The sentiment was correct, but there was something calculated about it that was not reflected in his expression. She realised obliquely that while they had been in the throes of passion, it had almost been as if he was running through the motions. The word that came to mind was hollow.
After he had gone, she sat on her bed, hugging her knees and feeling so desperately lonely that her stomach ached. She had the strangest feeling that her life was just a role being conducted for hidden cameras; that the real Ruth Gallagher was someone quite different, living an existence that was filled with love, passion and most of all meaning. And more, she felt that in that life there was someone else who was more important to her than life itself, someone whose face she could almost see if she just concentrated hard enough …
Ruth jerked out of her reverie. She had the oddest sense that the wardrobe door had opened a little, barely perceptibly, but she was sure she had registered movement. The crack was wider than a finger and she could see the darkness within. Gooseflesh ran up her arms for no reason that she could understand.
She tried to recall what she had been considering, but the thought was gone. She went to the kitchen to make herself a herbal tea, and when she returned to the bedroom later she didn’t notice that the wardrobe door was shut once more.
6
During the month-long expedition, Church had seen many wonders of the Far Lands: a brass robot 100 feet high who guarded the treasures of ancient races; a city of mirrors that only appeared at sunrise and sunset; a pool where you could see your own dreams made flesh; a garden of sentient exotic blooms that lured unwary travellers to their doom; and a vast array of strange people and stranger creatures: the vampiric Baobhan Sith, cannibalistic boar-men, lizard-women whose song could send you to sleep for 100 years, wolf-men, sorcerers, inch-high men and women with homes in the trunks of trees, basilisks and manticores, flesh-eating unicorns and cats that were wiser than any human he had ever met.
He had sat beneath the billion, billion stars on a warm night looking out over a great plain to mountains that appeared to reach to the heavens. He had slipped into the silent, green depths of the preternatural Forest of the Night and skirted the edge of a burning desert.
During that time he had been forced to confront many threats both to himself and those who travelled with him, for the Far Lands were as dangerous as they were wonderful, and gradually tales of the great exploits of Jack the Giantkiller began to spread amongst the denizens of T’ir n’a n’Og. Though he didn’t realise it himself, he was passing into legend, in a place where legend was the currency of the great.
And so they came to what felt like the edge of the world, beyond the great desert where the sky was occasionally filled with swirling psychedelic colours. An inhospitable landscape of volcanic rock and glass and dusty plains stretched out as far as the eye could see.
The constant tolling of a bell told them when they were nearing their destination. Overhead flew clouds of the region’s strange carrion birds, their beaks and breasts white, the rest of them as black as oil.
Church crested the final ridge on his belly and wriggled to a good vantage point amongst the razor-sharp rocks. What he saw made his blood run cold. A massive city was being erected in the wasteland, but it was not like any city he had seen before: from a certain angle it appeared to be a giant insect squatting on the landscape, as big as London, yet while parts of it gleamed the shiny black of a carapace, other sections appeared to be constructed from spoiled meat. None of the architecture had any human dimension or design; there were promontories and spikes, domes and sheer faces that appeared to serve no purpose. A wall of the black meat at least 100 feet high ranged across the front of the city and continued around the back, where the incessant construction work was taking place.
‘Abomination.’ Jerzy had wriggled up beside Church. A scarf was wrapped across his frozen mouth to keep out the dust.
The outer surfaces of the city swarmed with figures involved in some unidentifiable activity. They reminded Church of the regimented movements of worker ants. On the plain before the wall marched a vast army, members of the Ninth Legion amongst its ranks.
Niamh appeared next to him, and Church quickly pulled her down before she could be seen. ‘Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?’ he said.
Niamh’s fragile features looked out of place in the cruel landscape. ‘No,’ she said simply, ‘for Existence has always protected my people.’
They crawled back down the slope to where Lucia was waiting with the horses. ‘It’s big,’ Church reported to her. ‘I don’t know how many of them there are inside, but if it grows much larger they could overrun this land in an instant.’
Lucia wiped a smear of black dust from Church’s sweaty brow. ‘Then all the reports were correct,’ she said. ‘Now we know where their forces are camped, we can strike swiftly—’
‘Must you continually molest him?’ Niamh said to her coldly.
‘You may have tricked him into being your slave, but you will never own his soul.’ Lucia’s eyes flashed defiantly.
Church stepped in to quell the tension that had been mounting between the two women throughout the journey. ‘We can tell your people to raise an army and return here,’ he said to Niamh.
‘There is no point,’ Niamh said. ‘It would take a great deal of negotiation simply to bring together the twenty great courts, and even then my people would never agree to a pre-emptive attack. The Golden Ones believe themselves to be so powerful that no one would dare strike against them. But if any ever do, they will respond with force.’
‘So we have to wait until those things get the first punch in?’ Church said.
‘Only then will the Golden Ones respond.’
‘By then it might be too late.’
She looked towards the distant horizon that hid her home. ‘Only then.’
7
Church led the way back into the Court of the Soaring Spirit as dusk was falling. Lanterns burning in a million windows transformed the oppressive architecture into a place of magic, and the streets were filled with the aroma of exotic spices from evening meals.
Niamh returned to her quarters immediately. Throughout the entire return journey, she had been brooding over the repercussions of their discovery of the enemy fortress. With each passing day she was less like the goddess who had enticed Church into the Otherworld. Her arrogance and confidence had been shattered and she stalked the corridors of her palace as if death were only one step behind.
The first thing Church did was to seek out Decebalus and Aula, who were drinking in the Hunter’s Moon. They had recently returned from their own expedition to explore the Far Lands to the east.
After Church explained about the enemy fortress, he said, ‘I have a job for you, if you’re up for it.’
Decebalus raised his flagon. ‘Anything, brother.’
Church told them of Veitch’s plan to murder any Brothers and Sisters of Dragons he could find. ‘If I’m allowed, I’m going to return to our world at regular intervals and bring back any of us I can find – and who are prepared to come.’
‘After they have carried out whatever mission Existence has planned for them in our world,’ Aula noted.
Church nodded. ‘I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or successful, but at least I’ll be able to save some of them from Veitch. We’ll also be able to build up a force, here in the city, for whatever fight we’ve got ahead of us.’
Decebalus nodded approvingly. ‘An army of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’
‘Well, maybe a squad …’ Church bent forward so he would not be overheard. ‘I want the two of you to look after them. Give them all the information they need. Find them somewhere safe to stay, either here or outside the city. And get them ready for whenever they’re needed. Will you do that?’
Decebalus grinned and drained his flagon.
‘There are worse jobs,’ Aula said before downing her own drink.
Church quickly returned
to the Palace of Glorious Light where the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons had been given quarters in a tower that faced the setting sun. By accident or design, it was far removed from the main living quarters of Niamh’s staff.
Lucia had already turned her rooms into a reflection of her character, filled with obscure artefacts, talismans and strange objects she had located in the court’s markets and shops. One chamber had been set apart for practising her Craft, and it was there that the owl resided. Church had started to think it was less a bird than something else that had adopted the image as a disguise; it always looked at him with an unnerving intelligence.
Church had also come to realise Lucia’s potential. Somehow she was tapping directly into the energy that manifested as the Blue Fire. If she could truly manipulate it, she would be capable of anything.
‘Perhaps,’ she mused as they sat sipping wine while Jerzy practised his juggling, ‘we are all capable of drawing from that reservoir of power. We only need to find the right key to unlock the part of our mind that has the ability to direct it. For me it is the words of power, the correct hand movements, the rituals. For you—’
‘I need to find the lamp containing the missing part of my Pendragon Spirit,’ Church said. ‘Without that, I’m not going to be unlocking anything.’
‘She has it. I am sure of it.’ Lucia didn’t have to specify who she was. ‘She cannot be trusted. The gods have manipulated mortals since the world was formed. She has already manipulated you.’ A pause while she savoured her wine, and then a statement designed to appear throwaway: ‘Why do you indulge her?’
‘I don’t.’
‘You have not attempted to break her control over you.’
‘She’s agreed to release me if I find her brother.’
Another pause, another carefully considered statement: ‘She is developing a fascination for you.’
‘As a specimen, maybe. Not in the way you mean.’
Lucia smiled at Church’s naivety. ‘I have seen the way she looks at you when you are not aware. Whenever you speak, her attention is drawn to you. She does not treat you like chattel, though by any definition that is what you are.’
‘She’s a goddess.’ Church finished his wine. ‘And I’m a man. At the very best it would be social suicide.’
Lucia laughed and offered him more wine. Church declined and was surprised by the flicker of sadness in her eyes when he said he was heading back to his chamber.
As Church and Jerzy approached their quarters, Evgen was waiting for them. Church did not trust Niamh’s guard captain. He was sure it was only Niamh’s patronage that prevented Evgen from eradicating him in an instant.
‘You have a visitor,’ Evgen said in a monotone. ‘He arrived at the gates of the court shortly after your return.’
‘I have no idea who that could possibly be.’
‘He says he knows you. He was a mortal … once.’ Evgen smiled nastily. ‘He is known in the Far Lands as the pet of the queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart. He has announced himself here as Thomas Learmont of Earlston. Also known as Thomas the Rhymer.’
8
‘Who is this Fragile Creature?’ Jerzy asked as they followed the echoes of Evgen’s boots down the winding stone steps.
‘It depends if he is who he says he is,’ Church replied. ‘Thomas the Rhymer is a figure from the myths of my people, like King Arthur – very much like Arthur, in fact. Both of them were supposed to sleep under a hill until the darkest hour when their people would need them again.’
‘So he was a great warrior?’
‘Not in the same way. According to the old stories, Thomas was kidnapped by the Faerie Queen while he slept under a hawthorn tree. He stayed with the Fair Folk for a while and was given two great gifts: the power of prophecy and the Tongue that Cannot Lie. If you can actually call that a gift. True Thomas, they called him. When he returned home to Scotland he made his mark, achieved legendary status and then disappeared back to Faerie. But that might not have happened yet. Or maybe this is it happening now. I can’t get my head around the whole time-not-being-linear thing.’
‘Perhaps he simply ran out of friends in the Fixed Lands because of all that truth-telling,’ Jerzy said.
Evgen led them into a large chamber in the castle’s guard-tower where a man sat alone, swathed in a cloak with a hood pulled over his head. Evgen nodded to Church and left.
The man stood and removed his hood to reveal a dour face and lank brown hair. Intelligent but troubled grey eyes surveyed them forensically. ‘This is it, then.’ His Scottish accent softened his irritable tone. ‘A naïf and a fool.’
‘What winning ways,’ Jerzy said drolly. ‘We must introduce you to the queen.’
‘I’ve been teaching him the humour of our world,’ Church said. ‘He particularly likes irony and sarcasm.’
‘I am glad you are using your time wisely,’ the stranger said. ‘After all, you could simply be fighting for humanity and the whole of Existence.’
Church tried to read how much the stranger knew, but his eyes gave nothing away.
‘I have been gifted –’ Thomas enunciated the word venomously ‘– with the ability to see into the future. We are fated to walk the same road, at least for a while.’
‘Friends, then,’ Church said.
‘Oh, I would not go that far.’ Thomas the Rhymer smiled tightly.
9
Jerzy raised his flagon. The Hunter’s Moon was as packed as ever. ‘Well, then, Tom—’
‘Thomas.’
Jerzy’s grin was challenging. ‘No, I think it has to be Tom.’ He winked at Church. Tom shook his head wearily. ‘I raise my glass to a hero in the making. A legend.’
‘I think,’ Tom said pointedly to Church, ‘your monkey has had more than enough lessons in irony.’
Church raised his own flagon ironically. ‘You are, then, Thomas Learmont.’
‘Yes.’
‘And it happened as the story said: you were taken by the Faerie court—?’
‘The queen of the Court of the Yearning Heart entertained me until she grew bored with my ways.’
‘And she gave you the two gifts?’
‘Curses, not gifts. It was an act of punishment.’
‘Punishment for what?’
‘For not being … entertaining enough. The gods grow bored easily.’
Jerzy’s mood dampened. ‘Though it irks me, I fear we have much in common. The Golden Ones like to act as patrons, sometimes friends, even lovers, but they are cruel masters and they have only their own best interests at heart.’
‘But being able to see the future—’ Church began.
Tom shook his head. ‘To see the misery of growing old, the indignities, the countless occasions of pain and suffering that lie ahead for yourself, your loved ones, your friends? To see your own death? To know when and how and have it haunt your dreams? There is a reason why man was made to drift through his days in ignorance.’
Church could now understand the bitterness he sensed in Tom. ‘What incentive is there to do anything if you know exactly what’s going to happen?’ he asked.
‘Ah, it is not as simple as that, as if anything is. I see static images laid out before me, not live in all their multifaceted glory. It is like walking through an endless gallery where each painting shows a different scene of something that lies ahead. I have no idea how they relate, how any of them come to be. I know not if they are true representations or a warped perspective of what is yet to come. Yet they haunt me still.’
‘But what you saw led you to seek us out?’
‘To seek you out.’
Church weighed up whether he really wanted to ask the question. ‘What did you see?’
Tom weighed his reply just as carefully. ‘A stark choice: between humanity being freed of its shackles, or being confined to the mud for evermore. A war that could destroy men and gods. And you as the deciding factor.’
‘That’s the big picture. What did you see for me?’
For the first time there was a glimpse of sympathy in Tom’s eyes. ‘I think you know the answer to that,’ he said.
The lull that followed was heavy, and it felt as if the whole of the bar had grown still. Jerzy clapped an arm around Church’s shoulders. ‘Hope, good friend, is the key that unlocks many a door, and we carry it around with us always.’
‘All right,’ Church said to Tom. ‘You’re the man with the answers. What do we do now?’
‘Now,’ Tom said, ‘we prepare to take the upper hand in the coming war.’
Chapter Five
THE SWORDS OF ALBION
1
Venice, 26 December 1586
Fog blanketed the city by the lagoon, but even its chilly, damp embrace could not douse the hot emotions. The carnival was in full swing. Music swept out across Venice from the Piazza San Marco where hundreds of costumed and masked revellers danced in wild abandon or engaged in the subtle art of seduction. Before the Basilica of St Mark the Evangelist, with its towers and dome reaching up to the sky to denote God’s glory, men drank wine by the bottle and laughed loudly enough to drown out the fiddle players. Further into the shadows of the ornate building, couples kissed and slipped their hands beneath the folds of each other’s clothes, their masks hiding their identities even from themselves.
The Venetian Republic was at the height of its power. The wealthy enjoyed unparalleled access to all the best that life had to offer, free from the threat of war and suffering. And the carnival was the time when they could indulge themselves to the limit, unrestricted by the rules of society.
It was also the time when the boundary between the human world and all other worlds blurred, when mystery and magic ruled and anything could happen.
2
Through the crowds of carousing people moved a man in a dragon mask and a black and gold doublet and breeches with a garter of fine silk from Granada. With him was a woman, her arm looped through his, wearing a cat mask and a dress of deepest scarlet stiff with jewels and embroidery that set off the dusky gold tint of her skin. She paused to watch a skull-masked man in a black costume painted with white bones.
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