The Devil in green da-1

by Marc Chadbourn

  The Caretaker placed his fingertips together and stared into the space amongst them. 'This place lies between your world and the Far Lands. It lies amid all possible worlds. It lies within all worlds. It encompasses all worlds.'

  'Well, that explains everything,' Mallory sighed.

  'Oh, Mallory,' Miller complained. He turned back to the Caretaker. 'But it came out of nowhere,' he said. 'One day it was just here, attached to the cathedral we knew.'

  'Aye. It would seem that way.'

  Gradually, the Caretaker's words began to strike a chord with Mallory. The giant appeared to be suggesting that there was a benign aspect to the new buildings, as if the manifestation wasn't connected to the oppressive presence beyond the walls. 'Why did it appear?' he asked pointedly.

  The Caretaker eyed him. 'You have decided to rejoin the conversation, Brother of Dragons?' Mallory looked away. 'It was, in a way, summoned, or dragged, or manifested. Your home… your Church… has always been a place of power. The Blue Fire has flowed through it since the beginning, fuelled by the wishes of worshippers, and fuelling them in return. Yet now it is like a wellspring of the lifeblood of Existence. Its light shines across all time and all place, too powerful by far, warping the very fabric, altering the Fixed Lands and the Far Lands, calling the dead back from the Grim Lands. Too powerful for you Fragile Creatures. It will make you sick.'

  Mallory considered this new information. What could have made the earth energy stronger, and how was it linked to everything else that was happening? At least it explained the ghosts from the ossuary that had been glimpsed around the cathedral. Yet he felt uncomfortable that the spirit-energy was powerful enough to call them back from what the Caretaker called the Grim Lands.

  'But what caused the power to get stronger?' Miller echoed Mallory's thoughts. 'And why does it look like our cathedral? Only bigger. And scarier.'

  The Caretaker didn't answer, but a notion came to Mallory as he pondered the question. 'That's just the way we see it, right?'

  'We all build cathedrals for our aspirations, Brother of Dragons,' the Caretaker said enigmatically.

  'And you're with it, wherever it's found,' Mallory said. 'Some kind of universal sacred place.'

  'I am the Caretaker.'

  'Then who's in charge?'

  'I don't want to hear,' Miller said to Mallory. He looked queasy. 'This is doing my head in. I can't understand what it all means!'

  'What it means,' Mallory said slowly, 'is that something happened at the cathedral that brought this place to us, and now it's affecting all of us.'

  'Then it has nothing to do with the Devil?' Miller looked at the Caretaker. 'You don't work for the Devil?'

  'He doesn't work for the Devil,' Mallory said.

  'And he doesn't work for the killer?' Miller covered his face with his hands. At this, Mallory looked to the Caretaker; in his eyes there were stars, whole galaxies.

  'You must look to your own kind,' the giant replied.

  Miller raised his head to fix his attention on Mallory. 'One of us?' His voice was almost comical with disbelief. 'Not a demon? How could someone from the cathedral commit those… horrors?'

  'You're a man who obviously knows everything,' Mallory said to the Caretaker. 'Care to tell us who we're looking for?'

  'Since the Battle of London, my kind have sought to distance ourselves from you Fragile Creatures. Your affairs must remain your own.' The Caretaker stared into the fire in deep thought for a while before adding, 'Look to your hearts, Fragile Creatures.'

  'So we're no closer,' Miller said dismally.

  'Look to your hearts,' the Caretaker repeated. The imperative in his words prevented his comment from being seen as a throwaway line. A wheel began to turn in Mallory's mind, pulling notions out of the dark.

  Despite the warmth of the fire and the calm atmosphere, the Caretaker put Mallory on edge; though the giant appeared human, an alien aspect lay just beneath the surface that made him unpredictable.

  Mallory decided it was time to go. He rose, choosing his words carefully. 'Thank you for your hospitality, but we have to return to our own kind.' Miller jumped to his feet eagerly.

  The Caretaker nodded slowly, watching Mallory so intently with those glimmering eyes that it felt as though he was seeing right into Mallory's head. 'I am not your enemy, Brother of Dragons,' he said. 'In other times we could stand together in this place and look into the infinite with open hearts.' His eyes narrowed as if he were squinting to see further. 'But there is something broken inside you and Existence will not open up until you mend yourself.'

  Mallory shifted uncomfortably. 'Is there a way back so we don't have to go through the vault?'

  'There is.' The Caretaker pulled himself to his full height. 'You must be careful if you venture into this place again. For the terrible crime that has been committed, there is a desire that you be punished fully. You will never be allowed to leave your refuge, I fear. Even here, powers circle to keep you contained.'

  'We've done nothing wrong. Really,' Miller pleaded. 'There's no reason why we're being made to suffer.'

  'There is always a reason,' the Caretaker replied, 'even if you cannot see it.'

  'What is the crime?' Mallory asked.

  'The crime is against Existence.'

  For the first time the conversation brought some emotion to the Caretaker's face and it looked very much like distaste; Mallory did not pursue it further.

  The Caretaker took them to the doorway through which he had entered. 'Follow this way. Do not deviate from the path,' he said, holding the tapestry back. 'It will return you to your home.'

  They hurried away, but as the Caretaker faded from view, his voice floated after them. 'Cure yourself, Brother of Dragons. Existence and all its wonders await you.'

  They emerged in the cloisters soon after. Snowflakes shimmered against the night sky, the stonework glittering with a coating of frost. When they glanced back, the doorway through which they had emerged was no longer there.

  'So we know something happened in the cathedral to make the earth energy stronger, and that surge of power brought this place here,' Mallory mused. 'And I reckon it manifested so forcefully that it changed everyone who was here… made them think it had always been this way.'

  'But because we weren't around, we weren't affected,' Miller said.

  'You know what?' Mallory continued thoughtfully. 'I think all the new buildings that appeared are frightening and oppressive because they're reflecting the mood in the cathedral.' 'Because everyone's hungry and trapped?'

  Mallory looked at the innocent hope in Miller's face and caught the words he was about to say. 'If everything was right here, maybe we'd see some kind of shining palace. The Jerusalem that everyone wanted to build on England's green and pleasant land.'

  'That would be wonderful.'

  'We all get what we wish for, maybe. So even our secret thoughts have repercussions.' That thought frightened him immensely.

  They found Daniels and Gardener perched on pews in the nave looking weary and worried. 'We thought you were done for,' Gardener said.

  'Where's Hipgrave?' Miller asked.

  'He's lost it,' Gardener replied. He looked away uncomfortably.

  'You saw what state he was in,' Daniels said. 'After we got him out of that vault he was nearly catatonic. Trying to get him through those tunnels…' He shook his head. 'Suddenly he came out of it like a wild man. Nearly tore my good eye out. It took both of us to pin him down. In the end, Gardener had to knock him flat.' He looked towards the altar. 'The things he was saying…'

  'Where is he now?' Mallory asked.

  'We got him to the infirmary. Warwick's given him a sedative, but I don't reckon it'll do much good. He's completely gone. There was nothing in his eyes at all. It must have got to him, everything we've seen…'

  'He was never too stable anyway,' Mallory said. 'So Blaine's lost one of his captains. What's he going to do now?'

  Daniels shrugged. 'We briefed him about what ha
ppened, but he wasn't really interested. Something else is going on, I think. I heard the Blues had to sort out some kind of fight in the kitchens. Some idiots trying to get food…'

  'This place is ready to blow,' Mallory said. 'God knows what's going to happen when they find out about Julian.'

  'So what happened to you two?' Gardener asked.

  Miller told them excitedly about the Caretaker and what he had said about the new buildings.

  'You don't want to be consorting with the Devil,' Gardener said disparagingly when Miller had finished.

  Miller began to protest. 'He wasn't-'

  'The Devil always lies.' Gardener's eyes were steely and uncompromising. 'The Bible doesn't have any room for things like that. So it's the work of the Devil.'

  'You can't beat logic like that,' Mallory said sardonically.

  There was a flash like a drawn blade in Gardener's face. 'You can stand there being smart, lad, but the way things are going there's only two sides and you'll have to be on one or the other. And I'm starting to have my doubts about you.'

  'Oh, I'm wounded.'

  Gardener held his eye for a moment, then began to clean the mud from his boots with a dagger.

  Miller looked to Mallory uncertainly. 'So we can't trust anything he said?'

  'We trust ourselves,' Mallory said. 'That's all we can do.'

  Mallory spent the rest of the night and half the next day pondering the Caretaker's enigmatic comments, before his thoughts turned to Rhiannon. In the Court of Peaceful Days, she, too, had made obtuse comments that had appeared meaningless at the time. Were they both trying to help him in an oblique way, so that they did not feel they were breaking some kind of agreement that their kind didn't assist Fragile Creatures? The more he considered it, the more he thought it was probably true. Her words were lodged clearly in his mind: Look to learning to understand the conflict. He considered this until, in a flash of inspiration, he had an inkling of what she had been advising.

  Mallory feigned illness to avoid going to Peter's Christian philosophy class, knowing it would earn him the wrath of Blaine, but it was the only way he could guarantee that the rest of the knights would be occupied. With all the other brothers dealing with the rigorous day-to-day routine of the cathedral, he would be free to investigate unseen.

  He hurried through the snow to the cloisters and climbed the stairs to the library. It had changed considerably since the first time he had been there, now straddling the boundary between the old buildings and the new. On his side, it was just as it always had been, but through the window he could see it progressing into a vast gothic chamber, its ceiling lost to shadows, with bizarre stone carvings that appeared to watch over anyone wandering amongst the racks, lit by sizzling torches and with shelves of books that must have gone up twenty feet or more.

  The door was locked, as he had expected, and he knew there was no other point of entry. He hoped he was as good a judge of character as he believed.

  He rapped on the glass gently until he saw James approaching. When James saw who was without, he shook his head and tried to wave Mallory away, but Mallory persisted, pleading silently. After a moment, James relented. He slid back several bolts and turned the key before opening the door a crack.

  'Are we keeping the gold chalices in here now?' Mallory said.

  'The library is off limits.' James was patently ill at ease with his new position.

  'Yes, you can't let those books fall into the wrong hands. There might be an awful spontaneous outbreak of knowledge and open-mindedness.'

  'What do you want, Mallory?' James said wearily. From the moment he had given Mallory the first guided tour of the cathedral, James had never sounded anything less than good-natured.

  'A few minutes of your time, that's all.'

  'I'm not joking. No one is allowed in the library.'

  'No one? What's the point of having a library, then?' Mallory tried to appear disarming. 'You must be bored out of your mind locked up with only the silverfish for company.'

  James couldn't help a chuckle. He leaned out to look up and down the corridor, then opened the door quickly to allow Mallory entrance. Once inside, he drew the bolts and quickly turned the key before hurrying Mallory out of sight of the window.

  As they entered the new section, the temperature dropped a degree or two and their footsteps took on an eerie echo that susurrated for an unnatural period. The dark closed in around them, bringing with it the suffocating smells of leather, dust, candlewax, damp paper and great age. Mallory couldn't have raised his voice if he'd wanted to.

  James led a maze-like path through the stacks to a table bearing a flask, a Tupperware box containing sandwiches and a hissing lantern.

  'Most people have to commit a crime to get this treatment,' Mallory said. James' expression suggested he felt the same way. 'If I didn't know better I'd say they preferred you in here instead of out there.'

  James' eyes narrowed and his guard came up a little. 'Who would they be?'

  Mallory dismissed the question with a laugh. 'You know what I'm talking about, James.'

  James pulled a couple of chairs up to the table and poured Mallory a cup of tea from the flask. Mallory paused when he felt the touch of the plastic lid on his lip. 'This stuff will be antique soon. You'll be able to haggle for it down at die market, along with the polystyrene McDonald's boxes and Perspex shed windows.'

  James lightened. 'If I know human nature, we'll be knee-deep in non- recyclable litter again before too long.' He sat back in his chair and surveyed Mallory with a strange smile. 'Now, Mr Mallory, what exactly are you up to?'

  'Can I speak freely?'

  James sighed. 'I have obligations to the Church authorities-'

  'But you… we… surely have a greater obligation to a Higher Power. To the religion itself, and its teachings. And if the Church authorities are working in opposition to that — not consciously, of course-'

  'Are you leaping to judgement, Mr Mallory?'

  'All I'm saying is that the only thing we have to answer to is that Higher Power.'

  'God. Why don't you say God?' He could tell Mallory was choosing his words with caution, but James' attempt to divine his purpose couldn't penetrate beneath the surface. 'This religion operates within a structure. It cannot exist without that structure. By being part of it, we tacitly accept that structure-'

  'And what if that structure's wrong?' Mallory pressed. 'What if… God… never intended that structure to come into place? What if that's all politics?'

  'What if, what if.' James waved a dismissive hand. 'This is what we have.'

  'This is it, right or wrong?'

  James bit the inside of his lip, stared along the racks of books.

  'How about if we just talk? No harm there.'

  James gave a conciliatory smile. 'That would be nice.'

  'So let's start with a discussion of comparative theology.' Mallory sipped on the hot, sweet tea — not tea in the true sense, but an infusion of various herbs and spices.

  'You're a strange man, Mallory. Why are you interested in these things? Most of your compatriots couldn't care less.'

  'Religions around the world are all driving towards a comprehension of a Higher Power. God.' He smiled. 'To an uneducated person, it would seem that the differences between them are only a matter of mechanics. Different vehicles to reach the same destination.' James began to disagree, but Mallory waved him quiet. 'Several religions have things in common, but there's one thing you can find in Eastern and Western traditions: the power of the spirit. Something that might seem from one perspective to be a kind of energy that perhaps could even be quantified one day, from another point of view looks like magic, affecting things separated by great distance.'

  James' eyes narrowed. Mallory felt he was on the right lines. 'The religion that existed here before Christianity came… a kind of nature worship, I suppose-'

  'You're being disingenuous, Mallory. You know exactly what it is. I'm asking you to treat me with respect a
nd to speak honestly of what's on your mind.'

  Mallory nodded. 'OK. I'll be straight. That religion, like the Eastern traditions, believed that spirit-energy existed in the wider world… in the wider universe… and in man. It linked the inner and the outer, above and below. And it believed it ran in channels across the world, along which were established sacred sites where the power was strongest. The stone circles, the cairns, the raised hills. Leys, right? You've heard of leys?' James gave nothing away. 'And along these leys ran-'

  'The Blue Fire.'

  'That's right. You know about it.'

  'Go on.'

  Mallory finished his tea. 'I'm guessing there are books here that could tell me all about this.' When James didn't respond, he continued, 'The pagan camp just over the walls… it's here because Salisbury is on a powerful ley, apparently. The Blue Fire here is very strong. And the Christian church decides to re-establish itself here, in Salisbury. Not in Winchester, or Glastonbury. Here. Coincidence?'

  'Glastonbury is on a powerful ley. So they say,' James pointed out.

  'Now you're being disingenuous. But your answer shows we're on the same page. Anyway, the old Glastonbury site is in ruins. What was needed was a complete structure that could focus the energy. Not a stone circle, but a massive stone building with a spire like a lightning conductor. As far as I know, there's nothing in the Bible that mentions this Blue Fire, yet somebody in the Church knows about it.'

  James shook his head firmly, his lips clenched tight.

  'I'm a good judge of character,' Mallory continued. 'I'm not saying this to flatter you, because I do have respect for you, but I can tell you're a good man, with the best interests at heart. And I would guess injustice probably gets you down. I would think you wouldn't want to perpetuate injustice, or misdirection, or conspiracy, for whatever reason. Not in a religion that makes so much of truth and honesty and shining the light of righteousness on the world.'