Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

Church recognised the flicker of uneasiness he saw behind her facade, and recalled the mounting panic that had risen on the day he realised the universe was not at all as he had imagined. 'Something else strange happened to you in Salisbury?'

She shook her head, embarrassed now she was verbalising things that had made a half-sense in her head. 'Dreams… some exactly the same, some with the same sort of feel. There was always a little Afro-Caribbean boy in there. He never spoke, but he always acted like he knew me. Then, one day, I saw him in the middle of town. It was like he was watching me. Yeah, it spooked me. I looked away, and when I looked back he was gone. I was already on edge in case Scott rolled in looking for me, though there was no real way he could have found me.

'After that, the boy kept turning up everywhere, and the dreams kept on going too, and I was starting to feel really creepy. It was in my mind all day, and I was worrying about going to sleep every night. So I decided to confront him — get it out of my system once and for all, and prove there was nothing supernatural about it.'

The realisation of what that decision had cost her brought a queasy expression. Church poured her another hot drink.

'Turned out he was a nice kid, told me his name was Carlton. He didn't know anything about the dreams. Pretended he didn't. But he knew lots of things about me that he couldn't possibly have known, and he said he needed to show me something. I gave him a grilling, said I wasn't going to go, but he was just a kid, you know?' She looked out across the desert where the Morvren were circling. 'God, it feels like all that happened to a different person, and it was only a day or so ago. I drove him a little way out of town to this place… Woodhenge? Not the stones. It was just a few concrete posts in a field as far as I could see.'

Church nodded. 'It doesn't look like much, but it's one of a series of pointers that the entire area around Stonehenge and Woodhenge was a massive ritual site, one of the largest in the world.'

'I never had much interest in that kind of thing.'

'There's a theory that Stonehenge was a place where people conducted rituals of death, and then processed along the river to Woodhenge for a celebration of life. An archaeologist called Mike Parker Pearson from Sheffield University led a massive study there called the Stonehenge Riverside Project. He found evidence of a huge temporary living area not far from Woodhenge and lots of animal bones that suggested feasting. It's an important place.'

She shrugged, dismissively. 'You an archaeologist, then?'

'Once. In a past life.' He wondered briefly if the patterns Shavi was always considering extended to everyone, and if, for some unseen reason, everyone was led towards the jobs they were meant to do. He loved archaeology, but after Marianne's death it had felt so unimportant. Yet many of the things he had learned during his studies had helped him in his struggles as a Brother of Dragons. Random or pattern? Meaningless or meaningful?

'I admit, I had a bit of an odd feeling when I got out of the car. The sky looked funny, and there was this sort of swirly mist away over the fields. Carlton pointed to where I should be going and I set off… only he didn't come with me. I called him over, but he told me to keep going — that I'd find it soon. So I walked a bit further, and when I looked back he was gone. And so was the car. And the car park. And all those concrete posts. Except, you know, the landscape looked exactly the same, all the hills and fields.' The memory was still potent, and she unconsciously hugged her arms around her. 'It looked like it would have done hundreds of years ago. I totally lost it, running around and screaming like an idiot. And then all the fields went too, and I was in that mist I'd noticed. And then…' Her glass fell and shattered on the floor as she started to hyperventilate. Church gave what comfort he could, but the tears still burned in her eyes. 'I don't know what I saw! I don't know how long I was there! I just remember being aware that this thing was after me… this thing with a big grin, and horrible eyes, and it was moving low along the ground, and it had this sort of brown skin like a seal…' She caught herself, and took a deep breath. 'It chased me out of the mist, and suddenly I was standing in the heat out there.' She pointed into the desert where the haze shimmered. 'It kept coming after me, and I ran as fast as I could. I thought I was going to die. And then I ended up here.' She started to pick up the pieces of broken glass, and then hurled them across the roof terrace.

'Do you think you can find your way back to where you first appeared in the desert?' he asked.

'I don't know. Maybe. Do you think there's a way back?'

'Could be.' He didn't want to raise her hopes, but his own heart was beating faster.

Leaving her there recovering in the sun, he found Tom and Ruth sitting quietly on another, smaller terrace. Ruth looked paler than he had ever seen her.

'How are you feeling?' he asked her. He hated the uncomfortable space that lay between them, and the way her eyes didn't quite meet his.

'Better, thanks. The Pendragon Spirit works wonders if you let it.'

'So what wisdom have you discovered now?' Tom said acidly.

'That boy you saw on the train, Carlton, is working with the Oldest Things in the Land. Maybe he's one of them.'

Tom sucked on his roll-up thoughtfully for a moment, then said simply, 'Interesting.'

'The Oldest Things in the Land conspired to get her here. The Puck chased her into the city. They wanted us to find her, because she can lead us back home. There's some kind of way that isn't one of the regular doors that the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders blocked.'

'You're sure you're not reading into this exactly what you want?' Ruth asked.

'With her, we can find our way home!'

Ruth flashed a brief, disappointed look that stung him. 'You still want to run away?'

'It's not like that… oh, forget it. Why don't you just trust me?'

Tom exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. 'It's a good job I'm not embarrassed by your pathetic domestic issues-'

Ruth and Church turned and snapped at him at the same time: 'Shut up!' He shrugged, unmoved.

'Let's get the others together,' Church said. 'We're moving out within the hour.'

In the dead heat of the morning, they departed the Court of Endless Horizons, past the steady stream of refugees seeking shelter in the city. After the packed, sweltering, noisy streets, the blank, rolling wastes were a welcome relief, stilling the tense chatter of the mind and allowing them all to breathe a little easier.

Casting a threatening shadow across the ochre sands, the black cloud of the Morvren followed them, their cawing a jarring sound in the stillness that lay all around whenever the wind dropped. Lest they be lulled into a false state of overconfidence by the peace of the desolation, the scarlet, orange and gold shape of the Burning Man loomed up ahead of them against the silver-blue skyline, the outline now smudged black with greasy smoke. The closer they got to it, the more charged with dread the atmosphere became.

'What do you think it will look like when the Void fills the space?' Ruth was surprised to realise she was whispering.

'I do not think we should worry about that,' Shavi replied. 'Once the Void materialises, everything is over.'

Soon the gleaming towers of the court and the dark line of jungle disappeared from view, and there was only the rolling dunes scarred with the line of their footprints. They sipped sparingly from their water bottles, all of them aware of the dangers of getting lost.

Leading the way, Rachel pointed to a formation of glassy volcanic rock rising from the sands about three miles distant. 'I remember seeing that. I came through somewhere near there. I think.'