Crowther saw the growing panic in her face. 'What's wrong?'
'The Whisperers are coming. Can you hear them?'
He chuckled to himself. 'An injection of their brand of despair would simply be overkill.' Then: 'Help me up.'
She obeyed instantly. She didn't think he had it in him to stand, but he did, and even more, he was able to walk with faltering steps.
'Give me your sword,' he said, 'foul thing though it is. Yes, I know I look like I couldn't lift a feather, but trust me, I have a reserve or two. You get inside that place… find the others and for God's sake, save the day! Gary Cooper-style!'
'They'll take you over…!'
'No, they won't. I'll be dead before I start blowing out that purple mist. But at least I might be able to hold them off long enough for you to get a head start.'
They made it to the doorway. Crowther steadied himself, then eased back so that the spear running through him supported him. He gave a slow exhalation of pain as it ground into his organs.
'Professor…'
'Go, you little idiot! I'm not doing this for the fun of it!' Briefly, he appeared to become delirious. 'There's some chap here with a pig's head. What's that all about? Blue sparks everywhere. What does that bastard want? Well, he won't get it!' He brought himself back and snapped at her, 'Run, damn you! Don't make me waste this last heroic gesture!'
Mahalia ducked forward and planted one last kiss on his cheek. It brought a fleeting smile to his face and then he turned towards the advancing horde. Mahalia ran into the shadows of the House of Pain, an intolerable weight on her heart. Matt and Jack sprinted through endless corridors calling Caitlin's name, but they weren't even answered by echoes; the air was too hot and dead, the place too labyrinthine.
'We're probably just going round in circles!' Jack said dismally.
'No we're not,' Matt replied. 'I've got an unerring sense of direction, one of those skills you build up when you do the kind of job I do. We're going right into the heart of it.'
'But what if that thing's already killed her?' 'If that was what it wanted to do, it would have done it the minute we walked in here. It's after something more… I don't know what, though I reckon it has something to do with her being a Sister of Dragons. Despite appearances — i.e. being as mad as a fish — she's someone who might be able to stop all this stuff going down. I think it knows that… it knows what she's tied into…'
'The Blue Fire?'
'Yeah. That's the thing that's going to win the war. She's a part of that somehow, and it wants to get at the Blue Fire through her. That's what I reckon,' Matt concluded.
Jack stopped running and stared at his friend. 'You know a lot you've not been telling.'
Matt turned, his expression dark. 'Don't tell me you can read bloody minds, too?'
'No, but…'
'Good. Now keep up.' He ran ahead, his loping gait uncannily easy.
They rounded a corner and came up sharp. A figure was spraying dripping slime as it separated from the wall. Its fluid shape gradually settled into a bulky, muscular form that was still partly human, but with the characteristics of a bull. It moved to meet them, white eyes glaring out of its broad, black face.
'What is it?' Jack gasped.
'It's this place,' Matt said, 'whatever's here… whatever intelligence. It takes on these forms to communicate with us… in a manner we can understand.'
'Goooooo bacckkkkkkkk…' The crackling words were so alien they were almost incomprehensible, but they got the gist of it from the thing's threatening posture as it positioned itself in the middle of the corridor.
'Well, that's a good sign,' Matt said. 'We must be getting close to somewhere important if it's telling us to go away.'
Jack clutched at his arm. 'Aren't you scared?' Matt gave a defiant smile that raised Jack's spirits. 'Let's see if it can be hurt.' He gripped his sword with both hands and rushed the beast. His first blow slammed into the middle of that broad head with a sticky crunch as if he were chopping rotten wood. The beast didn't respond in the slightest. It stood there, staring with eyes of cold maleficence, as Matt wrenched the sword free and attacked again. For ten minutes, he hacked at it until there was nothing left. And still the pieces with the eyes stared at him. They said: You cannot harm me. You cannot defeat the House of Pain.
Matt rested on the sword amid the gruesome remains and mopped the sweat from his brow. 'Well,' he said between deep breaths, 'I suppose the answer is no.'
Jack ventured closer, dismal once more. 'What are we going to do?'
'We're not going to give up, so don't even think it.'
A soft susurration crept along the corridor from behind them. Matt looked towards the sound, his mind racing. Purple mist, still thin at that point, drifted into view. 'Looks like they got through,' he said quietly. There was no way back.
'Mahalia,' Jack said desperately. He started to move towards the mist until Matt caught his shoulder.
'Don't even think it. You won't be able to do anything. Besides, she's smarter and tougher than you. She'll be one step ahead of them. She's probably taken one of the side tunnels.'
Jack looked up at the man he now trusted more than any other adult, and wanted to believe.
'Come on,' Matt said. 'The only way is further in.'
They jogged down the corridor with Jack throwing backward glances as they ran. The further they progressed into the structure, the hotter it got, until they felt as if they were closing on some enormous furnace. A rhythmic thudding could be heard dimly through the walls, the vibrations running up through their legs and into the pits of their stomachs. It echoed the thunder of several thousand legs behind them, marching down the endless dark tunnels. 'Matt?' 'Save your breath.' Sweat burned Matt's eyes, and however much he wiped it away, more flowed down. 'No, it's important. Whatever happens, don't let anyone take me prisoner again. I couldn't bear it… not after all that time in the Court of the Final Word.' 'What do you expect me to do?' 'Whatever you have to. Will you promise me that, Matt? Will you?' There was a silence so long that Jack thought Matt wasn't going to answer, but then he said, 'Yeah. 'Course. You can count on me. Now… no more fatalistic talk, all right? We've got a job to do.' The darkness ahead slowly unveiled a figure. Matt came up sharp, holding out an arm to stop Jack running into it. 'Gooooooo bacckkkkkkkk…' This beast was shaped like a giant spider, but still with human characteristics at the centre of its eight spindly legs. It skittered around the corridor, white eyes glaring. 'Jesus H. Christ, how many of these things am I going to have to chop to pieces before we get to where we're going?' Matt muttered bitterly. 'It can see into us, can't it?' Jack said. 'Part of it's human, to communicate, but the rest of it is something it knows will scare us.' 'It doesn't scare me.' Matt brandished the sword again. 'To answer your earlier question.' But just as he was about to attack, he sensed movement in the shadows behind the spider-thing. 'What's there?' he asked himself. The motion was at ground level, like the tide rolling in, but it was impossible to pick out detail from the darkness. Watching it approach, so chaotic, so relentless, made them shiver. The spider-thing gestured with a human arm attached to its torso. 'Disssseeeeeeeeeeeaasssse…' 'Disease,' Matt repeated, his mind turning rapidly.
The plague demons swarmed around the feet of the spider-thing, not slowing, but dancing, twisting, cruelly in every aspect of their tiny forms.
'Back!' Matt whispered, mesmerised by the sheer number of the approaching demons.
'What?' Jack said, dazed.
'Back!' Matt thrust the boy the way they had come. 'Don't let them touch you. They're something to do with the plague.'
'The Whisperers-'
'I know!' Matt snapped. 'But I saw another way… I think.'
They ran as fast as they could until Matt halted at a slit in the meaty walls.
'What is it?' Jack asked.
Matt stuck his hands into the slit and pulled back flaps to reveal a gap. Jack hesitated, but the sound of the swarming plague demons approaching rapidly
concentrated his mind. He forced his way into the slit and pressed on, the meat folding around him. Matt followed.
They emerged into a chamber filled with a pale grey light emanating from a source they couldn't see. Instantly, the atmosphere in the room hit them like a wall. They both experienced a grief so deep it felt as if their hearts were being torn open. Tears welled up in their eyes unbidden, burning tracks down their hot cheeks. In a sudden rush, Jack had an overwhelming sense of his mother, though that memory was impossible. He felt her joy at his birth, swooping, swirling, transcendent, and then the bitter, brutal comedown into devastating misery when he was stolen from her by the gods. Bereft and directionless, her death came soon after, violent and pitiless. Every negative emotion cut him like a knife. He saw it through her eyes, felt it as she did, and in some way he was convinced he was responsible for it all. The full force of the emotion came like a storm; he wanted to kill himself.
Matt gripped his arm so tightly he squealed. 'Focus on me. Don't feel anything. This is why they call it the House of Pain.' Matt dragged him across the room.
When they reached the other side they saw plague demons forcing their way through the meaty flaps. They weren't going to give up, ever.
'We don't stand a chance,' Jack whined.
'Shut up,' Matt snapped, 'or, God help me, I'm going to punch your lights out.'
'Don't take me into another room like this,' Jack pleaded.
There was another slit nearby, but Matt ignored it. Instead, his attention was drawn by a small orifice halfway up the wall. Beyond it was a tunnel barely big enough for them to squeeze into; it pointed upwards.
'There,' Matt said. Before Jack could protest, Matt boosted him into the opening, then pulled his way in afterwards. 'Don't hang around!' Matt yelled. 'Those little bastards aren't going to slow down!'
They had to force their way along the tunnel, dragging with their fingers and pressing with their toes, wriggling like snakes and driving their shoulders against the resistance. It felt like crawling through hot flesh, so tight all around that there were moments when they thought it would close in and suffocate them. It pressed hard on their backs, their heads, and every second they choked for air, terrified it would soon close in completely and they would be trapped, unable to go forwards or back.
It was unbearably hot and pitch black, and they had no sense of direction. The tunnel undulated and twisted, at times so sharply they had to fold in two to get around corners. And all the time, Matt could hear the sound of frantic scrabbling behind him. Only the desperate fear of what was coming at their backs prevented them from losing their minds in the nightmarishly claustrophobic environment. They lost all sense of time; there was only the furnace heat and the feeling that they would suffocate and die at any moment.
It could have been an hour later, or fifteen minutes, when the sound of pursuit faded away. They continued dragging themselves on for a little while longer and then the temperature eased slightly. Soon after, Jack forced his way past the final flap and emerged into a large room. He stretched his mouth wide and sucked in a huge gulp of air, not caring that it was still hot. He realised he was shaking and crying.
It was a ten-foot drop to the floor, but they were so keen to get out of the tunnel that they jumped instantly without even trying to lower themselves. At the foot of the wall, they lay on their backs, scarcely believing they had made it through the ordeal.
'Never again,' Matt said. 'I'll let those things give me the damn plague next time.'
When they had recovered a little, they sat up and looked around. They were in a room the size of a cathedral, the roof lost in the darkness overhead. A thin green light illuminated the lower reaches.
As their eyes adjusted, they made out two figures like ghosts in the gloom; one was Caitlin, the other a boy.
The boy looked up with big, troubled eyes when they neared. 'I don't know what's happened to my mummy,' he said. 'She won't talk to me.' Caitlin sat cross-legged, her head bowed. She was rigid, her eyes wide and staring, unseeing.
'Mummy?' Jack repeated. An image of his own mother hit him hard, accompanied by the terrible grief he had felt in the last room. He wondered if it would be like that for the rest of his life, the two things now inextricably linked. 'Dammit, she really did it,' Matt said in amazement. He dropped down next to Caitlin and checked her. 'Pulse is fine. Looks like she's having one of her episodes.'
Jack took Liam to one side. 'Don't worry — your mummy will be fine. She's a great lady… a heroine.'
'My mummy?' If Caitlin could have seen the innocent hero-worship in his face, she would have cried.
Matt held her head up so he could peer deep into her enlarged pupils, so black they almost covered the entire eye. 'I wonder what's going on in there,' he said. The wind blasted across the Ice-Field with such force that Caitlin was in no doubt that a storm was coming. She shivered behind the insubstantial shelter of the rocks, peering through the gap across the gleaming white sheet to the black sky at the horizon. She was bewildered; she had spent fifteen minutes talking to Liam, and hugging him, and kissing him, and then suddenly it felt as if hooks had been driven into her flesh and she had been dragged back to this terrible place.
'You've done it now.' Amy stood behind her, her singsong voice laced with judgment. 'You're going to be sorry.'
'I won,' Caitlin said. 'I got him back.'
Brigid cackled bitterly. 'You won? You lost it all! Can't you feel it?'
And she could; the heat was draining from her, so that she felt more acutely the biting cold. 'What's happening?' she asked.
'You're a stupid bitch,' Briony said. She sat on a rock, staring into the Ice-Field, smoking neurotically with the look of someone who had accepted defeat. 'We counted on you… everyone counted on you… and you let us all down. Selfish. So bloody selfish.'
'But-' 'Don't start making excuses! We warned you not to give in to despair. You were supposed to rise above it,' Briony continued.
'But who can do that?' Caitlin said, still not understanding.
' You can, you idiot! That's why you were chosen. You're supposed to be better than everyone else — a champion of life. The Blue Fire was in you… and now it's going.'
'Going?' Caitlin looked down at her hands.
'You betrayed it. You-'
'Do not treat her harshly.' The voice was like a cold wind through a night forest. Briony slid off the rock and cowered behind it. Brigid stopped cackling, and Amy ran behind her, clutching at the old woman's hair.
The Morrigan emerged from the shadows at the back of the shelter, fierce and beautiful, her hair the deepest, most lustrous black, her skin pale, her lips the brightest red.
'Any mother would have done the same,' Caitlin protested. 'To get their son back… I don't care what you all say. That was the only choice I could make.'
The Morrigan held out her slim hand, and though she was afraid, Caitlin took it. It was filled with a cool power that made Caitlin's head spin. The Morrigan led her to the centre of the sheltered area, and then stood facing her so that Caitlin could lose herself in those dark, unfathomable eyes.
'Women also understand sacrifice, more, much more than men.' Her voice, though frightening, was also somehow soothing. 'Sacrifice… the burning heart… for the sake of sisters and brothers, however much pain it causes inside. And you, Caitlin Shepherd, would have been able, when the need came, for you were a Sister of Dragons, one with the flow of Existence. But you were driven from the path… forced into the wilderness…'
'I don't understand,' Caitlin said. 'Who did that?'
'A man. Always a man, for since the dawn of your age only they have been capable of plumbing the depths of heartlessness, of manipulating women in the age-old struggle. The seasons have shifted, and the sisterhood is coming back to power once more. But some men will not stand for that. They cannot bear women with power. They cannot accept a sister standing shoulder to shoulder with them. And so they will play their male games of power and manipulation, of
violence and unnecessary slaughter. To crush us down, sister. To make us lesser.'
Caitlin's mind was racing at the Morrigan's hypnotic words. 'I was manipulated…?'
'Until the boy's death, you would have chosen the sacrifice to save all Fragile Creatures, despite the hurt you would have felt. His death changed everything. And it was done in the full knowledge that it would take your power away.'
'I don't understand. It was done to-?'
'To stop you achieving your potential, sister. As simple as that.'
Caitlin slumped to the cold, hard ground and hugged her knees. 'But I got Liam back.'
'Yeah, but at what price.' Briony had found the nerve to speak. 'All those people are going to die — horribly, their spirits infected, just so you can have a bit of happiness… a happiness that should never have been! Your little boy should have moved on. But the monster behind all this held him back, just so you could make this stupid move. A broken Sister of Dragons is better than a dead one. It causes despair… it carries on infecting
'Nobody should be asked to make that kind of decision!' Caitlin said.
'No,' the Morrigan said. 'Nobody should.'
'I can't put it right,' Caitlin said. 'I can't give him up, not now I've got him back.' 'It doesn't matter — it's already too late, you stupid bitch.' Briony rocked backwards and forwards in her hiding place. 'We're all going to hell in a handcart. You made the choice. The Blue Fire is leaving you. You've blown it.'
Caitlin looked to the Morrigan and thought she saw a hint of sympathy in those cold features. 'True,' the goddess said. 'You are no longer a Sister of Dragons.'
Amy marched forward with the forced haughtiness of the very young. 'Can't you help us?' she asked the Morrigan.
'I was sent here for a purpose, and that purpose has now passed,' the Morrigan replied. 'Here and now, I take my leave of you.' She turned back to Caitlin and her voice softened. 'You are a good sister, Caitlin Shepherd, whatever this outcome may mean for your kind.'
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