The Bride Wore Black Leather

by Simon R. Green

  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 . . .”

  “Because it would have given you the wrong impression,” said Julien. “I wanted you to see him as he really was.”

  “I have,” I said.

  Julien sighed tiredly. “As a demonstration of power, what he did here was pretty impressive.”

  “Until the Righteous Sisters turned up and kicked his psychedelic arse.”

  We looked around, but they were gone, too. Green Henge stood silent and alone, as before, and the maze was very still.

  “They would have let that thing kill us,” I said. “Like it did all the other poor bastards in the maze. I’ve half a mind to burn the bloody thing down before we leave.”

  “But you won’t,” said Julien. “Because that’s the kind of thing the Sun King would do.”

  “Don’t mess with my head,” I said. “Because that’s the kind of thing the Sun King would do.”

  “Touché.”

  “Threeché.” I raised my voice. “I know you’re still listening, Sisters! I want all those bodies removed from the maze! And no more hedge things! Or I will come back and find a way to really mess things up around here.”

  There was no reply, bu
t I had no doubt they’d heard me. I looked at Julien, and he was smiling again.

  “And that . . . is why I wanted you as Walker.”

  I shrugged. “There’s some shit I just won’t put up with.”

  “Exactly.” And then Julien frowned, considering. “The Sisters only stopped the Sun King because they had the backing of the Stones. And because he didn’t really care. I’m not sure even the Stones could have stood against him if he’d thought they were a real threat. He was having fun, showing off his power. He wiped out the hedge thing with a thought, and he did bring sunlight to the Nightside; for a while. No-one has ever done that before.”

  “But as a demonstration of getting his own way . . . not so much,” I said. “If the Very Righteous Sisters could slap him down, even for a moment, I have to wonder what will happen when he goes head to head with something nasty from the Street of the Gods.”

  “I saw him work miracles, back in the sixties,” said Julien. “I can’t believe he’s grown weaker since then.”

  “Not weaker,” I said. “Not as such. But didn’t he seem to you . . . as though he couldn’t quite get his act together?”

  “As though he always had something else on his mind! Yes! He never had any doubts, any second thoughts, back in San Francisco.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Where do you think he’s gone now?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t put anything in my head if that’s what you’re thinking. Can’t you find him, with your gift?”

  “No,” I said. “I already tried. I can’t even look in his direction. It’s like staring into the sun. The light blinds me.” I felt suddenly tired, so I sat down on the flat stone in the middle of the Circle, taking the weight off my feet. After a moment’s hesitation, Julien joined me.

  “I don’t think the Sisters will approve of this casual disrespect,” he said.

  “They can blow it out their ears,” I said. “Starting with Sister Dorethea. I don’t approve of them. Look, you know the Sun King best. Where would he go next, in the Nightside?”

  Julien shook his head. “He’s beyond me, John. He always was. I only knew to come here because he told me. And if he could get inside my head that easily, he already knows everything I might plan to do against him.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” I said quickly. “Just because he has access to your thoughts doesn’t mean he has access to your mind. Or your soul. Come on, Julien, give it your best guess. Where should we go next?”

  “He really wasn’t the man I remembered,” Julien said slowly. “His wisdom is gone, never mind his common sense, and his old easy confidence has been replaced by arrogance. You must have noticed: he was happy to talk, but he didn’t want to listen. That wasn’t like the old him at all. He always had time for everyone, back in Haight-Ashbury. He used to preach; now he boasts. He felt . . . wrong, as though he was acting like he thought the Sun King should. Like a bad copy of his previous self. What did the Entities from Beyond do to him, for all those years? Mental contact with them made Harry Webb into a living god. But years of close communion with the Entities . . .”

  “Have made him into a real prick,” I said.

  Julien actually winced. “I do wish you’d avoid such vulgar language, John. You are Walker now.”

  “Stick to the point,” I said, not unkindly. “I think the Entities spent all those years programming him, impressing their true purpose on him. Whatever that might be. So that when they finally released him back into the world . . . he’d follow their Dream instead of his.”

  “I don’t know,” said Julien. “Maybe. Perhaps . . .”

  “Should we try the Street of the Gods?” I said. “There’s got to be a whole bunch of Entities and beings on the Street who could give him a good run for his money.”

  But Julien was already shaking his head firmly. “The Sun King was always so much more than a living god, even back then. Damned if I know what he is now. Do we really want to start a god war in the Nightside? Particularly when we can’t be sure of the outcome?”

  “All right,” I said. “Should we go to the other real place of god power in the Nightside? St. Jude’s?”

  “You really want to bring the Lord of Thorns into this? There’d be smiting everywhere and nowhere safe to hide.”

  “All right, all right! You think of something! Where would the Sun King want to go next, in the Nightside? Who does he know here, apart from you?”

  “Ah . . . There was someone,” Julien said slowly. “Someone he knew, back in our Haight-Ashbury days. A woman . . .”

  “Of course!” I said. “There’s always a woman! Who is she?”

  “She was the Goldberry to his Tom Bombadil,” said Julien. “His first real love and his first true passion, back in the Summer of Love. She was called Princess Starshine then, when she walked alongside the Sun King. She had power, too, briefly, from being so close to him. But when the time came, the Sun King didn’t take his Princess Starshine into the White Tower with him. He left her outside, with the others. After the Tower vanished, she waited and waited for it to reappear. She was the last to give up hope and the last to leave.”

  “And she’s here, now, in the Nightside?”

  “Has been for years. She’s a doctor, at the Hospice of the Blessed Saint Margaret. I know that because the Night Times helps raise funds to keep it going. No National Health Service here, unfortunately. If the Sun King knows she’s there, I think he’d go there. For old times’ sake. If . . . there’s anything left of the man I remember.”

  “If you want to bring a man down, go through the woman he loves,” I said, rubbing my hands together happily. “Good thinking, Julien.”

  “I used to be such a good man, once,” he said sadly.

  “So did the Sun King,” I said. “And look where that got him.”

  SEVEN

  All Kinds of Miracles

  When we finally stepped out of the alcove in the Garden wall and back into the Land of Down and Outs, I was surprised to see a long black limousine already there, waiting for us. It looked more than a little out of place in the kind of area where the words appalling and disgusting take on whole new and very extreme meanings. I took a quiet look around, but the locals had all disappeared, presumably to sleep off their recent feast. Julien Advent was already opening the back door of the limousine. I stayed right where I was and gave him my very best meaningful cough. Julien looked back and gave me his best urbane smile.

  “I called for the car. My stomach has had more than enough of travelling by Portable Timeslip, while many of my nerves are currently on strike for better working conditions. You represent the Authorities now, John, and are fully entitled to all the little perks that go with your new position.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “But this goes on your expense account, not mine.”

  Julien smiled briefly. “You’re learning. Now get in, so I can shut the door. We’re letting all the ambience in.”

  I slid into the back seat, and Julien followed me in quickly. The door shut itself after him, hardly making a sound. I leaned back in the richly padded seat and let loose a great sigh of pleasure as my muscles were finally able to relax. Julien picked up the interior phone and told the driver where to go. A uniformed chauffeur, of course, though I quickly realised that chauffeuse was more correct. A tall and elegant young lady in a white leather uniform, complete with a peaked white leather cap, over a platinum blonde buzz cut. She nodded briefly to Julien, without looking back.

  “Sure thing, chief. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  A glass partition slid up, separating us from the driver. Presumably because Julien knew there were all sorts of questions I wanted to ask about how she and Julien knew each other. You can never have too much gossip. Julien had already opened up the interior bar, revealing a sparkling area full of crystal decanters. He helped himself to a glass of very good brandy, and I helped myself to a decanter. Julien gave me a reproving look. I grinned at him, and toasted him with the d
ecanter.

  “Any snacks in there? Chief?”

  “No,” said Julien, very firmly, and he shut the bar quickly before I could go rooting around in it. “But the limousine does come equipped with an ejector seat for those passengers who’ve outstayed their welcome. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  I drank some really good brandy, straight from the decanter, and Julien winced. I think sometimes I’m a bit too much for his delicate sensibilities. Probably because I don’t possess any. He made a point of not looking in my direction as he picked up the interior phone again and contacted the news desk at the Night Times, to catch up with what had been happening in his absence. He listened for a while, then frowned and put the phone on speaker, so I could hear what he was hearing. It appeared that Brilliant Chang had already turned in his piece on what had gone down at the Ball of Forever, and I had come out of it surprisingly well. The voice at the other end of the phone read out some of the choicer bits, managing to sound both shocked and scandalised while enjoying himself immensely. Julien nodded.