Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘Revenge. For the indignities heaped upon her in the Watchtower by the queen of this court. She will ride this Sister until the debt has been paid, in blood. And it will be paid in full soon.’

Caitlin floated back to the bed, sleeping peacefully once more. No response came to Mallory’s further questions, and there was no sign that the Morrigan waited inside his friend.

Troubled, he returned to the charred royal reception hall. Open windows along one wall now flooded the room with sunlight. He felt a strange connection to the place as he looked out over the shimmering rooftops, yet also inexplicably sad.

Decebalus boomed a greeting. He was covered in cuts and a jagged, badly stitched wound now ran diagonally across his face, but he was in high spirits.

‘You have a visitor,’ he said.

The barbarian gestured towards the door behind him and Hunter entered, looking around curiously. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place.’

‘I thought you’d walked out on us.’

‘I’m nothing if not capricious.’

‘The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are resting after the battle,’ Decebalus said, ‘but to a man and a woman they are ready to take the war to the Enemy.’

‘We’d just be sending them to their deaths. I was tasked with finding the Extinction Shears — that’s the only thing that’ll stop the Void,’ Mallory said. ‘And we’re no closer to achieving that.’

Flopping into a chair, Hunter draped his legs over one arm. ‘Don’t worry. You’ve got me now.’

‘Is that supposed to encourage me?’

‘You haven’t heard my plan yet.’

‘All right. First we need to get you a sword.’

Hunter grinned. ‘Oh, I’ve already got a weapon.’

‘Then it’s the three of us — you, me and Caitlin.’ Mallory was suddenly overcome with a devastating pang of loneliness. He turned back to the bright, new day, searching for an answer he would never find.

The high winds gusting along the chasms of New York City threatened to tear Church from the few square feet on top of the Empire State Building. Clutching onto the mooring mast to save himself, the world spun far below.

Don’t look down , he repeated like a mantra, and focused instead on the blue sky of a new day. But he couldn’t help himself. His stomach churned and his head whirled, and he dropped to his knees, fighting to keep control. The wind continued to pull him back and forth.

This is insane , he told himself. An invisible maze up in the clouds, where one wrong step meant plummeting to the ground far below?

Crawling to the edge of the platform, he peered around. There was no sign of where the maze began. Leaning out, eyes screwed shut, he flailed about but felt only thin air.

From his jacket, he pulled the can of spray paint he had bought in a convenience store on the way from Grand Central Terminal. He had no idea if it would work. Reaching out again, he sprayed a small amount. The paint particles were caught by the wind.

Edging along the platform, he tried again. When he was near the end of the second side, some paint remained, frozen in the air. With relief, he sprayed a strip extending out from the platform. The first steps of the maze were revealed.

That was the easy part. Steeling himself, Church stood up and stepped into the gulf. His heart flipped and his knees buckled, but the maze held his weight.

Away from the platform, the vertigo was even more debilitating. He felt as if he was suspended in the air, with nothing beneath his feet but the street far below. An overwhelming sensation of falling made him spasm from side to side, or pitch forward. Only his willpower stopped him going over the edge. Every step he had to steady himself, shut his eyes and fight the rushing fear that threatened to paralyse him, and, he thought, drive him mad. Gradually, he established a kind of control by keeping his eyes fixed as much as possible on the horizon or the sticky paint at his feet.

He discovered the maze was barely two feet wide. He sprayed a section, edged forward, desperately holding on to his stomach, and then sprayed some more. But the paint wouldn’t last for ever, and if the maze was extensive, what would he do then?

Thirty feet out the wind blew even more fiercely. It came in intermittent high gusts, and each time he had to crouch down and brace himself to resist being blown off. It felt like only a matter of time until a gust took him unawares.

Every now and then he would stop and close his eyes, and breathe deeply, pretending he was on solid ground. And that was when he heard the sound of clapping. Wobbling as he looked over his shoulder, he saw Veitch sitting on the platform at the top of the Empire State Building.

Rage exploded in Church with a ferocity that shocked him. He thought of all the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons Veitch had slaughtered over the years, the agonising wound he had inflicted on Church in Beijing, the spell that had sucked at Church’s Pendragon Spirit and driven a wedge between him and the woman he loved. But most of all he thought about how Veitch had stolen Ruth from him.

‘You’re expecting me to risk my neck out here just so you can steal the Key when I get back?’ Church said.

‘Something like that.’

Veitch’s nonchalance made the blood thunder in Church’s head even more.

‘Actually, I was just having a little bet with myself,’ Veitch continued. ‘How long before the path turned left and you went right, or before you leaned a bit too far to one side and went over the edge. But carry on, mate — don’t let me stop you.’

Consumed with anger, Church drew his sword. ‘We end this here and now,’ he shouted, marching back along the precarious path.

His own anger sparking viciously, Veitch drew his sword and stepped hesitantly onto the path. Church could see him cursing under his breath as he walked out over the void, but soon his rage made him forget where he was, and he focused solely on Church.

‘We’ve come a long way, you and me,’ Veitch said, ‘from strangers to friends — until you abandoned me.’

‘Don’t give me any of your pathetic whining. You can’t blame me for what happened to you. You can’t blame anyone, not even yourself. You got a raw deal, and that’s just the way it was. But everything that’s happened since — that’s all you, through and through.’

Veitch’s face darkened. ‘You know what pisses me off about you? You give me that look my dad used to give me when I was a kid — that I disappoint you. I wish you’d just go at me with that sword, because nothing’s worse than that look.’

Church levelled Caledfwlch, instantly feeling Veitch’s own sword sucking at the power it contained. ‘Made sure you got your equaliser in place before you faced me properly.’

‘If you want to chicken out, mate … The truth is, we’re tied together on some level you don’t understand, and if you were smart enough, you could suck all the nasty, black misery out of me and make yourself stronger. Only maybe you’re just not as smart as you make out.’

‘I don’t want to pollute myself with what you’ve got.’

‘You’re not smart, or you’d get the fact that we’re the same. Or maybe not exactly that — different sides of the same coin, perhaps. We’d each benefit from a little bit of the other.’

‘Been doing some thinking, have you?’

‘Yeah, I have.’

‘Think harder.’

Church attacked forcefully, oblivious to the gulf on either side. As Veitch blocked the blow, blue and black lightning flashed across the sky.

They moved back and forth along the narrow path amidst the furious storm of energy discharges, a whirlwind of swords, both fixed intently on the other, the world, the stakes they had both striven for, all of it forgotten.