World's End

by Mark Chadbourn

  “The heart of the mystery,” the Bone Inspector said icily. “Don’t betray my faith in you. Or you won’t be in a position to tell of this experience to anyone.” His bald threat unnerved them and they refused to meet his piercing stare. Instead, they turned their gaze ahead where a low tunnel dipped down gradually into the depths of the earth. The Bone Inspector led the way with Church at his shoulder, holding the lantern aloft, all of them maintaining an anxious silence.

  They walked for about fifteen minutes, the tunnel widening almost without them noticing it; the light no longer played on the walls, merely faded into the oppressive dark, and the quality of the echoes of their footsteps became duller. It was getting brighter; the lantern’s light was being dwarfed by another, more fulsome blue glow from further ahead. With a jarring mixture of wonder and apprehension, they crept forward until they stood on the lip of a ledge overlooking a lake of the blue energy, churning and roiling as if it was boiling water. Ruth began to ask what it was, but the Bone Inspector shushed her with an impatient wave of his hand. Resting his hands on his knees, he peered into the depths of the blue lake and, as they followed his gaze, they gradually saw a dark shape deep in the azure depths. It was rising; slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, churning the energy even more, until suddenly it broke the surface with its long, serpentine neck before dipping back down below. It was only the briefest glimpse, but they had a sense of something magnificent, of scales gleaming gold and green on a body filled with elegant power.

  “This Fabulous Beast never left,” the Bone Inspector said. “It merely slept.”

  The others cautiously drew themselves upright, listening to the unnatural echoes that bounced around the cavern. “Are you sure it’s safe?” Ruth asked. “It could fry us in a second here.”

  “It could if it wished,” the Bone Inspector said, offering no comfort.

  “It’s the king of them all,” Laura said in a tone which surprised them; it was something she felt instinctively. She pushed her way past them to the edge, but the creature was lost beneath the blue waves.

  “It is the oldest,” the Bone Inspector agreed. “When all the creatures of imagination departed in the Sundering, this one stayed behind to protect the land, keeping the fire alive here in the furnace of the planet. Ready for the time when the power would flow freely again.” He looked at Church knowingly.

  “Is that one of the things we’re supposed to do?” Church asked. The Bone Inspector shook his head contemptuously.

  “We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing!” Ruth protested. “We have no idea what a Brother or Sister of Dragons is. Why everyone thinks we’re one. What’s going on at all!” The stress brought a snap to the end of the sentence.

  “Don’t lose it,” Laura chided.

  “I’m not your teacher.” The Bone Inspector walked to the edge and began to scan around the cavern. “I’m giving you a helping hand here, but after this you’re on your own. To be honest, I don’t think you’re up to the job.”

  “What do you know,” Laura muttered.

  When he turned she thought he was going to hit her with the staff, but instead he used it to point to the wall of the cavern nearest to them. “There’s a path that goes right round the edge of the lake to the far side. You might find what you’re looking for there. Or you might not.”

  Church squinted to see where he was pointing. “It looks a bit precarious. It’s only about a foot across.”

  “Better not look down then,” Ruth said.

  The Bone Inspector caught her arm before she could walk away. “Just one of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the one whose home this is will only let one of you go.”

  They stared into the blue depths for a moment, considering this, and then Church said, “I suppose we have to trust you. But how can we be sure it won’t attack even one of us?”

  “It senses the dragon-spirit,” the Bone Inspector said. “One ofyou will be safe.”

  “What are you saying? We’re family?”

  “Not in any way you’d understand,” the Bone Inspector replied curtly.

  Church sighed. “Looks like-“

  “Not so fast, leader-man,” Laura said. “I admire your chivalry and all that, but I want to do this one.”

  “No way!” Ruth was shaking her head forcefully. “She’s probably after the talisman for herself-“

  “So you don’t trust me,” Laura snapped. “But you had better start doing so, because this is a partnership and I have an equal say. If you believe what Mystic Meg said and you believe I’m one of the five big cheeses, then you have to at least listen to me.”

  “I don’t know …” Church chewed on a knuckle.

  “I say no,” Ruth said firmly.

  The Bone Inspector snorted with derision. “There isn’t a hope.”

  “He’s right.” Church scrubbed a hand over his face, hoping he was making the right decision. “We can’t start off this way. We have to have some kind of faith in ourselves.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Laura said with a broad grin.

  “I still say no,” Ruth added a little childishly.

  Without a backward glance, Laura headed over to the path. She caught her breath when she saw it. Church had been right: barely a foot wide, with a precipitous drop into the roiling blue energy. Without showing her nervousness, she pressed her back against the rock wall and confidently stepped out on to the ledge.

  Anxiety had turned Laura’s shoulders and stomach into knots of steel cable, but she had been unable to resist the pull that had forced her to look down at the surface of the lake. The sinuous body of the Fabulous Beast occasionally broke the surface, as if it were shadowing her progress, but even the slightest glimpse filled her with excitement; she felt like a child again.

  The inside of her mouth tasted metallic from the blue energy which spouted up from the surface in an effect which reminded her of a lava lamp; every tiny sound she made was strangely distorted by the cavern and the energy into something that was almost hallucinatory. She had to keep clinging on to the wall, feeling with her foot as she took each step. It was laborious and terrifying, but she was making good progress. Church and the others were lost to the blue haze and now the cavern walls had started to close in on both sides, allowing her to see things which both chilled and intrigued her. Human bones protruded from the rock, as well as the remnants of other skeletons which were not remotely human, nor animal either; they were yellowed and pitted with great age. Cor roded helmets, swords and chain mail hung from ledges, next to axes and rougher tools from older times. And there was treasure, jewels beyond imagining, gold artefacts which still gleamed, mysterious objects: it was like a magpie’s nest of historical plunder, all scattered on rocky outcroppings or lower ledges.

  The cavern grew smaller and smaller until the walls were less than fifteen feet apart and Laura feared she would eventually become trapped. Then, as she made her way into what appeared to be a separate cavern, they widened out once more. This cave was much smaller than the other, and the ledge opened on to what Laura could only describe as a beach, where the blue energy lapped like surf.

  Cautiously, she explored towards the rear wall of the cavern. As she neared, she saw the sheer face was intricately carved with symbols and shapes that were unmistakably Celtic: spirals, circles interlocking, infinite lines, faces, stylised animals, a dragon. It seemed to have some sort of meaning beyond simple design, but she had no idea what it was. Further along the wall was an alcove framed by two carved trees forming an arch with their intertwined branches. At the foot were severed heads, hollow-eyed with bared teeth; peering through the branches was a face made out of leaves.

  Although the alcove appeared to be shallow, it was heavily shadowed and she couldn’t tell what lay within its depths. There seemed little else of note around, so she stepped in for a better look and instantly realised her mistake.

  With a deep rumble, some hitherto hidden d
oor slammed behind her, shutting her in utter dark. A second later there was movement, a tremor of a touch at her ankle, her back, her neck. Something like bony fingers closed tightly around her wrists, yanking her arms up and to the side, caught in her hair, pinched her waist. Laura couldn’t help herself, she opened her mouth and screamed.

  The sound stifled in her throat as, with a brutality that surprised even her cruelly disciplined, modern, mature self, she forced calm on the frightened little girl struggling to escape. Don’t be pathetic, she thought furiously. But it was so dark, and so claustrophobic, and she had no idea what was gripping her: things that felt like fingers, felt like bone, felt alive yet dead.

  The door at her back was solid rock; no amount of pushing would budge it at all. She estimated a gap of six inches in front of her face, and if she moved from side to side her shoulders brushed the walls. It was a tomb. She choked back panic again. Stay calm, stay calm. Surely the Fabulous Beast wouldn’t have allowed her to this secret spot just to have her sealed in a stone wall. Frantically, she tried to remember the carvings on the wall in case they had offered any instructions to escape the trap. Steel bands seemed to be closing across her chest and she was sure it was getting harder to breathe. Was the alcove airtight? She struggled against whatever was gripping her, but that only made it tighter. The panic started to come again, black waves that threatened to drown her, until she was gasping, feeling everything fall apart. And then, suddenly, a moment of lucidity that she clung to with the desperation of a drowning woman. She suddenly went limp, relaxing every muscle as she slumped forward. In response, the hands loosened their grip and, as she continued to play dead, they eventually fell away: the trap was for a threat who would fight, not for a friend who would offer themselves supinely. Or perhaps it was more than that, she thought. Perhaps it was a test of some kind.

  “Abracadabra,” she said hopefully. She ran her fingers over the wall in front of her. It was uniformly smooth, except for one area where there were faint indentations. In the impenetrable dark, she could focus on her sense of touch without any distractions: a circle, and within it two smaller circles. On the left, a line snaked out and ended in a hole as big as her fingertip. On the right, another line started to snake out, but was abruptly curtailed. Laura pictured the outline in her mind, and after a moment of deliberation she realised what it was: a map of the Avebury Dracontium; except the curving right hand line should have extended, mirroring the one on the other side. She continued tracing it to where it should have ended and felt a small lump.

  Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She pressed hard and the raised area sank in. A second later, there was a corresponding click and a small hatch opened at head height, flooding the alcove with a diffuse blue light. In the newly exposed area lay a shiny black stone as big as the palm of her hand. When Laura plucked it out, she was surprised, and a little disturbed, that it felt like skin, warm and soft. As she slipped it into her pocket, the doors slid back and, with a relieved gulp of dank air, she stepped back out into the cavern.

  “This waiting is terrible.” Church sat with his legs dangling over the edge above the lake of blue energy; he had the disturbing feeling that if he pushed himself off he would be able to walk across its surface.

  “Now you know how I felt in Salisbury.” Ruth was still annoyed he had allowed Laura to go on such an important mission; she was more angry at herself for feeling that way. The Bone Inspector had left them alone and was waiting silently in the shadows near the tunnel through which they entered.

  Church stared into the blue depths, his hand unconsciously going to the Black Rose in his jacket; since they had gone underground it had felt horribly cold, like a block of ice burning his skin, and now the discomfort was starting to make him a little queasy. “Brother of Dragons. What does that mean exactly? I wish somebody would give us a look at the script. Why are we so special?”

  “Don’t you feel special?” She controlled an urge to slip an arm around his shoulders and hug him. Since he had returned from the Watchtower, he seemed different; darker somehow, more intense, if that were possible. That odd conjunction of emotional fragility and strength of character moved her on some deep level so acutely, at times she wondered if she was falling ill, although she knew the truth, and that was just as bad.

  “Not in the way all these weird people are intimating,” he said. “I’ve always felt different. Even at school I knew I wasn’t like other kids. She came to me, you know? When I was a boy.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman in the Watchtower.”

  “There you are, then. You were different right from the start.”

  “But I don’t feel it inside me. I feel normal, like I always have done.”

  “I don’t know if anybody does feel different until they’re called upon to-” She was interrupted by a call from Laura, who was edging her way along the last stretch of the ledge.

  They ran to meet her as she stepped back on to the rock shelf. “We’d just about given up on you,” Church said.

  “Bad pennies always turn up. You should know that.” She dipped into her pocket and pulled out the stone; it seemed to glow with an inner light. “Look what I found.”

  Church and Ruth gathered round. “Is that it? Wow! I expected a lump of rock or something,” Ruth said.

  Church looked at her curiously. “It is a lump of rock.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a diamond,” Ruth said incredulously.

  “Are you both insane? It’s a black stone, like polished obsidian.”

  They looked from one to the other in disbelief until the Bone Inspector stepped up. “Save your breath. It has no true shape in this world. It’s fluid, like everything from the Other Place. Our tiny little minds can’t grasp it, so we give it some kind of shape to make sense of it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Ruth said. “How are we-“

  “It doesn’t matter what things look like,” the old man said with exasperation, “just as long as you know what they are.”

  Church peered at the stone in Laura’s hands. “The first of the four talismans. What does it do?”

  Laura held it out to the Bone Inspector for advice, but the old man backed away hastily. “Don’t bring it near me! It’s too powerful. It’s your burden now.”

  “But what does it do?”

  “It doesn’t do anything,” the Bone Inspector snapped. “It’s not a toy! It has a purpose which I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later. Now enough of the fool questions. Let’s get back to the light. And not the way we came either. I have no doubt our friends from Windmill Hill will be waiting for us on West Kennet Avenue.”

  He led them to another tunnel off to one side. As they made their way uphill by the light of the lantern, Church said to Laura, “So did you have any trouble getting it?”

  “Easy as pie,” she replied.

  They emerged blinking into the warm morning light on Beckhampton Avenue, the snaking route on the other side of Avebury. After the dank passages, the air was fragrant with spring flowers and the verdant aromas of the countryside.

  “You leave here quickly now and don’t look back,” the Bone Inspector said gruffly. “Dawdle too much and you’ll find the Devil at your heels.”

  “Where are you going now?” Ruth asked.

  “I’ve got a country full of ancient places to tend, graves to visit, old bones to check, and in these times I think they’ll need me more than ever.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Church said, stretching out a hand which the old man ignored. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Aye. And don’t you forget it. I bloody well hope I’ve done the right thing. Don’t go and ruin it all.”

  Then he turned and was loping away, over a gate and into the fields, faster than they would have believed, almost dropping to all fours at times so that he seemed more animal than man as he disappeared into the countryside.

  “We could have used his help,” Ruth said regretfully.

&nb
sp; “We don’t need any crumbly old folk.” Laura replaced her sunglasses after the dark of the cavern. “We’ve got youth, good looks and sex on our side.”

  “Look at this.” Church held up the lantern; the flame was now flickering towards the south-west.

  They hurried through the quiet streets until they reached the car, and then they were speeding out of the village before anyone noticed.

  On West Kennet Avenue, the cloud of whirling, flapping crows suddenly turned towards the south-west. A guttural voice filled with the grunts of beasts rolled out from the heart of it, and four shadows seemed to separate from the base of the hedges. The voice barked and snorted again, incomprehensible to human ears, and all the birds, and the cows lowing in the fields fell silent.

  chapter eight

  the light that never goes out

  ou want to push me completely over the edge, you go ahead and play Sinatra one more time.” Laura gave the back of Church’s seat a sharp kick. “Because we’ve only heard `Come Fly with Me,’ like, what, a thousand times? Music-induced psychosis is not a pretty thing to see.”

  Church ejected the tape with irritation. “What do you want, then?”

  “Somebody who’s not dead would be nice.”

  “I hate to say it, but I’m with her on this one,” Ruth chipped in.

  “Fine. Gang up on me.”

  Laura rested her arms on the back of his seat, her breath bringing a bloom to his neck. “Have you got anything that makes your ears bleed?”

  “An icepick?”

  “How about some golden oldies, like, say, The Chemical Brothers?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you like music that makes your blood boil?”

  His first reaction was to say I used to, but he realised how pathetic it sounded. If truth be told, his irritation with Laura came more from how she pointed up the parts of his character that he had lost than from her forthright manner.