Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘I brought him back?’

‘And his brother Pan. Magic lives, here, now, in the groves and on the mountaintops and by the lakes. The Void’s power is weakening. It still seeks to maintain control, but it can only do so through the Mundane Spell.’

‘But the spell is shattering-’

‘And soon the illusion can no longer be maintained. And then it will be forced to confront you. I come now with a warning. Your days of being tolerated are long gone. Threats lie everywhere. You must be on your guard at all times.’

‘But you’ll be here to help me, won’t you?’

‘Of course. The oldest things in the land watch over you, Sister of Dragons. For these are the End-Times-’

Ruth was taken aback. ‘The End?’

‘All that has happened has been leading to this moment.’

‘You talk as if the “oldest things in the land” want the end to happen?’

The owl-man did not answer.

‘Tell me!’

‘Listen to the message of the Cult of Souls. Understand the Gnosis . In the rites carried out in the name of Dionysus, the truth lies.’

Demetra rose to her feet, holding the head by its hair. Comprehension slowly returned to her face. ‘Something is wrong,’ she said, puzzled. ‘I can hear him whispering to me … the god of the groves … and his brother … Pan-ic … Panic! Something is coming!’ Her words ended on a shrill note of anxiety.

In the pale, eerie eyes of the owl-man, a moment of puzzlement rose briefly. ‘I sense … an empty space,’ he said with troubled curiosity. ‘Where something should be, there is nothing.’

The blade burst from his chest with a liquid sucking sound. Trying to make sense of this further strange occurrence, he examined it even as life drained from him. The blade was twisted and then yanked brutally upwards through his sternum to break free from his collar bone. The owl-man’s eyes rose up, the pupils froze and he slid to the ground to reveal his murderer.

‘You know he ate mice?’ The Libertarian wiped the blade on the owl-man’s back. ‘Nasty habit.’

Ruth turned and ran. Careering down the slope towards the farmstead, she bounced off trees, skidded, tripped and fought to keep her balance. To her left, there was a sudden bright fluttering as scores of the small golden figures soared in frantic flight, up high and then away over the sunbaked landscape.

There was no sound of pursuit, and that unnerved her even more. If she could get to the kitchen she could pick up a knife, and she was sure she had seen an old shotgun somewhere. Perhaps Demetra had left the keys in the jeep and she could just drive hard and fast out of there.

She skidded out of the grove and sprinted towards the lights of the farmstead. Passing the well-tended herb garden, she had a clear view of the grounds. No surprises. She glanced back to find the Libertarian right behind her. His fist smashed into the back of her head and she hit the ground hard.

Dust filled her mouth. Blood splattered from her temple and her head rang. She kicked out at the Libertarian, but he caught her ankle and flipped her over, sitting astride her and pinning her arms back.

Ruth glared at him.

‘No cliches? No “do your worst”? Or are you hoping I won’t realise you’re working on one of your conjure-thoughts?’ The Libertarian punched Ruth in the face. Blood ran into her mouth. ‘Pain makes it very difficult to concentrate, doesn’t it? Best not to try.’

Ruth looked into his eyes and saw that she was going to die. A surprising calmness and clarity suffused her. There was no hatred or anger, no regret, just an acceptance that felt like a burden being lifted from her shoulders. She thought of Church and wished him well, of Shavi and Laura; even, surprisingly, of Veitch.

Surprised by her reaction, puzzlement crossed the Libertarian’s face, but only fleetingly. ‘Knowing you as I do, I should have guessed you wouldn’t give me any pleasure at the end,’ he muttered. He shrugged. ‘For so long it was impossible to harm you or your dragon-brethren, but here at the source we are equals.’

He moved his hands to Ruth’s throat and began to squeeze. ‘You can fight,’ he continued with irritation. ‘You can cry. You can scream.’

Ruth smiled. ‘We’ll win. You know that.’

The Libertarian’s face darkened. The grip on her throat tightened. Her breath faded and the pressure on her chest became unbearable. Stars flashed, trails of Blue Fire exploded, and then she was flooded by a dreamy warmth that signalled the end.

On the side of a deserted road on the Albanian-Greek border, Church was stung by a lone tear and a devastating sense of loss that he couldn’t begin to explain. Tom leaned against a tree next to him, smoking and watching the flames dance in the campfire. Hunter slept — he had an ability to doze off anywhere — and Shavi meditated on the edge of the gloom. Laura had wandered away into the trees, complaining of boredom.

‘If I decided to walk away tonight, what would you do?’ Church asked.

‘I’m not your keeper.’

‘You act like it.’

‘And you act like a hopeless, besotted, soft-headed fool, as you have from the moment I first met you.’

‘I can’t carry on doing this without Ruth. I spent so long looking for some kind of meaning in my life and she’s it. I always thought that was a stupid, romantic idea — that in the end it all came down to one person. But it’s true.’

There was a long silence during which Tom exhaled blue smoke, his eyes closed. Eventually he said, ‘The Fool finds wisdom on the road of life, and in your thick way you seem to have stumbled across it. Everything comes down to love. When we’re young, it’s all we want. When we’re comfortably married and the routine has set in, we yearn for its exhilarating rush. When we’re not getting it, we seek out money, sex or power to try to fill the gap.’ He eyed Church askance. ‘Love drives everyone insane. It makes the best of us do wonderful things and terrible things. Yes, you’re right — it’s the root of everything. It’s the magic and the curse of Existence.’

‘You seem to have survived pretty well without it.’

‘That shows how much you know.’ His spectacles caught the light of the campfire so his eyes could not be seen. ‘I left my love behind near eight hundred years ago. There won’t be another. Now don’t go asking me any more stupid questions about that.’

Church looked towards the south. Would it really be so bad if he left the world to the Void? People would continue to live their lives, find love, have children, the sop that made the rest of it bearable. He could reach Ruth faster on his own. They had been forced to take detour after detour to avoid the net of the security services, hiding out for days in damp, stinking warehouses, going nights without sleep, constantly changing vehicles.

As he weighed his decision, Shavi staggered up to the campfire, ashen-faced. ‘I fear …’ he began, choking back the words. ‘I fear something has happened to Ruth.’

Ruth’s hair was stirred occasionally by the light night breeze so that it gave the illusion of life. Beside her, the Libertarian sat in the dust, studying her face, pondering on what he saw there. He scooped up a handful of the dry earth and slowly let it dribble out of the bottom of his fist.

‘There is nothing left for me here,’ he said eventually. ‘Without you, the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons cannot achieve anything meaningful. Indeed, this is the beginning of their end.’ Throwing the remainder of the earth away with an incipient anger that puzzled him, he added, ‘Back to the Otherworld it is, then. There are cities to raze, and genocide to complete. My days will be pleasingly full. No more of this sickening rat-hole. Good riddance to it.’