He was about to ask what she meant by this when the door began to swing shut, and Rhiannon appeared to recede backwards across the hall as if the image of her was being refracted through bottle glass. She allowed him a smile and a wave and then the door closed silently.
Mallory walked for an hour along the winding path through the idyllic countryside until he became aware that the weather had grown colder and the landscape was cast in muddy greys, greens and browns instead of the vibrant colours of the start of his journey. The air smelled sourer; every sensation was muted after the heightened perceptions to which he had become accustomed. Yet there had been no sign of passing from there to here; the change had happened in the blink of an eye as if the two lands were merged.
As he skidded down a muddy slope, wondering how far he would have to walk and in which direction he needed to go, he heard voices carried faintly on the wind. He ran towards them until they lay on the other side of a ridge, and then he waited. A moment later, Sophie and the travellers came over the top, just as he had seen them in the Wish-Post.
She caught her breath in surprise, but then looked past him coldly. The others — a band of six, four men and two women — made no secret of their dislike for his uniform. Mallory could see that her first instinct was to ignore him, but she couldn't contain herself.
'You're not going to tell me you being here is a coincidence,' she said sourly.
'Is that any way to talk to your rescuer?' Mallory retorted. He enjoyed manipulating the flash of annoyance on her face.
'I need your help like I need my eyes burned out,' she replied, but he noticed she didn't lead the travellers past him.
'OK,' he said, 'but I was only doing my Good Samaritan bit. You're lost in the middle of Salisbury Plain with some very unsavoury things on the loose. And they're possibly very close on your trail.'
'What makes you think we're lost?' a red-headed teenage girl said contemptuously.
'You're heading into the heart of the Plain and I don't think you'd really want to be doing that at this time of day. Not without tents, food and heavy ordnance.'
Sophie looked from Mallory to the sun that he had obviously read. Mallory could tell she was fighting the urge to be confrontational. 'Perhaps we did make a slight mistake,' she said. 'And you would be able to lead us out of here, would you?'
'If you promise to say thank you.'
'OK, I'm sorry,' she snapped. 'If you're offering to help us, we're very grateful. But we're not Christians and you stand no chance of converting us. So why would you want to help us?'
'I help everyone,' Mallory said blithely. He thought for a moment, then added, 'Except people with very bad body odour. And Chelsea fans. I've never forgiven them for David Mellor.'
He marched off a few paces, then realised that no one was following him. Doubt was clear on their faces. A flash of their crippled leader slowly dying in bed mellowed him and he said, 'I'm offering to get you back to Salisbury, after a short detour to pick up a friend, and I don't want anything in return. Understood?'
Sophie nodded. She silently reached an agreement with the others and they all set off together.
After they'd gone about half a mile, Mallory realised that Sophie had increased her pace so she was just behind his shoulder; the others trailed a few yards behind. He slowed, and she accepted the unspoken offer.
'What were you doing there?' she asked, without looking at him.
'Waiting for you.'
'Don't lie.'
'I'm not.'
They walked a few more paces in silence before she snapped, 'Have you lot been spying on us?'
'By my lot, I presume you mean the Knights Templar. Possibly. Quite frankly, I wouldn't put anything past some of the people involved.' She was taken aback by his candidness, and for the first time looked him in the face. He stared back into her eyes, enjoying what he saw there. 'If you're up for an unbelievable story, I'll tell you the truth.'
He proceeded to describe his encounter with Rhiannon, although he left out the nightmare that preceded his journey to that other place. He ended the account with, 'So, I was in Fairyland,' and then waited for her laughter.
Instead, she appeared unduly serious. 'The Celts called it Otherworld,' she said, 'or T'ir n'a n'Og, the Land of Always Summer. The place where the dead go.'
'Well, I'm alive and kicking.'
'The five who everyone says saved us in the war after the Fall,' she said, impatient at his jokes, 'they were supposed to have travelled to T'ir n'a n'Og.'
'The five,' he repeated. He'd heard all the stories about the heroes who had fought during the Fall and dismissed most of them as unbelievable, but now they took on a new significance. He wasn't in any mood to face up to what Rhiannon had told him about following in their footsteps, so he tried to make light of it instead. 'We've come to a right state if I say, "I was in Fairyland," and you treat me like the sanest man on the planet.'
'You were really there?' She looked at him in a different way that he found encouraging. 'What was it like?'
'It was…'He pictured the Court of Peaceful Days and instantly felt a yearning that brought a swell of damp emotion. '… heavenly.'
'I wish I'd seen it,' she said dreamily.
'Maybe you will one day.' He scanned the landscape carefully, trying to recall any landmarks from his vision that might reveal where Miller was. He hoped he would be in time. 'So what are you doing out here?'
'We took a trip up to Stonehenge.' She hugged her arms around her against the cold; she was poorly dressed for the time of year. Mallory took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders in a dismissive way so she didn't think he was doing anything so lame as being courteous. She attempted to fend it off at first, then relented, pulling it tight. She flashed a nervous glance back at the others, but none of them were paying any attention. 'Thank you.'
'Don't mention it. It's not really the time of year for trips, is it?'
'There's a problem with the ley. I can sense it… some of the others can, too, the ones who've worked on their abilities with the Craft. It's weakened, almost seems to be dying out, and it was so powerful before. Stonehenge is one of the main nodes of the Fiery Network. So is Avebury, and Saint Michael's Mount, but Stonehenge was close enough to investigate. We wanted to see if there was any sign of what was causing the problem.'
'That's not very smart, indulging yourself like that. You know the risks on the Plain.'
She bristled. 'Indulgent? The earth is responsible for the wellbeing of the planet — and humanity, for that matter. We've taken it upon ourselves to be the guardians of the Fiery Network, as the Celts were, and the ancient people who were custodians of the land before them.'
'The new Celtic Nation.' His comment sounded more mocking than he had intended.
'Exactly,' she said defiantly. 'There's nothing wrong with continuing their traditions. They believed in the interconnectedness of everything, in being supportive of nature and the planet, which is perfectly sensible in my books.'
'As well as slaughtering anyone who got in their way.'
'That's right. So don't get on my tits.' She swung the cloak around her with a flourish; her delicate features disappeared into the depths of the cowl.
'A big, important mission in life. You couldn't just do stuff for food and beer like everyone else?'
'I'm not like you, Mallory.'
'Yes, they broke the mould.' He spotted a skeletal tree standing alone on a ridge that looked familiar. 'Let's try over there,' he said.
'What are you looking for?'
Mallory ignored her; it was the place, he was sure of it. He picked up his pace and called Miller's name, suddenly terrified he was too late. Why does it matter? he thought as he broke into a run. The way things are, he's going to be dead soon enough anyway. He didn't want to let it get to him — he didn't want anything to get to him. But it did. And he knew it in the speed that he was driving himself across the turf, the desperation that made the blood surge through his head, obscuring S
ophie's yells.
He reached the tree and looked down the other side of the ridge. Miller lay in a crumpled heap where he had fallen, but his eyes were closed, not glassy. Mallory threw himself down the incline. Miller's eyelids flickered open at the vibrations in the ground.
'Mallory. I knew you'd come for me.'
'Don't fool yourself, Miller. I was looking for a pub, and here you are littering the highways and byways.'
Miller smiled, then coughed. Blood spattered across his chin. Mallory knelt down to examine Miller's wounds: his stomach was badly torn and he'd lost a great deal of blood, but hadn't had the benefit of the Court of Peaceful Days to put him right; and he still had both his hands. So it was Gardener, Daniels or Hipgrave who lay dead somewhere in the vicinity of Bratton Camp.
Sophie let out a startled cry as she came over the ridge and saw Miller, but without a second thought she ran down and helped Mallory administer what treatment they could with the contents of his medicine pack.
'I didn't think I'd see you again,' Miller muttered deliriously to Mallory. 'I saw Daniels go down — it hit him in the face. I don't know what happened to Gardener, or Hipgrave.' Tears came at the memory.
'Save your strength, Miller,' Sophie said gently.
Miller tried to focus on her face. 'Sophie? What are you doing here?' Then, 'I knew you two would get together.'
Mallory and Sophie didn't look at each other, but instead busied themselves stitching and daubing ointment. Miller couldn't feel their ministrations, and after a while drifted into a delirious semiconscious state.
Mallory pulled Sophie off to one side. 'I don't think he's going to make it back.'
'I might be able to help.' She turned to the others. 'We need vervain to quell the pain. And see if you can find any mallow, though we'll be lucky at this time of year.' She reeled off another five or six plants unknown to Mallory, each containing some healing attribute. While the travellers headed off to find the items, Sophie said, 'Give me some time on my own. I need to meditate.'
Mallory watched her sitting alone on the top of the ridge, staring into the banks of grey clouds. She looked small in the wild landscape, and part of it, wrapped in the wind and the long grass, the oversized cloak giving her a fragility that only served to emphasise the simple beauty in her features. She remained there, unmoving, graceful, for fifteen minutes before slowly making her way back to him.
'This will work?' he said.
'If I focus correctly.'
'You don't just say a spell?'
'Nothing would be that easy, would it?' The wind whipped a strand of hair across her face. 'The words and the symbols of the ritual are a different kind of language that communicate with the subconscious where the ability lies.'
He made to ask another question, but she put two fingers to his lips to silence him before moving on to Miller. Mallory took himself to the foot of the lonely tree where he could watch the proceedings. Her voice, chanting softly, escaped the whistle of the wind as she knelt over Miller's fragile form. After a while, she threw her head back and said something loudly; he didn't recognise or understand the word but it made his ears ring. He thought, though he couldn't be sure, that he heard an echo rolling across the bleak grasslands.
The ritual lasted fifteen minutes, and when she made her way back to him she looked exhausted. For a while, she sat next to him in silence, slowly drifting back from wherever she had been.
'Are you OK?' he asked.
'Sometimes it takes a lot out of you, depending what you're trying to do.'
No longer delirious, Miller appeared to be resting peacefully. 'Did it do the trick?' Mallory said.
'It should be enough for you to get him back to the cathedral.'
'Thanks.' It was expressed with restraint, but the simple act of saying it warmed her to him.
'You're welcome.'
The others drifted up and sat around quietly before Sophie arranged them into parties to search for wood to make a stretcher for Miller. It took them an hour to construct one, and by the time they set off they knew they wouldn't reach Salisbury before nightfall. Though none of them said anything, Mallory could see the fear buried in the travellers' faces.
They broke for dinner just as the sun was setting. They'd already agreed not to set up camp for the night. Mallory judged that they would be less of a target if they kept on the move, but either way he knew the odds of them making it home safely had shortened considerably.
The last of their provisions went quickly and when they picked up the march again, they were all still hungry. The sunset was a hallucinogenic mix of angry reds and florid purples, spectacular in its own way but oppressive. They watched the shadows race voraciously across the flat landscape with trepidation, wishing they had more weapons, torches, anything that could give them even the illusion of security.
Sophie stayed with Mallory at the head, undisputed leaders of the expedition. Though they couldn't be described as friendly, the travellers were less suspicious of Mallory because Sophie had accepted him. They trailed behind, taking it in turns to pull Miller's stretcher. Eventually night fell, but there was enough of a break in the clouds to allow moonlight to illuminate their way.
'I still can't believe how much the world's changed.' Sophie snuggled deep in the cloak for warmth. 'Yet there's been so much good with all the bad. Take the Craft — it was strong before, but nothing like now.'
Mallory rarely took his eyes off the landscape as he continually tried to discern which shadows were benign and which posed a threat. He had already seen silhouettes circling them, low and bestial, but so far they had chosen to keep their distance. 'We've gone back to a time before science and reason and technology, when people relied on the power within them,' Sophie continued. 'What we have is so important, Mallory, yet we'd all lost sight of it. The Fall, for all the suffering, has let us forge a link with the people we used to be, and should be.'
'Try telling that to someone whose family has just been wiped out by an illness that shouldn't exist in this day and age.'
'I know, it's easy for me to say. But I'm just trying to see the big picture.'
He laughed, then caught himself.
'What's so funny?'
'I wonder how my friends back at the cathedral would take my consorting with a witch.'
She snorted derisively. 'It's about time we got rid of all those stereotypes your lot foisted on us. We were the original religion-'
'You're not going to lay claim to that, are you? Murray and Gardener had an academic approach, but they made huge leaps of logic when they claimed there was a heritage for Wicca stretching back to prehistory.'
'There might not be an unbroken line, although that's debatable. But there's still a basis of ancient traditions.' She looked at him askance, a little surprised. 'You're very well informed, Mallory. Did you have Burn The Witch classes at the cathedral?'
'I'm just well read, one of my very many strengths.' Away to his right, something was keeping pace with them, staying low. He only caught sight of it when the ground rose slightly and it was briefly silhouetted against a moon-silvered cloud.
'One good thing about the Fall is that Wicca is in the ascendancy once again after centuries of repression.'
'Don't get all whiny about it,' he said. 'You're in good company with all the beliefs Christianity has repressed over the last couple of millennia. Everything from tribal faiths in Africa to Taoism in the Far East.'
'What's up with you, Mallory?' Incomprehension filled her voice. 'You're not a Christian — you don't believe in anything, or so you said. So how can you do all this… fighting for something you don't believe in?'
'I told you — it's a job. It pays. It keeps me alive.'
'You're a mercenary.'
'Well, if you want to get into name-calling… witch.'
She couldn't contain a smile at his ridiculous humour and had to look away. 'Don't you take anything seriously?'
'Yes, sex and alcohol.'
'I bet you're a bund
le of laughs in bed.'
'It's not supposed to be funny. With me it's a spiritual experience. You should try it some time.'
'I'd rather cut off an arm,' she said, though he thought he saw the first glimmer that she might mean the opposite.
'Anyway, where's your broomstick?'
'I have one, but I don't use it how you think. And you'd better get any stereotypes out of your head quickly,' she said. 'No hooknosed crones carrying out nasty business over bubbling pots. We were the original wise women, offering advice and help to anyone in the tribes or villages. And we did good deeds, generally, because we all know that whatever we do is brought back to us threefold. It's all about balance, Mallory… a universal constant you can see just by opening your eyes and looking around. But not something your Christian colleagues would ever understand with their horsehair shirts and ascetic, sexually repressed lifestyles.'
'Now who's dealing in stereotypes?'
Her rant was well rehearsed, and even though Mallory knew her arguments, he let her continue while he tried to keep track of whatever was stalking them.
'And we're not Satanists. Does that make me mad when I hear it. There is no Satan in the pagan religions — that's a Christian invention. No personification of pure evil. We look to nature for our guidance, where evil doesn't exist, just a dark side and a light side to everything. Our deity has two aspects: the horned male and the triple goddess of mother, maiden and crone. Christianity demonised the male one, turned him into Satan with the horns and the tail and the cloven hooves, but he's really a god of nature, embodying aspects of the flora and fauna-'
'Sorry to interrupt your history lesson, Sophie, as interesting as it is, but we're about to be attacked.' It seemed that his sword whispered as it slid out of the sheath; an aural trick, nothing else.
Before Sophie could say anything more, the shape loomed towards them. At first, it appeared to be on its knees, then loping like a wolf and finally upright. Mallory had the unnerving feeling it was floating an inch or so above the ground, its legs motionless.
One of the travellers had made the mistake of drifting off to one side. He was in his forties, but prematurely aged through drink and too many drugs, his hair thin on top but long and wiry down the back. He saw it first and let out a shriek that made Mallory's blood run cold. The traveller was rooted for a second, then half-turned to run, but it was too late.
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