She went over to the rail and saw that some kind of battle was taking place amongst the trees on both sides of the river. Fleeting figures, some golden, some dark and squat, moved swiftly back and forth, attacking each other. Occasionally, strange sounds retorted and someone would fall before a fluttering cloud, either golden or black, moved up into the branches; or there would be a burst of light, white or multi-coloured, or a surging blast of red heat.
She jumped as a plaintive keening came from behind her. Delirious, yet on some level aware of what was happening along the banks, Triathus was either crying with grief or singing, she couldn't quite be sure, but the alien sound churned up a heaving swell of emotion inside her.
Something bumped against the hull and she hurried to see if the boat itself was under attack. Numerous logs floated in the dark water - the remains of blasted trees, she thought at first, yet the shifting shadows gave the illusion of movement. Another explosion of light directly overhead revealed the truth, and Mahalia recoiled in shock. The objects were moving. They were not the remnants of trees, but the litde, dark men, all on the verge of death, their bodies so torn and tattered that some were impossible to see as having been human-shaped at all.
Every now and then the spark in one would expire and the corpse would explode in a mass of frantic fluttering, gone in a second. Mahalia was sickened but transfixed. The flow of bodies appeared to be never-ending, the hull now sounding a relentless beat of war drums. Triathus' keening reached another level.
'This is madness.' Matt was at her side, watching the water with a grim expression. 'They're just slaughtering each other. What's it supposed to achieve?'
The mask's incessant hallucinogenic effects only added to their sense of dislocation. Yet in the occasional flash, they saw similar warping effects occurring far off along the horizon.
'What is that?' Mahalia was no longer sure of anything any more.
Jack's hand wormed its way into hers. 'It's the edge of the world.'
'Where reality starts to break up and leak into the Great
Beyond,' Matt said, recalling what they had learned in the Court of Soul's Ease. He took a deep breath. 'We're nearly there.'
An hour later, with the cataclysmic battle barely diminishing, they realised Triathus' time was nearly gone. The course of the plague had been rapid. His breathing was thin, his eyes fixed. The golden light that made his skin glimmer had faded to a dull washed-out yellow and the black lines now ran the length of his body.
Matt, Mahalia and Jack knew instinctively that it was a time for silence. Of all of them, Mahalia watched the most intently. She noted every tremor that crossed his face and it was in that intensity of observation that she saw the rarest of sights: that fleeting instant when life finally goes. It was barely perceptible, as if the slightest breeze moved from his head to his toes. A fugitive tear surprised her, but she wiped it away before the others noticed.
The golden moths came forth with a gleaming force that surprised them after the dull shadows of his passing, twirling around in a fascinating dance of grief and hope. They wound their way up in a column, finally disappearing into the heavy clouds overhead, like stars winking out.
They stood with heads bowed, and then drifted to the rail. Now the signs of the plague were unmissable on the flora: wilting leaves or blackened night blooms, black lines visible on trunks. And every now and then they would see the unsettling rips in the air that Matt and Jack had witnessed previously. The gashes were only small but growing wider, as though the entire land was a tapestry coming apart at the seams.
'Can you see - everything's getting worse the further upriver we get?' Mahalia swathed her hands in the dirty, sweaty cloth of her T-shirt.
'And it's bad enough round here,' Matt said.
*
After the blue, there was only the unending golden sand and a sky of heat-bleached whiteness. Behind Caitlin, the energy still crackled amongst a millennia-old circle of vitrified stones. She didn't look back.
Stepping out into the wastes, she felt the sand run away from her boots. In her head, her thoughts were carried off in a whirl of black feathers. Somewhere, Amy may well have whimpered, but it wasn't heard. The pounding of Caitlin's heart was the rhythm of war drums; her vision gleamed with blood. The world lay before her, holding nothing that she feared. The path ahead drove on towards destiny.
She walked.
The mist came in with the dawn. The fighting had died away sometime during the small hours, and everything was now still and smothered beneath the blanket of grey. Beyond the muffled lapping of the river, the Wildwood exuded an intense quiet that was just as unsettling as the chaos of the previous night. As if in response, the mask had slipped into one of its calm phases.
Matt had slept in the galley to avoid the disturbances crackling all around, but Mahalia and Jack had opted to rest under their blanket on deck, dropping in and out of sleep so often that after a while it became difficult to tell what were dreams and what was reality.
It was Mahalia who woke first, confused by the stillness. The mist was dense enough to obscure both banks; they could have been adrift at sea. She went to the rail, her spirits reflecting the damp, grey weather, and listened. The lull couldn't be trusted.
She wrapped her arms around herself and watched Jack, who still slept deeply. Memories of Carlton surfaced and she shed a few tears, and after a while they were accompanied by a wash of guilt that the terrible loneliness she had feared had already partly been assuaged by Jack, whom she was convinced she loved, and was loving more with each passing day. That purity of feeling was contaminated by the desperate knowledge that she couldn't face losing him; any more loss in her life, she thought, would destroy her.
They had worried that Sunchaser wouldn't work for them after Triathus' death, but whatever instructions he had given to it still appeared to be in effect. It responded to their needs, going faster when they considered it necessary, or adjusting its position in the flow of the river. At that moment, Mahalia could tell from the shifting patterns in the water that the boat was drifting in towards the port bank. She told herself that couldn't be true, but then ghostly trees started to appear from the mist.
She ran to rouse Matt and Jack, and when they returned to the port rail, Sunchaser had come to a halt next to the bank. They were surprised to see that the Forest of the Night had ended. The trees Mahalia had glimpsed were intermittent in a flat, scrubby landscape that had the oppressive rotting-vegetation smell of a marsh, though how far it stretched was impossible to tell, for the mist only allowed twenty or so yards of visibility.
'Why have we stopped here?' Jack's voice was a nervous whisper.
'I don't think Triathus would have allowed Sunchaser to take us into danger.' Matt took in every detail of the area in an instant. 'Perhaps we're supposed to take on water here, or something.'
'I don't think I'd like to drink that water.' Mahalia indicated the brackish pools lying amongst the reeds and yellow marsh grass.
They looked back and forth uneasily as the mist shifted in a faint breeze, revealing and then hiding aspects of their surroundings. After a moment, Mahalia jolted when she saw that what she had taken for a copse were men, eight or more, standing stock-still, watching the boat.
Matt went for his bow, Mahalia for her sword, but the men made no attempt to attack. Bearded and long-haired, they were in their late forties and older, two certainly in their seventies, and they wore long grey robes, tied by a cord at the waist like some monk's habit, and a circlet of oak cuttings and ivy around their brows.
One who carried an intricately carved staff stepped forward. He was around sixty, but imposingly tall with piercing grey eyes. 'Welcome,' he said in a theatrically resonant voice, 'to the last encampment of the Culture.'
The leader's name was Matthias. It took a while for him to convince Matt, Jack and particularly Mahalia that his group posed no threat, but eventually the three of them disembarked, leading Crowther carefully in their midst.
Matthias came to a
halt when he saw the professor. 'The mask!' he gasped.
'It's all right - he's not dangerous,' Mahalia said hopefully. 'Please ... he'll just walk with us.'
Matthias relented, but the other members of the group kept their eyes on Crowther.
'We still try to measure time in the old way, though it is nigh-on impossible here,' Matthias said, 'but it has been long, long years since we last met some of our fellows.'
'You're human?' Matt said.
'There are a few of us here in the Far Lands, but not many. It is hard for most to adapt to the peculiar nature of this place. It can drive men mad, given time. It can make them forget everything they believed in.'
'But you survived.'
'We have a particular understanding of other realities. Come to our camp. We would hear news of our old home, and in return we can offer good food and drink. And here, everything is given freely and without obligation.'Mahalia and Matt both realised they were very hungry, though Jack appeared to eat hardly anything. 'Can we afford the time?' Mahalia asked quietly.
'They might know something we can use,' Matt replied. 'At least we can actually talk to them on our own level.'
They reached a tacit agreement and set off, with Matthias leading the way and the other members of his group taking up the rear. He picked a convoluted path through the treacherous marsh, treading carefully along ridges of turf concealed amongst the rushes. The density of the mist made it impossible for Matt and the others to remember their route; once in the depths of the marsh, they would not be able to find their way back without the Culture's help. On either side, the slimy pools bubbled and belched and the stink of rot was overpowering.
'Tread carefully,' Matthias warned. 'The Dismal Marsh may look shallow but it is deceptive. It will suck you down rapidly and there is an acidic quality to the liquor that will strip the skin from your bones.'
Away in the mist, an unknown bird emitted a low cry of such mournful power that it instantly depressed their spirits. The place felt haunted.
'What are you doing here?' Matt asked.
'Finding sanctuary,' Matthias replied, 'and therein lies the irony. For what mortals could ever expect sanctuary in the Far Lands! That only goes to show the flaws of humankind, that we would feel safer here than in our own home. Our own kind are our enemies - we need no other predators. Greed, mendacity, arrogance, brutality, contempt - these things will stop us achieving our true place, not gods.'After a while they came to an island in the centre of the wastes. It was heavily wooded, but there were wide, grassy clearings amongst the trees. At its centre was a small encampment of roundhouses in the old Celtic style. Most were small living quarters, but there was one larger construction that served as a meeting place and general dining area. Sheep chewed lazily on grass in an enclosure, and another area had been given over to cultivation.
'We do things much as we did in the time when we fled our home,' Matthias said, leading them into the great hall. It was easily large enough to encompass the whole group and many more besides. A fire blazed in the centre of the room, the smoke exiting through a hole in the roof. A wooden table had been erected in a horseshoe shape parallel to the curving wall.
Matthias took the lead seat, marked out by a high wooden back where carved dragons coiled. He motioned for Matt, Mahalia and Jack to sit. Crowther stood behind them. Within minutes, the other members of the Culture brought in plates of cold lamb, vegetables, fruit and jugs of cold water. 'Eat and drink,' Matthias said warmly. 'It does me good to offer hospitality after all this time.' Behind his seriousness, there was a decency that made them all at ease.
'There was a time when the Culture played a vastly important role - the most important role - in the business of humankind,' he continued. 'But I would think our name is no longer known, is that correct?'
Matt shrugged. 'I'm sorry...'
Matthias looked down for a moment, then collected himself. 'It was only to be expected. Then let me tell you our history. Our society has existed since the dawn of mankind. The responsibility placed upon us was to cater to the spiritual needs of the people, and as part of that role we collected knowledge, and guarded it, and taught, and tended, and we oversaw all the invisible worlds that crowd around our own. We stood as sentinels and guides between our world and the others.'
The other members of the Culture had taken their places around the table, and they were nodding sagely but sadly as Matthias told his tale.
'We were priests of the grove. Our tool was the sacred sickle, our language the language of trees. The Culture originated in Britain and the true knowledge was amassed there, from the days before the stone circles were erected, and seekers of wisdom travelled from across the oceans to learn at our feet. We understood the Blue Fire and its nature as the lifeblood of all things, and we learned how to shape it, channel it. We knew the henges and the menhirs, and the sacred hills and the wells and the lakes were the places where it was strongest.
'And over time, in our learning and our wisdom, we began to see how it could be the basis of an age of peace and prosperity, guiding mankind on the next step of his journey to the stars. We had already developed our role as shepherds of humanity and guardians against the many forces that would wipe us from Existence. We helped to shape the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons from their earliest days. We hid the great weapons of power and marked the prophecies and warnings in the landscape so that future generations would come to know the truth, if they still had the eyes to see. And in time we began to pull the disparate Celtish tribes together into a dream of nationhood that would make our vision a reality.'
Fire briefly blazed in his eyes as his memories played out across his mind; the others' faces grew stern. Mahalia looked around at them, remembering her school days, thinking perhaps that she understood the common name by which the Culture had passed into history.
'Those who believe in the power of the spirit over material things will always be easy targets for the power- seekers, and so it was for us. Just at the point when it seemed that our dreams would be made reality, the invasion happened. They came in their ships, at the command of Caesar, with a hunger for conquest and a contempt for other beliefs. They built their straight roads and sent out their marching legions, and killed the people in their thousands, driving the tribes to the fringes of the lands.
'And they knew of our power, for they had heard much of it in their homeland, and so they set out to persecute the Culture, to weaken us and make the people feel they had been abandoned. After the final battle at Mon when the Great Bastard Suetonius slaughtered the massed ranks of the tribes, we melted into the great forests and the mountains, and attempted to cling on. And so they hunted and harried us for the four hundred years of the great occupation, and slowly our number dwindled until there was only a handful of us left.
'We had one last chance to hold on to our dreams. Eight of us ... this eight ... were despatched into the ultimate hiding place: Tir n'a n'Og, the land of the gods themselves, where we could protect our knowledge and bide our time, and with the great warrior Jack, the Giant- Killer, known as Church, we formed our enclave, and waited. And waited. Here, in the Land of Always Summer, we never aged, but our purpose became diluted, for when you have all the time you need, why do anything? And so we are as you find us this day.'
He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, clearly sad and troubled. For a while, the only sound was the crackle of the fire. Matt looked bored by the storytelling and had long since turned his attention to eating his fin. But Mahalia had been listening intently, and the talk of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons made her feel sick. She remembered pressing the knife to Caitlin's throat, the splash as Caitlin fell into the water, the Lament-Brood.
Matthias must have seen the guilt in her face, for he asked sternly, 'What is wrong?'
'There was a woman who travelled with us ... everyone kept telling her she was a Sister of Dragons ...'
The Culture grew animated; whispers rushed around the table. 'A Sister of Dragons, h
ere in the Far Lands?' one exclaimed.
'Yeah, we kind of heard that before,' she said, trying not to give too much away. 'But we're pretty sure she died.'
Silence followed. Then Matthias said simply, 'No.'
Matt had perked up at the sudden interest in Caitlin. 'What is it?'
'There are prophecies. These are the Great Times - the seasons that will lead into the Golden Age. But the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons must all be there to lead us through the darkest days or everything will fall into the Void.'
Mahalia slumped back in her chair so that Matt's body obscured her from Matthias' probing gaze.
But he had forgotten her. He raised himself up and said, 'Then there are important things to discuss, if you truly are the companions of a Sister of Dragons. But this is not the time, nor the place. We shall discuss this later. Now I must prepare.'
With a new sense of purpose, he strode out of the hall. One of the other members of the Culture came over; he was younger but had a new air of deference about him. 'Please - take your time, rest or explore our island. We are at your disposal.'
Matt found a spot in one of the small roundhouses and decided to rest while the Culture hurried from house to house, talking amongst themselves in hushed voices, their faces flushed and eyes bright. It was as if they had woken from a long sleep.
Jack caught up with Mahalia as she perched on a mound of crumbling stones, the remnants of some ancient building that predated the Culture's occupation of the island. He slipped next to her, without touching or speaking, and for a while they watched the shifting mists. Their vantage point was above the cloud level, and it looked like a sea of sun-kissed gold was rolling out towards the canopy of forest in the distance.
'It's beautiful,' Jack said quietly, and she had to admit to herself that it was. And then he added, 'You're beautiful,' and she started to cry, uncontrollably, the tears pent up for several years. He was surprised, and concerned, but he put his arm around her shoulders so she could rest her head against him, and let her cry herself out.
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