Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

'No! I was not meant to die. It was an error of cosmic proportions. And if proof you need, it is the simple fact that I am still here.'

Caitlin eyed him curiously. 'What do you mean?'

'I am not allowed to continue. The Grey Lands is simply a waiting room. The vast majority of shades you find here are in the process of moving on. To where, I do not know. Heaven? Hell? Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Perhaps back into the innocent foetus, with all the possibilities once again lying ahead, to do right, or wrong, learn, or not, and find their way… where? Back here!'

Mallory began to grow weary of Callow's chatter and prepared to head off. Callow instantly read the signs and leaped in front of him.

'Some of the shades get trapped here, true, for reasons I have not yet discerned. But you can tell their type instantly. Consumed by bitterness, infected with despair, none of them exhibit the joy you see here in my humble form. No, I am a true anomaly — neither dead nor alive. Caught in a web not of my own making, and no one prepared to throw up their arms and admit to their mistake.'

'We can't waste time here,' Caitlin said with irritation.

'Take me with you!' Callow pleaded, grabbing hold of Mallory's jacket.

Prising him off, Mallory said, 'Nice story, but I'm pretty sure you're meant to be here, and I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of whoever sets the rules in this place.'

'Please!' Callow started to cry. 'You don't know what it's like here!'

'Mallory,' Caitlin pressed. When she held up the Wayfinder to examine the direction of the blue flame, Callow stopped crying instantly and his eyes narrowed.

Mallory noticed the sudden change in his demeanour and asked, 'What's wrong?'

'That lantern. I have seen it before. In the possession of my very good friends.' Callow slyly watched Mallory's interest grow. 'The remarkable, the astonishing Jack Churchill. And Ruth Gallagher. And the lovely Laura. Shavi. And the other one.'

'You know Church and the others?' Caitlin asked.

'We were travelling partners for a time, during that age of upheaval, that Age of Misrule. Oh, how they mourned my passing! Oh, how they would celebrate joyously if I returned to the land of the quick!'

The resonant creak of the cemetery gate echoed through the mist. Callow started, and ran to the edge of a mausoleum to peer uneasily into the grey, where he plucked at the fraying sleeve of his jacket. Mallory and Caitlin left him there and tried to pick a path through the cluttered mass of monuments to the dead, but within a moment he had joined them again.

'Let me guide you,' he said. 'You'll never find your way through this sprawling city of the departed without my help. There are many hidden dangers, and sometimes a slight detour could save you a limb or a life. You really would not want to be permanent residents here.'

From behind them came the dull sound of something dry and scratchy being drawn across stone. 'Who's there?' Mallory asked.

'I saw no one. I would not expect the dead to be passing through here at this time; unless, of course, they have learned of your arrival. Then it would be a time to beware. They are jealous of the living, and their bitterness drives them to extremes. And unpleasantness.'

'Bring him along,' Caitlin said. 'It won't hurt.'

'All right. But any sign of deceit and you'll wish you'd stayed in your tomb,' Mallory said bluntly. 'And don't get any ideas about coming back with us. This is a short-term deal through this God-forsaken place.'

'Of course, of course,' Callow said slyly, 'but once we are firm friends on the road of life… or death… who knows?'

'I know,' Mallory said firmly. 'Move.'

With a bow, Callow swung one arm out flamboyantly to guide them on their way. They were soon lost amongst the mausoleums and grave markers and leaning, ivy-covered statues, and though Callow whistled jauntily a few yards ahead of them, they were left uneasy by the constant morbidity of their surroundings.

'Is this what death is,' Caitlin asked, 'one never-changing bleak landscape that goes on for ever?' Hugging her arms around her, she fought off the creeping desolation imposed by their surroundings.

'Don't start asking me about the afterlife,' Mallory said. 'I never used to think there was one. For me, life itself was enough of a purgatory.'

'You too?'

'I didn't use to think that. I was arrogant. Everything was just a big sweet-store where I could pick and choose until I grew fat. Then life slaps you around the face and shows you what it's really like.' He caught himself. 'Now I sound like a pathetic, self-pitying loser. I don't really believe that. There's a lot of good. It's just that once you've experienced the worst there is, it's impossible to see the world in that totally innocent way any more.'

'But we still have hope, don't we? That's what keeps us going. It would have been so easy to give in when Grant and Liam died, but if I had I'd never have met you.' It was Caitlin's turn to catch herself, afraid she'd said too much. She added hastily, 'What happened to you?'

'In my arrogance, I attracted the attention of a particularly nasty bunch of people. I thought I could control them, beat them, until I realised there are people in this world who are capable of harder, more terrible things than you can ever dream, and if you come up against them, you can't match them. You always lose. They gave me a choice that no person should ever have to make. I killed someone, and it destroyed me. I couldn't live with it. And then I tried to kill myself.' He paused. 'I did kill myself. Don't ask me how I ended up here. Maybe there are just a whole load of successive lives. You die in one, you get bumped up to the next.'

'But there's a reason you came here,' Caitlin pressed. 'If you hadn't killed yourself, you wouldn't have been here to try to save this world and we'd have lost long ago. Out of that awful thing, something good is happening.'

'It'd be nice to believe that.' Mallory clearly did not believe. 'But it still sounds naive to me.'

'It's like Shavi kept saying — the pattern, the hidden pattern,' she said. 'It's all too complex, so everything seems random and punctuated with all these bleak, horrible events, but the big picture… it could be something beyond our dreams.'

'I can see the pattern here. You've been sent to make sure I don't turn into a miserable, grumpy old git that the children throw stones at in the street.'

'It's mutual, Mallory.'

With a sudden urgency, he caught her arm. 'There's someone here.' He tried to pinpoint the direction of the noise he had heard, but with the deadened sound of the cemetery, it was impossible. Oblivious, Callow punctuated his progress with bursts of whistling.

Caitlin became darker, her posture more aggressive. The Morrigan drew forwards.

A faint rasp away to his left. Mallory turned, sword drawn, but there was nothing to see. Then a whisper of movement ahead, just beyond the visibility the mist allowed him.

Circling, he thought. Looking for an opening.

Though they were both on their guard, neither were prepared for the silent figure rising up beside a tomb they had just passed. The Hortha gripped Caitlin across the mouth with a twisted blackthorn hand, spun her around and extended the index finger of its right hand to drive it between her eyes and into her brain.

With a muffled snarl, Caitlin drove her axe down into the Hortha's thigh. Dry blackthorn shattered as the blade almost severed the limb. As the Hortha lurched to one side, his attack was thrown off-balance, and the finger-spear tore open the flesh along the side of her temple.

Wriggling free, Caitlin flipped back to land on her feet, axe ready to attack, pausing only to watch with disgust as the Hortha raised its finger to drop a minute amount of her blood into its paper mouth.