Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

'You could try.'

'All right.' Caitlin sighed. 'Let's put the whole men thing behind us. This is serious.'

'Just… don't worry,' Veitch continued. 'I wasn't going to take any risks with this. I went out of my way to find a ritual that could take me over the barrier in one piece. I was primed and fully charged when Church got me down in Cornwall. Half an hour after they carted my body off, I was in the Grim Lands. And here I am. I look okay to you?'

Mallory took a deep breath and looked to Caitlin. 'Okay, then. We've got a job to do.'

She took his hand and led him into the ritual circle.

'It's the ride of a lifetime, Mallory. Imagine how much more you're going to appreciate life when you've died and come out the other side.'

'How do you know I haven't died and come back already?' Mallory said. Caitlin fixed him with a quizzical gaze, but he didn't respond.

Math's voice grew louder, the rhythmic chanting taking on a hypnotic quality. The atmosphere became more intense. Strange shadows flitted across the room.

'Here.' Veitch handed them each a goblet of dark liquid. 'So you won't feel a thing.'

'How are you going to do it?' Mallory asked.

Veitch held up a long silver knife, the handle carved with symbols.

Mallory eyed it for a moment, then downed his drink in one. 'Death, here we come,' he said with as much bravado as he could muster.

Night was falling as the thick smudge of black moved across the entire span of the Great Plain. Storm clouds boiled above it, throwing out jagged bolts of lightning that turned the darkening sky white, and with it came the deep, resonant heartbeat in the ground. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

The Enemy had arrived.

With a mounting feeling of dread, Church watched from the battlements of the great wall. Even with the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders and the Burning Man, he had never really comprehended the true scale of what they faced. 'How many of them are there?' he breathed.

'Perhaps a million.' Beside him, Lugh remained phlegmatic. 'Perhaps more.'

'How can anyone survive this kind of battle?' Church said.

'We do what we can. As do you.'

Lugh's faith was touching, but Church had a more immediate concern. 'How are we going to get past the Enemy lines?'

'There may be another route.' Math's eerie, echoing voice rose up behind Church, where the sorcerer had just arrived with Veitch and Tom.

'All done?' Church asked.

Veitch nodded, but wouldn't meet Church's eyes. The killing had clearly affected him.

'What other route?' Church asked.

'There are paths that cross lands and time and everything we know. One only needs to locate the correct door,' Math replied. 'Through Winter-side, which shimmers just a breath away from this land, stories tell of many routes.'

'You can show us the way?'

Math shook his head. 'There are only stories. One speaks of a door in the Halls of the Drakusa, which exists, like this Great Court, in both Summer-side and Winter-side.'

'Then we could get into Winter-side here, and back out again there,' Veitch said.

'How do we find it?' Church asked.

'There are only stories,' Math repeated.

Tom sighed. 'All you great heroes, and as usual, you're at a loss. It's a good job I'm here.' He showed them the ring Freyja had given him. 'One of its more pleasing abilities is to guide the owner to their heart's desire. That led us to Ruth, so you know it works. I suppose, if you ask me nicely, I can accompany you to Winter-side and show you the way.'

'Woo hoo,' Veitch said with weary sarcasm. 'Us and the old git on the road again. Just like old times.'

Thoom-thoom-thoom. The walls shook as the Enemy neared.

Night fell.

In the centre of an unremarkable cobbled square stood the Gateway to Winter, a stone arch marked with a leafless tree on the keystone. Around it, a still, black pool reflected the glittering stars so that it appeared as if what was above also lay below.

Gathered before the arch, Church and the others were dressed in thick furs despite the summery warmth.

'Winter-side has many dangers,' Lugh said to Church, who was carrying out a last-minute check of provisions. 'My people have always avoided its desolation, but the stories of the terrors that lurk there are rife. Some say it was the original home of the Fomorii, and anywhere that could birth that foul race cannot be a good land.'

'We're not complacent,' Church replied. 'We know the Void is going to do everything it can to stop us reaching the Fortress of the Enemy. It's worried that we might be able to stop it, and that means we stand a chance.'

'Despite all evidence to the contrary,' Laura muttered as she passed, tugging with irritation at the furs.

On the fringes of the group, a tearful Mahalia quietly but intensely confronted Jack, but he remained resolute, if sad. Church was impressed by how the teenager had risen to the responsibility of being one of the Two Keys, as had Miller, who shuffled awkwardly nearby, trying to ignore the outpouring of emotion. Crowther watched the two with fatherly concern, but did not interfere.

'I can understand how Mahalia feels,' Ruth said. 'It's awful to feel so powerless when someone you love goes into danger.'

'I bet you've never felt powerless in your life,' Church said.

'That shows how much you know.'

For the last ten minutes, Tom had been sitting on the low stone wall surrounding the pool, smoking and talking intently to Shavi. As it had been for several hours, most of the conversation was about the Caraprix and the meaning of their sudden evacuation from the Tuatha De Danaan to Doctor Jay's lab where Jerzy still lay. Since then, no one had been able to gain access to the room to find the reason for the light blazing under the door and the constant jarring noise.

Shavi saw Church looking and came over. 'I have a question,' he said to Rhiannon and Lugh. 'We are searching for the Halls of the Drakusa. Who are the Drakusa? Tom has spent a lifetime amassing knowledge of the Far Lands and he has never heard tell of them.'

'The Golden Ones do not talk of them,' Rhiannon said. 'We rarely acknowledge they existed, even amongst ourselves.'

'The Golden Ones have survived and found strength in self-delusion,' Lugh began cautiously. 'That we are the first and that we are the last. That we are at the heart of Existence. That we are the strongest.'

'We are not,' Rhiannon said. 'And we might have climbed higher on the ladder of Existence if we had found the wisdom to recognise the truth earlier.'

'The Drakusa came before you?' Church asked.

'They, and others,' Lugh replied.

'What happened to them?' Shavi queried.

'No one knows. The footprints of those lost civilisations can still be found across the Far Lands, if one looks carefully,' Rhiannon admitted. 'In ruins, so overgrown they have almost become part of the landscape, in artefacts, in rumours and prophecies and stories where their existence is clear in what is not said, rather than what is.'

Veitch and Hunter arrived with Virginia Dare, who was wrapped in a cloak so thick there was only a hint of the pale moon of her face. Her head was bowed, her arms wrapped around her, locked so deeply within herself she appeared oblivious to her surroundings.

'I'm not sure she's up to this,' Ruth whispered.

'We don't have a choice,' Church said. 'She's been traumatised. Her mind keeps shutting down to protect her from what she's been through and that's going to make her a burden for us when we hit danger.' He paused. 'And I know how cruel it is to take her back there. If I could think of any other way to do this, I would.'

Within a quarter of an hour, they were ready to make the journey to Winter-side. Shavi cast his eyes over the group. 'Ten of us,' he said. 'Six Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, Tom, Miller, Jack and Virginia. Nine would have been better.'