The Bride Wore Black Leather (19 page)

“I know you,” said the Sun King, smiling. “John Taylor. The good man in a bad world. The cold knight in tarnished armour, doing good in dangerous ways. You should support me and what I intend to do.”

I made myself glare right back at him and matched his smile with my best unsettling grin. “Not a hope in hell. This is my home. My people.”

“What people?” said the Sun King. “All I see are broken men with shop-soiled souls, and women selling everything they have, just to get by. I see false gods and pathetic monsters, sin and corruption and blood in the gutters. This is where the lost souls come to hide, because no-one else will have them.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “You think Julien doesn’t? We’re here because we’re needed. Because not all the world’s troubles can be solved with simple, unrelenting concepts like Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, Light and Dark. The world needs us to see outside the box.”

But the Sun King wasn’t listening. He shrugged and looked away. “If you’re not part of the solution, John Taylor, you’re part of the problem.”

I almost collapsed when he looked away, from the relief of not having to fight off his overwhelming presence. The Sun King didn’t notice, all his attention focused on Julien.

“You betrayed the Dream, Julien. Gave up being an adventurer to work in an office. Mr. Nine to Five. Like all the other spineless drones.”

“I woke up,” Julien said steadily. “I stopped indulging myself, playing hero for the applause of the crowds, and changed tactics. So I could achieve more.”

“You got old!” said the Sun King. “Work from within, to change the system? That was a specious argument, even in my day. You can’t work within the system without supporting the system; and whatever small changes you do achieve will inevitably be cancelled out by everyone else.”

“I wanted to change the Nightside in useful ways!” Julien said stubbornly. “Ways that would last!”

“And have you? All these years you’ve been trying to save and redeem the Nightside, and what have you actually achieved? What’s really changed?”

“I am part of the new Authorities,” said Julien. “The old order is dead and gone, and their way of doing things. Your way only worked because of you! And you weren’t there any more. I had to find a new, practical way. And I did.”

“Dreams aren’t supposed to be practical,” said the Sun King. “All these years you wasted your life, Julien. The Nightside is the way it is because it likes it that way. And because vested interests make a lot of money out of keeping it that way. From squeezing dirty profits out of all the sad, pathetic losers who come here, to do the things they wouldn’t be allowed to do anywhere else. How can you defeat that? It’s only night here so people can hide what they’re doing.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Julien.

“Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said the Sun King. “I don’t see any of the things you say you see here.”

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” I said.

I was confused by the Sun King. He was everything Julien had said, and more, and yet . . . there was something off about him. A living god, but with strangely limited perspective. He could only see what he wanted to see, only think in terms of the man he used to be, forty-odd years ago. It was as though he wanted to be a good man . . . if only he could remember how. If only he could concentrate.

I’m not sure he really heard what we were saying. There was something . . . out of focus about him, for all his blazing presence. I have met living gods, and men who were so much more than human; and none of them had ever seemed as dangerous as this man because he gave every impression of being someone who might sweep the whole world away with a gesture, in a moment, on a whim. Because he couldn’t think of anything better to do.

“I’m going to bring it all down,” the Sun King said to Julien Advent. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Let the sun shine in . . .”

So I put up my hand, like a child in class, and that got his attention. “I have a question, oh great and living god. Who are the Entities from Beyond, exactly? What do they call themselves when they’re at home? Only, I’ve had all kinds of contacts with all kinds of other-dimensional entities, and I never heard of them before. Why are you the only one they’ve contacted? Or should that be abducted? Why didn’t they tell you that you’d be spending years communing with them? What were you talking about, all that time? And what, exactly, do they want in return for all the power they’ve given you?”

The Sun King surprised me then by smiling easily, completely unfazed by my questions. “I approve of you, John Taylor, I really do. Never afraid to ask the awkward questions. Never afraid to put your life on the line to get at the truth. And I approve of your adopted role. The private eye is a respected icon, a modern archetype, protecting those who can’t protect themselves. You’re living your dream. But like Julien, I have to ask, what have you actually achieved?”

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “I’ve saved people who needed saving! I’ve saved the entire Nightside, and the whole damned planet, on more than one occasion! You should have done your homework. I’m not a private investigator any more. I’m the new Walker.”

The Sun King shook his head sadly. “Just like Julien. You gave up the Dream, to become the Man. Sold your soul, for power.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve done?” I said. “And I notice you still haven’t answered any of my questions. What price did you pay to become the Sun King?”

“I can’t answer your questions because you couldn’t possibly understand what I’ve been through,” said the Sun King. “Your mind is too small, too limited. Too human. Power, prices, answers . . . these are all human obsessions.”

“Because they matter,” I said.

“If we’re human, what are you?” said Julien. “The man I remember was still a man, for all his miracles, and the Dream he pursued was a human Dream.”

“What I could do then was nothing compared to what I can do now,” said the Sun King. “See what I can do . . .”

He clapped his hands sharply, and the sun blazing overhead grew suddenly in size, half filling the sky. The sky turned a bright blue, so pure a colour it was painful to look at. The sun was fierce and furnace-hot, and my bare face and hands smarted under the impact. What had been a cool and quiet evening in the Nightside was gone, suppressed, replaced by an almost unbearable desert heat. Air shimmered all around us with heat haze. The greenery surrounding the Standing Stones shuddered with new life, as though suddenly woken from long seasons of sleep. The hedgerow maze rocked this way and that, as though under attack. Flowers blossomed all along the hedge walls, bursting out of the dark green. Thick pulpy petals opened everywhere, in flaming colours the same shades as the Sun King’s Coat of Vivid Colours. The flowers unfolded over and over again, while the hedgerows writhed and convulsed as though in pain. Great swellings of moss and fungi erupted out of the dry ground, pulsing like living brains. The air was thick with the scent of all kinds of flowers, filling my head with over-ripe perfumes. Dusty pollen swirled on the air; and the whole Garden pulsed with the beat of living things. But even I could tell these were hothouse flowers, forced into shapes and sizes against their will and against nature. The Sun King put his head back and laughed; and I had to wonder where all the grace and spirituality had gone.

Suddenly the Very Righteous Sisters of the Holy Druids appeared, standing silently among the Standing Stones. Hundreds and hundreds of them, stiff and stern in their pristine white robes, surrounding us in all the Circles of Stones, their cold gaze focused on the Sun King. He stopped laughing and looked unhurriedly about him. If the sheer number of Druids opposing him impressed him at all, he did a really good job of hiding it.

“How did you get in, Sun King?” The Sisters spoke in unison, hundreds of voices blended into one authoritative voice. “The only way to approach the Sacred Stones is by proving your worth, through the rigours of the Maze.”

“That’s how people do it,” the Sun King said easily. “But I’m not people any more. Haven’t been for a long time. I can be anywhere I need to be. I don’t need to pass any stupid tests.”

“Tests?” said Julien, glancing back at the Maze. “Did we . . . ?”

“Of course you did,” said the Sun King. “You proved yourself worthy long ago.” He paused, and looked at me. “Not sure how you made it through, though. Must be more to you than meets the eye.”

I had to smile at that. “You have no idea.” I looked at the Sisters, and when I spoke, I could hear the anger in my voice. “The bodies we found, along the way. Did the Maze kill them?”

“Yes,” said the Sisters, in their single unrelenting voice. “They were not worthy. They came to the Stones with impure thoughts and purposes. They proved themselves a danger to Green Henge, so they were not allowed through. Sun King, you should not be here. You do not venerate the Sacred Stones.”

“Of course not,” said the Sun King. “They’re nothing but stones.”

He clapped his hands again, and the hedgerows in the maze buckled and twisted, erupting into new growth, losing all their carefully sculpted meaning. The dark green walls swayed this way and that, as though under the pressure of some unseen storm though there wasn’t a breath of movement in the furnace-hot air. And the greenery surrounding the Standing Stones constricted suddenly, crushing and cracking the ancient menhirs within.

“Let new life replace old stone!” said the Sun King, happily. “Let’s have a little fun, in this solemn old place! You’re not Druids, Sisters. They knew how to party.”

The Very Righteous Sisters ignored him, singing in harmony, a great choir replacing the single voice. Hundreds and hundreds of women, singing a song that was old when civilisation was new. Their song rose on the air, filling the Garden of Green Henge; and the Stones remembered. One by one, the Stones reasserted their ancient presence, and the greenery surrounding the menhirs fell still again. The maze grew still again as the hedge walls resumed their shape and significance. The flowers slowly wasted away, thick pulpy petals shrivelling up, then dropping like multi-coloured confetti to the walkways of the maze. Moss and fungi growths ceased to pulsate and sank back into the ground. The Sisters’ song rose triumphantly, as sunshine and heat vanished, replaced by cool evening air. The sky was dark, and the oversized moon was back. The Garden of Green Henge was back, as though it had never been away.

The song broke off, and a familiar quiet filling the evening again. The Very Righteous Sisters of the Holy Druids stood still and silent among the Circles of Standing Stones. And the Sun King looked slowly about him, his face cold.

“Do you really think you can stand against me?”

“We serve the Stones,” said the Sisters, in their great voice. “It is the Stones who oppose you.”

“Shall I tell the Walker and the Adventurer exactly what it is that lives in the Maze and weeds out the unworthy?”

There was a pause . . . and then the Sisters said, “Shall we let it loose upon you?”

“Give it your best shot,” said the Sun King.

There was a familiar rustling movement in the hedgerows, and Julien and I looked back at the Maze. The sounds grew closer, and from out of the Maze stalked a dark grey thing, seven or eight feet tall, made of grey-green vegetation and bone-white thorns. Shaped like a man, it walked like a man though there was nothing of Humanity in it. The murders in the maze were carried out by a manifestation of the maze, given shape and purpose, and a warrant to kill anyone the maze judged unworthy. The hedge thing stood still, the wrath of a green world, the protector of the Garden of Green Henge.

“That . . . is what was following us?” said Julien.

“That is what would have killed you if you’d failed the Sisters’ entirely arbitrary sense of what is right and proper,” said the Sun King. “It would have sucked the life out of you, then impaled what was left on the thorns of the hedge walls. The Very Righteous Sisters may like to think of themselves as a new kind of Druid; but the fruit never falls far from the tree. What you’re looking at is the hedge walking. It still wants to kill you. Because you don’t venerate the Stones. Can’t you feel it? Your basic goodness is all that’s kept it at bay, Julien. But the Sisters could still let that thing run loose, to kill anyone they disapprove of.”

The hedge thing was looking at Julien and me, and I could tell it didn’t like us. But it liked the Sun King even less. It swayed slightly on its thorny feet, as though readying itself for an order to attack. And I was pretty sure if it did, it wouldn’t stop with the Sun King.

“Plants should know their place,” the Sun King said firmly. He snapped his fingers, and a great blast of sunlight stabbed down out of nowhere, pinning the hedge thing to the spot. The light and heat were so intense that Julien and I had to throw up our arms to shields our eyes, even as we staggered backwards. The sunlight engulfed the hedge thing in a moment, and it burst into vicious flames that consumed it from the inside out. Fire and smoke rose into the evening air. The hedge thing waved its green arms, and the flames danced hungrily. I thought I heard the thing scream, and some cold place in my heart approved. The beam of sunlight snapped off. And when I was finally able to see clearly again, there was nothing left of the hedge thing but a blackened, smoking mess on the ground and a heavy scent, like burning leaves.

And the Sun King was gone.

“He hasn’t changed,” said Julien. “He still has to have the last word.”

“So,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “That . . . was the Sun King. I thought he’d be taller.”

“You weren’t seeing him at his best,” said Julien. “There was something . . . off, about him.”

“Yes,” I said. “I felt that. What did the Entities from Beyond do to him, during those long years they had him all to themselves, in the White Tower?”

“And why wouldn’t he tell us their real name?” said Julien. “Perhaps because . . . we might recognise it?”

“This is what you wouldn’t tell me,” I said sternly. “That the Sun King had been putting things in your head. Telling you to come here, so he could talk to you. And you didn’t want me to know that, because . . .”