Jack of Ravens (24 page)

Church found it an effort to speak. ‘You’re enjoying being … a traitor …’

After a period of heavy silence, Veitch replied, ‘You’re the traitor.’ He tried to modulate his voice, but hurt and anger laced his words. ‘There’s no need to fight about that any more. I’ve won. You’ve lost. Game over. You know what I’m going to do now? I’m going back to my little home in the Otherworld for some r ’n’ r, then I’m going to hook up with my own little band of Brothers and Sisters and spend the next few centuries dropping in and out of this world, killing every single Brother and Sister of Dragons I come across. You can lie here and think about that. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. And all their blood is going to be on your hands, just like the first four.’

By the time Church had accepted the full implications of Veitch’s words, the ringing silence told him he was alone. Overhead the hunk of black meat pulsed and another drop of Pendragon Spirit drained away. A black wash of despair flowed in to replace it.

‘Don’t give in to it.’

Another voice, this time warm, hopeful, familiar. ‘Who?’ Church croaked.

‘That hurts. Forgotten so quickly.’

Church strained to look around, but he was alone.

‘The Romans loved a good deus ex machina, so this is rather fitting. I’m the god from the machine of Existence. I’m always with you, Church – I’m in everything. I’m your very own Jiminy Cricket, here to whisper in your ear when times get darkest. No? Okay, let’s open the bomb-bay doors.’

‘Hal?’ Church recalled the voice in the Blue Fire in the strange place beneath Boskawen-Un. ‘Where are you?’

‘I told you – here, there and everywhere.’ Church heard a hissing sound and noticed a blue glow emanating from the Arabian lamp. ‘My consciousness exists in the Blue Fire, Church, and the Blue Fire is in everything – you, the world, every single human being. It links our world to T’ir n’a n’Og and all the other worlds beyond. It’s the lifeblood of Existence, the stuff that holds it all together, so I guess that’s what I am, too.’

‘Come to tell me how I’ve failed the master plan?’

‘Don’t talk. Conserve your strength. I told you before that I’m not going to tell you everything – the process of learning is one of the things that’s going to make you or break you – but I can give you one or two carrots just to tide you over until dinner time. Okay, as you’ve probably guessed, I used to be like you: a Fragile Creature – and a Brother of Dragons – but I was one of the next generation after yours, the last in the line. Our team didn’t do so well, Church. We failed. Not completely, though. Our one little victory was that I would give up my life to allow my consciousness to enter the Blue Fire. But that’s what being a Brother and Sister of Dragons is all about, right? Sacrifice for the greater good. Once I’d entered the Blue, I was outside all the stupid physical laws we’re used to. I got to exist in alltimes and all-places at once, ’cause that’s what the Blue Fire does. And I got to see reality from the outside. Boy, Church, it makes a lot more sense from here, I can tell you.’

‘Why did you—?’

‘Why did I give up the ghost? To bring you back, of course. Your group of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons – you, Ruth, Shavi, Laura, even Veitch – you were the team supreme. Everyone knew that. And if Ruth was the Uber-witch, you were the Uber-king, the first amongst equals. I know you can’t see it from your perspective, but you’re a good man determined to do good things whatever the personal cost. And you’d be surprised to know how few and far between people like that are.’

Church wanted to ask Hal all the other questions rampaging through his mind, but he knew he wouldn’t get any answers. ‘I need to get out of here—’

‘Of course you do, and that’s where I come in. But don’t think I’m going to make a habit of it. If you get yourself into a mess like this again, you fail on your own terms and everything else goes with it. Right?’

‘Right.’

The Pendragon Spirit will give you the strength to get free from the web, but the strength won’t last. You need to get out of here with the sword
and
the lamp. There’s a part of you in there, part of your Pendragon Spirit. You need to get it back inside you if you’re going to be any use.’

‘Okay. I’ll do what I can.’

‘Good. From here on out it’s all going to be down to you.’

18

Chamber after chamber passed in waves of darkness and pain. On the dull edge of his senses, Church occasionally heard the scurrying of the monkey-creatures, but he never encountered them, and of Janus there was no sign, though the god’s presence hung over the entire temple.

Finally he stumbled out into brilliant morning sunlight and the thick, queasy smells and cacophony of Rome at the height of its power. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the radiance only to realise it had all been for nothing. Maxentius’s guards were waiting patiently just beyond the open gates.

Within moments, Church was being dragged through the seething streets. He had no strength to fight back, could barely lift the sword that hung limply at his side.

‘He should not have exited the temple,’ one of the guards said. ‘Maxentius will not be pleased.’

‘Maxentius does not have to know,’ another guard said ominously. They fell silent as they weighed their options.

Church glimpsed the actor in the sun mask who he had seen on the way to the temple. He was practising intricate hand and body motions in silence at the side of the street, incongruous in his brilliant yellow toga and wildly ornate headdress.

The crowds pressed heavily on either side. A large man in a hood and cloak lurched against one of the guards supporting Church, prompting a brief, furious foul-mouthed exchange.

The guards moved on. Through his daze, Church caught a surreptitious glance and nod passing between the two guards holding his arms, and then he was being moved towards one of the quieter side streets.

Faces came and went in the throng, some that even looked familiar. Church briefly thought he was back in London, meeting Ruth for the first time.

‘Halt! Where are you taking him?’

The guards stopped sheepishly as Maxentius strode up.

‘The prisoner escaped from the temple,’ the guard at Church’s right said unconvincingly. ‘We were bringing him back for further instructions.’

Maxentius and the guard engaged in a hushed, strained conversation, but Church’s attention was drawn to a strange sight: an owl sitting on top of one of the busts that lined the route. It stared at him with large green eyes.

‘Take him back to the temple!’ Maxentius barked.

He has a spider in his chest
, Church thought obliquely.
Do you know?

A commotion erupted nearby. The actor in the sun mask was now engaged in a series of breathtaking tumbles that drew an impressed crowd. Smatterings of applause turned into loud cheering.

After the most spectacular tumble, the actor stood with arms outstretched, revelling in the attention of the onlookers, before whipping off his mask with a flourish. The laughter and cheers turned instantly to gasps of horror. The crowd pressed back at the sight of parchment skin and a rictus grin.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ the Mocker called out. ‘I live for the adoration of the audience!’ He leaped towards the nearest onlookers with a monstrous roar. In an instant everyone was running wildly, their anxiety transmitting rapidly to those who could not even see Jerzy.

Church almost pitched forward as the guards let go of him. Someone caught his arm and urged him gently away. He looked into the frosty face of Aula, who hissed, ‘Find your feet or I shall leave you here.’ Her insistent tone cut through his weakness and he moved in her direction.

In the confusion, Church glimpsed the large man in the hood and cloak who had bumped into the guard earlier. It was Decebalus. He pulled his axe from beneath his cloak as he drove through the throng, swinging it fluidly in a flash before returning it to the folds. Maxentius’s head flew from his shoulders and bounced across the street. The confusion of the crowd became wild panic.

Aula pulled Church into the unruly mass. ‘Decebalus was never a man for subtlety,’ she said sourly. ‘Why a barbarian was allowed into our group, I will never know. Hurry now. Let us hope the others can employ more subtle diversions.’

Lightning crashed from the clear blue sky and within moments storm clouds had swept up to release a torrential downpour. Aula moved Church down a side street, away from the crowd, and Lucia hurried up, her owl familiar flying overhead.

‘How did you find me?’ Church gasped.

‘We are Brothers and Sisters of Dragons,’ Lucia replied with a smile. ‘We are not without means.’

‘Besides, you are the king, are you not?’ Aula added with a note of sarcasm. ‘There are some who seem to think you valuable.’

At the city walls a hooded woman waited with a horse and cart. It was Niamh. Her beautiful face betrayed no emotion. Decebalus and Jerzy ran up and helped Church into the back of the cart where he was covered with piles of stinking sackcloth. The last thing he recalled was the gentle rocking motion of the cart as it pulled away, and the sound of slowly fading thunder.

19

A summer moon cast long shadows over an unspoiled landscape filled with the scent of olive trees. It was July, and Church sat on the hillside with a bowl of the warm herbal infusion Aula had prepared for him every night on their journey from Rome. It had helped his recovery immeasurably, and although he was still far from his old self, he could walk unaided once again.

Spread out before him were the standing stones of Fossa, not far from where the modern town of L’Aquila would grow in Abruzzo. The stones looked the same as in the photos he had seen in his own time, and had probably changed little since the Vestini tribe had established them 1,000 years earlier. After all the many changes in his life, he found the continuity of the stones comforting, particularly when he had so much on his mind that was troubling. How would the premature death of Maxentius affect history? Would Constantine find a new enemy to defeat before he turned the Empire to Christianity? Or was this the start of greater instability ahead?

‘Your ancestors were an astonishing people.’ Niamh had come up quietly behind him. Church was surprised to hear respect in her voice.

‘Because in the Iron Age they had the ability to align stones for astronomical significance? Or because they survived your people’s interference?’

‘Both.’ She sat next to him with her tarot cards and began to lay them out in her favourite divinatory spread. ‘Because they were capable of great things even
with
my people’s interference.’

Church took in the scope of the stones. Some were up to twelve feet high, pitched in circles and straight lines, patterns that looked incomprehensible to the untutored eye.

‘They knew the places in the earth where the Blue Fire was strongest and they recognised its true nature.’ Niamh concentrated on the cards. ‘They built their monuments to mark nodes of power, and they worshipped there, too, for life and Existence was their purpose.’

Church noted the cemetery of the Vestini amongst the stones: death and life and spiritual strength joined together in one image.

‘They knew these places were a gateway to your home?’ he asked.

‘They did, and to all the lands beyond.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t find your brother.’

‘There is still time. For my kind, there is always time.’

‘And I want to thank you for coming to rescue me. I suppose it was just a matter of keeping your possessions safe, but thanks anyway.’

Niamh turned the cards, said nothing.

‘I was working under the assumption that only you Golden Ones gave gods to the Celts, but then I met Janus. Is he one of you? Are you responsible for all Earth’s gods?’

Niamh wrestled with her response. ‘My people believe what they want to believe. That is their way, a natural response to being so close to the heart of Existence.’

‘Arrogance—’

They believe they cannot die. They believe nothing in all of Existence can threaten them, because that is how things have always been. And if they receive information that contradicts that stance, they ignore it.’

Church was puzzled. There was an edge to Niamh’s voice as she fought with the changes taking place within her.

‘They believe they are unique,’ she continued.

‘But they’re not?’

‘We know other races existed in the Far Lands before we arrived from our long-lost home. We have seen their ruined cities on the mountaintops and beneath the waves, and we have heard tell of their names: the Drakusa, the Hyanthis …’ She shrugged. ‘Many races exist in the Far Lands, and the Far Lands stretch for ever. Who knows what lives there? Though …’ She hesitated. ‘There are rumours of other races related to us living in further corners of the land, but it is not something my people wish to consider.’

A shooting star blazed across the sky. Church and Niamh watched it together. She picked a handful of dry grass and released it into the wind. ‘There is much I wish to learn. Things I must see for myself.’ A shadow crossed her face as she wrestled with the fading of lifelong certainties. She looked over at the campfire where Decebalus and the others were finishing their evening meal.