World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (49 page)

"Before this land was deserted you wouldn't have been able to get within an arrow's fall of this place. Even the Danann revered it and what it contained," Tom said.

"The bloody Grail!" Witch said enthusiastically.

They walked slowly until they were in the shadow of the building; an odd atmosphere hung heavily around it that invoked both awe and fear. Church pointed out five doors around its walls, without needing to explain what that meant. Shavi and Ruth were keen to enter, but after their experiences with the first two talismans Church, Veitch and Laura were more hesitant.

Tom wandered back into the sun and took up a position on one of the grassy slopes overlooking the building. "You're not coming?" Church asked.

"I would be torn apart by all the power in there. This isn't for me. It's about you, all of you."

There was something in his words that made Church feel uncomfortable, but he turned back to the others, readying himself for what lay ahead. After fifteen minutes boosting each other's confidence, they each took up a spot in front of one of the doors and on the count of three they swung them open and stepped in.

The corridor was long, pitch-black and oppressively warm. Shavi edged down it cautiously, trailing his fingertips along the rough walls for guidance. His footsteps echoed strangely, as if the size of the space were far greater than it appeared to be, and after he had been walking for ten minutes he realised that must certainly have been the case, for he could have circumnavigated the building five times in that period. By then, the faint light from the door had disappeared completely, the impenetrable darkness closing around so tightly he felt like he was floating in space. His progress slowed even further as he felt each step with his foot in case the floor fell away suddenly.

But after a short while he got a sense of diffuse illumination ahead, like candlelight. To his surprise, he found himself in what appeared to be a funfair hall of mirrors, the polished glass lined up in continuously branching avenues like a maze. After the dark it was destabilising and he had to close his eyes for a moment while he steadied himself.

It was impossible to guess where the source of the light was in the myriad subtle reflections, but it allowed him to move more freely. He chose his path at random.

For what seemed like an hour, he wandered among the images of himself, most of them normal, some grotesquely distorted. It seemed to him it was simply a trap to drive intruders insane. He could have been going round in circles for all he knew; there was nothing to distinguish the routes among the mirrors.

But as he rounded a sharp bend in the maze, he came upon a mirror which was unlike any of the others. It was larger, with a bevelled edge to the glass, and a frame of what appeared to be silver, designed with the spiral paths and interlinking patterns of Celtic art. Shavi felt drawn towards it as if it were radiating some dark power. And once he stood before it he could see it was unusual in other ways, too; at first glance, his reflection seemed perfectly normal, but the more he looked, the more he could see a difference that was so subtle it was almost a variation of mood. There was a darkness to the features, the merest tinge of cruelty around the mouth, a sense of bitter loss in the eyes, a resentment in the way the head was held.

Shavi examined it for a long moment, and then its mouth moved in no reflection of his own.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Shavi? Searching for meaning in all these silly places? All these religions that have nothing to do with you? The meaning is here, with your family and the way you were raised. It will destroy you, Shavi." It was his father's voice. A chill crept through him. He recalled the rest of that conversation, the anger, the terrible things that were said.

The mouth on the reflection became faintly sneering. "You are a selfish man, Shavi." This time it was his own voice, though harder, more contemptuous. "You destroyed your family with your actions. Think of your father and your mother-the effort they expended raising you in the correct Muslim way. Think how they must feel to see you abandon every principle which has been the bedrock of their lives. They see themselves as failures in the thing that is most important to them. You destroyed them, Shavi."

I did not-"

The image spoke more forcefully to block his protestations. "Lies. Your only motivation was your own selfish spiritual advancement, your own intellectual curiosity, and you had no concern how many people were hurt as you walked your road of excess to your own personal palace of wisdom. Life is about community, Shavi. About society. Helping others achieve their own nirvana-"

"I am helping others now."

"Because it coincides with your own desires. You are revelling in the light these experiences shine on the dark of the greater reality."

"True." Shavi felt more confident after his initial shock. Once he had realised it was the test they had all expected it became easy to detach himself. The mirror was reflecting back at him his own doubts and fears about his choices in life. But there was nothing it could show him that he hadn't weighed and discarded, or had accepted in order to change himself.

The mirror suddenly took on a milky sheen and when it cleared he was looking out on a Clapham street late one night. Several yards away, Lee was being bludgeoned to death. The blood splashed high with each thunderous blow. The attacker was like a smear on the surface of the glass, but Lee's expression was in stark relief; his eyes were turned towards Shavi, pleading for help, his mouth was an 0 of horror and desperation of a life about to be eradicated.

"You could have saved him, Shavi. You had the strength inside you to stand up, to fight. But you were afraid for your own safety. The haziness from the blow was just as an excuse. You gave into it easily so you would not have to risk yourself. And Lee died because of your cowardice."

Shavi felt the emotion well up in him uncontrollably until tears sprang from his eyes like they had been pricked by needles. There was such a rush of loss and guilt he thought he was going to break down.

"You're a bitch, Laura, and you deserve everything you get." The face in the mirror, her face, spat the words with venom. "Let's face it, you killed your mum! On a scale of one to ten that's off the Sick Bastardometer. What do you think that did to your dad? Well, it probably wasn't what was crossing his mind when he held you in that little girlie white dress at your Christening. He probably thought you'd turn out to be a vet or a nurse. You know, something useful. Hell, maybe even a dutiful daughter-some stupid fantasy like that. No wonder he opted for a life of shrinks and cells instead of giving you a big soppy hug.

"So now you think you're going to find some kind of salvation with Mr. Brooding-and-Soulful Churchill. Think again. You'll just screw up his life like you have everybody else's. You couldn't feel anything as selfless as love if it walked up and bit you on your bony arse. You're just sucking out of him anything you can find that will make you feel, Vampire-Girl. Get real. If you wanted to do something worthwhile you'd top yourself. Save the rest of the world any more heartache."

Veitch felt his finger close on the trigger, felt the kick from the ejaculation of the bullet, saw it embed itself in the man's body, burst through it, spraying the bone and the blood, saw the terrible pain on his victim's face; felt the faintly perverse pleasure rise through him, like a hard porn orgasm, the kick of having ultimate power and dispensing it with the merest thought. Nothing could control him; he could control everything.

"That was how it was, wasn't it, Ryan?"

"No! I've been living with that every day of my life since!"

"Because you enjoyed it."

"No-!"

"Yes. Secretly. In your quiet moments. Lying in bed when everyone else was asleep. When your other poor bastard brothers were doing time for you. You thought, `Yeah! That was what it was like to be a top man!"'

"You lying fucking bastard! I'm gonna make up for that if it's the last thing I do. That's right. Even if I have to die, I'm gonna pay it back. I learned a big lesson-"

"No, you didn't. You'd kill again at the drop of a hat."

"You bastard! You might look like me, but you don't know me! I've never done anything right in my life and I'm sick of it! I want to be a good bloke! I want people to look at me like they do Churchill-"

"Yeah, it's all about self, isn't it, Ryan? You don't want to do good because it makes other people feel good. You want to do it because it makes you feel good."

"Fuck you!"

"I loved my father!" The tears seared down Ruth's cheeks.

"You hated him. He dominated you from when you were young. He forced you into a career you didn't want to do-"

"He didn't force me! I did it because I wanted to make him happy! So it was the wrong career for me. It's not Dad's fault. He didn't-"

"What? He didn't know his own daughter? No, he was a typical working class bloke who wanted a bit of respectability for his family. A lawyer! That'd be something to tell them all down at the union meetings and in the labour club. His daughter had worked hard and made something of herself, despite starting with nothing. And he didn't care a thing about what you wanted-"

"That's not true! Dad didn't think like that!" The next few lines out of the mirror were drowned out by Ruth's racking sobs. She had not felt so raw since the day her father had dropped dead of a heart attack, in that fleeting moment when she thought time had stopped and the whole world was coming to an end. Somehow the magic surrounding the mirror had pushed all the right buttons to bring the emotions rushing out of her.

"He knew you were unhappy in your work. That's what killed him."

"Not true! It was the shock of Uncle Jim's murder-"

The mirror went milky and when it cleared Ruth was looking on the interior of a building society. A tall man with greying hair and a pleasant face that was locked in anxiety stared out at her; he looked remarkably like her father.

"That's Uncle Jim," she said curiously. Suddenly she realised what was coming next. "Oh no-"

The blast of a gun made her jump with shock. Her uncle was flung back against the counter, clutching at his stomach as a large red patch began to spread across his sweater.

"Oh, Uncle Jim-"

Somebody ran forward to inspect the body. He was cursing and waving his gun at Uncle Jim, as if he had done something to provoke his own murder. Ruth was transfixed in horror. The killer had on a mask, but Ruth recognised the shape of his muscular body, the long hair that flapped around as he shook his head wildly, in anger it seemed. But most of all she recognised the garish tattoo she could see snaking out from under his sleeve.

"That's the man Church brought with him." Even as she said it Ruth couldn't believe it; but it was true. "That's Veitch."

Church stared impassively at the scene of Marianne lying on the floor, her skin so pale she looked like a statue. "You're wasting your time," he said coldly. "I've lived with that image for so long now I'm immune to it. When I thought I was responsible ... when I thought I was some kind of terrible person who could live with someone yet be so self-centred they had no idea of the torment their partner was going through ... then it might have hurt me. But now I know she was murdered."

"You're still responsible," his voice said as the image faded and his dark, bitter reflection returned. At first he had thought it resembled him exactly; it seemed just like the face he had seen in the mirror so many times over the last two years. But now he wasn't so sure. It didn't feel like him. He felt better than that; and that thought surprised him.

"How can that be? Someone else killed her and pretty soon, with any luck, I'm going to find out who did it. That was the promise made to me, and that's the only thing driving me forward. You see, I'm going to die soon. I've seen my own death. Can you believe that? So nothing else matters, apart from finding out what happened to Marianne and getting some kind of peace before the end. Some might call it fatalistic. But if it's going to happen it's going to happenyou've just got to make the best of it. That's a big lesson I've learned recently. It's the quality of the life up to the big peg-out that matters." The reflection went to speak, but Church wouldn't let it. "Shut up. And here's something that has to be said, just for the sake of getting it out in the open, really. Once I find out who killed Marianne, if I get the chance before I die myself, I'm going to take the bastard with me. That's a promise."

The reflection opened its mouth once more, but Church had had enough. He turned his back on it and prepared to return to the maze in search of the way to the talisman. And as he did so there was a sudden shattering as shards of the big ornate mirror exploded out. Miraculously, none of them touched him. As he glanced back he noticed that behind the broken mirror there was another tunnel, this time lit by the flickering blue light of the earth energy.

Church found himself in a circular, domed room cast in sapphire by the light of four braziers burning brightly with the blue fire. There was a sense of serenity that sluiced all the negative emotions from him. In the centre was a raised marble dais bearing an object which he couldn't quite make out; the air seemed to shimmer and fold around an image which constantly changed. Church saw a construct of light with strange, unnerving angles, a robust cauldron blackened by fire, a crystal goblet, an ornate gold vase studded with jewels. As he approached, the object seemed to freeze, the air cleared and he was looking at a chipped bowl of heavily aged wood that most wouldn't have given a second glance.