“Get a move on then, Jim, yeh big girl’s blouse!” he snapped, but there was barely restrained laughter in his voice. “And get us out of this kip before we take root. I think I’ve already got a few termites chewing through me boots.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
At the Ridge Before the Briga Mór
The forest was diminishing, shrinking before their eyes. The trees had started to thin out long ago, their branches black and bare in the wintry winds. But here, where the trees naturally gave way to the wild heath of the Briga Mór, the forest had been devastated. Great oaks and beeches lay uprooted and blackened. The thick undergrowth of fern and saplings was torn up, flattened or burned. The reek and the black slime of the eaters of souls seemed to soil every surface. Tancred called a halt when the only real cover that remained was the rugged nature of the terrain, scored and crossed by the beds of fast-flowing torrents, and folded into steep hills and valleys by ancient earthquakes.
The group waited in silence beneath an overhanging rock that formed a shallow grotto in the side of a hill. An icy sleet had begun to fall, and the horses hung their heads, nosing the fouled earth and snorting in disgust. Jeff stroked the little palomino’s nose and she whinnied softly.
Tancred gave Jeff a reassuring smile and said, “I will take the hound and see if the way is clear before us. Give the horses some feed. There’s nothing for them to forage here.”
He clicked his fingers and Dusty walked to him, her tail waving slowly and unenthusiastically. Kat reached out and caught at Tancred’s sleeve. “You’re going to see what’s waiting for us at the World Tree, I know. What if there’s nobody there?”
“Then we wait here, where there’s a little cover at least.” Tancred placed his hand on Kat’s and clasped it briefly. “We can be at the tree in an instant once I open a tunnel. There’s no need to hang about there waiting in the open.”
His words didn’t smooth the worried creases from Kat’s forehead. “And what if the others are there, but they haven’t found Israfel? I mean, Yvain will find him, won’t he?”
At the mention of Israfel, Carla looked at Tully, at the gentle way he stroked the flanks of his horse as it ate from a nosebag, his assured gestures as he moved from one horse to another, whispering in their ears, settling their blankets, reassuring them. His eyes were gentle too, and full of dreams, and Carla knew that the demon voices in the cold wind had found no echo inside his head.
“Don’t worry, Kat,” she said. “I’m sure that when we need him, Israfel will be there.”
“Dusty, come!” Tancred called and turned his horse’s head into the wind.
“Tancred, wait a minute!” Jeff’s face was white, except for the chapped lips and the wings of his nose. Carla started at the sound of his voice. It brought back echoes of the small boy Jeff of the far-off supermarket days, the fearful days of the Burnt Man. “Tancred, there are…things out there, beyond the woods, thousands of them. They swarm across the plain, swallowing everything that breaths there. Nothing can withstand them, and,” his voice dropped to a tremulous whisper, “he is with them.”
Tancred smiled briefly at Jeff in acknowledgement of his warning, but his determined expression did not change. He simply leaned down and patted Dusty’s head. “She will warn me of any danger.”
Garance raised her eyebrows. “I take it that ‘he’ is not another of your friends from the supermarket?”
Carla took her hand. “Not exactly.” She turned to Tully. “I think it’s time we explained a few more things to Mamma, don’t you?”
“The more that Garance knows about why we are meeting at Poll Ifrinn, the better,” Tancred agreed. With a last glance at Kat, he touched the horse’s flank with his heels and steered him out into the rising gale and over the ridge. Kat continued to stare after him long after the sleet and darkness hid the top of the ridge from view.
* * * *
A faint light ran through the skin of the tree, lighting the way along a narrow, winding tunnel. They still held hands and advanced slowly, because Jim was the only one to see it. Where his fingers touched the smooth grain of the wood, brighter marks appeared that disappeared behind him like a trail of phosphorus in the wake of a ship. He was absorbed in the impressions that bombarded his senses, the deep earthy smell of humus, the satin of the wood, the lights that ran through the cells and the sap and the vitality of the World Tree. It took a particularly violent bout of cursing from Jack to drag him out of his thoughts.
He was aware from the way Eirian tugged at his hand that she was having trouble dragging Jack along, and he smiled to himself, listening to Jack’s complaining and Eirian’s exasperated replies. Looking farther behind, he could see Yvain bringing up the rear, the light from his faintly glowing staff showing that nothing was following them.
“Careful!” Jim whispered for the hundredth time. “There’s a big root crossing the path.”
He turned to see the human chain behind him edge forward cautiously in the dark, advancing a toe, and tapping about before placing their weight on the entire foot. And each time without fail, Jack tripped on the root and swore colorfully. Jim suspected he did it deliberately, just to make them laugh, since he never actually fell over. Every few minutes his hand passed over an empty space that Yvain explained was a branch leading to another place or a root reaching down to another time.
“I don’t want to cast doubt on young Mr. Stanley’s abilities,” Jack began to complain after about an hour of their slow progression through the dark, “but he does know where he’s going, doesn’t he? I mean, at least Stanley knew Livingston was somewhere in that particular jungle, deep and desperate as it was. He just had to keep his machete moving. He didn’t have to worry about ending up down a pterodactyl’s gullet or in the middle of the Battle of Agincourt, did he?”
“Oh, stop griping, Jack,” Eirian snapped back. “Jim can see the path, even if we can’t.”
“Shhhh!” Jim gripped Eirian’s hand tight. “The path’s ending,” he whispered, “and I can hear something.”
“Sword fighting? Dinosaurs belching?”
“Shhhh!”
“I hear it too.” Yvain’s voice was low and solemn. “It is the sound of the end of days.”
* * * *
“We have come to the end of days.”
Yvain’s thought winged its way to Alinor. It flew, stronger than the veils of black slime, shooting through the clinging blackness like a falling star. It was a formless thought, an impression, an emotion distilled into a split second of energy. Nothing except death would stop its course, and it pierced her to the heart.
She imagined Yvain, safe and unhurt. She imagined his smile and his gentle laughter. Even if she had been able to reply to his message, she wouldn’t have wanted to. What could she say? Lutecia was all but dead? She was trapped in a room with a handful of survivors—adults who had lost hope and a few pathetic, terrified children? She had nothing to say. Her voice trembled too much to formulate a cheerful message of courage. He knew her too well. He would never have believed it.
It was deep night in Lutecia. It took barely an hour to walk around the entire perimeter. There were too few modelers to patrol anything larger, and there were too few survivors to warrant it. Alinor trembled permanently now—not from fear but from lack of sleep and the sheer horror of it all. She started at every sound, every shadow that moved. And the cold bit so deeply! The last attack on the Assembly building had almost overwhelmed the few armed men and women barricaded with Alinor. She looked wearily around the room at the exhausted, sleeping children with their dark-rimmed eyes, and she wondered how many of them would ever wake. And if they did, to what?
Darkness slithered along the empty streets, groping into cellars and attics. The night silence was punctuated by the occasional shriek as the filthy fingers found a stray dog or cat. At least Alinor hoped there were only stray animals left out there. Once again she wondered if Amaury was still alive. So many were dead that it seemed an unreasonable hop
e. As for Yvain, his words echoed in her head, beating like a bronze drum.
‘We have come to the end of days.’
With the world a vast pasture for the eaters of souls, draped in the shadows they had dragged with them from Hell and haunted by the ever-growing army of those carcasses whose souls they had stolen, how could he still be alive? Alinor would have cried if she had been able, but there was nothing left. She was frozen inside.
Then she heard the sound, a sound that had never before been heard on Earth, and the world stood still.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Erelah Dreams
Erelah gazed into the whirling depths and dreamed.
She saw the same darkness as in all her dreams, filled with the army of dead shells shambling and stumbling in ragged battalions after the black slime that had eaten their souls. She saw a black wave that rose and broke on a wild landscape of rock and furze, and a scattering of small, terrified figures leapt from hiding among the rocks and ran. They ran desperately, into the vastness of the inhospitable wilderness, pausing only to pick up those who fell—children probably. Heavy sleet sliced across their path, making the rocks slippery and deadly. The dead souls leapt after them, throwing themselves over the treacherous ground, heedless of broken bones and jagged wounds, running with the ease of those who will never fear pain again.
Behind the dead, on the edge of the rising tide of black slime, came the Horsemen. Two walked their monstrous mounts, the third charged ahead, laughing and trampling, jagged-edged sword in black gauntleted hand. Dagon rampaged indiscriminately among the dead and the living, scything limbs, eviscerating, beheading, rejoicing in the bloodletting.
When the living were all dead, when their screams were stilled and their twitching corpses dismembered by the squealing ranks of the dead souls and swallowed in the filthy tide of slime, Dagon raised his bloody sword and roared.
“Eblis-Azazel! We have come!”
And the Horsemen galloped to join him on the bloody hill where a lone ash stood. Dagon and Belial urged their horses around in a frenzied circle, shaking sword and lance and defying the points of the compass. Only one, the Horseman with a single eye like a live coal and a face of white bone and livid red scars, faced south. His gaze held Erelah’s fast, and a bone-white grin spread across his ravaged face, until—with a scream—she dragged herself to consciousness.
“Hey! You’re back now.” Rajeev held Erelah’s flailing arms as she slowly recovered. Her eyes were still glazed over, her breathing sharp and shallow.
“Raj,” she whispered. “We have to leave. Now. He’s coming.”
She turned her wild blue gaze to Rajeev, and she hoped he couldn’t see what was in the shadows swirling in their depths. She struggled to her feet and in a mad scramble began gathering their belongings together.
“What did you see?” Rajeev took her arm. “How do you know he’s coming?”
She turned and looked through him, still in her nightmare vision. Rajeev tried to force her to look at him, but she couldn’t. She was still floating in some dark night, even darker than the night outside the cellar.
“He thinks he’s won. The worlds are all his. The stars have all gone, everything.” She finally focused on Rajeev’s face. “He’s found Eblis.”
* * * *
Jim sensed them all grouped around him, and he was glad of their presence. They had come to the end of the tunnel where it widened slightly to form a round, vaulted room. It took shape in a gray light that filtered through the walls and showed him their pale faces, tired and drawn and dusty. Jim placed a hand respectfully on the smooth, living wall and felt the vibrations of the world outside. He pulled his hand away quickly, as if he had been burned, and turned slowly to face the others.
“I don’t like it. I’m not sure we should go outside.”
Jack shrugged. “And I’m dead certain we shouldn’t. It’s probably like the battle of the Somme out there. But unless we fancy living like death watch beetles for the rest of our lives, we’re going to have to risk it, aren’t we?”
Yvain put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “He’s right. Find the door, Jim, and keep your wits about you.”
“Wits!” Jack snorted. “If he’s got wits, bulls have got—”
“Jack!” Eirian gasped in fake shock.
Jim laughed and gave him a playful dig in the gut. The door took form almost before he had thought how he would find it. In fact, it seemed to be waiting there, just beneath where he laid his hand. He pushed it gently and the warm, living wood parted to form an oval opening like a tree bole. Beyond, he could see nothing. The land was in a glacial darkness, utter darkness without even the light of a single star. It hung like a filthy blanket and the air stank of carrion and opened graves.
Jack put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Before we go out there,” he whispered, “I think there’s something we’ve forgotten about.”
“Bit late for that now, mate. You should have gone before we left home.”
Jack punched Jim in the side and hissed, “I’m serious! We forgot about this Israfel fella. Yvain, are you sure the others will have found him? We’re going to look a bit silly if they haven’t.”
“I’m afraid, as Jim said, it’s too late to worry about that now. I’m sure we’ll sort something out.”
Before Jack could explode, Eirian clapped a hand over his mouth.
Slowly they stepped from the safety of the tree in a mist of their own breath, keeping their backs to the comforting bulk of the World Ash, peering vainly into the shadows. Jim moved closer to Eirian, placing his body shield-like between her and the nothingness that surrounded them. Jack and Yvain moved to either side, the light thrown by their staves quenched by the shrouds of slime. Nothing moved in the silence.
Tancred and the others were not there.
Jim turned to Yvain, but before he could ask what they did now, a horse whinnied, and an unearthly glow lit up the World Tree and the wilderness around it. The travelers stood on the rocky rim of Poll Ifrinn. At their backs, the ash grew tall and massive, its branches overhanging the unseen depths of the great chasm. Jagged rocks encircled the black hole, cruel and menacing in the strange witch light that seemed to have no source. Jim could see nothing in the darkness that swallowed up the world beyond the circle of light thrown by the World Tree, but the presence of evil was palpable.
He took a couple of deep breaths. The creeping of his flesh told him that thousands of eyes were fixed on their little group. Instinctively he took a step backward toward the relative security of the tree. Jack turned, caught his eye and winked. Jim gave a feeble grin, but he felt better. On his other side, Eirian stared into the darkness, her fists clenched and a determined expression on her face. Both Jack and Yvain grasped their staves in both hands in a protective gesture. Jim pressed his eyes tight closed and collected his thoughts, prepared to do what he could to defend his friends.
Then they heard the howling, faint at first but growing in strength as the wind rose from the bowels of Poll Ifrinn and swirled over the rocky battlements that contained it. Jim flinched away from the icy blast and saw them, the white faces pock-marking the surrounding darkness, and the three Horsemen on their spectral mounts picking their way slowly up from the wilderness below. As he stared in horror, the rider in the middle caught his eye and smiled, a crooked, lipless smile. Teeth and bone grinned from the side of his face, which was just a blind mess of burn scars. From the other side of the ravaged face stared a single, immobile red eye.
Jim felt slightly sick, and he groped wildly behind him for the way back into the tree. Beneath his hand the trunk was massive and solid and unbroken. The opening had closed.
* * * *
They waited in the driving sleet for Tancred to return. Kat kept watch, never taking her eyes from the point on the ridge where he had disappeared from view. The horses huddled close to one another beneath the overhanging rock, forming a barrier against the cold with the heat from their bodies. Garance listened without interru
pting as Carla and Tully explained what she was expected to do. When they had finished, she gave a short laugh.
“But, Carla, your father has never in his life listened to me! Why do you think we spent so much time apart? It suited us too well. Living together would have destroyed us. You never really knew Lucio—his ambition, his pride. Nobody else was ever competent enough, none of the organizations he set up could run without him. Even his…friends, all those glamorous, brainless women, they were just to prove to himself that he was still attractive. They never meant anything more.” She shook her head sadly. “It could have been so different. If only your brother had lived. If only our first attempt at starting a family had not ended so tragically. Lucio never wanted another child, said he had been hurt too much when Luigi died. Even when you were born, he still refused to give anything of himself. He fled the house rather than risk being hurt again. I didn’t feel the same. I had to have another child to fill the space. He fills the space by never standing still. Pride is what drives him now. He moved out of my influence long ago.”
Carla listened to her mother’s speech of despair with clenched fists. Tully knew she hadn’t given in. Her voice filled with determination, a refusal to believe that the bonds uniting her parents were broken.
“But I’ve seen him, Mamma. I’ve looked into his face. Even in the depths of that single mad eye, I could see. He’s caught in a body that some other force controls, and he’s frightened, Mamma. You have to try to get him back. You have to!”
Garance hugged her daughter tightly and laughed. “Of course I’ll try, you silly girl. Why else am I here?”
Kat pushed between the horses, her face dripping with water despite the fur-rimmed hood of her coat. “He’s back,” she whispered breathlessly.
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