They were all silent for a moment, all searching out the cuts and grazes they’d got in the scramble to escape the Burnt Man and finding nothing. Tully stretched his limbs and discovered new strength in them. Jim took off his shapka and threw it into the bushes. His hair had grown thick and curly, a lustrous golden color. He dragged his fingers across his head.
“I had curly hair when I was a nipper!” he said in astonishment. “I remember how disappointed my mum was when it went straight like all the other kids’.”
Dusty nudged his elbow, the shapka in her mouth. Jack retrieved it and waved it in Jim’s face.
“No littering!” He frowned. “We’ve only just got here, and you lot are already chucking your rubbish about, polluting this lovely bit of greenery.”
“By the way,” Kat asked, “does anybody have the faintest idea where this ‘lovely bit of greenery’ is? The last news I had of home, when there still were such things as ‘news’ and ‘home’, greenery wasn’t in it.”
“Too right,” Jim agreed. “The only greenery we ever saw was the mold on the pile of food that fuckwit, Luc, stashed away under his bunk. Maybe we’ve gone back a bit to the time before the Abomination, when green was sorta natural.”
“I’m not sure that what’s happened is quite so straightforward.” Carla had stretched out her arms and was staring at the amount of wrist that stuck out beyond the cuffs of her jacket. Her jeans too, finished a considerable way above the ankle. “Whatever it was has either shrunk all my clothes or stretched me about six inches.”
“And curled my hair.”
“Stopped my visions.”
“Healed up everybody’s wounds.”
“That was some trip,” Jack said emphatically.
“We’ve all changed, coming through that hole,” Tully said. “I wonder how much?”
“Traveling always changes people.”
The voice coming out of nowhere, like the voice of God coming out of a thundercloud in the Garden of Eden, had them all jumping out of their skins. They turned to find a tall, athletic-looking old gentleman watching them with a benign smile on his face.
“Welcome! And please accept my profound regret for what happened to your companion.”
There was a silence as they all instinctively moved closer together.
“How did you know about Matt?” Jim asked, a veiled threat in his low voice.
“We saw it happen,” the stranger replied, the same smile playing on his lips. “He should have accompanied you, but his distress proved stronger than our dreamcatchers.”
“Your wha’?”
“We tried to bring all of you here,” the old man explained in his even, placid voice. “But our dreamcatchers couldn’t drag your friend back once he’d thrown himself to the eaters of souls.”
“Sorry, but I’m missing an episode, I think.” Tully’s dad scratched vigorously behind his ear. “I was under the impression that it was our idea to jump down that wormhole, seeing as how we were being pursued by an army of very nasty—and in some cases very dead—people.”
The stranger shook his head and laughed.
“You are here because we dreamed you here.”
Chapter Two
Yvain
The old man, who on closer inspection turned out to be not as old as all that, leaned on his walking staff and looked at each one of them in turn. His face was tanned a rich bronze, and the shallow wrinkles gave his face gravity rather than age. His hair, though gray, was thick and tied in a neat ponytail. Laughter lines spread around his eyes that were a bright, brilliant blue. He was either in an incredibly good humor, or he was taking the Mickey. Jim narrowed his eyes as if he found the stranger’s perpetual grin something of an insult. His jaw jutted aggressively.
“Listen. This might be Wonderland,” he blurted out, “and you might even be the fuckin’ White Rabbit in drag, but we have just come through a very real, very horrible experience. We’ve just lost all our friends, for fuck’s sake! Our world, awful as it was, has gone up in smoke, and you stand there grinning and expect us to believe we’re just part of somebody’s dream?”
Jim was red with anger and his fists clenched and unclenched convulsively. Tully put a calming hand on his shoulder, but Jim shrugged it off.
“I know. I feel like hitting somebody too,” Tully said quietly. “But it won’t bring Matt back.”
“It might knock that bleedin’ grin off his face, though.”
Jim hung his head and sat down away from the others, his head in his hands. The stranger sat down too in a surprisingly supple movement, and he invited the others to do the same.
“I apologize,” he began in his melodious voice. “There are things you could not understand.”
“Maybe one or two,” Jack muttered, as he hunkered down next to Jim. The old man gave him one of his infuriating smiles.
“You are here because our dreamcatchers dreamed you.” He held up his hand to ward off the rush of protests. “Of course, you would still have gone down the wormhole. You had no choice. But without the dreamcatchers, you would have ended up somewhere else entirely. I have been sent to meet you and bring you to the capital, where you will be given your instructions, because you are here for a reason.” The old man paused and looked around the group. Tully noticed again how blue his eyes were—how youthful and how intense. “You are here to prevent the Apocalypse.”
There was a stunned silence during which no one laughed. They all looked at one another, and Jack whistled. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
The man just smiled. “There are many versions of the world, and your version is over, finished. This one is in danger, and you are the heroes who will save it. The ‘seven stars’, if you prefer. Is that a little clearer?”
“Crystal,” said Tully’s dad. “I’d say that puts us all in the picture, doesn’t it, comrades? When do we start?”
“Hold on a minute.” Kat snorted. “You’re saying that this is another version of the world, Earth, our Earth? That we are all superheroes who are going to save the planet—or rather your planet—from catastrophe? And you expect us to believe you?”
The old man sighed. “Of course not. I was forgetting the incapacity of you people to remember the stories and act upon them. You have a blockage when it comes to believing any but the most absurd of them, and it has been your undoing.”
Jeff was sitting up, his eyes shining. “Tell us about the stories then.”
The old man gave him a strange, intent look, as if seeing him for the first time. “Search your mind, young man,” he said. “You will find the stories already there.” He placed his index and middle finger on Jeff’s forehead and nodded slowly. “I thought so. You are a sage, my friend, and more. Your qualities will be needed to give hope and assurance to your companions. You are the first of the seven stars.”
Jeff looked first bemused, then a dreamy expression appeared on his face, and he too began to smile. “You’re right. The stories are there. But there are so many of ’em. Thousands! Who will I tell them to?”
“Whoever needs to hear. But not all the stories belong in the same place. Some stories have no message for us here but will be important in another world.”
Jack shook his head. “You’ve lost me, I’m afraid.”
“Stories are like plants,” the old man said patiently. “The same plant grows in all the worlds, but in one it might have splendid red flowers, in another it might only produce green leaves, in yet another it may even wither and die unnoticed. But somewhere it has its roots. Somewhere it is real. There are story roots in all worlds, and every story has a grain of truth in it. Nothing is made up entirely. It just didn’t necessarily happen where or when you thought. Sometimes it is something that hasn’t happened yet. Your world was an unhappy place where stories often lived just a short while then died. Some caused wars and millions of deaths. Many simply frightened young children. If only you had listened to the stories, perhaps your world would not have had to die.”
&
nbsp; Jim’s anger boiled up again. “I’m not listening to this! Stories? That’s what you call it? All that we lived through for those five years, just a fuckin’ fairy story?’
“Oh, that was real enough, my friend. Nobody could have denied the reality of the end of everything in your world.”
Jim looked devastated, as if he was hoping against hope that the old man with the bright blue eyes would tell him not to worry, it had all been a bad dream, and when he snapped his fingers, they would all wake up.
“The stories are what made up your past, your history, and should have formed your future.”
Jim’s face lightened, as if the meaning was beginning to dawn on him. “The stories are what we call myths and legends, right?”
The old man pursed his lips. “Yes and no. Some of those stories were history. And conversely, some of your history is simply a good story.”
“You mean like Noah’s Ark and the Flood?” Jim looked skeptical. “It really happened?”
“Of course it did.”
Jim frowned in disbelief. “An’ the animals went in two by two, the elephant an’ the kangaroo?”
The old gentleman raised his eyebrows. “Now you’re just being silly.”
“What about King Arthur, Avalon and all that?” Tully asked.
“The true story of Arthur and the magical island of Avalon was apparently not fanciful enough for you. After many centuries, the story had become so deformed that the magical reality withered and died, and you were left with the sugary romance version you people prefer. If only you had listened to Merlin and the magic of the Earth, there was perhaps still time then to save it. But no, you always had a penchant for stories where a wicked woman spoils things. So you had a beautiful temptress of a witch enslave Merlin, kill off Arthur and lock up all his followers in an unknown grave where they wait for something really terrible to happen to wake them up.”
“They must be bloody heavy sleepers then,” Tully’s dad muttered.
The old man grinned. “Because they’re still waiting, aren’t they? For something more terrible than Armageddon, perhaps?”
“When the last battle was lost,” Jeff said in a dreamy, faraway voice, “Merlin led them to Avalon, the Land of Apples, with Arthur and Guinevere, and that’s where they are now.”
Jim looked at Jeff in awe. “And you’ve got all these stories in your head? The real stories? What really happened?”
Jeff nodded slowly. “I…think so.”
“Remember, though,” the old man insisted, “it is in the roots that you find the true story. Some stories were never intended as more than entertainments in your world.”
“Like Adam and Eve?”
The old man gave Kat a withering look. “If a lot of nonsense has since been written about the reasons for their exclusion from Paradisio, your ancestors really did enjoy an idyllic existence until… But this is neither the time nor the place for a history lesson. No, I was thinking of another story.” He chuckled to himself. “You didn’t really believe the one about men walking on the moon, did you?”
Tully looked from one face to another in disbelief.
“But they did walk on the moon! It was on the TV,” Jack spluttered.
“You see what I mean?” The old man sounded despairing. “That was not your story. Its roots were in quite another world. But it was the kind of thing you wanted to believe so—”
Jack groaned and clutched his head. “Okay, you win. Just tell us what you want us to do. We’ll talk it over and give you a reply, say, next week?”
“It’s no good just being flippant, Dad,” Tully said, getting to his feet. “You can’t joke your way out of this one, and we can’t stay here, lovely as it is. None of us has a clue how to survive in the wilderness. We need houses, shops, electricity—all that kind of stuff. The sensible thing is to let…this gentleman take us to the capital.”
The old man gave a slight bow. “Thank you for your trust, young man. This gentleman’s name is Yvain Arvelson, and you too are a hero. Your quality is not clear to me yet, but it certainly includes wisdom.”
“Excuse me.” Tully’s dad tapped Yvain on the shoulder. “Didn’t you say we were all heroes?”
“I did, heroes to combat the four scourges. I have already found courage and hope in your company—and wisdom. You also need to be healers and life givers, and to build and create what is good and beautiful.”
“You don’t want much, do you?” Jack asked with a hint of gentle mockery in his voice and around the corners of his mouth and eyes.
Yvain returned the expression. “With the right companion, you should find it quite easy. Ask Kat, here. She already has the qualities. It stands out like the nose on your face! Between you, you have the means to rebuild the world that Death will try to destroy.”
“Hang on, young fella,” Jack blustered. “This is a bit sudden, though. I’ve only just met the girl!”
Yvain laughed. “What difference does that make? Every story has a beginning.”
“Oh, the beginning’s never difficult,” Kat said with a grin. “It’s the middle and the end that can be problematic.”
Yvain looked around at the group and waved to Jim to approach. Jim hung back, crunching his shapka in his fists.
“When the world is rebuilt, they will need help. You have a wealth of words, of wisdom and optimism, my friend. Share them and shape them. Now, my heroes, it’s time to start. The burden placed on your shoulders is a heavy one. Should you fail, this world will join your own, in oblivion. Are you ready?”
Tully looked from one face to the other and saw bewilderment and disbelief. But he also saw a spark of interest. Even Kat with her natural skepticism, and Jim with his remorse and pain, were sitting up and listening. They wanted to believe, no matter how cranky it seemed. After what they’d been through, almost anything seemed possible. Tully let his fingers dig deep into the grass roots and the earth that was warm and friable in the bright sunshine. He turned to Carla and saw the sun catch at the points of her hair and turn it gold. Her gaze was fixed on his and her expression was full of confidence. He smiled.
“Well?” Yvain’s eyes were full of sparks, reflections of the sun.
“As ready as we ever will be, I suppose,” Tully said, taking Carla’s hand.
“Then follow me.” Yvain struck the ground before them with his staff and a hole opened up, a void that spun outward and upward to catch them in its orbit. But this hole was the blue of the sky and the green of the earth, and they stepped into it without fear.
Chapter Three
Wormwood
The Light-Bringer, who was also called Wormwood, stood on what had once been a low hill in the forest of Rambouillet and gazed about him. For miles around, the land was free of the mounds of rubble and twisted metal of buildings and vehicles that marked where the capital city had stood. Here, where a piece of ancient forest had been preserved against the encroaching skin of concrete for centuries, where a tiny spark of green life had persisted, was a black desert dotted with charred stumps like pox on carbonized skin. The kings of France had hunted here once. Wormwood’s face twisted in a sneer, and the livid scar squirmed to reveal white bone beneath the burnt flesh.
Here, more than in the remains of the city, he felt the power of death, the absence of life. In the ruins, rats still scavenged for the leavings of humankind. Perhaps the odd human survived still, a few stray cats gone wild and mad. But here, in what had been one of the last vestiges of the natural world, nothing stirred, not even the smallest insect. The only life that remained was bacteria. Having consumed all that was dead, it waited its turn to die.
Icy winds whipped up the dry dust of the world. Banks of black and blood-red clouds jostled and raged overhead. With a scream, a blizzard flung ice and snow from the tormented sky, and the air was a fuzzy gray fury of projectiles. Wormwood sat on his pale mount, unmoved, impervious to the searing cold, and he waited for the worms to return, to reopen the holes that led to the other worlds.
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br /> While Wormwood waited, his souleaters roamed the ruins of Earth. Miles of rubble, piles of rusted metal and rags mummified by the cold, lay in a ghastly silence, except for the howling gale. Black shadows slipped like oil into the gaping holes of basements, the lift shafts of department stores and the yawning graves of the metro stations. Black slime and the ragged armies of dead souls slipped through the ruins, searching out the pulse of life, the faint heat of living bodies.
In the stillness, something drew their attention—the quick flutter of movement in a doorway, a skittering of loose debris, the frantic scrambling of ill-shod feet to find a better hiding place. Sightless eyes turned to follow, and the silent souleaters reared up into a wave of darkness that surged over the broken city in the wake of the running figure. Ragged, broken and emaciated souls stumbled in the same direction, needing no breath, making only the whistling, rasping sounds of bone on stone and air rushing through dry windpipes.
A shriek rang out, desolate and hopeless. A shriek no one would hear, or, if they did, no one would answer. The black slime roared and fell, the sound of suction drowning the last thrashings of futile flight, dead souls chittered—and all was still again.
The scream died away, and in a basement near the center, beneath what had been a high school, three thin people huddled together, listening to the sound of the black slime feasting. They were young, not much more than children, stunted before they’d reached adulthood, but their eyes were old, their skin lined and scarred, their bones ill-covered. They clung to one another and covered their ears against the last sucking noises, pinched their noses against the stench of corruption and held one another tightly, just to feel the scant warmth of another human being in the chill of the end of days—for there was nothing else.
They had no way of dividing up the horror of time into days and weeks, much less years. But the sound of terror had been the only sound on Earth for five years, and the screams of the dying were becoming rarer. There could be almost no one left to scream. The boys were sure, even though Erelah, the girl, said not. With each distant shriek of despair, the number of survivors dwindled. For weeks they had heard nothing, then this desperate howl rang out, and Rajeev, the elder of the boys, feared they were the last of all.
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