The Queen of Sinister

by Mark Chadbourn

  It's not a problem, she said with the alcoholic's deranged conviction, while the real her that lived at the back of her head looked on with impotent despair.

  She hadn't wanted to leave her cosy cottage and carefully structured life to venture out into the chaos of the world - it was too dangerous, filled with night-terrors even in the midday glare - and for a while she had almost convinced herself that it wasn't her responsibility to try to find some way to help Caitlin, that there was nothing she could do anyway, so what was the point. That had been the way she had lived for so many years, existing with a fear that had grown out of self-loathing; what had happened to her at the end of the sixties had contaminated the rest of her life. In some people's eyes, her transgression might have been only a small thing. To her, it was a blinding revelation of who she really was, and that terrible disappointment was something she thought she would never get over. Even now she couldn't think about that single moment; it remained, unconsidered, like toxic waste polluting her subconscious.

  And so her thoughts had naturally turned to Caitlin, unable to say goodbye to the husband and son she loved, and Mary had felt the heat rise within her: Caitlin would never suffer as she had suffered; Caitlin would not see her life dribble away in might-have-beens. Mary was more determined than she ever had been about anything else before.

  She would never be able to live with herself if anything happened to Caitlin that she could have prevented. And so she had steeled herself with the alcohol - while knowing that steeling was just an excuse - and when she was too drunk to consider the fear she took the old rucksack she had packed, with Arthur Lee poking his head out of one side, and set out on the road.

  It was going to be a long journey, certainly the first leg, and she guessed there would probably be more after that - these kinds of things never went simply - so she'd also secreted several weapons about her person. Food would be a problem, but she knew enough about wild herbs and plants to find herself some sustenance, but she would really need protein and the chances of her catching a rabbit or a bird were, she guessed, slim.

  She paused on the brow of a hill and surveyed the green fields stretching out into the glare of the morning sun. It had taken her a long time to decide on her destination, involving much pondering, more attempts at communing with the powers that be, many of them failed. It quickly became apparent that she would need to seek guidance from something more potent.

  And that was only really available in the old places, the sites that had been marked out by the ancient people in the dim dawn of mankind, when humans were more sensitive to what was around them, not dulled by civilisation's many drugs. She considered Stonehenge and Avebury, wondered about venturing even further afield, but she decided she needed something specific to her predicament. She needed to talk to a god. Not one of the gods rumoured to have returned with the Fall, but something higher. An old, old archetype; a power from the very beginning of it all.

  Further down the road, there was a crossroads. From a distance it had appeared as deserted as the majority of the surrounding countryside, but as she approached, a figure had mysteriously become visible, standing next to the old wooden signpost that marked the crossing of the ways. She squinted, blinked; it was as though she was viewing the scene through a rippling heat haze. But after a few more steps, her vision cleared and she realised it was a man in old tattered clothes, leaning on a strangely incongruous staff that had some kind of worked shape to it. His grey hair was wild and wispy around his head and as she neared she saw his skin was filthy with the mud of the fields.

  She slipped her hand into her pocket to grasp the handle of the already open penknife. At the same time, she felt a ringing in her teeth and a dull ache at the back of her head that reminded her of the unnerving sensations she had experienced when the stranger had visited to set her on this path. She still hadn't come to terms with who he was, or more precisely what, but she knew without a doubt that his kind scared her on some fundamental level.

  As she neared the crossroads, her senses screamed at her to run. Whatever it was that she sensed about the man made her stomach turn and her thoughts skitter frantically; it felt like two magnets of opposing polarity being forced together. It was clear that he was waiting for her.

  Even when she was a few feet away she said nothing, even tried to slip by, but his eyes widened with a hideous warning, forcing her to a sharp halt.

  'Are you here to help me?' she asked, queasily.

  Those filthy lips moved, but there was an unnerving second-long dislocation before the sound actually emerged. 'You must beware. You have been noticed.'

  'Who's noticed me?' Mary thought she was really about to vomit; she desperately fought back the bile.

  'The ... Void.'

  Mary had the impression that the stranger wasn't used to speaking English, wasn't used to any kind of language she could comprehend. 'The Void? What's that?'

  His eyes grew wide once more and she backed away a step, unable to look him in the face. Fear engulfed her and she thought she might faint. But when he spoke again, his words were measured. 'Each day, your lives play out in rhythms, lat-dat, lat-dat, lat-dat, without change, without significance. And then, one day, a break ... awareness ... direction. Import.'

  'I've been noticed ... because I'm doing something important. And something's going to try to stop me.' Her fear changed, became deeper, colder. What was the stranger hinting at? Who had noticed her? Who was after her?

  She suddenly felt tiny, manipulated by powers beyond her understanding, and from that came the question to which she dreaded the answer. 'Where do you come from?'

  There was a long, trenchant pause, and then, 'I come from above ...'

  'Above?'

  '... behind, beneath, beside ...'

  His words made her shiver, and reminded her explicitly of something she had heard when she was learning the Craft: 'There are beings around us all the time. We can't see them, but they can see us. They can see what we've done. And what we will do.'

  'Go!' The word boomed out, and Mary almost fell to her knees. There was a terrible rage in the stranger's face. 'Go ... and beware!'

  She turned and ran down the road, tears burning her eyes. She had the awful feeling that her death was virtually decided. When she did finally recover enough feeble courage to look back, the crossroads was empty.

  Beyond the walls, the Whisperers waited, a haunting vision that transfixed Caitlin, Matt, Mahalia and Carlton at the top of the tower. After a while, Mahalia left Caitlin and Matt, irritated by what she saw was an obvious attraction between the two; though how anyone could contemplate affection for someone as clearly insane as that mad bitch was beyond her. Out on the cobbles, she turned to Carlton and felt instantly calmed by his warm, beatific smile. 'What are we doing here, mate?' she asked gently.

  He gave a Who knows? shrug, but Mahalia didn't believe it for a second, and then he nodded back towards the grim palace.

  'OK, we'll go back,' she said. 'We could both do with a good sleep.' She was overcome with a wave of affection and gave him a big hug. 'I'm really glad you're with me, matey.'

  He hugged her back and then broke free, grabbing her hand to drag her up the street.

  'I wish you could talk,' she said, gradually slipping into the familiar state where she used Carlton as a sounding board for her own thoughts and insecurities. 'Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt you - I couldn't, not after what I've seen. But I'd really like to hear exacdy what you know about what's going on ... it's so hard to keep at it without knowing what we're doing or where we're going.'

  He turned and looked at her seriously. In his big, dark eyes, she thought she could see the universe turning. 'I do trust you, Carlton,' she stressed.

  They continued the rest of the journey in silence, but Mahalia's thoughts occasionally turned to the question that troubled her: not what Carlton knew, but how he knew it.

  In the palace, she was afraid she'd never remember the mazey route back to their rooms, but Carl
ton did not hesitate. Yet when they weren't far from their chambers, Carlton stopped sharply and then propelled Mahalia into a shadowy alcove, pressing his finger to his lips to silence her. She could only guess that he'd heard something beyond her range.

  A clanking sound slowly came into her hearing, followed shortly after by two of the short bearded guards, who were herding a tall youth along the corridor. Mahalia could tell he was quite young from his frame, but beyond that it was impossible to know anything more about him - a thick black hood covered his head, with only two eyelets so that he could see where he was going. His upper body was wrapped in so many heavy iron chains that Mahalia was astonished he could move at all. His progress was unbearably slow as he coped with their weight, but he still held himself erect.

  As he passed the alcove, a strange thing happened. Though Mahalia and Carlton were hidden deep in the shadows, his eyes flickered towards them as if they were in plain view. Those eyes were a startling grey-blue and filled with a pleading desperation that made Mahalia shiver.

  Mahalia and Carlton waited until the prisoner and his guards were long gone before continuing on their way. It was just another strange thing in a very strange world, yet as she lay in her bed she couldn't shake the look the prisoner had given her, and sleep did not come for a long time.

  chapter six Between the Viaducts of Dreams

  'Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity.' Emily Bronte

  'Don't go near the walls - they'll get you!' Briony's whining voice rose above the keening wind that cut like a knife across the Ice-Field.

  'I'm not about to go near them!' Caitlin snapped back. She hugged her knees and looked out over the desolate landscape that appeared to go on for ever beneath the night sky; a black and white world. It was unbearably harsh, yet at times it still felt preferable to the place inhabited by her body.

  'They're after you, you know,' Brigid cackled. 'They don't care about the others.'

  'Why would they be after me?' Caitlin replied sourly. 'Why should anyone be interested in me? I'm no use to anyone. I can't heal people. I couldn't save ... couldn't save...'

  'Don't talk about them!' Amy shouted, her eyes wide with fear.

  'They know you're special,' Brigid continued. 'They know you're a Sister of Dragons.'

  Caitlin spun round. 'What does that mean? I don't know! It's just words ...'

  The old woman tapped her scrawny hand against her chest. 'It's in the heart, it's in the blood...'

  'It doesn't matter,' Briony interjected, 'because you'll never get past those Whisperers. They're waiting outside the walls. They can't come in, but if you try to go out...'

  Brigid began to laugh hysterically, her phlegmy whoops soaring higher and higher until Caitlin wanted to scream at her to shut up.

  'Let me out!' The harsh, rustling voice crept out from the shadows at the back of their tiny sheltered spot. Caitlin's blood ran cold. 'LET ME OUT!'

  Amy began to cry and Briony fell to her knees and covered her face, but Brigid just laughed and laughed and laughed...

  'Caitlin?'

  She woke to find Matt leaning over her, his blue eyes searching her face. Once he saw that it was her and not one of the others, he smiled. 'You're a deep sleeper.'

  'Something like that.' She sat up and scrubbed at her hair, which she was sure must look like a haystack.

  'They're still out there. I just checked from the tower ... it's been three days now. That weird purple mist keeps moving all around the walls.'

  'They're not going to go away. They want me.'

  'What have you done to attract that kind of attention?'

  He felt unbearably close, so she swung herself out of bed and walked to the other side of the room. 'All I know is we have to find that cure. And nothing's going to stop us.'

  'I wish I had your positivity.'

  'Have you been able to convince the professor to come with us?'

  'I haven't been able to find him. I think he's avoiding me ... or just soaking up the beer in some dive.'

  'I can't understand it. He seemed so desperate to get here.' She splashed her face with icy water from a pewter bowl next to the bed. 'What's the point in crossing over and then just hiding out in this godforsaken place?'

  'I haven't been able to keep a track of Mahalia or Carlton, either. They're roaming all over this place, night and day. They'll disappear for hours into the corridors, as if they're searching for something. And you know what a maze it is.'

  'No great loss. Well, Mahalia, anyway. Carlton's a different story.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I don't know exactly. There's something about him ... I can't help feeling as if he's the key to what's happening.'

  'Can you explain it?'

  She sat back down on the bed, but left a gap between them. 'I don't know ... it's in here.' She tapped her heart and her head. 'Instinct. I just think there's something locked away inside him, something important, if we could only get at it. He knows things ...'

  Matt clearly knew what she meant, judging by the expression on his face.

  'We can't afford to sit around any longer, whatever Lugh said about time being strange in this place.' She stood defiantly and waited for Matt to join her. 'We need to get whatever information we can from this place and get back on the road. And,' she added flintily, 'Crowther is coming with us. We need him.'

  Caitlin and Matt decided to split up to search for the professor, and soon after Caitlin found herself in a maze of mews that had a faintly menacing air. She was the only one walking the cobbles, but occasionally she would catch a glimpse of someone standing in a darkened doorway. They would beckon to her, whispering promises of something or other - magic, escape, things she didn't understand but which sounded threatening or perverse - and she hurried on, knowing it would be dangerous to get too close.

  The mews grew thinner and darker the further she progressed into the heart of that quarter, so that eventually she could touch both walls at the same time if she reached out. The sky had almost disappeared behind the overhanging upper storeys. The oppressive atmosphere at that point became more than she could bear; she couldn't shake the feeling that someone, or something, was waiting behind the doors to grab her and drag her in, never to be seen again.

  It was at the moment when she decided to turn back that she heard her name. It sounded like the buzz of an insect, almost lost beneath the echoes off the cobbles.

  She stopped sharply. 'Who's there?'

  No immediate reply came, but her instincts were sharp enough to make her move quickly away. Yet after a few yards, the sound of her name made her glance back again. At the end of that section of mews was the knight with the boar's-head helmet who had pursued her at the Rollrights, his gleaming black armour almost lost in the shadows.

  Caitlin didn't wait to see any more. She ran as fast as she could through the labyrinthine streets, not even pausing to see if the knight was in pursuit. Yet in her keenness to escape, she missed her turning and found herself in an area she didn't recognise, and soon after that she came up sharp against the end of a twisting cul-de-sac.

  Her hopes that she would have time to retrace her steps were dashed when she heard the clatter of the knight's approach. He appeared around a bend and stood in the centre of the street, arms at his sides.

  'What do you want?' Caitlin said defiantly.

  'Caitlin Shepherd.' The same fizzing voice, distorted, like high-tension wires. 'None of this is real, Caitlin Shepherd.' There was an awkwardness to his intonation, as if he wasn't used to speaking.

  'What do you want?' Caitlin repeated.

  'You.' The word chilled her. 'I want you.'

  A nearby door opened with a loud creak and a short man with wild white hair emerged carrying a box of empty bottles. Caitlin saw her moment and dashed through the gap, almost knocking the man over. His curses rose up behind her as she scrambled through a dark, dusty back room into what appeared to be an apothecary's shop. Bottles and jars of herbs and coloured liq
uids filled shelves on every wall.

  She burst out of the front door on to a main thoroughfare and continued to run for several minutes, only resting when she was sure the knight had not followed her. The experience troubled her immensely. It wasn't only the Whisperers who were tracking her incessantly. Who was the knight? What did he want? And why did she feel so scared by his presence?

  Caitlin finally found Crowther sitting at the back of the Sun tavern. The place was deserted, but he looked happy enough. She'd spent most of the morning scouring the rain-swept backstreets, ignoring the uncertain glances of the strange, gloomy residents, poking into bakeries where the scent of fresh bread almost turned her head, or strange emporia filled with disturbing and magical objects that appeared to have been lost from the pages of a fairy-tale.

  'Hail and well met,' Crowther said tipsily, raising a foaming mug.

  'You're in a good mood.' Caitlin sat opposite him on a rickety stool.

  'And why not? Food whenever I call for it, good beer - and all for free. What more could a man want?'

  'How about survival for his fellow man?'

  He made a flamboyant gesture of weariness. 'Please, don't get on that moral high horse. I've done my bit. I got you here.'

  'We need you, Professor. Wherever we have to go, it's not going to be easy, and the more help we can have on the road, the better.'

  'That may very well be the case, but I'm not your man.'

  'Why? Are you afraid?'

  'Of course I'm afraid. At my age you're afraid of everything .. . afraid of dying from some hideous illness, afraid of spending your last days eking out a miserable existence, afraid of... of... loneliness.' He stared into his beer for a long moment, then flapped the thought away with a hand.