Marc Chadbourn - The Devil in green

Mallory finished his apple and pushed himself back from the table, replete. 'That's a very optimistic view of human nature.'

She rose without replying and he trailed behind her out of the room into another chamber, heavily carpeted and filled with sumptuous cushions. She stretched out, catlike, upon them. 'Threats lurk where you least expect them, Mallory,' she said.

He slipped into the cushions, cocooned by every aspect of that place; he didn't want to go back to the hardship of the cathedral, or of his world. He wanted to stay there for ever, listening to her voice, letting her take care of him.

'Your wounds were caused by something terrible,' she continued, 'even to my own people. It has no business being in the Fixed Lands, or the Far Lands, for that matter. It crawled up from the edge of Existence, where even worse things have been stirring. Your kind have been noticed.' This last comment sounded like a tolling bell.

'But that thing's been left behind,' he said. 'I'm never going to go within a million miles of it again.'

'Pick the pearls from my words, Mallory,' she warned. 'And beware.'

He pressed her further, but she would say no more. Her statement, though, remained with him, niggling at the back of his head, spoiling the comfort he felt. In a bid to forget, he questioned her about her kind. She told him of four fabulous cities that haunted her nomadic people's memories, an ancient homeland they could never return to and the terrible sadness that knowledge engendered in all of them. And she told of the wonders the Golden Ones had seen: astonishing creatures that soared on the sun's rays, breathtaking worlds where the very fabric changed shape with thought, the play of light on oceans greater than the Milky Way, the great sweep of Existence. Tears sprang to her eyes as the stories flowed from her, memories of amazement that cast a pall over her current life.

'We have lost so much, and I fear we will never regain it,' she said, and the terrible regret in her voice made Mallory's chest heavy.

At some point, her voice became like music, lulling him to sleep. He dreamed of worlds of colour and sound, bright and infinitely interesting, of nobility and passion and magic, and when he woke with tears in the corners of his eyes he resolved not to return to his world of bleakness and dismal low horizons.

The room was empty. He stretched, surprised at how wonderfully rested he felt. The corridor without had the stillness and fragrance of early morning. He wandered along it, searching for Rhiannon to ask her if he could stay at the Court, but the whole place appeared deserted; not even the guards were visible. He took branching corridors in the hope of finding some central area, but the building was like a labyrinth and he quickly became quite lost.

After a while, he came upon an atrium big enough to contain trees at least eighty feet tall. Sunlight streamed through the crystal glass high overhead, yet the space was cool and airy. A grassy banked stream babbled through the centre of the room, while birds sang in the branches and rabbits and squirrels ran wild amongst the trunks.

In the very heart of the atrium was a pillar of marble so white it glowed. Mallory felt oddly drawn to it, but as he approached, a disturbing whispering broke out on the edge of his consciousness. He couldn't quite make out what was being said, but still it unnerved him. He had an impression of strange intelligences, so alien he could barely comprehend what form they might take. Turn away, he told himself, fearing that his own mind would be burned by any further contact; but the pillar pulled him in.

Yet when he came within a foot of it, the subtle whispering faded away and there was only an abiding silence in his head. The marble was hypnotic in its blankness. As he stared at it he began to feel as if he was floating in a world of white with no up or down, no horizon. Peace descended on him.

He didn't know how long he was like that, but time had certainly passed when he realised he was seeing something in the nothingness. Shapes coalesced like twilight shadows on snow, taking on substance, clarity, depth and eventually context, until he realised with a shock that he was looking at Miller lying on a muddy trail, his dead, glassy eyes staring up at the grey sky.

His cry broke the spell. When he looked around, Rhiannon was standing at his shoulder. 'I just saw…'

She nodded slowly, her face grave.

The pillar was just white marble again. 'A hallucination? Or did I see what was really happening back on earth?'

'The Wish-Post looks into you as you look into it,' she said. 'What you saw is the road not travelled. You are thinking about not returning?'

He didn't answer, but she could see the truth in his face.

'Your vision showed you the state of Existence if you stay here.'

'Is it for real?'

She took his hand; her fingers were cool and calming.

'He was going to die sooner or later anyway,' he continued, without meeting her eyes.

'I know what happened to you, Mallory. What you did.' No accusation marked her face, only pity, and somehow that was worse. He turned away, sick at what had been laid bare.

Her fingers grew tighter, more supportive. 'As above, so below. As without, so within. The rules of Existence are simple, Mallory, and unyielding. To everything there is an opposite, though it may often remain hidden, and these opposites are continually at war. We choose our sides, make our stand and hope for the best.'

'How do you know what happened to me?' Briefly, he thought he might cry.

'Some of us have the ability to peer into Fragile Creatures. But your essence, Mallory, is so raw that any of us could see. There is a battle raging in your heart, the same battle that sweeps through all Existence. Which side you take is within your control, but you will pay the consequences of your choice.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'There is no need to lie to me, Mallory.' Her voice was so gentle that his feelings surged again. He had the sudden, aching desire to put his head in her lap so she could stroke his hair, tell him of good and noble things. 'Your bitterness and despair consume you. Do not let them.'

'What do you know?' he said defensively. He made to break free from her hand, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

'Let me show you something else.' She turned him so he was once again staring into the Wish-Post. He had obviously become attuned to the object for he quickly fell into the swirling whiteness. He dreaded seeing Miller's dead face again, but this time the snowstorm fell away to show a woman leading a pack of ragtag travellers along a muddy track. It was Sophie Tallent.

'Why are you showing me this?' he asked.

'You know, Mallory.'

As Sophie and her band crested a rise, a dark smudge appeared on the horizon, and though it appeared insubstantial, Mallory knew instantly it was the thing they had faced at Bratton Camp.

'Now you're trying to tell me that if I don't go back, she'll die too?' he said acidly. 'You really do want me out of here.'

'No.' Rhiannon pulled him gently away from the pillar; it felt as if white tendrils were withdrawing from his mind. 'It is important that you are free to weigh what lies within you, and to make your choices accordingly.

Good or bad, the choice is the important thing. But it is also important you have all the information to make your decision.'

Following the flight of a bird, Mallory let his gaze rise up to the crystal roof. The way the sunlight shimmered through the glass brought a tremendously evocative memory of his childhood rushing up from deep within him with such force that it literally took his breath away. He was at his grandparents' farm just outside Worcester on a sun-drenched summer Sunday morning, with the light forming starbursts through the branches of the trees as they swayed in the breeze. The air was heavy with the fruity farmyard smell and he could still taste the saltiness of the home-cured bacon on his tongue. His parents were back in the house with his little sister, but he'd gone walking with his grandfather. It was one of his favourite pastimes. The old man with the lantern jaw and snowy hair had told vivid country tales with a rich Worcestershire accent, filling Mallory with an appreciation of the seemingly mystical power of nature, of the epic cycles of the seasons and the strangely intelligent actions of the animals and birds that surrounded the farm.