Simon Green - Just Another Judgement Day

And only the truly desperate would ever use it for sanctuary.

Which is why it really shouldn’t have surprised me to find one particular person already there, kneeling before the crude but functional altar, lit by the light of hundreds of candles. I knew him, and stopped just inside the doorway. Chandra stopped beside me, and looked dubiously at the old man in his torn and tattered robe.

“That,” I said quietly, “is the Lord of Thorns. Once, and for a long time, the most powerful man in the Nightside. Overseer and Court of Last Resort, very powerful and very scary, he believed God had put him here to be the Nightside’s protector. Until Lilith came, and slapped him aside like he was nothing. He’s been trying to figure out his true role and purpose ever since. Be warned, Chandra. The Nightside does so love to break a hero.”

“It hasn’t broken you,” said Chandra.

“Exactly,” I said.

Even though we’d been talking in low voices, the Lord of Thorns still heard us. He rose slowly and painfully to his feet, as though his many centuries of existence were finally catching up with him, and turned to face us with a certain wounded gravitas. He no longer had his staff of power, supposedly grown from a sliver off the original Tree of Life. Lilith broke it, when she broke him. I could remember when just his presence was enough to make me kneel to him, but he was just a man now. Someone had cut his Old Testament prophet’s hair and beard to more manageable proportions, and it looked like someone had been feeding him. People will adopt the strangest pets, in the Nightside.

He came down the aisle to join us, taking his time, and I nodded respectfully.

“Didn’t expect to see you still here,” I said.

“I look after the church,” he said flatly. “Or it looks after me. It’s often hard to tell . . . I keep it clean, keep the candles lit . . . because someone has to, and I tell myself it’s all about learning patience and humility. I’m still waiting for an answer to my prayer, the question I put to God. If I’m not the Nightside’s Overseer, then what am I? What is my true nature and purpose?”

“Isn’t that what every man would know of his god?” said Chandra.

“Most people haven’t lived a lie for as many centuries as I have,” said the Lord of Thorns.

“Have you regained any of your power?” I asked.

“No,” said the Lord of Thorns, his voice quite matter-of-fact. “I’m just a man. I sometimes wonder if I’m supposed to work out the answer myself, before I can take up my old power and authority again. Right now I’d settle for a sign. Or even a hint.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “I could have returned to my old home, in the World Beneath. It has been largely rebuilt and repopulated, since the end of the Lilith War. But it wouldn’t feel right. It would feel too much like hiding. So here I stay, in the church named after the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. What are you doing here, John Taylor? Come to talk to God at last, and ask him what you’re supposed to be?”

“I already know,” I said. “That’s my problem.”

“A moment, please,” said Chandra. “Is this really a place where a man can speak directly with God? And get an answer? There are so many things I would dearly love to ask Him . . .”

“This is the place,” said the Lord of Thorns. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes . . .” said Chandra. “There are places such as this in India. Ancient and sacred places that feel like this . . . But I never considered myself worthy enough, holy enough, to approach them. But then, perhaps this is not a place to find my god.”

“God is God,” said the Lord of Thorns. “You think he gives a damn what name we choose, just as long as we talk to him and listen for his answers? This is not a Christian place, though it currently uses Christian forms . . . It’s much older than that. This is the real thing, the pure pattern, just a man and his god, and nothing to separate them. Could anything be scarier?”

Chandra looked at me. “You’ve been here before. Have you ever asked a question?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve got more sense. The last thing any sensible man wants is God taking a keen interest in him. I have no wish to be given a quest, or a duty, or a destiny. I’m not a holy warrior, or any kind of saint. I’m just a man, trying to get through life as best I can. Don’t look at me like that, Thorns. You know what I mean.”

“Sorry,” said the Lord of Thorns. “I thought you were being ironic.”

“I decide my life,” I said. “No-one else.”

“I used to think that,” said the Lord of Thorns.

Chandra approached the stone altar, his voice soft and flat with awe. “To speak directly with God, without the intervention of priest or ritual. I am khalsa, a holy warrior. I have dedicated my life to serving my god, and yet still . . . I fear to hear what he might say to me. What does that say about me?”

“That you’re still human,” I said. “Only a fool or a fanatic never has doubts about himself.” I looked at the Lord of Thorns. “What do you know about the Walking Man?”

“I’ve met a few, in my time,” he said easily. “I haven’t always been bound to the Nightside. I have met Walking Men, out in the world. Not the happiest of men, usually. Driven, desperate to make the world make sense . . . by making sure the guilty are punished. For supposedly holy men, they seem to have remarkably little faith in the justice of the world to come. They want their justice here and now, where they can see it.”

“What if I were to bring him here, to you?” I said suddenly. “Could you stop him from destroying the Nightside?”

“Even if I still had my old power, and my old certainty, I am nothing compared to the Walking Man,” said the Lord of Thorns. “He is the wrath of God, you see. And besides . . . perhaps he’s right in what he’s doing. Perhaps God has finally decided to do away with the Nightside, for the sinfulness of its inhabitants. There are precedents . . .”

“There has to be a way to stop him!” I said, almost shouting at the old man. He didn’t flinch.

“There might be a way,” he said slowly. “Not a very pleasant way, but that’s often how these things go . . . I suppose it would depend on how desperate you are.”

“Oh, I am way past desperate,” I said. “What is it?”

“To stop a man of God, you need a weapon of God,” said the Lord of Thorns. “You need the Speaking Gun.”

That stopped me. I turned away. My mouth was suddenly very dry, and there was a chill in my bones.

“What exactly is this Speaking Gun?” said Chandra.

“An ancient, terrible weapon,” I said. “It uncreates things. It could destroy everything. So I destroyed it.”

“It still exists in the Past,” said the Lord of Thorns. “If you could travel back into Time Past... Perhaps if you were to speak with Old Father Time?”

“No,” I said. “Not after . . .”

“Oh yes. Quite. Well then, I suggest you visit the Street of the Gods. Time has never been too strongly nailed down there. And that is where the Walking Man is, right now.”

“What?” I said. “Oh shit . . .”

I left St. Jude’s at a run, with Chandra pounding along behind me. I had to get to the Street of the Gods. Before the Walking Man brought the wrath of God to things that only thought they were gods.

I’d barely cleared the door of St. Jude’s when I found myself charging down the Street of the Gods, with Chandra Singh pounding along behind me. A gift from the Lord of Thorns, or from the church itself? Or maybe even from Someone higher up . . . Some questions you just don’t ask, especially in the Nightside. I skidded to a halt and looked quickly around me as I realised the Street of the Gods wasn’t in any more of an upset than usual. Gods and worshippers, strange Beings and stranger tourists, all milled about making rather more noise than was necessary, stirring up trouble for themselves and each other, but there was no sign anywhere of the Walking Man. No-one was dead and dying, there were no piled-up bodies, and no-one was screaming . . . so perhaps he hadn’t actually got here yet. I made myself take a deep breath and concentrate. I’d spent too long chasing around after the Walking Man. Now I was ahead of him for once, I had to stop and think. Find some way to stop him. The Walking Man already had two massacres to his credit. I couldn’t let him get away with a third.