a fleeting glimpse of her owl soaring high above and wondered how it had got there.

  "Where are we?" Veitch said in bewilderment. "We should be underground. I can see sky."

  Tom knelt down and gently kissed the green sward. "Tir na n'Og," he muttered.

  Ruth looked round in confusion. "We're not in Somerset any more, Toto."

  "The Land of Youth, or Always Summer." This Church did remember from his studies. "The Celtic heaven. The Otherworld where all the gods were supposed to have gone to after they left Earth in the hands of man."

  "That's one aspect of it." Tom rose and stretched; he looked revitalised. "Like everything else, it has a dual aspect. It is also The Land of Ever Winter, or hell, by any other name, depending how you come to it."

  "I don't understand." Veitch looked from one face to the other.

  "This place is not fixed," Tom said, "like all the things that originate here. You are all seeing something slightly different, depending on your perception. What is within, is without."

 
"Listen to the voice of Buddha," Laura sighed.

  But now he had mentioned it, they could all see it. The edges of each blade of grass, tree branches, even the horizon, seemed vaguely fluid, as if they could change at a moment's notice; they seemed to radiate a subtle, inner light, creating a distorted sense of unreality.

  "But we should be underground," Veitch protested.

  "Hey, new boy, when you find your brain, let us know." Laura kicked up a few sods of turf. "We've crossed over. We're in Never land now." Veitch returned a combative scowl.

  "Look at it!" Shavi said. "It is amazing. Everything is so vital." He whirled round to take in the landscape. "Even the quality of the air, the sounds-"

  "Don't be mistaken," Tom interjected. "There's danger here too."

  "It looks deserted," Ruth said.

  "The Danann are missing. Everything else is in our world," Church said.

  The Wayfinder's flame pointed them down the gentle slope of the meadow to a wood that lay beyond the brook. As they walked, Church caught up with Tom. "So this is where you stayed for all those years. Is it good to be back?"

  "You misunderstand." Tom didn't take his eyes off the path. "I miss this place like a murderer who has spent his entire life in solitary confinement misses his cell. Familiarity forces you to love the things you hate."

  "You were a prisoner here?"

  "A prisoner, a plaything, something to be tormented by the gods, torn inside out and reshaped for their enjoyment."

  Church eyed him askance. "I hope that's a metaphor."

  "I told you-they are alien, unknowable. We cannot begin to grasp the power at their disposal. Do not be fooled because we view them in vaguely human form. They are beyond most of our emotions-love, hate-"

  "Cruelty?"

  He paused. "No. Not beyond that."

  Tom was interrupted by a cry from Veitch, who had moved into lead position along the path which was skirting a thick wood. They hurried through the meadow flowers until they saw what had alerted him: an odd circular structure of timber and stone with a tower at its centre. The Wayfinder flame flickered enticingly towards it.

  "Before this land was deserted you wouldn't have been able to get within an arrow's fall of this place. Even the Danann revered it and what it contained," Tom said.

  "The bloody Grail!" Witch said enthusiastically.

  They walked slowly until they were in the shadow of the building; an odd atmosphere hung heavily around it that invoked both awe and fear. Church pointed out five doors around its walls, without needing to explain what that meant. Shavi and Ruth were keen to enter, but after their experiences with the first two talismans Church, Veitch and Laura were more hesitant.

  Tom wandered back into the sun and took up a position on one of the grassy slopes overlooking the building. "You're not coming?" Church asked.

  "I would be torn apart by all the power in there. This isn't for me. It's about you, all of you."

  There was something in his words that made Church feel uncomfortable, but he turned back to the others, readying himself for what lay ahead. After fifteen minutes boosting each other's confidence, they each took up a spot in front of one of the doors and on the count of three they swung them open and stepped in.

  The corridor was long, pitch-black and oppressively warm. Shavi edged down it cautiously, trailing his fingertips along the rough walls for guidance. His footsteps echoed strangely, as if the size of the space were far greater than it appeared to be, and after he had been walking for ten minutes he realised that must certainly have been the case, for he could have circumnavigated the building five times in that period. By then, the faint light from the door had disappeared completely, the impenetrable darkness closing around so tightly he felt like he was floating in space. His progress slowed even further as he felt each step with his foot in case the floor fell away suddenly.

  But after a short while he got a sense of diffuse illumination ahead, like candlelight. To his surprise, he found himself in what appeared to be a funfair hall of mirrors, the polished glass lined up in continuously branching avenues like a maze. After the dark it was destabilising and he had to close his eyes for a moment while he steadied himself.

  It was impossible to guess where the source of the light was in the myriad subtle reflections, but it allowed him to move more freely. He chose his path at random.

  For what seemed like an hour, he wandered among the images of himself, most of them normal, some grotesquely distorted. It seemed to him it was simply a trap to drive intruders insane. He could have been going round in circles for all he knew; there was nothing to distinguish the routes among the mirrors.

  But as he rounded a sharp bend in the maze, he came upon a mirror which was unlike any of the others. It was larger, with a bevelled edge to the glass, and a frame of what appeared to be silver, designed with the spiral paths and interlinking patterns of Celtic art. Shavi felt drawn towards it as if it were radiating some dark power. And once he stood before it he could see it was unusual in other ways, too; at first glance, his reflection seemed perfectly normal, but the more he looked, the more he could see a difference that was so subtle it was almost a variation of mood. There was a darkness to the features, the merest tinge of cruelty around the mouth, a sense of bitter loss in the eyes, a resentment in the way the head was held.

  Shavi examined it for a long moment, and then its mouth moved in no reflection of his own.

  "Why do you do this to yourself, Shavi? Searching for meaning in all these silly places? All these religions that have nothing to do with you? The meaning is here, with your family and the way you were raised. It will destroy you, Shavi." It was his father's voice. A chill crept through him. He recalled the rest of that conversation, the anger, the terrible things that were said.

  The mouth on the reflection became faintly sneering. "You are a selfish man, Shavi." This time it was his own voice, though harder, more contemptuous. "You destroyed your family with your actions. Think of your father and your mother-the effort they expended raising you in the correct Muslim way. Think how they must feel to see you abandon every principle which has been the bedrock of their lives. They see themselves as failures in the thing that is most important to them. You destroyed them, Shavi."

  I did not-"

  The image spoke more forcefully to block his protestations. "Lies. Your only motivation was your own selfish spiritual advancement, your own intellectual curiosity, and you had no concern how many people were hurt as you walked your road of excess to your own personal palace of wisdom. Life is about community, Shavi. About society. Helping others achieve their own nirvana-"

  "I am helping others now."

  "Because it coincides with your own desires. You are revelling in the light these experiences shine on the dark of the greater reality."

  "True." Shavi felt more confident after his initial shock. Once he had realised it was the test they had all expected it became easy to detach himself. The mirror was reflecting back at him his own doubts and fears about his choices in life. But there was nothing it could show him that he hadn't weighed and discarded, or had accepted in order to change himself.

  The mirror suddenly took on a milky sheen and when it cleared he was looking out on a Clapham street late one night. Several yards away, Lee was being bludgeoned to death. The blood splashed high with each thunderous blow. The attacker was like a smear on the surface of the glass, but Lee's expression was in stark relief; his eyes were turned towards Shavi, pleading for help, his mouth was an 0 of horror and desperation of a life about to be eradicated.

  "You could have saved him, Shavi. You had the strength inside you to stand up, to fight. But you were afraid for your own safety. The haziness from the blow was just as an excuse. You gave into it easily so you would not have to risk yourself. And Lee died because of your cowardice."

  Shavi felt the emotion well up in him uncontrollably until tears sprang from his eyes like they had been pricked by needles. There was such a rush of loss and gui
lt he thought he was going to break down.

  "You're a bitch, Laura, and you deserve everything you get." The face in the mirror, her face, spat the words with venom. "Let's face it, you killed your mum! On a scale of one to ten that's off the Sick Bastardometer. What do you think that did to your dad? Well, it probably wasn't what was crossing his mind when he held you in that little girlie white dress at your Christening. He probably thought you'd turn out to be a vet or a nurse. You know, something useful. Hell, maybe even a dutiful daughter-some stupid fantasy like that. No wonder he opted for a life of shrinks and cells instead of giving you a big soppy hug.

  "So now you think you're going to find some kind of salvation with Mr. Brooding-and-Soulful Churchill. Think again. You'll just screw up his life like you have everybody else's. You couldn't feel anything as selfless as love if it walked up and bit you on your bony arse. You're just sucking out of him anything you can find that will make you feel, Vampire-Girl. Get real. If you wanted to do something worthwhile you'd top yourself. Save the rest of the world any more heartache."

  Veitch felt his finger close on the trigger, felt the kick from the ejaculation of the bullet, saw it embed itself in the man's body, burst through it, spraying the bone and the blood, saw the terrible pain on his victim's face; felt the faintly perverse pleasure rise through him, like a hard porn orgasm, the kick of having ultimate power and dispensing it with the merest thought. Nothing could control him; he could control everything.

  "That was how it was, wasn't it, Ryan?"

  "No! I've been living with that every day of my life since!"

  "Because you enjoyed it."

  "No-!"

  "Yes. Secretly. In your quiet moments. Lying in bed when everyone else was asleep. When your other poor bastard brothers were doing time for you. You thought, `Yeah! That was what it was like to be a top man!"'

  "You lying fucking bastard! I'm gonna make up for that if it's the last thing I do. That's right. Even if I have to die, I'm gonna pay it back. I learned a big lesson-"