Mark Chadbourn - Jack of Ravens

The Caretaker rested a hand on Church’s shoulder. ‘Things are not always as they appear.’

Filled with guilt and self-loathing, Church ignored him. The Caretaker gently urged Church to look back into the cauldron. ‘Ryan Veitch was in the grip of other powers. Both the Tuatha De Dannan and the agents of the Devourer of All Things manipulated him. The Caraprix in his head attempted to steer him towards disaster.’

‘I knew?’

‘You knew. You had no choice but to kill him.’

‘Then Veitch is a victim, too.’

‘You may say that. He does not see it so. Others might not see it so, either.’

Church looked back into the cauldron. The days moved on after he had fallen back in time. He saw Ruth mourning him, thinking he was dead. He saw the Blue Fire becoming stronger due to the events Church and the others had set in motion when they defeated the Fomorii.

But in their victory were the seeds of the crisis to come, for they had awoken a power that slept beyond the edge of the universe, and then the Void came to put the world back the way it had been. The Tuatha De Danann were destroyed. The next five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were stifled — only Hal escaped into the medium of the Blue Fire where he would attempt to bring Church back into the fray. And then the world was remade. Magic, hope and wonder were swept aside. Money and power and violence and despair became the common currency, all the things that the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders had spent the last 2,000 years putting into place.

In America, the word of power ‘Croatoan’ echoed across the landscape and the spiders rose up from their hiding place to spread across the world, corrupting and controlling.

‘And that was when the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders began to move back through time, attempting to eradicate anything that might bring hope or change things in the modern time,’ Church said.

‘They sowed the seeds of despair wherever they went, but the power of Existence is everywhere — in a song, in laughter, in a dream, in the caress of lovers. It cannot be destroyed, only contained.’

‘But it’s so bleak,’ Church said. ‘Why does it have to be this way?’

‘It does not.’ The woman cackled as she gave the cauldron a stir.

‘Nothing is fixed in the Fixed Lands.’ The Caretaker smiled.

‘You’re saying things can be changed, even though they’ve happened?’

‘What is happened?’ The woman cackled again.

Church’s mind experienced a sudden, radical shift and he was briefly back in Timothy Leary’s study talking about the structure of reality, and the spiders moving behind the scenes to keep the world a certain way.

And then he was in the Court of the Final World with the strange globe of interconnecting blue lines in Dian Cecht’s inner sanctum, watching as one slight movement changed the position of all the other intersections without altering the globe’s integrity. And Dian Cecht was telling him that Church was the Blue Fire, one and the same: You are the key. Once you discover how to turn the lock, anything is possible. You could save my people by altering what is to come .

Church was back in the cave. I could still change things?’

‘He does not yet have the ability to alter much,’ the wild-haired man shouted.

‘A tug here. A push there. Little changes make big changes.’ The woman laughed hysterically.

There was a nightmarish quality to the moment that made Church queasy. The Caretaker caught his arm to steady him. ‘What would you change?’

‘I’d save Ruth and Tom and Niamh … and … and the Tuatha De Danann,’ Church said without a second thought. ‘I’d change it all.’

‘Is that a small thing?’ The woman pondered. ‘I think it is!’

‘Come, then,’ the Caretaker said. ‘Let us see the strength of your will.’

As he led Church out of the cave, the wild-haired man ranted, ‘Changes ring changes ring changes. Who knows where this will turn? Bad or good! Good or bad!’

Dreamily detached, Church followed the Caretaker and his lantern. He passed another cave inside which stood three hooded women, their faces lost in shadow. He had an overwhelming feeling that if he did see their faces he would die.

‘Beware the Daughters of the Night.’ The Caretaker urged Church onwards.

Church glanced into the cave one final time and saw that one of the women was unravelling a spindle, another measured out the thread, while the third brandished a pair of shears that reminded him oddly of the Extinction Shears.

A chill ran through him, but then the women fell from view and the Caretaker brought him to a third cave. When Church stared into its depths, his consciousness failed to grasp what he saw. His perception slid greasily across a slowly revolving crystal, then a series of flashing lights, a mandala, a Mandelbrot set. Finally it settled on a portion of some enormous machine filled with cogs and gears. The Caretaker held up his light so Church could see a lever nearby.

‘That’s all it takes?’ Church said.

‘It is more than most could manage. To push the lever is like pulling a sword from a stone.’ The Caretaker smiled.

Hesitantly, Church took the lever in his hands; it didn’t feel how it looked. He put his shoulder to it and pushed. Nothing happened.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘Do you always give up so easily? It takes much to turn the axis of Existence.’

Church tried again, and again, gritting his teeth and straining. Eventually the lever shifted a fraction, and then a fraction more, and then it was moving easily. He had a sudden sense of everything shifting around him, as if he were in a theatre with a revolving stage and the scenery turning around him. The feeling was shockingly powerful, and for the briefest moment it felt as if he had been cut adrift from the universe and was spinning off into a dark chasm. He was floating, floating, and everything he saw was fake, a construct to keep him calm so he would not go insane.

The cogs and gears turned and shifted, and Church was back in the cavern, shaking with a terrible fear that he had done something that should never have been allowed. All an illusion , he told himself, knowing it wasn’t. Exhausted, he staggered back. Did that do it?’

‘Soon we will know.’

Church felt himself flagging. ‘This is all a dream, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is a dream.’

Church rubbed his hands wearily over his eyes. ‘And soon I’ll be back in the casket. With the spiders.’

‘Yes.’

‘Take me to Ruth,’ Church said. ‘One more time. Before all this fades.’

The Caretaker nodded, and this time his smile was more enigmatic. He held the lantern aloft and led the way.

Church didn’t know how he got out of the cavern, but soon they were walking along an odd corridor-like structure that was like scaffolding on one side and a wall of frosted glass on the other. After a while, the frost disappeared and Church was looking out on London. It was like being behind a two-way mirror that reached to the sky. On the other side, people shopped and chatted, cars drove by, planes flew overhead.

The Caretaker led the way through a door, up some stairs and into a flat. On the other side of the glass, Shavi sat next to Laura, staunching a wound on his head, and Veitch toyed with a knife. He looked menacing.

‘What’s going on?’ Church asked, concerned.

‘You cannot influence this,’ the Caretaker said. Reluctantly, Church moved on.

They went into the bedroom and came to a wardrobe, and then passed through the doors and into darkness.

‘I can’t see,’ Church said. ‘Raise your lantern.’

The Caretaker’s enigmatic smile grew wider.