Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

His expression troubled, Tom studied the mural.

'Never seen any that big,' Laura said.

'It's symbolic,' Tom muttered.

'So the Drakusa knew of the Caraprix, long before the Tuatha De Danaan.' Raising the lantern, Church looked around the walls in a new light. Images of Caraprix were visible everywhere, on the walls behind the dust, in mosaics on the floor and carvings on the marble pillars, emerging in part here and there, barely recognisable in isolation but taken together presenting a temple to the shape-shifting creatures. 'This place implies that they're gods or something.'

'Whoever did all these pictures… why are they making such a big deal out of them?' Veitch asked. 'The Caraprix are just pets, right? Those golden-skinned bastards have them around for entertainment.'

'I think we have been a little blind and stupid,' Tom began. 'All the time the Caraprix have been before our eyes, and we have misjudged them. We have not seen their true nature.'

A flicker of Blue Fire sizzled randomly at the tip of Ruth's spear and they all jumped. 'What do you mean?' Ruth asked.

'We have been told many, many times that the closer things are to the heart of Existence, the more fluid they are,' Tom replied. 'And these are the most fluid things of all. They have no fixed shape, no definable purpose. They can be anything they want. What, I wonder, are the limits of that? What could they really be?'

Church indicated another image, a figure with arms outstretched, strings connecting his fingers to a row of dancing marionettes. 'The Puppeteer,' he said. 'I've seen him before. In Venice, back in Elizabethan times. And in the court. So he existed before the current Age, before the Tuatha De Danaan? Why would he be painted here?'

'It's not that I don't find your noodling and navel-gazing so, so fascinating, ' Laura snapped, 'but what say we forget all this and move on before those Fomorii find a way in here and hunt us down like rabbits.'

'She's right,' Veitch said. 'This isn't important. We need to find the gate to Summer-side, and this place is so big we could be searching for years.'

Tom glared at Veitch, about to launch an angry comment, when Church dropped a hand on his shoulder. 'This isn't the place for a fight.' He nodded towards Miller and Virginia, who were sitting together on a piece of fallen pillar. Miller had a reassuring arm around the frightened girl's shoulders, but his fixed expression revealed his own repressed terror. 'We forget they're not like us,' Church continued. 'They've not seen the things we've seen, and they're not built to deal with what they've found here.'

'They're not like you,' Tom said pointedly.

Their unease mounted as they continued through the empty, ringing halls. The scale of the place, the silence, the darkness, the decay combined to create a thick, oppressive atmosphere that was profoundly unsettling. Though none of them gave voice to it, they all felt as if they were being watched by hateful eyes from the shadows just beyond the extent of the thin lantern light.

The stillness was so intense that even the slightest sound was magnified, and all their senses were heightened. After an hour, they heard a short, dull grind that could have been a door opening. It was so faint and distant that they would have dismissed it at any other time, but in that place it sounded like a tolling bell.

'I don't think we're alone in here,' Church said.

'They're coming.'

They all turned to look at Virginia, who had thrown off her hood and was smiling. It added a macabre cast to the desperate terror glittering in her eyes.

'The Fomorii?' Church asked.

Virginia shook her head. 'Worse than that.'

Claustrophobic darkness, and hard stone all around. The ragged heat of his breath. Pain, fading quickly, flashes of images in his memory so terrifying that his consciousness recoiled at their touch. Thankfully, the images subsided as Mallory came round.

He choked back bile at the abiding recollection of the touch of hard steel at his throat, the sensation of what followed and the scream of his mind as it wound down into darkness, and knew that it would haunt him for as long as he lived.

But he was alive. The ritual had worked. Everything was subsumed beneath the rush of wonder and relief, and he began frantically to feel around his environment. He was in a stone box, as Veitch had told him to expect.

Pressing his hands against the lid, he lifted. The lid ground to one side and flickering torchlight added another level of relief. Dank air rushed into the dry, dusty interior of the box.

Once he had clambered out, he found another stone box on a plinth next to him. Scuffling sounds came from within. He eased the lid off and helped Caitlin out. She clutched the Wayfinder to her chest, the blue flame providing welcome relief in that gloomy place.

'Look after me,' Caitlin said in the fragile voice of her Amy personality.

Mallory hugged her to him. 'Course I will.'

He held her until she released herself. 'It's okay — she's gone back to Brigid and Briony now.' She forced a wan smile, her eyes dark and limpid.

'The Morrigan?'

'Is waiting.' She stared into his eyes for a moment longer, and her gaze was briefly filled with all the powerful emotions she kept repressed. She broke off when she realised what she was revealing, although she knew he understood. 'Come on — we've got a job to do.'

When she held the lantern aloft, it revealed a huge chamber built from cyclopean stone blocks beyond the ability of any human to carve or move. Wall paintings also beyond human scale soared up into the shadows, incomprehensible and troubling, and here and there were effigies of squat, misshapen figures or tall, spindly beings. Not human.

'A temple,' Mallory said.

'Here? What do the dead worship?'

Mallory couldn't answer.

With a shudder, Caitlin turned her attention to the lamp's flame, which was bending unnaturally to point away from them. 'So Hal's in there somewhere? How do we talk to him?'

'If we call on him, he'll come,' Mallory said. 'But we've got to protect that lamp with our lives. Hal can die here, though die might not be the right word.'

'He'll be fine. We just put our heads down, follow the flame and we'll be at the Market in no time.'

'I like your optimism.'

As they searched for an exit, they found an area where a foot-high egg of swirling sapphire and emerald stood on a waist-high stone column. Every instinct told them to move on, but it drew them in nonetheless.

'What is that?' Caitlin said. 'It feels electric. Is it pulsing?'

Mesmerised, they stepped onto the dais surrounding the column; when they got within three feet of the egg they passed through some invisible boundary where everything became green-tinged and all sounds from the chamber beyond were muffled.

Cautiously, Caitlin reached out towards the egg, every warning instinct suppressed. When her fingers came within an inch of its surface, there was a shimmer and they found themselves standing in a three-dimensional view of a dark hall where Church and the others stood around Virginia.

'It's some kind of viewing thing, like the Wish-Post in the Great Courts,' Mallory said. He paused. 'Where's Hunter and Jack?'

The scene shifted to reveal the cavern of bones. 'Now why are they not with the others?' Caitlin asked.

The scene shifted again, this time unprompted. Mallory looking younger, happier, standing in Salisbury Cathedral. Caitlin standing in the rain, crying, covered in clay. Stonehenge in the morning sun, Blue Fire flickering above each trilithon. Church on his knees before the Libertarian, covered in blood. Someone reading a book, looking directly at Mallory and Caitlin.

A bolt of pain struck Mallory between the eyes, and instead of looking into the egg, something was looking out at him. He had the overwhelming sensation of a crushing consciousness focusing the full extent of its power upon him. It sizzled into his brain, crawling into his thoughts, turning over every aspect of who he was and what he wanted. Flames flickered around his perception and the image of the Burning Man began to fall into relief around them.