Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

Everything he could imagine was available. Sometimes, when he returned to a stall for a second look, the objects on it had changed, adding another disconcerting twist to his search. There were weapons of all kinds — swords, magic axes, hammers, daggers; poisons and potions to achieve any outcome; maps of every place he'd heard of, and many he was convinced only existed in stories; stuffed animals; statues whose eyes followed him as he passed; musical instruments — flutes made from human bone, lyres, skin-covered drums; medical instruments; implements of torture; mysterious creatures in cages that slept just like their owners; Tarot cards, playing cards, talking greeting cards, curse cards; hats, cloaks, belts — some magic, some perfectly normal; and, in the main, a host of artefacts that Mallory couldn't begin to comprehend.

Behind one stall, a beautiful, voluptuous woman stood with one hand on a cobweb-festooned cat. At the front of her stall was a crystal ball. Mallory gave it only a cursory glance, but it snared him instantly. Mesmerised, he peered into its depths where he saw not the distorted reflection of his face, but the skull beneath his skin. The more he stared, the more it drew him in, whispering, 'This is who you are.'

He was thrown roughly to the ground. Caitlin hauled him to his feet and shook him until his sense returned.

'Sorry, but I've been trying to rouse you for ten minutes,' she said. 'You were gone. That's not all — it was as if you were trying to pull the flesh from your face.'

The skin around Mallory's jaw was sore to the touch. Even so, he found himself irresistibly drawn back to the crystal ball, until Caitlin shook him again and dragged him, half-stumbling, across the path to the stalls she had been inspecting.

'I've found them,' she said. 'At least, I think I have. This is the only thing that comes close.'

Tucked away incongruously behind a pile of rags was a pair of shears with ornate gold handles, and though they appeared to radiate no light, Mallory saw a white glow wash over Caitlin and himself. As he examined them, Mallory had the impression that he wasn't looking at a pair of shears at all, but something infinitely larger and more mysterious; several potential images — an intricate clockwork machine, a crystal — skittered across his mind, but it always came back to a pair of shears.

'What do you think?' Caitlin asked.

Mallory had the strange impression that he had seen the shears before, as though in a dream. He decided it was instinct, but he was much surer than he ought to have been. 'That's them.'

As he reached for them, a silver candlestick on the table in front of his fingers moved. He cried out and leaped back. 'What the fu-!'

The candlestick flowed like mercury, rolling itself into a silver egg and then, sprouting legs, it scurried across the table to the edge and dropped to the ground.

'A Caraprix!' Caitlin exclaimed. 'I thought they were all in that room at the court with Jerzy.'

'Not all of them, apparently.' All across the market, the tables became alive with objects moving, changing shape, glowing with a silvery light. As the Caraprix scuttled to the ground and streamed towards the far side of the Market, Mallory saw in them an eerie reflection of the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.

Delicately plucking the Extinction Shears from the table, Mallory was unsettled by how warm and yielding they felt under his fingers. Hastily, he slipped them into the bag at his belt, then turned his attention back to the Caraprix.

The stream of shape-shifting creatures led to a point where the forest came to an end, and only rock walls lay beyond. A glassy quality to the air right along the boundary gave the impression that they were standing in a bubble.

The Caraprix spread out along the boundary and came to a halt, exuding a bright white light that slowly spread upwards into a ten-foot-high rectangle. As the quality of the light changed, Mallory and Caitlin realised they were looking through a window onto the terrain of another world, where steaming jungle came up hard against a vast golden desert.

'The Far Lands,' Caitlin said in the hard-edged voice of the Morrigan.

'A doorway back,' Mallory noted. 'So we don't have to go through that ritual Math forced us to learn. I'm not even convinced he was sure it would work.'

'So the Caraprix brought the Market here?' Caitlin said.

'Looks like it. The perfect hiding place.'

Caitlin slipped her hand into Mallory's and gave it a squeeze. He was troubled by how quickly she appeared to be flipping back and forth between her true self and the part corrupted by the Morrigan, as if she was assimilating the goddess into her being. 'Then that's mission accomplished, ' she said. 'Let's go-'

Caitlin was interrupted by the sounds of fighting behind them. Racing back the way they had come, they found the Brothers and Sisters of Spiders in fierce combat with the Hortha, which was just inserting one extended, thorny finger through Tannis's forehead. With a dry, cracking noise, it burst through the rear of his skull and Tannis crumpled to the ground, the dim light in those dead eyes finally extinguished.

Instantly, it turned its rustling, papery face towards Mallory and Caitlin. 'Nowhere to run now,' it called drily.

Owein and Branwen attacked it with their swords, hacking through the dense blackthorn body only for it to sprout and grow back almost instantly.

Etain glanced back, questioningly, and Mallory shouted, 'Can you hold it off till we get away?' For the first time, Mallory saw deep in her eyes the merest hint of the Sister of Dragons she had once been. It brought a pang of conscience, but he reminded himself that her time had passed.

Yet she continued to stare at him with a hint of desperation, and he realised she was trying to communicate with him. He knew instinctively what she wanted to say. 'I'll tell him,' he called.

Branwen fell as the Hortha avoided her strike and punched the twisted spike into her forehead. As Mallory and Caitlin ran, they glimpsed Owein dropping too, and then Etain was fighting alone, sacrificing herself for the people she had once been driven to destroy.

The atmospheric conditions of the forest setting were altering fast; it was warmer, and Mallory and Caitlin felt as if they were running through treacle. Spatial dimensions distorted, and time itself came in stuttering fits and starts so it felt as if they were speeding towards their destination, then frozen as the world around them moved. Trails of light flowed from the Chinese lanterns swinging wildly in the branches. The Market began to compress and stretch towards the door created by the Caraprix.

The view across the Far Lands was now much clearer, and they could feel the tropical heat of the jungle and the dry wind blowing across the desert.

Pausing, Mallory grabbed Caitlin's hand. 'You ready?' he asked.

'We've come this far together. Why stop now?' She gave him a warm smile of deep affection.

'Back to life,' he said. 'Back to reality. Of sorts.'

They took the great leap together.

Though the small campfire burned continually in the cave, it couldn't dispel the bitterness of the unending winter outside, nor the chill in Miller's heart. He had tended to Hunter, Jack and Virginia night and day, but had now reached the point of ultimate despair: their decline had accelerated and he was forced to accept the impossibility of keeping them all alive.

Surviving on occasional birds and rabbits he trapped in the snow while constantly evading the roaming Fomorii had taken its toll, both physically and emotionally; drawing on his healing force so often was also sapping his own powers of recuperation. The futility of it ate into his bones much more deeply than the aching cold. While there was life he had to keep on trying, but now he had to make the choice he had dreaded: sacrifice one in the hope that it would leave him strong enough to save the other two.