From an annexe beyond an arch came the sound of tiny running feet. Caitlin's breath caught in her throat, the anticipation almost painful.
And then he appeared, and she knew instantly, as any mother would know, that it was him, not some construct created to tempt her; really, truly Liam, as vital and joyous as the last time she had seen him alive.
He wandered towards Caitlin as if awakening from a long sleep. Recognition came seconds after his eyes fell on her, and then his face broke with the light of an exuberant, loving smile. Her heart thundered and tears rushed to her eyes.
'Mummy!' His voice brought brilliant life to that sickening place. He ran, arms thrown wide, and she scooped him up, pressing him into her, as if she could force him back into her womb where he would be safe for evermore. His body felt so warm and wonderful; and she couldn't believe it, after all the grief and the pain, and the acceptance of his passing on. Her hope that he really would be there at the end of the quest was barely realised, a child's wish for heaven. Sobs racked her, becoming even worse when his muffled voice said, 'Mummy, why are you crying?'
'I love you, Liam.' She smothered him with kisses. 'I love you so much. You're the only thing that matters to me.'
The moment the words left her lips his body went rigid. She pulled away, terrified that this was the cruel sting in the House of Pain's scheme, and he stood there like a statue, staring blindly, still him, still real, but frozen in time. Panic burst free so hard she clawed at his clothes like an animal.
The barely human thing that was the voice of the House of Pain had crept up on them unawares. It pointed one wavering finger at Liam and said, 'Choooooooooosse ...' in that soundless voice that made her feel sick.
One word, but as before she knew exactly what it meant. The thing made a strange, spastic movement with its hand and the wall ahead of her became transparent. In the room beyond she could see something that resembled a giant egg made of the brown meat that appeared to be the stuff of the building. From the rear of the egg, small forms were issuing with a grotesque sucking sound. They writhed on contact with the air but quickly found their feet and then scampered away. They were the plague demons she had become aware of once the Morrigan had emerged to control her consciousness, and this was the place where they were made - she refused to think 'born'. Hundreds of them swarmed around the egg, dancing and tormenting each other, ready to be thrust into the human world, where they would infect their corruption into the spiritual energy that infused everything.
'Anti-life,' she whispered to herself. Here was the power to pave the way for the arrival of the Void. And she could stop it. All she had to do was renounce Liam, and the world and everything in it would be saved, for now.
How clever were the forces ranged against life, she thought; how could the Void know the workings of the human mind so well? If she chose Liam, the Void would win. If she rejected Liam to take the cure, she would destroy herself, she would be unable to act as a champion of the Blue Fire in the coming battle ... and the Void would win.
Not so long ago she might have found it in her to overcome the second loss of her son for the sake of the greater good. But the death of Carlton had been the final twist in her destruction. Before that, she had fought her way through grief to see some kind of hope; but after that there was none, and never would be again, if she didn't take her chance here with Liam. Nothing else mattered. Not the cure, not the world, nothing.
In that instant, Caitlin looked at the thing and through it into the House of Pain itself and saw something of herself in the Void. They were all joined by the despair at the heart of human existence.
'No,' she said. 'I'm not giving him up. He's going to live. He's going to live!'
She didn't waste a second thinking about what she had done. She felt his body become warm and alive again, and she hugged him to her, and buried her face in his hair.
Her choice had been made.
Outside in the dusty, sweltering heat, Mahalia sensed a change. She looked up from tending the professor to see the warriors of the Djazeem break from their defensive position and start to drift away down the corridor through the army of the Lament-Brood.
Mahalia watched them with incomprehension, followed by mounting dismay. Soon there would be nothing to hold the Lament-Brood at bay. As she gazed over the disappearing column, she had the impression of a tiny figure or two moving in the opposite direction through the heat haze. Before she could decide if it was a trick of the light or her eyes, the professor coughed up a gout of blood.
Mahalia slipped a comforting arm around his shoulders. Anyone could see that he didn't have long left. She'd tried to stem the blood that now soaked all the way through his overcoat, but it was like trying to hold back the rain.
His head lolled on to his chest, and she thought that he had already gone, but then his hands went shakily up to the mask, and it fell limply into his palms. He tossed it to one side and looked up at her with eyes so haunted that she was truly shocked. His face looked like a skull, the skin drawn tight and as white as snow, everything vital sucked out of him.
'He doesn't want me now.' Mahalia was stunned by the bitterness in his voice. 'He's drained me dry and now he's ready to move on to the next victim,' Crowther continued.
'How are you feeling?'
'Like death. How do you think I'm feeling?' He caught himself and forced a wan smile. 'I'm sorry, Mahalia. Thank you for staying with me. I didn't expect anyone would. I've not made much good of myself.'
'That's not true! You saved us - twice.'
He accepted her point. 'But still, I could have done so much more, couldn't I? If I hadn't been so weak. I suppose we're not all cut out to be heroes.'
Honest tears burned her eyes at the self-loathing that consumed him. She didn't want him to die that way, thinking his life was without value, but every time she tried to find the words they caught in her throat and she had to fight to stop herself crying.
He understood what she was trying to do, for his smile became more natural. 'Don't worry about me, young 'un. I had my chances. I made my choices and I've got no one else to blame - I'm quite at ease with it all.' A twitch around his mouth showed the lie.
'Professor,' she choked, 'I don't want you to die, too.'
'I know, and I'm so sorry to be doing this to you. I know you've been abandoned at every turn ... your parents . .. Carlton . .. You deserve so much more.' He fumbled around as if his vision was fading and eventually caught hold of her hand. 'You need to change your thinking, little girl. You're not what you think - you're a good person, a very good person. I know you're a crotchety, miserable young sociopath, but that's by the by. The only one holding you back is you. And I only wish I truly could have saved you, because I know you'll go on to better things.'
Her tears blinded her. 'I'm not like that, Professor—'
'You are, yes, you are.' He coughed; more blood. 'Fading fast now. What a way to go. I always dreamed it would be a Gary Cooper scenario, not slumped here like some drunken old tramp who's had his throat cut. Still, we're all heroes in our own minds, aren't we?' He pulled her closer. 'Listen to me.' His voice was so frail now. 'The only thing I can give you is a lesson. It might be the only valuable thing I've ever done, my one shot at redemption, but that will be down to you ... whether you heed it or ignore it. Not to put too much pressure on you.'
She pressed her face next to his greasy hair, smelled sweat and his own peculiar musk, not unpleasant. 'I'm listening. I'll ... I'll heed it.'
'Wait until you hear what I have to say first.' Even close to death there was still a snap in his voice. 'I made my mistakes a long time ago. I got lost, wandered away from the path I should have been following because I indulged all my weaknesses. There's a line in A Christmas Carol, where Marley's ghost is telling Scrooge where he's gone wrong ... He says, Humanity is your business! And that's true ... so true. Humanity is your business, Mahalia, not looking after your own selfish interests. Helping the people who need you, helping everyone yo
u can. I never did that. I abandoned my family ... all the people I loved and who loved me. I did it because I thought I was weak, and if you think you're weak, you are weak. I still think I'm weak, and look at me now!' He gave a short, bubbling laugh.
'Don't...'
'No, you listen to me ... for once in your life! Your whole future is in your own hands. You can amount to something ... or you can carry on down the path you've set yourself on. And you'll carry on down it a little way and realise you can't go back, and all your future is mapped out for you. You'll just have to live it out, knowing how bad it's going to be ... like waiting for a bus that you know will never come.'
'I'll do what you say. I will!' She was crying openly now.
'No! Don't tell me now because it won't mean anything. You need to think about this, and turn it over, for days or weeks... if that time is available to you ... if you stand a chance of getting out of this mess. And you need to remember this moment... look at me - look at me, damn you! - you need to remember this moment, and how pathetic I am ... and think about what I could have been if only I'd tried. Remember that ... think about a life wasted ... by my own hand ... Nobody to blame for my fate but myself. If I hadn't got myself into this state, that mask would never have been able to control me ... and then ...' His chin dropped down and he stared into the middle distance.'... maybe everything would have turned out OK.'
Mahalia's attention was caught by movement. She looked up to see the last of the Djazeem warriors disappear down the corridor and then, a second or so later, the Lament-Brood began to move forward in their awkward zombie style.
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 cam
e 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.
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