Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

Tom cursed under his breath. ‘I could have put money on that happening.’

The Guei nearest said in a high-pitched screech, ‘I see shadows!’

‘Why aren’t you speaking Chinese?’ Tom shouted back.

‘I think you would be better off putting your energy into running.’ Before Shavi could move, the Guei lunged. It reached him in the blink of an eye, talons tearing through his shirt and drawing blood.

‘I thought ghosts were supposed to be insubstantial,’ Tom snarled.

The Guei ran silently towards them from all corners of the city. As each one saw Tom and Shavi, it shouted, ‘I see shadows!’

Shavi threw off the Guei thrashing viciously for his throat and ran with Tom towards the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The Guei swarmed, not even a single footstep echoing in the eerie silence.

‘Bloody stupid idea,’ Tom gasped. ‘He’s gone and got us all killed.’

Shavi and Tom ducked and leaped through the attacking ghosts, feeling fingers tear through their hair and scrape their cheeks, each blow coming a fraction closer. Ahead, the Guei swept to close off their path.

‘See?’ Tom shouted. ‘I’m right. I’m always bloody right! Dead as a doornail in a foreign city, and I can’t even pay my debts!’

Burning blue energy flared across the court.

Tom and Shavi were thrown to the flags and the Guei were driven back, hands in front of their dead eyes, shrieking silently. From the shelter of the Palace of Heavenly Purity darted Ruth, wielding the Spear of Lugh from which bolts of sapphire energy still discharged. She helped a beaming Shavi to his feet.

‘You escaped Veitch!’ he said.

‘No time for talk. I’m tapping into some huge reservoir of power here, but I don’t know how long it’s going to last.’ Her features were defiant, her eyes constantly watching the circling Guei. Shavi thought how much she had grown in stature since she had thrown off the Void’s fake persona.

‘You don’t have to leave it to the last moment to rescue me,’ Tom said. ‘Earlier will do.’

With the Guei close at their backs, Ruth led them at a run into the shade of the Palace of Heavenly Virtue.

‘They aren’t going to give us the time to do what we need to do,’ Tom said.

Yet barely had the words left his mouth when the Guei came to a halt and turned as one to look back towards the Hall of Supreme Harmony, their heads bowed deferentially.

‘Are they worshipping?’ Shavi said.

In the distance, a figure moved quickly through the ghosts.

The Hu Hsien attacked Church from all sides, a blur of whirling bodies and limbs. As they shapeshifted, snapping jaws and flashing feet and hands appeared from nowhere, lunging for his throat, then disappearing just as quickly.

Church was forced to draw on all his fighting skills. Blue Fire crackled through the air as Caledfwlch swung in constant motion, creating a defensive wall of flame and steel. He couldn’t drop his concentration for even a fraction of a second.

But the relentless attack was taking its toll, and more and more blows were getting through his defences. Teeth raked across his forearm. A rib cracked from a high kick that sent him sprawling, and though he was on his feet in an instant, claws tore open the back of his neck. It was only a matter of time before one blow laid him low, and then they would be on him in a frenzy of tearing jaws.

Satisfied he had given Tom and Shavi enough of a head start, he checked the path to the door. His opening came when one of the Hu Hsien telegraphed an attack. Church brought the sword up and put all his weight behind it. With the sizzle of cooking meat, his attacker was bisected mid-change. The two halves fell apart, internal organs flipping and twisting as they continued to morph between man and beast.

A rush of shock ran around the crowd. The King of Foxes half-lifted himself from his throne in disbelief.

In the brief lull, Church sprinted for the door. As he laid his fingers on the handle, Tai Sui appeared. He bowed quickly and lifted the clock that hung around his neck. With one slim finger, he spun the hands forward.

The world spun with them. The Hall of Supreme Harmony blurred into complete darkness and after a moment of queasy disorientation Church realised he was somewhere else.

It was dark and cold and there was the damp smell of deep underground. Echoes rang distantly in a great space, and here and there lonely torches flickered in the gulf. Church was on his knees, his body wracked with pain. Blood spattered onto stone. Beside him, Caledfwlch lay shattered, its outlines blurred and continually changing, the Blue Fire extinguished.

Rough hands grabbed his jacket and hauled him up. His head spun with the blood loss.

‘Three minutes till you’re dead, Brother of Dragons.’ It was the Libertarian. His scarlet, lidless eyes glowed in the gloom, and his broad smile was triumphant.

‘Everything has been leading up to this point, when you wave goodbye to what has gone before.’ The Libertarian’s voice rang with irony. ‘All your sacrifice, all your pain and suffering, all your minor victories and your great losses. And know, as your life fades into the black, that you threw it all away — you and only you — because of your pathetic, doomed love for a woman.’

The Libertarian shoved Church viciously and blood flew everywhere. He shook his head with weary theatricality. ‘Ah, the things people do for love. It makes us strive for greatness, drives us on when all hope is gone. It makes us do terrible things, like the mindless slaughter of generations of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. And ultimately it turns us into the things we hate.’

The Libertarian glanced over his shoulder, and behind him Church saw for the first time a burning wicker man, its feet lost somewhere in the abyss. Inside it, figures squirmed as they were consumed.

‘At the moment of your death, I will toss you into the fire,’ he continued, ‘and you will come out of those flames reborn, transformed. The final, absolute victory of the Devourer of All Things. The end of all hope for Existence. That is what you have thrown away with your stupid love.’

Church tried to speak, but his lips were dry and the words would not come. The Libertarian pressed his ear close to Church’s mouth and proclaimed, as if performing in a pantomime, ‘What’s that you say? “What will I become, Mr Libertarian?” ’

He drew his red eyes level with Church’s so that they filled his vision. ‘Can’t you see the resemblance?’

The darkness spun wildly and with a shock that felt like a hammer blow, Church was back in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, almost driven to his knees by the disorientation of the devastating revelation.

Tai Sui had reset the hands of the clock to their previous time. Church lurched, heard the running footsteps of the Hu Hsien and realised that only a second or two had passed. Recovering, he knocked Tai Sui to one side and snatched at the door handle.

Before his fingers closed on it, the door flew open. Framed in the doorway against the silvery sky was Veitch, his sword drawn. Behind him the Guei watched with a mixture of adoration and fear.

‘Bleedin’ hell, you get everywhere,’ Veitch said.

As Church raised his sword, the Blue Fire roared into a sheet of flame that leaped the gap to Veitch’s sword. The black fire limning the blade surged — Church could feel the intense cold increase. The flames from his own sword gradually winked out.

‘You see what I did there?’ Veitch said. ‘These days you just make me stronger.’

The strength ebbed from Church’s limbs. Veitch stepped forward and rammed his blade right through Church’s side, the tip emerging from his back. Cold mixed with hot pain rushed through Church’s body and he fell backwards, black stars flashing before his eyes.