Mark Chadbourn - Always Forever

They all agreed.

"You know, I don't really want to think about this," Laura said, "but, do you reckon he suffered? I mean, he'd been stabbed and all, I know. But that gate he was sucked through-"

"I don't know. But even if he did he would probably say pain is transitory and there are better things to look forward to."

"You believe that?"

"I do. Now. I'll see him again one day, I know it."

Laura remained silent for a long moment, then said, "You know Veitch and me didn't get on. He scared me. But I think the real reason was because we were so alike. Two losers trying to escape the past that held them back. I feel bad that I'm here and he's not."

"Don't feel guilty." Ruth gave her arm a squeeze.

"No, Ryan would not want that." Shavi leaned forward into the firelight. "Ryan did the best he could, but he was a victim, and that is the great tragedy of what happened to him. Under other circumstances, he would have found his redemption, as you did."

"Those bastards took it away from him," Laura said vehemently.

"Exactly. We were all manipulated by higher powers, run ragged and forced to suffer, yet in the end we-humanity-still won. Despite everything inflicted on us. That is our great success."

Ruth watched the sparks flying high in the smoke. "When do you think the Tuatha De Danann first stuck that Caraprix in Veitch's head?"

"I do not know," Shavi replied, "but they were manipulating us from the moment we were born. They knew they needed the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons together ready to free them if the Fomorii ever got the upper hand. And to achieve our destiny we all had to experience death at first hand, so they utilised Veitch to engineer that state. With the Caraprix driving him, he set off on his murderous spree. I wonder how that must have affected him? His conscious mind did not know, but it was there in his subconscious, eating away at him."

"Why Witch?" Ruth asked. "Why didn't they get you or me to do their dirty work?"

"Because Ryan was perfect for the job. His life already contained violence. He had crossed a barrier that the rest of us would have found hard to deal with."

"So he did exactly what they wanted," Laura said bitterly, "you'd have thought they'd have left him alone after that. But they gave him that silver hand to do Church in at the end."

"That was the faction that didn't want humanity to become a threat," Ruth said. "They were scheming all the time, both the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorii. Plan after plan, manipulation after manipulation. We were like kids in comparison, so trusting."

"It did not do them any good," Shavi said. "In fact, it was their arrogance that did it for them in the end. The Fomorii never saw us as a real threat. They had implanted their own Caraprix in Ryan's head, but it only came into play right at the end when it actually looked like we might stand a chance. If they had set Ryan to pick us off one by one over a period of time, they would have won. But we were just Fragile Creatures; beneath their notice."

"That'll teach the bastards," Laura said. "It's like the French Revolution all over again."

Ruth stretched, the aches of the past few days finally coming out. " Liberte, fraternite, egalite."

"Look. What's that?" Laura pointed to a light that suddenly flared brightly in the sea of night.

As they scanned the darkness, their breath caught in their throats, others glimmered faintly across the city. It was such a simple thing, but after so long it seemed like an act of God.

Shavi thought for a moment, then said, "An emergency generator has come on."

They were all silent for a long moment, barely daring to believe what it meant. It was Ruth who gave voice to it: "Technology is working again."

"What's left of it." With a fake dismissive shrug, Laura played up to what they expected of her. "No web, no MP3, no ER. What's the point?"

"Technology and magic, side by side," Shavi mused. "Interesting times lie ahead."

They spent the next half hour talking animatedly about what the coming months would hold as humanity crawled out from the wreckage of society and attempted to make a new life out of the devastation. Power lost, industry destroyed, food distribution ruined, transport in tatters, and how many deadthousands? Millions? How long would it take them to get even a modicum of organisation up and running again? In the short term the hardship would be intense, but they all agreed there was hope. After all, mankind was now on a new road, one rising to a glorious future.

Eventually they decided to wander away from the fire for a while, to stretch the chill from their legs and be alone with their thoughts. Ruth found herself drawn to a dark copse; even before she had entered the trees she sensed an old magic in the air: a deep musk and the snorting of an animal that was not an animal. Antlers were silhouetted against the moon.

Cernunnos roamed through the undergrowth, his breath steaming. Beyond him, Ruth could see the woman who had haunted her during those early days after the world had changed: at first glance a wizened old hag, then a middleaged mother, and finally a young woman, filled with vitality and sexuality.

"You called to me," Ruth said. In the branches of the trees above, her owl hooted eerily.

Cernunnos loomed up before her, his power daunting but tempered in that aspect by a subtle gentleness. "You have overcome all challenges, as I knew you would. And now you have reached your blossoming there is no longer any need for my guidance."

"I don't know who I am anymore."

"You are a daughter, not of my flesh, but of my spirit. And a daughter too, of my bright half. You are a guardian of the old ways, a champion of the moon, the sum of all the potential carried in the essence of every woman. Nature will bend before you. The grass will plead for your foot, the air for your lungs."

"Yes, but what does it mean? What am I supposed to do now?" Her voice was strained with emotion from the stresses tearing her apart.

Cernunnos snorted once more and prowled amongst the trees as if he was doing a strange, ritual dance. When he returned to her, he said, "You will be a light in the dark, showing the way between old days and new, between summer and winter, day and night, sun and moon, man and woman. Many trials lie ahead. But you will not walk the path alone."

"Who's going to be with me?"

"Let the seasons turn, and take them as you find them."

Ruth thought about this for a moment; she felt strangely comforted that there was some sort of direction planned for her. It would give her something to immerse herself in so she didn't have to think. "But where do I start? Where do I go from here?"

"Let the seasons turn."

"Something will turn up, I suppose. It always does." She made to go, then turned back. "Thank you. For giving me something to believe in. Something… more." She couldn't find the words to adequately express the depth of what she had discovered since her change, and so she simply bowed her head and left. She had no doubt she would see him again.

As Ruth walked away, Laura stepped from the shadow of the trees. "She doesn't realise exactly what she can do yet, does she?"

"Do you?" Cernunnos said.

"I have an idea."

"You will watch her? Ensure she overcomes her pain?"

"Yeah, I'll be her shadow," Laura said. "I'll be a friend, and I hope she'll be mine."

"Winter may be approaching, but this is a time for all growing things. The two of you will be needed as the heart of nature begins to beat strongly once more. Through the harsh days before the seeds that have been planted come forth, you will be needed more than ever. Existence has changed in more ways than you can comprehend. There are new rules. Old magic is loose in the land. Nothing will be the way it was." He raised his head to make a strange, throaty call to the moon. "When next you encounter the Golden Ones, they will not be how you recall."