Destroyer of Worlds

6

At the first light of dawn, Church led the group across the rolling grassland towards Stonehenge. The landscape was still, the rumble of traffic that blighted the ancient site for most of the day not yet rising from the constricting network of main roads. The first light gave a silvery, new-minted sheen to the countryside, with a hint of the warm, golden sun that would soon follow. As they made their way down a slope, summer mist briefly turned the world back in time to the raw, poetic age when the stones were first erected. There was only the grass beneath their feet, sparkling with dew, each step muffled by the soft, drifting mist. For a while, no one spoke, their steady breathing and the gentle melody of birdsong their only accompaniment.

Shavi breathed deeply, peacefully. That moment held all the reasons for the joy he felt at being back in the world.

'Give you a bit of nature and you're in heaven, aren't you, Shavster?' Laura's tone was gently mocking, but her expression remained unusually solemn.

'There is heaven in every aspect of this world, not just in the countryside, if you look with the right eyes. In music heard from an open window on a city street. In the play of light glinting off the windshields of cars speeding down the motorway. In the rainbows of oil in puddles on a building site.'

'You're weird.'

In the long pause that followed her words, he felt she was desperately seeking something from him, though he had no idea what it was. Finally, she said, 'Are we just wasting our time here?'

'Given all I know of Church, I would trust him implicitly and follow him anywhere. What we initially see may not be the true picture.'

'That's the point exactly. Maybe we're just a bunch of deluded, woolly-headed losers and what we think we see is just us fooling ourselves. All this power-in-the-land, magic-in-the-heart bollocks. Say it out loud. Listen to it. It sounds like one of those rants you get from the cider-addled dog-on-a-string people you find sitting on the pavement begging for money in Glastonbury.'

'You have seen the evidence with your own eyes-'

'I've seen stuff, sure, but who's to say it's right? What if the Void is the right one for our world?' Her voice had a faintly glassy quality that suggested unrevealed stresses deep within.

'It is not right.'

'But what if? Just having a little peace, getting a tiny bit of enjoyment out of life before we take the dirt-nap… what's so bad about that?'

'Nothing. Except there is the potential for a lot of peace, and a great deal of enjoyment in life. The Void wins by giving people just enough to keep them content. A little less and they would all rise up and change things. A little more and they would see the true potential of what we have, and rise up and change things. The Mundane Spell is very skilful.'

'But why do we get to shake things up? Sometimes I feel like we're those revolutionaries who start out trying to make things better and end up consumed by the cause and blowing up babies on a bus.'

'We have not hurt anyone-'

'Yes, we have!' She lowered her voice and looked down when Veitch cast a suspicious glance at her. 'We've turned people's lives on their heads, all their little happinesses that everyone around here laughs at so much, we've seen people hurt and killed, and we've carried on regardless because we believed it was a necessary price to pay. Because we thought we had the moral high ground. We've not given them anything better to make up for their loss, just the promise of heaven around the corner. You could say there wouldn't have been any Fomorii invasion and world-turned-on-its-head if the Void hadn't been afraid the Pendragon Spirit and its Champions of Existence weren't going to upset the apple cart.'

'I would say you are considering things too closely. The big picture-'

'Can't be seen, yeah, yeah, that's our great get-out clause so we don't have to face up to the consequences of our actions. Think of all the misery and suffering that's followed us around. How can we be the heroes? We're not revolutionaries, we're terrorists.'

Laura wouldn't meet Shavi's eye, but she couldn't hide how close to tears she was. 'It is all right to have doubts,' he said gently, slipping an arm around her shoulders. 'All of us have doubts at some point.'

'Even you?'

'Even me. When you do not know the rules of Existence, and when you cannot see the greater patterns, all you have left is faith in yourself, and faith in your friends.'

The words were meant to be comforting, but they only upset Laura more. Stray tears ran down her cheeks and she wiped them away angrily before accepting a brief, reassuring hug, then marched off to be alone with her thoughts.

The mist turned into a dense fog as they drew towards Stonehenge. Colours glinted in droplets of moisture all around and Veitch asked uneasily, 'Are we back in the Warp Zone or what?'

'I don't know, but something's not right.' Church slowed the pace as they attempted to orient themselves.

'Someone's here,' Ruth said.

'I don't see anyone,' Veitch responded.

'I… feel it.'

'You're using the Craft?' Church asked. 'I thought it didn't work so well here when the Blue Fire is dormant.'

'I don't know… it feels stronger, somehow. I was using it instinctively, like I learned to do in the Otherworld.'

Lurching out of the dense fog, a figure brought them to a sudden halt. His long hair tied in a knot at the side of his head, he wore a fur cape over a woollen tunic that had been dyed brightly with berries. They bristled for an attack, but he grinned broadly and waved before hailing them in a musical language that only Church understood. With a flourish, he disappeared back into the fog.

'What the fuck?' Laura said.

'Iron Age Celt,' Church said, recalling with a pang his time in Carn Euny almost two thousand years ago.

'In Wiltshire, now?' Ruth said.

'Something is strange here,' Tom muttered. 'And we are still not alone.'

Footsteps circled them, ebbing and flowing through the muffling shroud of the fog so that it was impossible to pinpoint their location. But they could all tell that whoever was making them was following with caution, perhaps even a hint of threat. They drew into a tighter knot, unsettled by how fast the footsteps moved. At times they wondered if they were mistaken and it was really an animal prowling around just beyond view.

The fog folded and briefly revealed a dark shape that did not assuage their doubts; it was long and lean, moving low, so it could have been rising from all fours or falling from two feet. It loped back into the fog as soon as their gaze fell upon it.

Church drew Caledfwlch and was shocked by the whoosh! as the blue flames leaped around the blade.

'That cannot be right,' Tom said. 'In the times when the Void has been most dominant, the Blue Fire in this area has always been more dormant than at other sites. Human encroachment, the roads and the abuse bled the land of its sacred quality.'

'Maybe,' Church said thoughtfully, 'the Void isn't as dominant as we thought.'

The figure erupted from the mists in a whirl of limbs brandishing a weapon that moved too fast for them to see. A blow creased Church's forehead; another upended Veitch; and the final one came to rest at the skin of Ruth's throat.

Her gaze ran along the gnarled wooden staff to the just as gnarled figure holding it, arms and face mahogany-brown from the sun and wind, grey-black, greasy hair hanging lank around his head, a stained cheesecloth shirt and mud-spattered trousers and the fiercest eyes Ruth had ever seen.

Familiar eyes.

'Wait!' Shavi called exuberantly. 'It is us!'

The Bone Inspector eyed them suspiciously, then slowly lowered his staff. 'These are dangerous times,' he growled. 'Upheaval. Constant change. Damned spiders coming and going. And now… this.' He nodded around him. 'We're going to have all hell on us in no time.' His steely gaze scanned every face until his eyes rested on Tom and a small smile sprang to his lips. 'I'd heard you were dead.'

'It was overrated. I came back.' They hugged each other briefly like old friends.

'Two grumpy old bastards together,' Laura muttered. 'This is hell in stereo.'

'We'd also heard you lot were gone from this world,' the Bone Inspector said to the others. 'I wanted to be sure you weren't some trick of the spiders. A Trojan Horse.'

'Who is he?' Rachel whispered to Shavi.

'You've got nothing to fear from me,' the Bone Inspector said. 'Not unless you get on the wrong side of me. I watch over the old places, the burial mounds, the wells, the stone circles, the cairns. Make sure no one interferes with the treasures they've held since the old times. From Shetland to Scilly, Neath to Norfolk, I'm there. Always have been. Will be till I die.'

'You said "we".' Church rubbed the bump on his head. 'You're not alone.'

'If you're here, then I suppose you need to see this.' He turned and loped into the fog, and the others hurried to keep up.

After only a few yards, the fog began to thin, turning back into the low, drifting mist, now golden in the light of the dawn sun, and within a few moments that too was gone. Behind it lay a landscape that took their breath away, so ancient and wild that it appeared as if they had walked two thousand years into the past. But when he squinted, Shavi could see pylons in the distance and the air still had the taint of petrol fumes.

Stonehenge was no longer a ruin, eroded by centuries of wind and rain and man's poor stewardship. The megaliths stood tall and proud, the lintels complete, and all around the outlying stones were erect, their surfaces gleaming and smooth as though they had been hewn by the stone-workers only recently.

A sprawling crowd faced the rising sun in silent adoration. The reinvigorating dawn rays shone brightly along the precisely aligned avenue. The people wore the Iron Age clothes of the man they had encountered in the fog, and there were young and old, men, women and children, strong and frail, all side by side in the solemn congregation.

The sun hit a point where it was framed whole and round between two stones, and a man — some kind of priest, Shavi guessed — raised his arms and called out to the sky. As one the people raised their heads. Loud drumming began instantly, a perfect, complex rhythm, but within seconds Shavi realised there was more to it than a simple celebration. The peculiar alignment of the stones created strange acoustics that amplified and distorted the pounding so that it appeared as if the stones themselves were singing to the heavens, the sound rolling and muffling, then growing louder as it shifted around the circle like a living thing. It was hallucinogenic, transcendental; though he was well away from the ritual, he was transported, and he wondered what awe those at the henge would be feeling.

When the drumming reached a crescendo, it stopped suddenly. The ringing silence was just as potent, but it only lay over the circle for a second before there was a soaring whoosh as Blue Fire burned in lines along the paths of the ancient leys. In the distance they interconnected to create the Fiery Network. Above the stone circle, the sapphire flames rushed up to create a structure that appeared to reach towards the stars, a cathedral of fire that made their chests swell and brought tears of awe to their eyes.

For a moment, they basked in the wonder of the display and then the Blue Fire washed back into hiding, but the effect it had on their emotions did not disappear. A cheer rose up from the crowd, children whooping and playing, adults hugging each other, or kissing, as they turned from the stones and made their way towards the shimmering line of the river.

As the congregation dispersed, Shavi was surprised to see several people in modern dress following the throng, their faces as alight as their ancient ancestors'.

'They'll make their way back to Woodhenge for a feast that will go on till tomorrow.' the Bone Inspector grunted. 'This is the Summer Solstice. A celebration of life and death, and how the two are tied together.' He glanced at Tom. 'Nothing ends. There is always something higher, always something beyond the horizon.'

'What's happening here?' Church asked. 'Those Iron Age people… the megaliths-'

'All time is folding together,' the Bone Inspector replied. 'Don't ask me how, but I hear this is how it is in the Otherworld.'

Rachel wiped the tears from her cheeks. If anything, she had been more affected by the sight than the others. 'I never guessed,' she whispered. 'So much potential… all around us. And we never saw it.'

'It won't last long,' the Bone Inspector said. 'The Army of the Ten Billion Spiders won't let it. Things like this could destroy the Mundane Spell in a minute. Once you've seen this, why go back to your offices?'

'We can't let that be destroyed!' Rachel said desperately.

'Then you need to get busy,' the Bone Inspector said, 'because you lot are the only people who can stop that happening.'

'The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, you mean?' Rachel enquired.

'Humans.' He turned back to Stonehenge. 'Come on. There are people you need to meet.'