Drake nodded. Emrys, as the Grail, had started out stern and oppositional. Later he had become less forthright in his views, and Drake had assumed this to mean that Emrys had come round to his way of thinking and giving him his blessing. Obviously he had been mistaken about that.
“More and more I realised I had blundered terribly,” Winterton continued. “It took me a while to admit it to myself. It took me longer still to admit that I had to do something about it. That I had to stop you.”
“Stop me?” said Drake.
“The only way I could. Since you were unlikely to listen to reason, I resorted to indirect, practical action. I created the eidolons. Auberon LeRoy, Reed Fletcher, Ajia Snell and all the others.”
Drake felt suddenly sick. “You,” he gasped. “You brought them back to life. You empowered them.”
“To curb your power, Derek. Your autocracy had become unrestrained, and someone needed to bring your reign to a close. It has been a slow plan to evolve. It has taken years to ripen, and there have been occasions when I feared it would never come to full fruition. Now we see that, at long last, it has.”
“But you’ve been encouraging me all this time. Sanctioning what I do.”
“You have needed little encouragement. What I have been doing, for the most part, is leaving you to pursue your agenda while quietly, covertly pursuing mine. Day after day you have been visiting me and I have been telling you only what you want to hear.”
“You mean lying to me?”
“Merely maintaining the pretence of being your ally. Giving you as much support as you’ve needed and no more. I could not have you suspecting that there was anything amiss, so I have diligently played the part of the kind, ever amenable mentor.”
“While all along…”
“All along plotting your overthrow,” Winterton said with a confirming nod. “I used to think of myself as the Merlin to your Arthur, Derek. Perhaps I even am the eidolon of Merlin, who knows? He was Welsh and wise, after all, and so am I. Back in my City days people even used to call me a wizard, when it came to financial dealings at least. But whether I am Merlin or not, it seemed only right and proper that, as the one who built you up to be a new Arthur, I should also be the one to bring you down. You are my responsibility. When a dog catches rabies and poses a threat to the public, the onus is surely on the owner to eradicate the animal before it can do too much harm.”
“Is that all I am to you?” Drake said, crestfallen. “A rabid dog?”
“More’s the pity, because you were once such an obedient, reliable hound.”
Harriet moved to Drake’s side. “Don’t listen to him, Derek,” she hissed. “This man’s not Emrys, any more than he’s Edward Winterton. He’s an impostor.” She clutched his arm. “Derek, you’re Christ. Can’t you see that? You are the Messiah arisen!”
Drake stared at her, his heart almost breaking. “But he––Emrys––he told me who I was,” he said, gesturing at Winterton. “I’m King Arthur. I have to be. And he told me to come down here for the endgame.”
“The endgame,” Winterton echoed. “Your downfall.”
“No!” Drake barked, finding sudden strength. He moved to the table and held a hand over the Nuclear Briefcase. “Don’t move, any of you, or I’ll…”
“What will you do?” Winterton said, his Welsh tones like honey. “Sanction the deaths of millions of innocent people, merely because their leader has had the temerity to oppose you? Even you, Derek, aren’t that mad.” He licked his lips. “Move away from the table.”
Drake’s hand hovered closer to the bright red button.
“Think about what you’re doing, Derek,” Winterton warned. “Where will it end? Vasilyev will retaliate. Untold millions of your people––the people you claim to represent––will perish needlessly, as well as untold millions in Russia and other nations. This great country will be no more.”
“And the alternative?” Drake asked.
Winterton nodded his leonine head. “The alternative? You will seek to form a coalition government with Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with yourself still acting as Prime Minister.”
“Don’t trust him!” Harriet cried. “You heard what he said.” She pointed to the lawns. “He caused all that in order to bring you down, not to have you installed as a puppet leader.”
Her words were punctuated by a deafening explosion that seemed to shake the very foundations of the castle––an explosion followed by a profound silence. Everyone in the room, with the exception of Winterton and Drake, cowered as if in expectation of further blasts.
“Step away from the table, Derek,” Winterton warned.
Drake’s sweating hand moved closer still to the nuclear button.
Then the door swung open and Major Dominic Wynne burst into the room.
AJIA SLIPPED INTO Puck mode and raced up the staircase in pursuit of Major Wynne.
She turned a corner on the stairs and stopped suddenly. Before her was the open door of what looked like a study, and through it she made out Wynne standing just inside the door, brandishing his rifle. Beyond him she made out a tall, portly man she recognised as the politician Edward Winterton, a dark-haired girl, and Daisy Hawthorn. The other occupants of the room were hidden from view.
“Over there! Move it, or everyone dies. You,” Wynne said to Winterton. “Drop the gun or face the consequences.”
With Wynne’s rifle trained on him, Winterton lowered the machine gun to the rug.
“Drake,” Wynne said, turning to the politician, “move away from the table.”
“Since when have I started taking orders from you?” Drake snarled.
“You’re finished,” Wynne said. “In case you need telling, your days in power are over. This is a coup.”
“Dominic?” This was Harriet Drake, stepping forward, smiling at the soldier, a hand outstretched as if to coax a recalcitrant animal. “What are you saying? We need to talk about this.”
“Stand back!” Wynne barked.
“We need to talk, Dominic,” Harriet wheedled. “Is this all about me?”
Drake stared from Harriet to Wynne. The Paladin looked incredulous. “You?” Wynne said. “Oh, it’s about far more than you, Harriet. For all that we––”
Harriet stepped towards the major, smiling. “Now then, Dominic…”
“I said stand back, or I’ll…”
“Dominic.” She took another step towards him.
“I swear I’ll…”
Harriet laughed, and it was the very last sound she made.
Wynne carried out his threat and squeezed the trigger of his rifle. Pieces of Harriet Drake’s skull exploded across the room and her headless body slipped to the floor, severed arteries pulsing crimson jets of blood across the Persian rug.
“No!” Drake wept.
Winterton turned his head minimally and stared at Ajia.
And she heard a voice in her head. Winterton’s voice.
Move, it said.
She took advantage of the confusion to sprint through the door and conceal herself behind the full-length curtains at the far end of the room, her heart pounding.
Major Wynne swung his gun on Derek Drake, who was staring down in disbelief at his wife’s corpse. “Your turn, sir,” he snarled, applying first pressure to the trigger.
Drake shook his head, his face a mask of despair, and brought his hand down on the nuclear button.
And Ajia ran.
She sprinted from behind the curtains and dived across the table, her sprawling leap taking the Nuclear Briefcase with her. Drake’s hand slapped polished oak.
She hit the floor, clutching the briefcase to her chest, rolled and came upright.
She faced Derek Drake across the table, her heart pounding.
Startled, Wynne relaxed his trigger finger slightly but still kept the rifle trained on Drake.
“Bitch!” Drake spat at Ajia, something more horrible than hatred twisting his features. “Give me that!”
She snapped
the briefcase shut, glaring at the man she detested. “Come and get it if you want it so much, you coward.”
He stepped forward, reaching out. “Give. Me. The. Briefcase. You. Insolent. Little. Cunt.”
Ajia remained very still, her heart pounding. He would let him get within range, then she would sling the case at his head and hopefully brain the bastard.
“Enough!” Major Wynne cried.
Drake whirled, sneering. “Really, Dominic? You wouldn’t dare. You don’t have the––”
Wynne fired, shocking Ajia. A volley of bullets shattered Derek Drake’s head.
She dived, and Drake’s death became a slow-motion grand guignol which would replay in her memory for a long time: the bullets entering the back of his head and the skull exploding along with an ejecta of brain, blood and shrapnelled bone which splattered across the oaken tabletop.
Wynne spun round, looking for Ajia as she ran, and during that second of confusion Reed Fletcher appeared in the doorway.
“Put it down, Wynne!” he ordered.
The major pirouetted towards the door, bringing his rifle to bear on Fletcher.
Who shot Major Wynne through the forehead with a single bullet. The Paladin slumped bonelessly to the floor.
Behind Fletcher, Mr LeRoy stood with Smith and Dustin Wolfson.
Mr LeRoy stepped into the room and took in the scene before him. “We seem,” he said, “to have arrived at the party a little late.”
Ajia stared around at the bloody carnage, at the bleeding bodies and the living.
No more killing, she thought. It’s over. Please, let it be over.
She moved across the room, slowly this time, and fell into Mr LeRoy’s outstretched arms.
Epilogue
BOGGARTS AND BROWNIES, elves and all manner of other creatures––not to mention humans––moved around the dancefloor in drunken approximation of an Irish reel. Dustin Wolfson led the way, hopping and skipping with a brownie girl laughing gaily on his arm. Reed Fletcher cavorted with Daisy Hawthorn, and boggart partnered boggart as if in a contest to find the very worst practitioner of the Terpsichorean art.
Smith had asked Ajia if she would do him the honour of a dance. She had assented, blushing, before bowing out an hour later, thoroughly exhausted. She might have run the equivalent of ten marathons that summer, but an hour hopping about on the dancefloor had given her a raging thirst.
The party thrown by Mr LeRoy at Kensington Town Hall in celebration of his army’s famous victory, one month ago, had been going on all day. As the sun fell over London, the festivities were set to continue well into the early hours.
Ajia found a seat on the raised stage, watching the dancers and enjoying a bottle of ice-cold Brew Dog.
To her right, occupying centre stage, Mr LeRoy sat in a huge armchair like a throne. A comely elf––the spitting image of his dead lover Perry––sat on his right knee, while a brownie girl perched on his left and fed him from a bunch of grapes.
On a large-screen TV next to the stage, tuned to BBC News,
Edward Winterton addressed the nation. It was a repeat of the interview he had given that morning, explaining the current political crisis and suggesting a way forward.
“Following the failed coup that led to the death of Prime Minister Drake,” he said gravely, “I have agreed to lead an all-party emergency government until such time, hopefully in three months or less, as elections can be held.” And later in the interview he had gone on to itemise the many crimes with which Derek Drake had disgraced the office of Prime Minister, not least of which was his own unlawful arrest and six-month detention in the dungeons of Fairleigh Castle.
Neve Winterton plucked a bottle of beer from the cooler and joined Ajia on the stage. “Reed’s been telling me all about you,” she said, “and I must say, I was impressed with what you did that day in the castle.”
Ajia felt her face heating up as the pretty women smiled at her. She shrugged. “Anything I did, then and before, was… what’s the word? Impulsive, reflex action? We were chosen––you, me and all the others. Given gifts by Emrys Sage, and we used them. We looked at what was happening in the country, and used them for the best.”
“So what you did, what we did, that was just impulse?” Neve shook her head. “I don’t buy it. We knew what was right and what was wrong, we thought about the consequences, and we acted.”
Ajia smiled. “Okay, right. But that day in the castle, with Drake’s briefcase––”
“Saving the country, the world,” Neve said, “from nuclear Armageddon.”
Ajia pulled a face. “You know something? When you put it like that, I feel sick. I mean, what if I hadn’t been fast enough? What if Drake had hit the button?”
“Then millions of people, in Britain and Russia and probably also the countries bordering both, would be dead.”
“Don’t. I can’t even think about it.”
She took a self-conscious mouthful of beer. “And you, bringing your father back to life…” She gestured with her bottle “If you’d not done that, if your father hadn’t directed us all to the castle, then Drake might have got away with mass murder.”
Neve laughed. “Don’t thank me, Ajia. All that’s down to who was controlling my father. Emrys Sage. He had it all planned. My father’s resurrection, the convergence of the eidolons on Fairleigh Castle, Drake’s end…”
Ajia looked at the TV screen. “Is Emrys still in control?”
“No, he’s relinquished the power he had over my father. He’s gone back to wherever it is he was, before that day at the castle. My father has only a dim memory of what happened, which is perhaps for the best.”
“And what will you do now?” Ajia asked.
“Oh, carry on with my cryogenic research, most likely,” Neve said. “Try to establish some scientific hypothesis to explain my ability. I have this power now, as Jack Frost or Jackie Frost or whoever. If I can only figure out how it works, and apply it in some practical fashion, then who knows? I might be able to help millions around the world.” She took a swig of beer. “But enough of me. What are your plans?”
They were interrupted by Reed Fletcher and Daisy Hawthorn drunkenly staggering across the stage, hand in hand. “Ajia! Neve!” Fletcher called out. “More beer! I demand more beer!”
Ajia passed them two bottles, and dug two more from the cooler as Dustin Wolfson and his brownie admirer joined them. “Ah, the girl’s a mind-reader and so she is.” He raised his bottle. “To youse all and everyone!”
Ajia looked across the stage to where Smith and Mr LeRoy were in deep discussion. She wandered across to the pair, joined by the others, and Mr LeRoy beamed upon his friends.
“Wayland was asking me,” he said, “about Drake’s power and whence it came.”
“Emrys Sage,” Neve said.
Fletcher hiccuped. “Also known as the Holy Grail, so-called.”
Mr LeRoy leaned to one side, and dug in the commodious pocket of his great coat. He pulled out a small onyx cup decorated with coruscating jewels.
He held it on his palm and raised it into the air before his face.
“The Holy Grail,” he breathed.
The gathering stared at the cup, transfixed.
Mr LeRoy looked around the group, and everyone fell silent. “It falls to me to be its guardian,” he said. “Within this innocent-seeming object resides the essence of the man responsible, in many ways, for what Britain has become. For what we have all become, and I don’t just mean we eidolons gathered here.”
Then, startling them all, a lilting Welsh voice emanated from the Grail and filled the stage.
“The responsibility, and yes, the guilt, for all that sits heavily with me,” said Emrys Sage. “I meant well. I did what I did for the good of the country. To my great and everlasting regret, it turned out that I unleashed a demon. But never again. My interfering is at an end. From now on, the destiny of our great land is in your hands. The hands of its people.”
The destiny of o
ur great land, Ajia thought, and exchanged a knowing look with Mr LeRoy.
Later, Neve said, “You never did tell me what you’re doing next, Ajia.”
Ajia smiled. “You know, I’ve been waiting until after the party. I didn’t want to miss it.”
“And then?”
“I’m going to India in a couple of days, flying to Mumbai. And…” She felt her throat constrict with emotion. “And then I’ll run like the wind,
and search and search, until I find my mother.”
They were startled by a cry from one of the balconies as a brownie pointed into the sky and called out, “Look! Oh, look at them!”
Ajia jumped from the stage and ran to the balcony. She joined the brownie and looked up to where she was pointing. The sun was setting across the darkened rooftops of the capital, and the air was filled with the sound of a hundred wings.
Ajia looked up into the sky, her heart soaring.
All across London, parakeets were coming home to roost.
THE AGE OF WAR!
Zachary Bramwell, better known as the comics artist Zak Zap, is pushing forty and wondering why his life isn’t as exciting as the lives of the superheroes he draws. Then he’s shanghaied by black-suited goons and flown to Mount Meru, a vast complex built atop an island in the Maldives. There, Zak meets a trio of billionaire businessmen who put him to work designing costumes for a team of godlike super-powered beings based on the ten avatars of Vishnu from Hindu mythology.
The Ten Avatars battle demons and aliens and seem to be the saviours of a world teetering on collapse. But their presence is itself a harbinger of apocalypse. The Vedic “fourth age” of civilisation, Kali Yuga, is coming to an end, and Zak has a ringside seat for the final, all-out war that threatens the destruction of Earth.
‘One of the SF scene’s most interesting, challenging and adventurous authors.’
Saxon Bullock, SFX Magazine on The Age of Ra
‘Lovegrove is vigorously carving out a godpunk subgenre – rebellious underdog humans battling an outmoded belief system. Guns help a bit, but the real weapon is free will.’
Age of Legends Page 42
