Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

'I'm not going back with you,' she blazed.

He punched her on the side of the face. 'Why do you keep opening your stupid mouth? Can't you see? Every time you say something moronic, it hurts. You don't want pain, you keep quiet.'

'I'm not staying quiet any more,' she gasped. 'I've got a right to be who I want to be.'

Letting go of her wrist, he grabbed a handful of her hair, dragged her a few more feet and then threw her down on the turf. Standing over her, he said with conviction, 'You need me. You can't survive without me.'

'I can.'

'That's the way it's always been. Women need men. We have to do all the things you're too weak and pathetic to tackle. You try to drag us down, but we're the real power.' He bunched both his fists. 'I don't want to do this. I love you, Rachel. Despite all your stupid ways, I love you. But you've got to learn that you can't carry on like this or we'll never be happy.'

As he prepared to swing his fist, he realised Rachel was looking past him with an expression of awe.

The first thing he saw were the roiling clouds, and jagged bolts of lightning dancing wildly across the grassland, though the rest of the sky was as clear and star-sprinkled as it had been all night. Thunder boomed, and then out of the tightly localised storm walked a woman, her hair flowing around her like snakes, her face blazing with an inner light. She was a ghost, a demon; she terrified him. On either side of her, a carpet of animals undulated towards him, their eyes glittering.

Her face, he thought. I can't look into her face.

As she rushed across the landscape towards him, an unaccountable feeling of dread filled him. Rachel was forgotten; and when he saw that the woman was floating an inch or so above the grass, he wanted to turn and run, but his legs would not respond.

'You're going to get it now,' Rachel croaked, with a note of glee.

Old instincts surfaced and he cursed and ran towards her, ready to punch and kick. A blast of wind smacked him in the chest with the force of a car, flipping him up and over. He heard a rib break, as he had heard Rachel's crack earlier.

His fear obscured any pain, and he scrambled to his feet too late. The woman was upon him, her eyes filled with fire.

He swung out, but she ducked and brought the staff of the spear she was carrying up hard against his chin.

'My name is Ruth Gallagher.' Her voice appeared to be echoing from the bottom of a well. 'The rules have changed now. No man gets to do what you've done here.'

'Don't hurt me,' he pleaded.

Ruth examined the mess he had made of Rachel, barely recognisable as she attempted to heave herself up to her feet, and when Ruth looked back at him there was no hint of compassion in her gaze.

'Your kind can't be taught,' she said. 'You can't be socialised, or have the violence drained out of you. It's who you are. People like you… you're the ones who give the Void the power it needs to keep ruling this place.'

Scott whimpered, and shook his head pathetically. Just as Ruth thought he was about to fall to his knees and beg, he lashed out at her with a short kitchen knife he'd pulled from his belt.

The knife lanced towards her belly and came up hard. She watched his bovine expression as he tried to force it into her, then the flicker of fear when he realised he couldn't withdraw his hand either.

'The Libertarian brought you here, didn't he?' she asked.

When Scott didn't answer, one of his fingers uncurled from the knife against his will, bent back and snapped. He howled in pain.

'Yes!' he cried. 'Yes!'

'He wanted you to hurt Rachel. He wanted you to mess her up badly.'

'Yes!' Scott shouted.

Ruth snapped another finger for good measure. Scott howled again as the knife fell to the ground.

Ruth thought of Callow slicing Laura in the back of a van so long ago, of Demetra and the women in Greece, brutalised but trying to carve a life for themselves, of the pain she'd suffered in the Court of Endless Horizons, and she said, simply, 'I've had enough.'

Rachel hesitated, but Ruth nodded to her to make her way to the BMW. Limping, she set off and never looked back, even when she heard the screech of the owls, the spitting of the cats and the fierce rending of claws and fangs, even when she heard Scott's scream, high-pitched and reedy, going on too long.

Briefly, the violent sounds paused and there came a terrifying voice she didn't recognise: 'You gave no one any chances, but I'm giving you one. I'll leave you with an inch of life, a slim space where you can choose to make a difference, or not. Crawl away in your own blood. Learn a lesson. Keep it for the rest of your life, because if you ever backtrack… ever… these creatures will be watching you, wherever you are, and they'll act with all the fury of the natural world, and none of your pleading will do any good.'

The birds and the beasts resumed their attack, and the cries rose up once more.

Perched on the top of a five-bar gate, the Libertarian watched the churning fur and feathers and the little black storm moving back across the grassland towards the distant campfires. 'Sometimes justice comes red in tooth and claw,' he mused wryly.

Manipulation sometimes involved big gestures, and sometimes only a little shove, particularly when one knew the subtle motivations, deepest fears and heartfelt hopes of a person, the kind only voiced to a lover in the dark. He was growing increasingly desperate as events moved towards the final reckoning without the clear outcome he required, but here he felt success.

Ruth knew he had guided the vile boyfriend to the woman purely so that the well-dressed thug could beat her until she bled. But the Libertarian knew Ruth would not blame him for that, oh no. Unconsciously, she would draw connections between Church and the Libertarian. She would know Church had passed on the knowledge of Scott and Rachel's relationship, had brought the two together so that sickening violence could ensue.

For if she believed that the seeds of the Libertarian were already in Church, it was only a small step backwards from the terrible, monstrous Libertarian arranging for a woman to be near-beaten to death to the current love of her life. What lurks in Church's mind? she wonders. He laughed. What hidden hatreds? What ability for abuse? What contempt and violence? Perhaps he doesn't even recognise it himself. But is it there, ticking away, ready to explode?

A small thing, the thin end of the wedge, perhaps, prising her apart from her love, pushing her towards Veitch — a simple man, but always a protector of women. And thereby pushing Church towards the Libertarian.

Yes, he thought, a fine outcome for a night's work.

Church stood just beyond the outer ring of Stonehenge. High above the megaliths, the moon cast intricate shadow-patterns across the surrounding grassland. It was still, and quiet, and it felt to him as if there was magic everywhere.

How long it felt since Tom had first revealed to him the secret of the Blue Fire at these stones, and he had become a willing supplicant to the numinous spirituality that pervaded these sites across the world. A few rocks, roughly shaped and proudly raised towards the stars millennia ago, yet they provided a window to the heart of Existence.

Breathless after his run from the processional river path, he approached the stones as any supplicant would have thousands of years ago, looking from the dark silhouettes to the stars and the moon, breath held in awe, and feeling the charge of well-being rising from the earth.

This is our land, he thought defiantly. This is who we are. This is why we fight.

The seemingly random connections and coincidences that had brought him back to Earth to recover the First had served another effect: renewing his purpose. In the Far Lands, the Libertarian had done everything in his power to break his spirit and drive him off the path. But here he could see clearly; think; breathe.