Always Forever (86 page)

"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."

"How will they look?"

Cernunnos ignored her question. "Unchanged for so long, my people have
now had change thrust upon them. They, too, must deal with the new rules."

"There's certainly going to be a lot of bad blood amongst them. This whole
business has split them in two. Will you all go back to Otherworld?"

"Some. Others will retreat to their Courts to lick their wounds. A few will
remain abroad in the Fixed Lands. The success of the Fragile Creatures will have
consequences even the Golden Ones cannot foresee. We will no longer see this
land as our territory."

"I bet a few of you are going to hate us for what happened. There'll be
trouble. And how are we going to cope with all the other crazy stuff that came out of Otherworld? That'll still hang around-the Fabulous Beasts and the Redcaps and the Baobhan Sith and all the rest of the shit."

"The Fragile Creatures are a resilient breed."

"Not so fragile, eh?" She looked up at the owl as it beat a path towards
Ruth. "So Ruth and I have got our work cut out. We'll be a good team. I've got
the mouth and the looks, and she ..." Laura was surprised at how excited she
was about the prospect of what lay ahead, an opportunity to do the kind of good
she always dreamed of doing ". . . she'll be the best there is."

"So you're some big-shot shaman?" The Bone Inspector leaned on his staff,
examining the theatre of stars. His burned hands miraculously appeared to be
healing.

"So they say." Shavi was smiling in the dark at his side. He liked the Bone
Inspector; all his curmudgeonly ways and his difficulty with human relationships only added to his appeal.

"I've heard lots of people say that. They couldn't do anything."

"Hmm."

"At least you haven't got a big head like some of your associates." He fiddled with his staff uncomfortably. "Do you know what you're going to be doing
after this night?"

"Not yet. Travelling, I suppose. Seeing how the landscape now lies. Finding
out what I can do."

"I could offer you a position."

"Oh?"

"You've heard talk of the Culture?" Shavi said he had. "The Culture were
the original wise people. In society from the earliest days, from when man had
just a few sticks to hack out a life, I reckon. The Egyptians sailed to these shores
for guidance from us about the pyramids. The Celts revered us. We knew all the
lore of the land, how animals and birds acted, trees and plants grew. We knew
about the stars and the planets. The spirit fire. We knew everything. And then
the damn Romans came. Slaughtered some, drove the rest underground where
we couldn't do the job that we were meant to do. The colleges at Glastonbury
and Anglesey were destroyed. It was hard to pass on the knowledge. And then,
thanks to that God-awful Age of Reason, the Culture gradually died out."

"And you are the last," Shavi said.

"Now wouldn't it be a shame for all that thousands of years of knowledge
to die out with me?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"The land needs the Culture. The people need the Culture-especially now when they need to learn a new way of living to cope with what it's going to be
like out there." He faced Shavi, his eyes sparkling. "I want to start the colleges
up again, pass on all the knowledge I've got before I'm gone. Build a new Culture."

"And you want me to help?"

"I want you to be the first to learn. And then I want you to help me pass it
on. Maybe set up at Glastonbury, I don't know. What do you say?"

Shavi's face was so serious as he considered the offer that the Bone Inspector
was convinced he was going to refuse. But then a warm smile crept across his
face. "I think that would be an excellent idea."

When they returned to the fire, thoughts of what lay ahead were put to one side,
and once more they were old friends enjoying each other's company. They remembered the ones they had lost and thought about the times they had spent together,
and they cried a little. But as good friends should, they helped each other along
the rocky path, and after a while they even found the strength to laugh.

Lying back beneath the sweep of stars, there was some sadness that they
would soon be going their separate ways. But though they might not meet
again, they would never forget all that they had shared, and everything they had
learned: in the midst of hardship they had discovered the best that life had to
offer, both in the world, and in themselves.

And though there were undoubtedly hard days ahead, they had been forged
in the worst of times, and with hope and optimism in their hearts, the road
would always rise before them.

Church woke on a hard, cold floor surrounded by the smell of wood smoke. A
deep ache suffused his limbs, though slowly fading; his stomach turned queasily.
Strange dreams had paraded through his head, of people in dark suits and army
green, but the last vibrant thoughts he had were of the dying light in poor, tormented Veitch's eyes, of the desperate love in Ruth's face, and of plunging into
nothingness in the company of a deep shadow. He was still clutching Caledfwlch
tightly. His free hand moved to his side where Veitch had torn him open, but
there was no blood, no wound. It made no sense.

He levered himself up to see he was in a dark, round room constructed from
wood. The only light came from a fire smouldering in the centre, the smoke
drifting up to disappear through a hole in the turf roof. It was undeniably primitive, filled with the aromas of animals and damp vegetation.

His thoughts careered. Where were the others? Where was Balor? As his
eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he realised with a start that he was not alone. Jumping to his feet anxiously prompted a shriek from the dark shapes huddling
across the other side of the room.

Moving past the fire, he could see a woman was protecting her two children.
She had long dark hair that framed a face hardened by harsh living. The children, a boy and a girl of around seven or eight, had the same dark hair and eyes.
They were all terrified.