Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

Caitlin grabbed Mallory and propelled him out of the active zone around the egg. He cried out as the consciousness was painfully torn from his mind. 'The Void,' he gasped. 'It was looking into me. It recognised me.' He sucked in a breath of air. 'It knows who all of us are, every human. It knows our strengths, and our weaknesses. Our desires.'

'I think we make a vow not to touch anything else in this world,' Caitlin said, helping Mallory to his feet. 'Nothing good's going to come out of anything here.'

As Mallory recovered, they heard a noise coming from the direction of the two Rebirth Boxes. Creeping back to the chamber, they saw an arm of twisted blackthorn rise from one of the boxes, and then another. The Hortha rose up and turned its crumpled-paper face towards them.

In that briefest contact, Mallory had a premonition of his own death. Chilled, he guided Caitlin quickly away. While the Hortha adjusted to the transition to the Grim Lands, they moved quickly through the dark chambers until they found the exit tunnel that Veitch had described. It led out into a fissure in the rock in which the temple had been carved. Overhead, a slate-grey sky was occasionally revealed by gaps in the constantly drifting mist. Black shapes moved across it; birds, they guessed, although the perspective suggested something much larger. Every sound was dampened, the rattle of a kicked stone so muffled it could barely be heard six feet away.

They scrambled up a scree-slope onto a bleak, featureless terrain of hard rock and shale, though the mist made it impossible to see too far ahead. Although there was no breeze, the mist continued to fold and twist, licking at them, enswathing them until they moved on rapidly to leave it behind.

'Nice place,' Mallory said. 'Reminds me of a day I spent in Harlow.'

'I guess the dead don't need much in the way of scenery.'

The timbre of Caitlin's voice had changed subtly. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but Mallory was always struck by the slight physical alterations that came over her when one of her personalities took over. This one he recognised as the Morrigan, not in full control, but far back in her head, slackly taking the reins.

'We got out of that temple just in time,' he said. 'We're not leaving a trail here. That should make it difficult for the Hortha to follow us.'

'No trail you can see,' Caitlin corrected.

'You're not going to let me hide away in my all-is-right-with-the-world fantasies, are you?'

'That won't benefit us. We need to be aware, to keep moving. If that thing crossed the barrier into the Grim Lands, it's not going to give up easily.'

'The worst thing about that lantern is that it gives no indication of distance. What happens if we've got to follow that flame for thousands of miles?'

'I'm not sure distance or time mean much here. It just… is…'

Caitlin's voice dried up as the first feature emerged from the mist: a pair of iron gates in a Victorian style, one of them hanging askew from a broken hinge. They were supported by two stone columns on which black gargoyles perched. In the centre of the wrought-iron arch above the gate was a skull resting on crossed bones. On either side, rusted iron railings stretched out until they were lost in the shifting mist. Beyond sprawled a graveyard: markers, mausoleums, tombs, statues of weeping angels, some of them sagging at angles or broken, suggesting great age. The lichen-covered stone glowed spectrally in the strange, diffuse light. Ivy grew up some of the monuments, obscuring their meaning, and long, yellowing grass grew amongst the graves, along with wild flowers that were splashes of queasy colour in the grey.

Apprehensively, Mallory and Caitlin halted at the gate, but the Wayfinder continued to point directly ahead.

'You're just asking for trouble going through a place like that in a place like this,' Mallory said.

Caitlin followed the line of the railings into the mist. 'I have a horrible feeling this graveyard goes on a long, long way. I don't think we'll be able to go around it.'

Mallory sighed. 'Yep. Makes perfect sense.'

Standing before the gate, he glanced up at the arch and briefly thought he saw his own face on the skull. The illusion passed quickly and he took hold of the sagging gate, which emitted a protesting, resonant scream from its rusted, long-unused hinges. It was the only sound that carried any distance, and seemed to go on and on and on into the mist.

'I'm living in a really bad horror movie,' he said, his palms unbearably sweaty. If the Hortha was on the move, it would have heard that metallic wrenching.

Once again they came to a halt, on the threshold. Every sense told them not to enter the graveyard, but the Wayfinder continued to urge them on.

'Come on — don't be scared!'

The voice startled them. Mallory exchanged a glance with Caitlin and then drew his sword. The Blue Fire around the blade was barely evident. Caitlin reached behind and removed her axe from its harness.

'What fine weapons! What a sword! What an axe! But that sword… yes! One of the Three Great Swords of Existence, if I am not mistaken. And I am rarely mistaken, unless I am in my cups, which, admittedly, has not been much of an option in recent times.'

The deeply theatrical voice hid any true emotion. Mallory had an impression of some old stage ham, living on past glories. 'Who's there?' he called.

'A friend. Nothing more.'

'Somehow I doubt that.'

As Mallory and Caitlin crossed the threshold, they felt a sudden tingle of uneasiness as if the barrier had been real and not just imaginary. Whoever was there was hidden amongst the clutter of mausoleums and grave markers.

'Don't worry! I won't bite! Indeed, I am utterly desperate for invigorating human conversation. Why, we are social beings. We are not meant for this dreary, unstimulating place — where, I might add, I should not be. But enough about that travesty for now, lest I find myself carried away on a wave of bitterness, which will only wash me up on the bleak shores of despair.'

Mallory pushed through the long grass, searching all around. The mist hid objects, then revealed them, then hid them again, so they quickly lost all sense of direction. They could no longer see the gate, although they had not gone far.

'But as the great Shelley said,' the speaker continued, ' "Some say that gleams of a remoter world visit the soul in sleep — that death is slumber." So perhaps I… perhaps all of us happy breed… are only sleeping.'

As Mallory and Caitlin rounded an ivy-clustered mausoleum they finally found the speaker, sitting cross-legged on a tomb. He was a strange figure. Though in his mid-forties, he had long, silver hair and a gaunt face. He wore a black suit, shiny from wear, offset by a flamboyant red brocade waistcoat. His boots were worn and holed on the soles.

'What are you doing here?' Caitlin asked.

'Just resting my old bones.' He chuckled, revealing a gap between nicotine-stained teeth.

'Who are you?' Mallory asked.

'Who am I? The great existential question. Who. Am. I. There are many possible answers-'

'Who are you?' Mallory repeated fiercely.

'I am the bard of the hedgerows, the king of the open road, alley sloper, gourmand and wit.' He held his arms wide. 'My name is Callow.'

The Halls of the Drakusa were endless, and silent. The tip of the Spear of Lugh burning with Blue Fire to light her path, Ruth led the way through chamber after chamber where the shadows pressed hard against them and the oppressive sense of threat grew by the moment. More energy burned at the rear of the column where Church and Veitch had their swords drawn to defend the group from any attack.