For a moment he was honestly overwhelmed with emotion. He had seen a lot of brutally upsetting things in recent times, but he couldn't understand how anyone could kill a young boy.
He shed a few tears before another thought struck. Caitlin had been convinced that the boy was vitally important to the great scheme that was being played out around them. What did his death mean for that?
After taking a moment to recover, he picked up Carlton and carried him a few feet into the forest. The loam was soft and he managed to clear enough of it to make a shallow grave in which he laid the body. It wasn't enough, but it would have to do. He scooped up handfuls of the loam to cover it, and then picked up as many fallen branches as he could to rest along the surface, so that in the end it resembled a wooden tomb. He forced one of the branches into the ground at the head as a marker.
Then he returned to Mahalia and brought her back to show her his work. 'I think we should say a few words,' he said.
'No point. He's gone.'
Crowther winced. 'Even if you don't believe in anything spiritual, the ritual would be good, to help you adjust to his passing.'
'I don't need to adjust. I can see he's gone. Come on, let's get out of this creepy forest.' She set off along the path before he had time to reply.
Her state troubled Crowther immensely. He had seen how angry and upset she had been when anyone had tried, however innocentiy, to come between her and Carlton. The boy appeared to mean more to her than life itself. And now she was acting as if she didn't care at all. 'Look at this, Matt.' Jack motioned to an area off to the right of the path. The trees seeped an oily black ichor and all the leaves were shrivelled and mottled with black spots. It had affected at least twenty trees that Jack could see and was spreading to the ground vegetation.
Matt examined it from the path, then moved closer. 'It's the same thing that was on that flower you found earlier.'
'I wouldn't get too near to it,' Jack warned.
'Wait.' Matt held out an arm, his attention gripped by something on the ground among the affected trees. Cautiously, he motioned for Jack to join him.
Jack had to blink a few times until he was sure of what he was seeing. Where the forest floor should have been, there was what he could only describe as a rip, as if he were looking at a painting and the canvas had been torn to reveal what lay behind it. In the centre of the rip was a deep black emptiness, like space, with the same endless quality. It made him feel queasy staring into it, for there was no sense that it was a hole in the ground. He felt that he could fall through it and into… nothing. 'What is it?' he asked in a hushed, uneasy voice.
'I don't know.' Matt stared at it for a moment and then guided Jack back to the path.
'You know what it looked like?' Jack said as they continued on their way. 'It looked like whatever was attacking the trees had eaten that hole away, too… but a hole right through everything.' He thought for a moment, and then grew uneasy. 'What could do that?'
'I have no idea. You know more about this place than I do. As far as I can tell, anything can happen here. It's like a dream… or a nightmare. No point getting concerned about it.' He clapped a hand across Jack's shoulders. 'If we're going to start worrying, we've got more important things to worry about.'
'I hope the others got out.'
'You hope Mahalia got out.'
Jack blushed.
'I've seen the way you've been with her.'
'She's nice. I like her.'
Matt shrugged. 'Personally I think you've got a tiger by the tail, but it's your life. Just be careful.' He shook his head with mock-weariness. 'What is wrong with me? I sound like a dad.'
Jack laughed. 'I never knew my father. You'll do for the moment.'
'Don't you go putting that on me. I've got quite enough on my plate without getting all paternal too.' He stretched aching shoulder muscles and adjusted the bow and quiver. 'I feel like we've been walking for weeks.'
'Perhaps we have. You can never quite tell here. I still think we should have waited-'
'We talked about this.' Matt stood in front of him and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. 'We all got turned around in the dark. It was blind luck that I ran into you. The others, if they did get out, could be way ahead of us. The best thing we can do is get to that place Triathus mentioned and wait for the others there.'
They set back off on their way, but it wasn't long before the boy was talking again. 'You know, I like this.'
'What? Getting lost in a forest with no provisions and no idea if you're going to get slaughtered when you go round the next bend?'
'No. Being with you… with people. I've never known humans all my life. Just the Golden Ones.' Anger rose but was quickly suppressed. 'Can you understand what it's like? Not to be with any of your own kind, just to hear stories about them, or sometimes see them across the barrier between the worlds, but never talk to them. Never be with them.'
'Yeah, and look at what your first experience of it was — us lot. Of all the people in all the world you ended up palling around with a bunch of psychos, liars and losers.' 'No, that's not true!' Jack said. 'I can see a lot more than you think — because I've been apart.' Matt eyed him curiously. 'I can tell what people are really like,' Jack continued. 'Everyone puts up barriers, and some people put up thicker walls than others. Take Professor Crowther. He can act very unpleasantly to everyone, but he's scared… of everything. He pretends he can cope, but he really can't cope at all.'
'So, you're a part-time psychoanalyst, too.' Matt laughed.
'And Mahalia, she's scared, too, but trying to appear strong. In fact, everybody's scared, but nobody wants to appear weak.'
'What about Caitlin? I bet you'd have a field day there.'
'I can tell you like her.'
Matt looked away. 'All right. Let's not have any of that.'
'And you
'Wait!' Matt silenced him with a raised hand. 'Can you hear that?'
Dimly, through the rustling of the leaves, a dull roaring was audible. 'Water,' Jack said. 'That must be the gorge.'
They hurried along the path until the heavy greenery of the trees gave way sharply to brilliant blue sky. An instant of rushing vertigo hit both of them, for they stood on the lip of a dizzying drop down a sheer granite face to rushing white water far below. The ravine was barely wider than the length of a football pitch, the Forest of the Night pressing up against the very edge so that ancient oaks and twisted yews overhung the chasm. Anyone not following the path would come out of the trees and over the lip with no warning.
'That,' Matt said, gripping a branch tightly, 'is a long way down.'
The path went down a flight of rough-hewn steps to a ledge ten feet below the edge and continued hugging the wall of the ravine until it disappeared around a bend. Barely two feet wide, there was nothing between whoever was walking the path and the sickening drop.
'We could wait here,' Jack said hopefully.
'I think the least we should do is see what's round the corner,' Matt replied. He winked at Jack. 'Don't forget — it's not the fall that kills you.'
'Huh?' Jack said, but Matt was already edging his way down the steps.
In the gorge, the crashing water was deafening. They made their way slowly, gripping on to cracks and crevices in the cliff face for protection against the eddying wind that threatened to pluck them off if their guard dropped. At times, Jack grew rigid with fear and had to stop. Matt urged him on, yelling to be heard above the water and the wind. And then they rounded the bend, and what they saw took away all thoughts of the drop.
Set into the cliff face was a city, stretching almost from the water's edge to the very top. Monolithic blocks of stone formed the basis of the structure, protruding in balconies and terraces, buttresses and gargoyles, so that it was impossible even to begin to guess how it had been constructed in such a precarious position.
Set against it was a different style of architecture, more graceful and delicate, with glass, silver and bronze, designed i
n sweeping arcs, with huge multi-panelled windows that would allow sunlight deep into the heart of the construction, which, it appeared, burrowed deep into the cliff.
The two styles, brutalist and cultured, worked strangely well together so that the overall appearance was quite stunning; both welcoming and a little frightening in its magnitude.
'Is that it?' Matt asked, trying to take in the full sweep of the magnificent city.
'Yes.' Even Jack was awed. 'The Court of the Dreaming Song.' As Thackeray descended the frozen escalator steps into New Street Station, the light of a hundred torches came up out of the gloom. They burned along the length of the huge concourse, where travellers had once stared up at the rows of electronic timetables, filling the lofty roof with acrid smoke. Behind it lay the familiar smell of engine oil, hanging around like the ghost of better times. At that moment it felt as if he was entering the jungle compound of some Stone-Age tribe, where brutality and ritual still ruled, and in a way he was right.
The plague wardens flanked him, their heavy boots clanking on the metal steps. He was desperately aware of the guns and knives and axes they carried, but it was their fists that had put the pain into his ribs, arms and jaw. He could almost feel the bruises forcing their way to the surface.
Approaching the ticket gates, he saw that they had been all but obscured by a wall of razor wire. One heavily fortified gate lay in the centre. The lead plague warden hammered on it three times and then stepped back so that it could swing out to reveal two shaven-headed bruisers nursing shotguns. One wore a St George flag on his T- shirt. The other had a cheap leather jacket pulled tightly across his beer belly. Thackeray's heart fell even more at the realisation that the people he would leave a pub to avoid had now taken over the world.
They ushered him in, past more burning torches and a flaming oil drum stoked for heat in the chill station. Finally he was presented at a suite of offices, packed with incongruously plush furniture, antiques and works of art. The lead plague warden took him into an office that had once belonged to a faceless executive and was now a sumptuous testament to bad taste, thuggery and greed. To Thackeray, the first was probably the greater crime. Buckland sat in a leather armchair, feet up on a table, drinking whisky from a crystal glass. He had a look of Boris Karloff about him, with sunken eyes, an icy pallor and silver hair swept back over his shoulders, but was probably only in his mid-forties. He glanced over at Thackeray with cold contempt and then returned to contemplating his porn magazine. The lead plague warden whispered a few words in his ear before Buckland threw the magazine to one side and came over.
'What is it with you people?' Buckland said, irritated that his reading had been disrupted. He was educated but not clever, Thackeray could see from his eyes; he survived on cunning and an ability to be one degree harder, one notch more brutal than anyone else. 'You know the rules,' Buckland continued. 'Everyone on my patch knows them. They were designed for the benefit of the people living here. Are you antisocial or something?'
Thackeray almost laughed, but a very basic fear helped him maintain a straight face.
'Rule number one: no one hoards anything. All supplies have to be held centrally for the good of the people. You know that?' Thackeray nodded; there was no point in lying. 'Rule number two: any sign of the plague has to be reported so we can take steps to deal with it.'
'I don't know anyone with signs of the plague.'
Buckland pushed his face close to Thackeray's; he smelled of meat. 'No, but you hoard!'
'It was a mistake-'
'You're right there. Do you know how hard it is to keep order in this fucking world? Do you, you little toe-rag? Everyone's trying to look after themselves… no one's thinking about the common good. Except me. And what thanks do I get? No bloody respect.' Buckland finished his whisky and went to pour himself another from a decanter on an antique table in one corner. Thackeray couldn't quite tell if Buckland had spouted his crazed fantasy so many times that he was starting to believe it himself. But Thackeray knew all the stories of how Buckland had come to power. How he'd used to run the drugs and prostitution rackets in Sparkhill with his gang of local thugs, earning his reputation with the judicious use of a double-bladed Stanley knife to carve up the faces of his enemies because it was impossible to stitch the two parallel cuts at Accident and Emergency. There were so many people walking around Sparkhill with his mark that it acquired the nickname Razor Town. And then, once the Fall began, and communications broke down, and all the weird rumours about what was happening outside the city took off, Buckland was ready to start the looting and the rioting.
In a moment of lucid slyness, he had realised that Sparkhill was too small for him and had moved straight into the city centre, adding to his band of thugs as he progressed. No Stanley knives for him then; he'd graduated to proper weapons. They say he personally killed three hundred people on the first day of his rule. Who could fight something like that? Who had the time or the energy or the inclination when personal survival was paramount? It was somebody else's problem. So here he was: unassailable. The Butcher King of Birmingham. And Thackeray was about to become a lesson for all the other poor bastards living in fear in his Kingdom of the Damned.
Buckland returned with his whisky. 'You know I'm going to have to make an example of you?'
'You could let me go. I wouldn't say anything.' 'You see, it doesn't work like that. People always say they won't say anything. Then they go out and have a drink, or start trying to impress someone… some woman… and suddenly it's, "Mr Buckland couldn't touch me. I'm better than him. I'm smarter. I'm harder." And some people are stupid — they think that kind of stuff might be true. And then we have problems. You see, problems breed problems. So I always try to sort things out early. It's simpler that way.' He sipped his whisky while staring deep into Thackeray's eyes. A faint smile came to his lips. 'You're scared.'
'Who wouldn't be?'
'That's true.' Buckland took a long swig and flashed a glance at the plague warden, who moved towards a door at the back. 'You're a smart bloke,' Buckland continued. 'I can see that. I'm a good judge of character. You know things are different now.' He sucked on his lip while he searched for words to rephrase. 'You know there's things out there you wouldn't even have dreamed of a couple of years ago.'
'I've heard stories.'
'Not stories, friend. The truth. They're… supernatural.' He nodded with pride at his choice of word. 'And you know how hard I am? I'm so hard I caught one of them. I'm so hard that now it does everything I say, like a Staffordshire bull terrier, because it's scared of me. Can you believe that?'
Thackeray grew even more nauseous. Harvey had been right. He'd expected to be taken out and shot, maybe even beaten to death. But now his imagination was racing at what his fate would be. If Buckland had preserved this particular horror for teaching lessons, there was no doubt it would be even worse than anything he could imagine.
'I think you're going to have to meet him.' Buckland motioned to the door at the back where the plague warden waited.
Thackeray thought of Caitlin. All the guttersnipes and lowlifes were out on the street at night, slipping through the gloom, avoiding the areas where the occasional torch burned. Everywhere smelled of shit and urine and rot. In one area, women turned tricks for food, thinking there was safety in numbers. Children threw rocks at the rats, whose undulating movements created an eerie optical illusion in some streets where it looked as if the dark was rippling with water.
And the plague wardens came and went, scores of them on circuit after circuit, seeking out the latest poor afflicted, shooting some, herding others ahead of their bikes to the houses of the dead.
Caitlin passed through it all like a ghost. Blood thundered in her head, her heart, colouring her vision. Blood everywhere; inside, from the last surge of her period. Harvey kept a few paces ahead as he led the way, occasionally glancing back, unsure and a little scared of the woman who only hours earlier had appeared so weak and unthreatening.
&nb
sp; Caitlin's skull echoed with the constant hard-edged whispers of the Morrigan, telling her terrible secrets, relating horrific stories of battlefields and slaughter, hinting at things to come. Caitlin's own inner voice felt insignificant next to it, but they were both there, side by side, sisters-in-blood.
'New Street Station's just up there,' Harvey hissed, then jumped when he saw that Caitlin already had an arrow notched. 'But I tell you, it's pointless. You'll never get past his guards. There's millions of them! Besides…' His voice grew sad. '… Thackeray'll be long gone by now.'
'You like him.' Caitlin scanned the approach to the station. Nothing moved.
'He's a good mate, the best. There aren't many that would have stuck with me.' He turned away from her. 'I'm not much good, really. Bit of a liability. Thackeray would have been better off on his own. He's got what it takes to survive. But he stuck by me. I'll never forget that.'
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