The Queen of Sinister

by Mark Chadbourn

  'Far, far from the Court of Soul's Ease,' he said. 'North. Across the Forest of the Night, beyond the great river, past the Plain of Cairns. It lies on the very edge of the Far Lands, where all worlds meet - where, if you look correctly, you can see for ever.'

  Caitlin nodded thoughtfully. 'I'm sorry we've brought the ... Lament-Brood to your home. We don't intend to stay long—'

  'You cannot stay any longer.'

  'All right. Then we'll leave now, if we can find a way past the Lament-Brood.'

  Lugh shook his head. 'We cannot risk the Lament- Brood punishing us. We shall present you to them.'

  His meaning dawned on Caitlin slowly, and with horror.

  'Make your peace with your fellow Fragile Creatures, Sister of Dragons. You will be delivered to the Lament- Brood shortly.'

  Caitlin related everything she had learned from Lugh to Matt, Mahalia and Carlton in the privacy of her room.

  'The bastards,' Matt said. 'They invite us in, give us hospitality and then toss us to the wolves.'

  'They can't be trusted,' Caitlin replied. 'That was one of the big lessons in the old myths and legends I remember.'

  'We definitely can't get out the front,' Matt said. 'The Whisperers look as if they're busy expanding their forces. They took over some people like they did with that hermit and tried to storm the walls. They're probably transforming everyone who comes up the road to the main gate.'

  'They're not the only problem,' Caitlin said. She told them about the knight with the boar's-head helmet. 'I don't know if he's with them or what, but he's definitely after me, and he's here, inside the walls already.' She massaged her forehead; her skull throbbed fit to burst. 'Why is everyone after me? What's going on?'

  Matt gave her shoulder a squeeze. 'Are you going to be OK?'

  She shook her head, glad of his support. 'We've just got to find a way out of here.'

  Mahalia had been cleaning under her fingernails with a knife. 'I think I know somebody who might be able to help.'

  'This way! This way! You're back!' Jack's excited calls unnerved Mahalia, for their approach had been uncommonly quiet to avoid detection, yet he had known the four of them were on their way long before they came anywhere near his door. When Mahalia peered between the bars, he was straining at the chains in anticipation. 'Who's with you?'

  'Friends.' Mahalia found herself excited by Jack's thrill, and that puzzled her.

  'You're going to get me out?'

  'Depends. Do you know another way out of this place?'

  Thoughts flickered across his crystal eyes. 'You can't go through the gates,' he surmised. 'Then yes, there is another way. An escape tunnel under the mountainside.'

  'You're not just making this up so we'll set you free?' Mahalia said threateningly.

  'No, I swear. I always make sure I know another way out of a situation. I didn't want to go back, but they caught me before I made it to the tunnel.'

  Mahalia turned to Caitlin and Matt. 'What do you think?'

  'It's not as if we've got any other options,' Matt said. He examined the padlock. It was old and rusted; the cell didn't appear to have had much use in recent times. He advised the others to stand back, then gave it kick after kick until the metal catch eventually disintegrated.

  Matt led the way in. 'We'd better not hang around,' he said. Matt pulled the black hood off Jack's head, revealing the strong, honest face of a youth of about seventeen. His blond hair only emphasised the eerie intensity of his eyes.

  'Thank you,' he said.

  'You're not free yet.' Matt examined the many chains that swathed his upper body before dismissing them with a curse. 'We'll have to work on those later. But we should be able to get you off the wall - those fixings look as weak as the padlock.' Matt set about straining to pull them free, with Jack offering his own weight to assist. After much sweating and pulling, both wall-chains shattered.

  'They really kidnapped you from our world?' Caitlin asked.

  'I don't know who my father was, but my mother travelled around the country in a group of old vehicles with several others. She's dead now.'

  'I'm sorry—' Caitlin began.

  But Mahalia interjected, 'If you were taken as a baby, how do you know about your mother?'

  'When I was on the run, I found myself at a watchtower that hangs between the worlds. I thought it might be the safest place to hide, which it was for a while. But it's a very strange place where you can see all that has happened, and probably all that will, and that's where I saw my mother. I wasn't taken long ago by your terms - three or four years - but this place does strange things to you.'

  'You look like a teenager,' Mahalia noted curiously.

  'I feel much older.'

  Cautiously, they ventured back out into the corridor. 'Which way?' Matt asked.

  'I think, if you agree, that we should collect some weapons for you,' Jack said hesitantly. 'There's a store not far from here, and we should be able to get rid of the rest of these chains there.'

  They agreed, and Jack led the way deeper into the bowels of the building. Just as they came to the arms store, a strangely neglected open door to a vaulted chamber that stretched as far as the eye could see, they heard activity some distance away in the palace.

  'I think they're looking for us,' Caitlin said.

  'You'd have thought,' Matt said, 'that once Lugh told you he was going to hand you over to the Whisperers, they'd have imprisoned you straight away.'

  'I wondered about that, but I think he's crippled by arrogance,' Caitlin said. 'They're all so convinced that nothing is a threat to their superiority that they never bother to act until the last moment.'

  'Look at these.' Mahalia was dazzled by the array of weapons, not just swords and bows and spears, but also eccentric oddities such as portable brass cannon and blades that formed a fan.

  'You should just take something simple that's easy to carry,' Jack suggested. 'Some of these things are too dangerous to take with us.'

  'You seem to know a lot,' Matt said suspiciously.

  'I do.' Jack turned to him deferentially. 'I've always kept my eyes and ears open. I wanted to learn as much as I could - anything that might help me get out of this place.'

  'You could be of great use to us, Jack,' Caitlin said.

  'I'd rather just go home,' he replied wistfully.

  She shook her head, and the sadness she revealed was honest. 'I'm sorry, I can't allow that. Not until we've found a cure for the plague that's loose in our world. You wouldn't want to return if you could help save us all, would you?'

  'I suppose not.' He flashed a glance at Mahalia, who met his eyes for a moment before looking away.

  'Well, well.' Matt was grinning, arms crossed.

  'What?' Caitlin said.

  'I see leadership potential. You're clearly getting better. What next - you're going to be ordering us into battle?'

  'Don't be sarcastic.'

  'I'm not. We need someone to take charge, and I'm a sucker for that dominatrix thing.' He winked at her, then turned before she could respond, moving amongst the stacks of weapons, testing axes for weight and crossbows for portability, before opting for a bow and arrows, a scimitar in a scabbard and two short daggers that he secreted about his person. Caitlin immediately chose a longbow and a double-quiver of arrows, which she slung easily over her shoulder.

  'You know how to use that?' Matt asked.

  'I was very good at archery when I was at university,' she said. 'Not Robin Hood standard, but I can hit a target.'

  Matt looked impressed. 'There you go again. Lights and bushels and all that.'

  'How about you?' Caitlin asked.

  Matt shrugged. 'I did some historical battle re- enactments at university. See - the Halls of Academe still have their uses.'

  Mahalia found a box of rusted, blood-stained weapons and removed a short sword that looked sickeningly brutal, one edge razor sharp and the other serrated; two curling prongs arced from the tip. She made a few gentle sweeps and was
pleased with the feel of it.

  'That's a Fomorii Glakshi,' Jack cautioned. 'It's designed to leave the opponent with lethal wounds, not kill them outright.'

  'That's good,' Mahalia said, missing his point entirely. It came with a simple leather scabbard, which she strapped on to a belt around her slim waist.

  With disgust, Carlton refused all Mahalia's attempts to press a weapon on him. When she suggested that Jack arm himself, he shrugged and said mysteriously, 'I don't need one.'

  As Caitlin watched Carlton's innocence manifest itself in his refusal to take a weapon, she felt a deep tide of affection that had been growing in her ever since she had first laid eyes on him. Here was all she had lost, and in him Caitlin also saw hope - for herself, as much as anything.

  She knelt before him and rested her hands on his shoulders so that she could look deeply into his mysterious eyes. 'You're a very special boy, Carlton,' she said gently.

  He smiled. Nearby, Mahalia's attention was drawn to the scene with a cold intensity.

  In that instant, Caitlin was hit with a flash of insight.

  Mahalia saw the shocked expression on Caitlin's face. 'What is it?'

  Caitlin continued to stare into Carlton's eyes. 'Lugh told me there was someone very important, someone who could bring together all the different sides to ... I don't know ... save us all, make us better.' She stood up to address Matt and Mahalia. 'I think it's Carlton. Lugh wasn't giving anything away - just teasing me with bits of information - but he said this person would be drawn to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.'

  'You, in other words,' Matt said.

  'Or one of the others like you,' Mahalia pointed out. 'The professor didn't say you were special or anything. Just that you were a champion ... not the champion.'

  'I know,' Caitlin said, 'but...'

  'He is special,' Mahalia said with a grin.

  'Then we'd better make sure we look after him.' Matt scrubbed Carlton's hair. 'Right, kid?'

  Carlton's strange smile did nothing to disavow any of them of the notion.

  'I'm already doing that,' Mahalia said. Her voice was hard, but her eyes looked strangely worried.

  'And we're all going to help out,' Caitlin said.

  They made their way out of the palace as quickly as possible, and were relieved not to meet anyone en route. But outside, Caitlin turned to them and said firmly, 'I want to stop off at the Sun.'

  'To get Crowther?' Matt said. 'That's insane. You know he's adamant he doesn't want to come.' He glanced back in the direction of the palace, where the outcry was now growing. There was more activity near the walls, and he guessed that the Whisperers had embarked on another assault. It was time to go, whichever way they looked at it.

  'I need to ask him one thing. Don't worry - it won't hold us up long.'

  Matt could see that she would not be moved. They

  moved quickly off through the drizzle, keeping their heads down, staying close to the walls.

  Crowther was still in the same place, a little tipsy, but still not completely in his cups despite the amount of ale he must have consumed since Caitlin had left him. She motioned for the others to wait at the door while she went over to his table.

  'You're not about to have another go at convincing me to leave, are you?' he said wearily.

  'No. I can see that wouldn't do any good.' Relief tinged his smile. 'I just want one more piece of advice,' she continued.

  He gave a drunken theatrical gesture for her to continue.

  'What you said when we first came here,' Caitlin began, 'about this place being the first staging post of the dead ... You meant it?'

  'Absolutely. To the Celts, this was Otherworld, the Land of Always Summer ... heaven.'

  'And is it?'

  The question was too big, too taxing; his shoulders sagged a little. 'Look around you ... does it look like heaven?' He saw the flicker of sadness cross her face and softened his tone. 'There is some evidence to suggest that whatever remains of us after we die passes through here, en route to ... somewhere else.'

  'Go on.'

  He looked surprised at her questioning. 'The Grey Lands ... the Land of Mists. And from there on to the next place, whatever that might be ... on for ever, for all I know. Learning a little bit more as we pass through each place. Then coming back here to close the circle, hopefully a little wiser, a few more steps down the road to nirvana. Why the sudden interest in metaphysics, Caitlin?'

  'You say the dead pass through here,' she pressed on. 'How long do they stay in this place?'

  'I don't know that...'

  'But it's possible Liam could still be here ... and Grant. That I could get to them before they move on.'

  He blanched. 'I don't think that would be a good idea, Caitlin—'

  'Bring them back with me.'

  'Don't go down that road—'

  'Answer me!' Her voice was low, but her eyes blazed.

  'Yes, it's possible—'

  'Where would they be?' she demanded, feverishly talking over him.

  He sat back in his chair, folding his arms defensively. 'A long, long way from here, probably on the very edges of this land. The true nature of reality is clearer here. Nothing is fixed. Lands, dimensions - whatever you want to call them - are fluid, merging and mixing at the fringes. At least according to my limited knowledge.'

  'And the dead ... ?'

  'Would probably be at the point of greatest flux - the liminal zone between this world and what lies beyond - where energy exists in its purest form.'

  The smile that crept on to her lips troubled him immensely. 'Do you believe in coincidence, Professor?'

  'Why do you ask?'

  'Because that's the place I'm supposed to go to find the cure to the plague. Perhaps this is happening for a reason. Perhaps I'm being led there for my true task ... to bring Liam and Grant home.'

  'Oh, Caitlin, please don't do this to yourself.' Deep sympathy wiped the drunkenness from his brain.

  'We need you, Professor. We need your knowledge. We can't do this on our own.' In her eyes, strange spirits danced; not Caitlin.

  Crowther felt a chill run through him. 'What are you—?'

  The flagon came from nowhere; he hadn't even seen it clutched in her right hand. It smashed into the side of his head with a force that belied her size. In the brief instant before unconsciousness, a single thought flared: how sweet and innocent she looked, what darkness lay within ...

  'I don't think that was fair,' Jack protested as he led them through the myriad backstreets, so high up the mountainside that the court beneath them was swathed in cloud.

  'She did what had to be done,' Matt grunted, hauling Crowther's heavy, limp frame as quickly as he could.

  'She'd better not look down her nose at me again.' Mahalia chuckled coldly. 'She's the Queen Bitch round here. The poor old idiot only wanted a few drinks and an easy life. Now we're taking him to the ends of the world.'

  Jack stopped at a simple oak door set into a sheer face of rock that rose up from the street for twenty feet.

  'Is this it?' Matt asked. 'Shouldn't it be guarded or something?'

  'I don't think they ever expected anyone to use it,' Jack said.

  The only thing that held it shut was another rusty padlock, which Matt demolished with a single kick. 'Looks like we're out of here,' he said.

  Caitlin pushed by him, her jaw set. 'Let's hope we're not going from bad to worse.'

  chapter seven Enchanted

  'So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind.'

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  For three hours they trudged along the tunnel hewn through the rock, choking on the smoke from torches fixed intermittently along the walls. The mood was sombre and for the most part no one spoke.

  Crowther came round a short way into the journey. Once he understood what had happened, he ranted and raged and attempted to force his way back up the tunnel, but Matt blocked his way and the brutal look in Caitlin's face forced the profess
or to accept the futility of his situation.

  'So I'm a prisoner now,' he said bitterly, before joining their march, refusing to look at any of them.

  The tunnel emerged at the back of a deep cave at the very edge of the foothills. They fought their way past a wall of wild rose obscuring the cave entrance and then picked a path through a sea of nettles and tangled brambles filling a small gully. Brilliant sunlight stunned them after the constant greyness of the Court of Soul's Ease. There was summer birdsong, and clouds of small flying insects buzzed back and forth in search of patches of shade.

  Velvety green grassland rolled gently, patchworked by lazy cloud shadows, reminding Caitlin of the South Downs and happier times. Behind them, the snow-capped peaks looked down impressively. Caitlin took in the whole vista, then said, 'This is just like the book I was reading to ... reading to ..The name choked in her throat.

  'That's hardly surprising,' Crowther said sullenly. 'Nothing here is really how it appears.'

  'That's life,' Matt said whimsically. 'Everything's a front and nobody is how they seem.'

  'We're dull and stupid beings, trapped by the limitations of our senses,' the professor continued, ignoring him. 'The human brain continually reshapes the signals it receives, making everything more acceptable to our poor, weak minds. It's like a short-sighted man thinking the world is really blurred and indistinct.'

  'So what's it really like?' Caitlin asked dreamily.

  'The Eastern religions had it right.' Crowther rested on his staff, depression overcoming him as he came to terms with the fact that there was no escape for him. 'Reality, at least at this level, is shaped by will. The strongest wills create what lies around us. And not just here. We make this world, and we make our own world as well.'

  'We make our world?' Matt laughed.

  'Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand. Shallow thinkers always accept things as they see them. Don't you understand - nothing is ever how it appears. Everything is a metaphor! Everything a symbol! Realising that is all part of our journey to the next level.'

  Crowther stalked away, leaving Caitlin and Matt to ponder his words.

  They marched as quickly as they could for the next hour in case any of Lugh's men were in pursuit. Once the foothills were behind them, the going was easy through meadows of thigh-high grass waving in the gentle breeze. Psychedelically coloured butterflies the size of Caitlin's hand fluttered lazily around them. The lowlands eased in gently, with copses suddenly breaking the tranquil scenery, the grass becoming shorter and greener. Then, as they came over a rise, they saw a thick, dark forest stretching out almost as far as the eye could see. It was oddly menacing, and they all stopped and surveyed it for a long moment. In the middle of the forest, the steely, mirrored glint of a river caught the sunshine.