Marc Chadbourn - The Queen of sinister

'Terminus,' Matt said.

They collected their things and disembarked, sorry to be leaving the relative security of Sunchaser.

'Which way now?' Jack asked.

Matt pointed towards the northern horizon where the sky shifted with colours like a kaleidoscope. There was an area of darkness that hinted at some kind of structure, but it made their eyes hurt to stare at it for too long.

'The House of Pain,' he said redundantly.

'So all we have to do is cross this dusty old plain with all those piles of rocks,' Jack said, peering from beneath a shading hand.

'Cairns,' Mahalia said. 'They're called cairns.' Across hills and fields she came, down long roads filled with shadows, under nights of sparkling stars, through dappled forests, across windswept plains where the echoes of ancient voices could be heard, over crystal streams and the summer-drenched meadows of wild barley and poppy. At times, Mary thought the journey would never end. It was a quest that left the path and went deep into the heart of her, where dark caverns loomed like cathedrals, unexplored throughout her long life, the terrors they contained shrinking from the lamps of her eyes. When she finally emerged from the lanes leading out of Bradford-on-Avon on a sparkling morning of blue sky and hot sun, she was finally reborn into a new life, though she still hadn't truly understood that fact. Death continued to track her relentlessly, and it had drawn closer; on several occasions she had seen the twisted form jerking its way across the landscape and she had been forced to pick up her pace. But it no longer frightened her; it was simply there, as it always would be.

And now she had reached her final destination. Bath was spread out before her, home of her spiritual ancestors for ten thousand years, since the first Neolithic hunter- gatherers had left their simple offerings at the gushing hot springs. Mary knew her history and she knew her Craft, and everything had pointed her towards this place as the solution to the questions that gripped her.

Yet this was not the Bath she remembered. Vegetation swarmed over it, almost obscuring the grand Georgian buildings, the classical Royal Crescent, Pulteney Bridge with its echoes of the Ponte Vecchio. A wall of blackthorn the height of three men, softened by climbing honeysuckle and clematis, circled the entire city. Mature trees sprouted through the hard asphalt of the city centre's roads. Ivy draped from chimneys and gorse clustered in bushes, wild roses like small explosions of colour bloomed in every direction.

Though nature had started to reclaim many aspects of civilisation since the Fall, the density and maturity of the flora was too advanced. Magic was all around, in more ways than one: the vision of the works of humanity and nature in harmony was undeniably uplifting.

Yet the city was eerily still. No smoke drifted up from the many chimneys, nothing moved on the winding, ancient streets, neither human nor animal. Yet something was there; Mary could feel it, like a tremendous weight pressing outwards. Desperately hoping she had made the right decision, she set off down the slope towards the city.She walked for almost a mile around the perimeter before she found an opening. It was barely wide enough for one person to pass through, and the vicious blackthorns were so dense and so close that one misstep would have raised blood. As she moved cautiously along the winding path, she realised it had been carefully designed to allow only one person to enter at a time, either for defence or as a processional route to some sacred inner sanctum; perhaps both.

The wall of blackthorn must have been fifty feet thick, and when she emerged once more into the sunlight, she felt as if she was being born into a new world. The city no longer had the feel of any human place; it was otherworldly, heavy with mystery and a profound sense of sanctity. As Mary moved out into the sun-kissed streets, now filled only with the rustling of leaves and the perfume of wild flowers, she felt she was on the verge of some tremendous transcendent revelation. Everything around her, even the air itself, was heavy with meaning.

Feeling humbled, she made her way through the city slowly, drinking in the incredible peace, reaching out every now and then to trail her fingers through the leaves or to caress the petals of a flower. The old tourist signs still remained to guide her way, an irony that was not lost on her.

Bath had always had a time-lost quality, with its ancient sites pressed up close against modern developments, but now it was even more affecting. And as Mary moved through it, she realised the flashes she had seen from the corners of her eyes were not simply sunlight breaking through branches. There was movement, but not life. Ghostly men and women moved thoughtfully amongst the foliage. She saw strangely attired figures she took to be the Celts who had erected the first shrine at the city's springs in 700 bc, and Romans who had come after, and others in the clothes of later ages, drifting in a tranquil state, barely seen but their presence felt. They weren't frightening; rather, they gave Mary an odd feeling of comfort.Finally she came to her destination. Twin fires burned furiously in braziers on either side of the path, though there was no sign of anyone who could possibly have tended them. Beyond, the modern entrance hall to the site of the Roman baths was almost hidden beneath a thick covering of vegetation. But the doors stood open, the interior impenetrably dark.

Mary summoned up the reserves of her character. It was the time of reckoning. 'This water isn't going to last long.' Mahalia moistened her lips from the canteen they had brought from Sunchaser.

Matt shielded his eyes from the sun to peer across the dusty plain, where only crabgrass and rocky outcroppings broke the monotony of the cairns, so regularly spaced on the sweeping uplands that they resembled some geometric design intended to be viewed from the heavens. 'I don't know — it's hard to tell from this perspective, but it shouldn't be too long before we reach the other side.'

'What if there's no water there, either?' Jack asked. 'Not that I… really need it.' He cast a worried look at Mahalia.

'I think that's the least of our problems,' Matt replied.

Though the sun was low on the horizon, the sky was a mass of shifting colours, purple folding into gold, bubbles of red bursting into green shimmers. The sense that the Borderlands was now close was also evident in the surging eerie noises that occasionally materialised out of the wind, like the effects of some psychedelic garage band. Flavours burst on their tongues — strawberries, burned iron, cardamom and lime. The aroma of rose petals and incense filled the air.

Crowther followed them, his own twisting of reality more muted in comparison but still disturbing, windows on to other worlds opening here and there when they least expected it.

They had been walking all day across the unrelenting landscape, the river now lost far behind them. Their clothes and hair were white with the dust that worked its way into everywhere, stinging their eyes and choking their throats.

Jack eyed one of the cairns as they passed. 'What are they?'

'Just piles of rock.' Weariness was evident in Matt's voice. 'Someone had too much time on their hands.'

'That shows how much you know,' Mahalia said sullenly. 'They're memorials. In some cultures, they're burial mounds.'

Matt shrugged as if the distinction was unimportant, but Mahalia's words struck a chord with Jack.

He stopped and scanned the wide plain uneasily, taking in the countless cairns that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. 'Burial mounds?' he repeated.

'That's a heck of a lot of dead bodies,' Matt commented.

Mahalia saw the thoughts flickering across Jack's face; he looked ghostly in the fading light. 'What is it?' she asked gently.