World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (19 page)

The creatures were moving astonishingly quickly for their size. One of them picked up an oil drum as easily as if it had been a paper cup and hurled it at the truck which Tom was already gunning into life. It smashed against the front just below the windscreen and bounced off to one side where it leaked foul-smelling chemicals.

The lorry was already moving forward jerkily so she lay flat on the cab roof, gripping the edge tightly, her eyes closed, praying she wouldn't fall off. It built up speed rapidly. There was a loud bump as it hit one of the creatures and then it was rolling out of the doors.

She heard Tom shout a warning and looked up to see a long, sinewy arm reaching out for her ankle from the side of the cab where one of the things was clinging on. She snatched her foot away at the last moment and the talons dug into the metal, tearing furrows through it like paper.

Before it could have another go, Ruth kicked out wildly. Her boot slammed against the creature's head with a jarring impact that felt like she had kicked granite, but it did enough to loosen its grip. It fell away and a second later the lorry jumped as the wheels went over it. The sound behind them was awful to hear, a screeching chorus of animal noises filled with threat.

Suddenly Ruth could smell smoke. The chemicals in the drum must have been highly volatile because the heat from the engine had ignited the residue on the front of the lorry and flames were licking up the windscreen. It wouldn't be long before the whole thing was alight.

Tom headed for the chainlink fence, then slammed on the brakes at the last moment. Ruth desperately tried to hold on, but the momentum was too great; it propelled her over the top. She hit the pavement hard, the shock winding her, bringing tears to her eyes. When she looked up, Tom had slammed the lorry into reverse and was heading back into the depot at speed.

At the last moment, he threw open the door and leapt out. She saw his head hit the tarmac, but somehow he rolled over and came to his feet, and then he was limping as fast as he could towards her with blood streaming down his face.

The lorry careered into the depot, showering sparks as it passed too close to the door, and then it hit the piles of oil drums waiting to be loaded. For the briefest instant there was a sound like a huge inhalation of breath and then the whole place went up, a rapid series of firecracker bursts as each drum exploded, merging into a gigantic conflagration. The depot was ripped apart, debris erupting like missiles as a tempest of heat-blasted air roared out. Ruth's head rang with the furious noise. An enormous piece of roofing narrowly missed her, embedding itself in the tarmac. The rest of the building rained down in fiery chunks for what seemed like an age as Ruth rolled up into a fetal ball.

When it subsided, she jumped to her feet, unable to believe her luck. Where the depot had stood, an inferno blazed up so high she could feel the heat on her face from fifty feet away, blackening the midday sky. Nothing could have survived.

Relief mingled with worry about what had happened to Church, but then another realisation surfaced. Slowly she scanned around the blasted site: Tom was nowhere to be seen.

Church no longer had any idea which way he was going. The corridor twisted and turned, often folding back on itself as if it had been designed by some insane architect. Nor was he helped by the unending array of stone walls, flickering torches, occasional windows on to nothing and, every now and then, a door, although most of them had been locked. Of the two that had been open, he had received more startlingly clear visions, seemingly of his life. The first showed him sitting on a hill watching the burning of a city which looked disturbingly like London. Billowing clouds of black smoke turned the sky almost as dark as night, although somehow he was sure it was daytime. Yet it was the way he looked that affected him the most: though he didn't appear much older, his face was burdened with trouble and suffering that made him seem closer to forty. He was hunched over as he scanned the horizon, clutching an ornate sword to his chest like one of those characters who spent their weekends re-enacting ancient battles. His hair was longer and he had a tightly clipped goatee; there were tears in his eyes at what he saw.

The second door showed him pale and broken, alone in the flat the day after Marianne had died. Seeing the terrible torment frozen in a face that had never experienced such depths before brought back the intensity of the emotions and he slammed the door and ran down the corridor before any more of the tableau could present itself to him.

What could it all mean? He suspected that wherever he was lay outside of the existence he knew; time seemed to flow back and forth randomly and he wondered if it were possible to see any point in the past or the future. If he opened a door at the exact right moment, would he see Marianne in the weeks or days or hours that led up to her making her tragic decision to take her life? The thought brought with it a blast of such hope it made his head spin.

As if in answer, he rounded a corner and came upon another door. Nervously he stood before it for a full minute until he found the courage, and then he swung it open.

He was instantly deflated when the scene was unfamiliar: a green bank running down to a fast-flowing stream that passed under a stone bridge. Someone lay on his back in its shadow, the head and shoulders submerged in the foam, unmistakably dead. Church knew who it was before the white water cleared for a second to allow him to see the pale skin and staring eyes.

This was how he would die.

He threw the door shut and pressed his back against it, his head in his hands. He hadn't looked much older than he was now.

How he kept going he didn't know; his head was spinning and his emotions were so raw he wondered if he were having a breakdown. Nothing made sense. There was just a queasy disorientation and a sense of growing despair.

He wandered on in a daze until he realised something had changed: there was a faint trail of incense in the air, like the hint of a lover's perfume in an empty room. Then, as he progressed, the music grew noticeably louder-for the first time since he had been in that place. The melody was powerfully evocative, of warm summer nights beneath a full moon, of the smell of pine forests and the taste of a cool mountain stream; yet despite the images that flashed through his mind the words seemed to be in some alien language, so exquisitely formed they wove in and out of the music to create something greater than the sum.

It made Church's heart quicken until a sudden joy overcame all the negative thoughts that had been consuming him. He broke into a jog and then a sprint, any reticence left behind in the rush.

When the corridor opened into a wide, lofty room he almost tumbled into it. Ahead of him, windows twice as tall as a man ranged in a semi-circle, offering a prospect out into the void. An ornate, gold telescope stood in front of them. On either side of the hemisphere, braziers burned, filling the air with the sweet, soothing incense. Intricately designed tapestries hung on the walls showing a vast range of scenes like a more exquisite Bayeux Tapestry, while thick rugs lay on the stone flags. And looking through the telescope with her back to him was the woman who had appeared in his childhood bedroom.

She turned as he entered and her beautiful face was even more potent than in the vision through the door. Her cheekbones were high, her lips full and her skin seemed to glow with an inner, golden light that mesmerised him; her cool, blue eyes, filled with wisdom and passion, were so deep he felt he could never reach the bottom of them.

"Who are you?" In his head his voice sounded weak and pathetic.

She smiled and he instantly felt like his veins had been flooded with honey. "A friend."

"Was that you singing?"

She nodded gently. "It is a song from the old world, from the time before times, about two star-crossed lovers capturing one night for themselves before they are torn apart. It is sad but beautiful, like all things that move the soul. Come closer."

She held out one delicate hand and Church descended the three steps into the room. "You came to me when I was a boy."

"Many times, always on the edge of dreams."

"Why?"

"To convince myself you are who you are."

"Which is what?"

"A Brother of Dragons." She looked at him with a faint, curious smile, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Church shrugged. "I don't know what that means." But at that moment it didn't seem important. What mattered was the tint of her skin, the faint emotion that flickered around the edges of her mouth, the musical timbre of her voice, the smell of her, like lemongrass and cardamon, so seductive he was mesmerised. Right then she could have said anything of importance to him and it wouldn't have registered. Finally he became aware that he was staring and he blushed, looking around uncomfortably. "Where is this place?"

"It is called the Watchtower. A place between the worlds, neither human nor faery, neither sun nor moon, neither sand nor water. Time flows around it."

"Is it your home?"

Her laugh was as musical as her voice. "It is a refuge for now. And, if you like, it is an adequate stepping stone for someone from your land. I would not wish to present the majesty of my true home to you until you were fully adjusted."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be here. I was curious-"

She took his hand and her fingers were as cool as a stream in summer. "You should be here," she said forcefully, leading him to two carved wooden chairs, between which was a table on which was a jug with a thin neck and twin pewter goblets. "I have been waiting for you."

Church looked at her curiously. "I didn't know I was coming here until today."

"I knew you were coming here." She sat him down and poured him a drink from the tall jug. "Do not worry. The laws of my home do not apply here. You are free to take of this place what you will." It looked like water, but the taste was heavenly, so complex on the palate that Church experienced a new flavour every instant until he gave up and just let it slip down his throat; it felt like liquid gold, glowing bright as it infused him.

"That's amazing," he said.

She nodded. Then her face slowly darkened. "There are many things of which we must talk, and time is growing rare. Your world is turning from the light." Church felt a sudden frisson; Tom had used the same phrase. "The old Covenant has been broken and now the Night Walkers have returned to the land of man to shape it to their own way. They must not be allowed to succeed. In the time before time they defeated my people and brought in the Season of Eternal Night, a rule so bitterly vicious the Filid's lays can bring tears from the coldest heart. The land was blighted, the people lived in permanent shadow and no corner of the world was free from suffering and despair. Never again."

"The Night Walkers." He knew whom she meant without questioning her further.

"They have always existed in darkness, crawling along the edge of the light, envying it and fearing it." She looked down so Church couldn't see her eyes. "They were the worst of the old races. The Great Destroyers, leeching the heat of life, leaving only the cold of the void. Their corrupt power laid waste to all before them."

There was an odd tone in her voice that filled him with a creeping dread. If the creatures were as powerful as she intimated, it didn't sound like all the mil itary might of humanity stood a chance against them. "Then who are your people?" he asked.

When she looked up her face was filled with such sadness he winced. "Most Glorious of the old races, known as the Golden Ones, Shining People of the Light, raised above all others."

Suddenly Church could feel some of the pieces falling into place. "Your people and the Night Walkers were on our world sometime in the distant past? And you interracted with humanity in some way-"

"We ruled peacefully until the Night Walkers came," she said proudly. "They defeated my people through trickery, not power, but only for a while. And when we struck back they fell before us and were made to pay for their deception." Her flashing eyes were frightening in their intensity. Church knew he would not want to have her as an enemy.

But here was something that made Church give pause: an age-old story stitched into the very fabric of human understanding. Two immensely powerful races, one of the light, the other of the dark, opposing each other in a war that shook the world while humanity trembled beneath them. He wondered how this woman and the terrible creatures they had seen under the bridge and at the services must have seemed to the ancient people who first encountered them. It was hardly surprising they had resonated down the millennia in legends and race memories, spawning the archetypes that were buried deep in the human subconscious. Suddenly he felt on the edge of something monumental, transcendental; the source of everything that mattered to mankind. He felt humbled by it all. "But where did you come from? Some other galaxy? A different planet?"

Her expression suggested she didn't seem able to comprehend what he was saying. "We came from the Far Lands."

"The Far Lands?"

She nodded. "And after the Covenant was forged, in the days of sorrow and joy that followed the second great battle, we returned to the Far Lands once more. The Night Walkers accepted their bleak purgatories beneath the lakes and seas. As victors, we occupied all that remained, the cloud-topped mountains, the thick, dark forests, the lush fields. We returned to our courts glittering with wonders."

"And you left our world behind?"

"That was the Covenant."

"And now it's been broken. But then your people could help us! You have the power to-"

"The Night Walkers unleashed the Wish-Hex." There was fire in her voice. "My brethren were swept away. A few of us escaped, to places like this, or to your world. Some were tainted by the Night Walkers." Whatever this meant, it seemed to fill her with horror.

"And the rest?"

"In some empty place beyond the land, hidden from all our searching, prisoners-

"Isn't there anything that can be done?" he asked passionately.