Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

'The Void saw you as a threat,' Church said. 'Those who bought into the Void's philosophy were just the tools that carried out the dirty work.'

'Driven from our groves, hunted to the point of extinction, we fled to the Otherworld where we survived on an island in the Dismal Marsh. Unable to tend to our people, we were dissolute and broken in spirit.' He bowed his head. 'It took time for us to renew our purpose. But then we became aware that the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were active once more, and that knowledge brought the Blue Fire back to our hearts. If you were fighting to oppose the Void, how could we remain in hiding?'

'See?' Tom said pointedly to Church. 'You keep thinking of yourselves, with your own shallow perspective, only looking around the tiny sphere of your immediate influence. You don't realise that simply by moving through the world you are changing all of Existence. The connections ripple out, altering the pattern.' He sighed. 'How am I supposed to drum some sense into your head? Step back and see the big pattern, and all your petty little concerns fall into perspective.'

'It's hard to believe everything happens for a reason when you're wading through life's little miseries,' Church snapped.

'That's the point.' Tom took out his tin and methodically began to roll himself a smoke.

'One other thing was responsible for our return to the world at this time,' Matthias continued. 'The First called to us.'

Church was shocked. 'The First called? To you?' The oldest and greatest Fabulous Beast was the recipient of the full power of the Blue Fire, and Church had been convinced he was the only one who shared a link with it; even then, when his mind intertwined with the Beast's, he saw with its eyes and felt what it felt, but he never gained any sense of its consciousness. They were always together, and separate.

'We were as astonished as you, Brother of Dragons. We protected the First in the Far Lands when it was most under threat, and during all that time it made no contact with us. Indeed, we thought it was incapable of communication with humans. But it summoned us back here, to this place, to help empower the land, and through that to empower the First. Our ritual today, at the dawning of the Solstice, focused the full force of the Blue Fire in this land on the greatest of the Fabulous Beasts.'

'That's why I'm here,' Church said. 'To take the First back to the Far Lands to help us in the battle.'

'Hmm,' Tom mused. 'Do you think there are any coincidences?'

'When all the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons gathered in London, I hid it close to the city so it could make its way here to Stonehenge when the Void was looking elsewhere,' Church said.

'There is a secret you must know,' Matthias said. 'The First has two forms. It is a Fabulous Beast, and it is the purest form of the Blue Fire that speaks through a human avatar. A force for Life, and a force that can be used for destruction, both interconnected. The First told us that this is important. It is a mystery that is also a key to what comes next.'

'You need to think about that,' Tom said.

'Is that one of your subtle hints?'

'Time is running out for subtlety. I haven't been able to tell you anything because it's important you learn all this yourself. We're never going to get to heaven if you haven't learned how to find the path.'

Church was puzzled by Tom's odd choice of words. It prompted another flash of himself lying on a table being observed, and he rubbed his temples forcefully to drive it away. 'It's not all about me,' he said with irritation.

'Actually, it is. And it always has been.' The weight of Tom's gaze upon him was almost unbearable, and so much lay behind it, a sucking vacuum that he had to resist or be lost in it for ever.

'I don't want to know.' He stood up suddenly and marched out of the roundhouse and into the crowd where he lost himself physically in the celebration. But he couldn't escape his thoughts, which increased in gravity during the course of the day until he became filled with dread about what lay ahead. Everything was about survival in the face of the Void, but somehow, in a way that made no sense to him, it was really about even more than that.

Towards the end of the day, he found Matthias standing beside him as he watched the sun moving down the sky. 'The mysteries will never be revealed to you. They can only be discovered by your own contemplation, ' the leader of the Culture said.

'My mystery?'

'All mysteries. We are all stories unfolding. The author, be that your unconscious or some higher power depending on your point of view, will leave clues for you to decipher the meaning beneath the chain of events. But no good author would make everything plain. Revelation is passive and easily forgotten. Discovery is active and imprints on your mind and soul for ever.'

Breathing in the woodsmoke and the smell of cooking meat, and listening to the sound of jubilant voices, Church realised how much of an outsider he felt. 'I've had enough,' he said. 'Of the mysteries. Of the struggle. The heartache. I want it all to end. A happy ending, like they have in the stories.'

'Happiness is found in the strangest places,' Matthias said. 'For some people, it can only be felt by seeing it ignited in others.'

'I don't want to be a hero either.'

'But you are. It is in your nature — you could not be anything else. You have risen above your flaws. You have kept travelling along the road when the obstacles would have driven others to the wayside. As you will keep travelling now, even though you feel this way. Am I right?'

Church nodded dismally.

Not far away, Ruth made her way through the crowd, the Spear of Lugh resting jauntily on her shoulder. She looked at peace, and that made Church happy to see. She caught sight of him and came over, giving him a kiss on his cheek as she slipped her arm through his.

'I can't believe how well the Craft is working for me here,' she said. 'I've been practising. It makes me feel so alive to use it. If only it was always like that.'

'It's inversely proportionate,' Matthias said. 'If the Mundane Spell is working strongly, using the Craft, getting closer to nature, bringing the Blue Fire alive is harder, if not impossible. The two are different faces, like the Void and Existence, but they're linked. One pulls one way, the other loses ground, and vice versa. For the majority of human existence on this planet, everything pulled in Existence's direction, the Blue Fire thrived and humanity was better for it. After the Industrial Revolution, everything changed. The Mundane Spell got a grip on the land, and the Blue Fire went into a long decline. Eventually magic disappeared from the world.

'It was always within the power of humanity to keep the Blue Fire alive, but the Mundane Spell is very seductive. It speaks to the worst instincts of human nature, and good men and women are required to overcome it. People should have taken a stand long ago. They did not. And so the Mundane Spell whispered in the night, and gradually draped on them responsibilities and needs that did not make their lives better, but which seemed at first glance attractive. By the time humanity recognised that, it was too late.

'But that is how the other side has always won. Not by direct confrontation, but by an arm of a "friend" around the shoulder. The foolish, the unthinking, the tired and worn down — they always listen. Only now, as it sees its control ebbing away for good, is the Void turning to destruction.'

A black cloud passed briefly across the setting sun, swirling up and then back to circle around the camp. The revellers stopped what they were doing and faced the sky as the Morvren settled on the trees all around.

'An omen?' Matthias said.

Church felt a shiver of darkness touch his heart. 'He's here,' he said.