Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

Shavi woke to the sound of faint music, so sad it made his emotions swell. Church and Tom were still asleep. Outside the landscape had become lush with the kind of vegetation Shavi expected to see in the vicinity of the subcontinent.

Unsettled, he stretched and made his way down the carriage towards the source of the music. Two carriages back, he found the Seelie Court silently listening to a fiddle player calling the plaintive sounds from his instrument. He was accompanied by a fair-haired woman with no eyes, whose voice was filled with loss and grief and devastation. Shavi brushed away a stray tear.

When they had finished their song, the king summoned Shavi. ‘Brother of Dragons,’ he said in subdued greeting. ‘You are the great seer. Do you perceive any hope in the times to come?’

‘I see a great struggle.’

‘You choose your words carefully.’ He smiled. ‘To shield us from the harsh blow of truth. It is a quality that has always endeared Fragile Creatures to the Seelie Court. But we are not children. We know we are approaching the time our cousins called Ragnarok. The twilight of the gods. Our time is passing, and yours, too, I fear. Will Fragile Creatures never achieve their destiny to rise to the rank of the Golden Ones?’

‘Some of your people would be happy if that were the case.’

‘But not us. We are proud to call Fragile Creatures friends.’

The queen stepped forward, hesitant and concerned. ‘Your king-?’

‘Church? He is here on the train.’

Her relief was palpable. She glanced at the king. ‘We feared it was already the time-’

The king silenced her with a stern glance.

Shavi’s attention was caught by a figure skulking at the end of the carriage. He shivered, refusing to believe, but it looked very much like his dead boyfriend Lee.

‘Excuse me,’ he said to the king.

He pushed his way through the Seelie Court until he reached the end of the carriage. The door to the next carriage hung open, and the figure that now looked even more like Lee was hurrying towards the back.

Shavi tentatively called out his name, then gave pursuit. Carriage after carriage passed without Shavi drawing any closer. Then he entered one carriage that was completely dark, with all the shutters drawn, and the door slammed behind him.

He rattled the handle, but it wouldn’t open. Unease crept over him. There was no longer any sound of running feet, and he couldn’t even hear the noise of the wheels on the track. Gradually, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. The carriage appeared to be empty. With the door at his back locked, the only way was forward.

On the next door was a brass plate with the legend The Hanging Garden . He hesitated, then stepped through it. Once again the door slammed and locked behind him.

The first thing that assailed him was the stench of decomposition. The shutters were not completely drawn here and shafts of sunlight lanced through the gloom at irregular intervals. In the play of light and shadow, Shavi realised the grimly ironic meaning of the nameplate. At least thirty bodies hung by their necks from the carriage roof, the ropes creaking with the rocking of the train. The bodies were green and leaking noxious fluids, but their eyes were open and ranging back and forth, and their mouths moved silently. A mazy path wound amongst them.

A voice rose up. ‘Pass the guardians if you wish to access the great secret.’ Dark humour underpinned the words. ‘But beware! Only those who are pixie-led will find the path.’

As Shavi took a step forward, the shutters slammed down and he was left in the dark and the stink.

‘This secret must be great indeed,’ he said. ‘And is it of use to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons?’

‘Oh yes!’ the voice hissed wryly.

‘Then I am beholden to investigate. But you should know I am not scared of the dark.’

Shavi tried to recall the path he had briefly glimpsed through the hanging bodies. He moved a little way easily, but as he bumped into one of the corpses, a sigh escaped its lips and foul-smelling liquid splattered on him. Fingers caught briefly in his hair. He put a hand to his mouth against the overwhelming odour and edged forward. A third of the way down the carriage, he lost the path.

Steeling himself, Shavi took a guess and bumped directly into a corpse. It swung wildly, slamming back into him. Shavi recoiled and hit another, and then another. Each time he came into contact the corpse let out a low moan. Forcing his way through their midst, he soon realised the more he disturbed the bodies, the more animated they became. Almost bowling him over with their weight as they swung wildly, they tore at his hair and ripped at his face, drawing blood. The wounds stung as if they had been poisoned.

Shavi pressed on. In a frenzy, one of the animated corpses wrapped a seeping arm around his throat. Chunks of flesh came away under Shavi’s fingers, but the pressure increased and he began to choke. Another attempted to claw at his human eye.

After a furious fight, Shavi tore his head free. He dropped to the floor to catch his breath, but the corpses continued to kick at him savagely.

Only those who are pixie-led will find the path , the voice had said.

And how did one see pixies? Shavi focused through his alien eye, and instantly saw a figure that appeared like an infra-red image in the dark. It was low to the floor, lithe and had characteristics that were both human and animal.

‘Puck?’

The sound of laughter rang out. As the shimmering figure twisted and turned like an otter, Shavi followed in its wake. Over his head, the angry corpses desperately lashed out.

Finally, Shavi arrived at the far carriage door only to realise Puck was gone. Behind him, the moans subsided, the ropes stilled. The shutters slid up to admit the lances of sunlight.

The door before him had no name-plate, but it was covered in what resembled hide. He eased it open and stepped inside.

The carriage was bright, the shutters open and all the torches lit. Another door at the far end led to what Shavi guessed was the final carriage. A cauldron swung from a chain near the door, steam rising from it even though there was no fire beneath.

Shavi had thought the carriage was empty, but as he took a few steps towards the cauldron, three women appeared as if they had walked out of the walls. Like Greek peasants, they were dressed all in black, with deep cowls that cloaked their features in shadow. They approached in a jerky manner as if movement was not natural to them, and the closer they came the more queasy Shavi felt. They brought with them a palpable air of dread. When they halted ten feet away from him, Shavi’s heart was pounding madly.

After a moment of rising anticipation, they spoke; or rather, one voice emanated from all of them.

‘We are the Daughters of the Night.’

Shavi recalled hearing the name before somewhere.

‘I spin.’

‘I measure.’

‘I cut the thread.’

The image troubled him; they were not talking about weaving. ‘What is the great secret?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘What do you use to cut the thread?’

Shavi pondered. ‘Scissors? A knife?’

The Daughters of the Night hovered in silence. At the back of the carriage, the door had opened slightly, as if someone was listening or waiting to leap out. He couldn’t take his eyes off the gap. ‘What is in the last carriage?’ he asked, regretting the question the moment he had spoken.

‘What waits there waits for all mortals at the end of their journey.’

Shavi could feel its presence, watching him through the crack in the door.

His throat dry, he forced his attention back to the Daughters of the Night. ‘Show me what you use to cut the thread.’