Marc Chadbourn - The Queen of sinister

And as he moved, he moaned, a thin whine of pain and despair that provided a backdrop to words that could not have been his. 'There is no hope,' he said with an unsettling, otherworldly sibilance. 'It ends here. You end here.' Rusted sword-blades emerged from both of his hands where they had been embedded in the bone.

Behind him came the dark, lumbering shapes of the Whisperers on their mounts, black against the shadows but their eyes lit with purple. The colour itself had begun to make Caitlin feel queasy. They were approaching the circle on every side, drawing in their ring of terror.

And if they couldn't enter the circle, their herald had no such qualms. He crashed across the barrier, swinging those sword-blades wildly. Mahalia ducked at the last moment, narrowly escaping the loss of her head. Carlton scampered on all fours to the other side of the circle where he was feverishly aware of the Whisperers just a stone's throw away.

The man turned on Crowther, his crazed attacks unpredictable.

'LET ME OUT!' The terrible voice roared at the back of Caitlin's head: the Fifth, the one the others all feared. 'LET ME OUT! LET ME BRING MY FURY TO BEAR!'

'No!' Caitlin told herself. 'Never, never, never.'

Matt threw himself forwards, knocking Crowther out of the path of the killing blow. The sword drove into the soft earth.

'Life winds down to decay, then death,' the herald continued. 'All things are ending, always.'

The drug was slowly working its magic in all of them, spinning up the spiral dance of the trip. The visual hallucinations were taking over from the auditory and emotional twists. The world within the circle was like a dream of bursting flowers and life, while the darkness howled at the stones from without.

'Now!' Crowther yelled at Caitlin. 'Slam your hand on the ground! There! There!' Frantically he pointed to a spot near her feet.

Caitlin did as she was told and instantly lines of Blue Fire ran from each stone towards a focal point in the centre of the ring. The coruscating energy crackled, rising up like liquid, then forming odd geometric shapes. A massive structure of shimmering sapphire was forming over them.

The herald turned on Caitlin. He pointed one of the swords towards her throat, then drove it forward. She was rooted.

Matt knocked the blade away at the point when Caitlin closed her eyes in acceptance that it was all over. The rusted metal tore through the flesh of Matt's forearm, but still he turned and smashed a fist into the herald's jaw. The attacker stumbled, off-balance. Before he could right himself, Mahalia appeared between his legs, thrusting a screwdriver up into his groin. Like a rat, she darted underneath him and came up, bringing a knife in a sideways motion across the herald's throat. Purple light was everywhere, mingling with the blue luminescence until they were all lost in colour.

As the herald went to his knees, Crowther yelled with a raw throat, 'Get to the centre! Where the light is strongest!'

They all scrambled to the place where music swirled all around like a tornado and a rush of excitement came up through the ground and into their heads. Crowther made some strange gesture with his hands, whispered a word they couldn't comprehend, and then there was a sound like thunder and the world rippled and fell away.

The new world came up at them in a flash of white and they hit it hard, crashing to their knees and sucking in a huge gulp of air as if they had fallen from a high place. A fleeting memory of somewhere wonderful and blue slipped from their thoughts the moment they tried to catch it. Yet the sensations came too thick and fast for reflection on the transition. Snow lay thickly all around and a blizzard roared with such force they had to hunch against it like old men, yelling so their disbelief and amazement could be heard. Within seconds they were shaking with the bitter cold.

Despite their situation, Caitlin's eyes sparkled with wonder. 'I can't believe it! We're… we're…'

'In Fairyland,' Crowther said wryly. Good humour transformed his face. 'For those who have studied the Kabbalah, this is Yesod, land of dreams, first staging post for the dead. We all go here in our sleep sometimes.' He looked around, scarcely believing it himself.

'This is… just… amazing.' Even though he was buffeted by the blizzard, Matt stretched out his arms so he could fill his lungs. 'The crossing was so… wild.' He struggled to find words to describe the experience. 'I felt like I was filled with energy… like my thoughts were electric… like they were spinning around the universe. And here, it's… magic.'

They all knew what he meant. The very essence of reality was heightened, as if they had walked through the screen into a movie. Colours were brighter, textures more evocative, aromas unbelievably heady, sounds so vibrant they had to stop and listen in amazement to the music the wind made. Suddenly there was no such thing as mundanity and boredom. Magic burned in even the smallest thing and anything was possible. The sheer wonder of it made their heads spin.

'It's like a drug,' Caitlin said. 'You could lose yourself in it.' She thought for a moment and then added, 'Who'd want to go back after experiencing something like this?'

'Who indeed?' Crowther said.

The cold was too much for them to wallow in the experience. 'We have to find shelter before we freeze to death,' Matt yelled. He took in their position in a second. At their backs were the loftiest mountains any of them had ever seen, the peaks snow-capped and filled with the dreams of childhood, solid against a sky of threatening slate-grey cloud. Protecting his eyes from the stinging snow, he motioned down the slope.

The snow was knee-deep and it was hard going as they trudged downwards, but at least the gale was at their backs. Soon Matt spotted a gully filled with boulders as large and misshapen as mythological beasts. He led them directly into it, relishing the protection it gave them from the wind and the worst of the snow.

Once in the shelter, they relaxed a little, but after the initial exhilaration, worries surfaced. Mahalia checked back up the slopes, the haunting images of the Whisperers still echoing through her mind. 'Can they follow us?' she asked.

'I don't know,' Crowther replied, 'but I have no intention of waiting around to find out.' Caitlin was still dazed by the crossing. More than for the rest of them, the lure of the blue world they had passed through so quickly remained strong. 'What did they do to that poor man?' she said. 'It was as if they'd tried to turn him into one of them.' 'He looked like some kind of zombie,' Mahalia said. 'Maybe that's what they do — take people over.' Matt was checking his arm. 'What is it?' Crowther asked. 'The hermit guy wounded me. Pretty badly.' Matt held up his arm to show them. 'But it's healed.' 'A quality of the Blue Fire,' Crowther said. 'It has strong healing properties-' 'That blue, blue world…' Caitlin said dreamily. Carlton started suddenly, his eyes wide. 'What is it, mate?' Mahalia hurried to his side and followed his gaze, but there was only the thick snow running along the edge of the gully and the grey sky beyond. The boy shook his head, unsure. 'He's probably disorientated,' Crowther said. 'Understandable. We've done something remarkable here — travelled between worlds to a place that has influenced our dreams for millennia-' 'Oh, stop being so pompous,' Mahalia said. 'Carlton's probably dealing with it better than you. Don't forget-' 'I know,' Crowther said, adding in a childishly mocking voice, 'he's special.' Mahalia shook her head in disgust at the professor's immature manner before leading Carlton gently away. 'Don't worry, mate,' she said gently, 'we'll keep a good lookout.' They continued to pick their way along the gully, their teeth chattering. The gully ridge and the boulders obscured any view of their exact location, although it was clear they were on the lower slopes of the monolithic range. As they edged their way round a rock as big as a house, Matt threw an arm across Crowther's chest to stop him and pointed to the thick snow at the gully ridge. Two red spots blazed like hot coals. They disappeared, came back again, and then there was a flurry of snow and they were gone.