‘It’s just a statue,’ Hunter replies.
‘The depiction of the reality is the reality. Have you not learned anything?’ As Math beckons, Baldur hesitantly leads the Aesir into the dark.
Hunter waits until Thor and Freyja come running from the battle-lines. Tears stream down the thunder god’s face.
‘The Eternal City is falling,’ he says. ‘How can this be?’
‘You’ll get your chance to make amends,’ Hunter replies. ‘This isn’t the end.’
Along the western wall, a sheet of flames rises up. They watch it for a moment and then step into the dark. The door that is not a door closes behind them, and the snow fills their footprints, and for the first time there is silence within the walls of the Eternal City.
7
In your dreams, you see these things. Across the worlds, there is a sense of winter approaching, of the dying of the light. The steady rhythm in the ground and behind the sky now sounds less like a heartbeat and more like the ticking of a clock, growing imperceptibly slower.
You see all this. You know. You are now a part of it.
8
You travel across the infinite Far Lands to a point that is neither here nor there, that anomalous place on the distant edge, where the Otherworld breaks up and opens onto another infinity.
Words mean nothing here. Ideas have more substance than things. But you see as you move that numbers underpin everything. Repeating patterns that form the basis of a greater pattern. At a distance, the mathematical complexity creates the illusion of chaos. It is all random, you would have said in another time, under other circumstances.
Move closer and you see the truth. The structure. The plan. You understand the mechanics of Chaos Theory, without needing to know the name, that within seemingly chaotic systems there is a hidden order, masked by a complexity so great our brains cannot comprehend it.
Five, you say. That is one of the numbers. It is familiar by now. Comforting. You know it well.
But there is another important number, too. Hidden till now, waiting to be called into the Light.
Odin, the great god of the Nordic lands, hanged himself on the cosmic ash tree Yggdrasil for nine nights in order to learn the wisdom of the dead. That great tree of life, around which all reality revolves, sheltered nine worlds beneath its branches.
Nine books of wisdom tell a story that is more than a story, in which you now play a part. Nine symbolises completeness in the Bahá’í faith. To the Celts, the ninth wave is the boundary between our world and the Otherworld. King Arthur was brought in on the ninth wave. The Chinese consider nine to be lucky because, in their language, it sounds the same as the word for ‘long-lasting’. The Japanese consider nine to be unlucky because it sounds like the Japanese word for ‘distress’ or ‘pain’. The cat is believed to have nine lives.
The Forbidden City in Beijing is filled with the number nine. It is linked with the Chinese dragon, a symbol of power and magic. There are nine forms of the dragon. It has nine attributes, and nine children.
There are secrets here, you realise, if only you could divine them.
But you are distracted by a terrible sight. The Fortress of the Void sprawls across a blasted, desolate terrain of rocks and dust. It is bigger than any city you have ever seen, as big as a country, and from a distance it resembles a gigantic squatting insect. Indeed, part of the city appears to be organic. Amongst the walls of fused volcanic glass and the detritus of failed civilisations are areas that appear to be constructed from spoiled meat. It continues to grow by the day, new wings, new towers spreading in all directions, consuming the land.
The Fortress swarms with the worst that the universe has to offer, not just the Lament-Brood, the Redcaps, the Gehennis and Baobhan Sith, but things worse still, things you cannot bear to examine for fear you would be driven insane.
And above it all towers the Burning Man, so close you can feel the heat from its blazing outline. Here is the place where it was born. Within the Burning Man you can see writhing figures being consumed. These are gods, or ones who consider themselves gods, providing the fuel that gives the Burning Man shape, and allowing it to shine like an infernal beacon across all worlds. You cannot hear their screams, but you can see their mouths fixed in a continual ‘O’.
On a balcony overlooking the suffering stands a man living a new life of perpetual cruelty, a mirror-image man who still sees echoes of his former existence; but he can discard them, for he is better, at peace now, unlike before. He emphasises his flamboyance, wearing all black like a silent-movie villain, or all white, however the mood takes him. His eyes are blood-red, with no lids, so he can never shut out the horror he sees, the horror he causes. He is wedded to the idea of peace and stability through control, not the torments that come from the uncertainty of free will. He believes hope is a debilitating virus, and love, and that contentment only comes from not looking to the distant horizon. It is a simple philosophy, but many things spin from it.
‘They may be the most efficient warriors in all the worlds, but they could do with a few tips on interior design,’ the Libertarian says. He takes a deep draught of sour air and turns back to the austere chamber where fires rage continually in the braziers, a futile attempt to bring warmth to bodies that can feel none.
Niamh, former queen of the Court of the Soaring Spirit, now truly queen of the Waste Lands, wears a black headdress with six horns, like the arms of Shiva, and ebony armour etched with silver. She is filled with spiders. She considers a geometric design that resembles a mandala, or a Mandelbrot set, revolving slowly in mid-air. It glows gently with a rich, white light. Though you only see three dimensions, she sees more. It is a map of the worlds, and the trail they make through time. Her brow knits, for what she sees changes continually. Nothing is fixed; everything is fluid. She finds that puzzling.
The Libertarian takes her hand and pulls her away from the map and into his arms. ‘Don’t you find that all this power and destruction make the sap rise?’ he says, pressing his groin into hers.
She smiles, not without affection. ‘I find the patterns of Existence a mystery. My heart yearned for you from the earliest times, in your past life, and we danced back and forth across the ages, until it appeared we would never share the same space. Yet here we are.’
‘All good things come to those who wait.’
‘Together now, and always, and in all time before this moment.’
A headache stabs briefly at the Libertarian, a nagging thought, hardening by the moment, of troubled times ahead, sights, disturbingly, that he cannot see, an area of insecurity, of disconnection.
A tolling bell echoes dully through the Fortress.
‘It’s time,’ he says.
Niamh nods, takes his hand. They make their way along corridors of pulsing meat, down echoing stone steps, until they come to a hall so large that the far walls are not visible.
You will not want to enter. Even in your dreams it affects you, the stink, the feeling of subsonic vibrations in the pit of your stomach, but most potently a dread so terrible it would drive you insane if you lingered. You want to shut it out, pretend you never experienced it, but it will haunt you for the rest of your days. Amidst a seething mass of shrieking foul creatures floats the great god Janus, his two faces switching back and forth, black on white, white on black. He holds aloft the golden key to open the doors and then the ironwood stick to drive away those who have no right to cross the threshold. The monstrous beings shriek louder, the noise rising and falling, and you realise that hideous sound is singing, a form of celebration. In their ecstasy, they fight and tear at each other like animals in a pit. In a circle around Janus’s feet lopes the god Loki, part-man, part-wolf, his head rolling as he mouths incantations, lost to the ritual, lost to the dread and the frenzy, round and round in circles.
Niamh smiles, closes her eyes and breathes deeply of the foul atmosphere. ‘You can smell it. An ending,’ she says. ‘And a beginning. The serpent eats its own tail.’
/>
Janus raises the key once more and a door opens behind him. Listen. That beat, steady, growing louder. It is the sound that lies behind everything you see and feel.
‘He is coming,’ Niamh says.
The Void, the Devourer of All Things, the essence of Anti-Life approaches the door, preparing to coalesce in this place, this time, and fill the receptacle that has been made for it: the Burning Man.
For once the Libertarian has nothing to say. A tear stings his eye. It could have been joy had he not relinquished that emotion long ago.
Niamh claps her hands. ‘It is over,’ she sighs.
Quickly. You must leave before it is too late for you.
The pounding grows louder, and the beasts fall silent, and still, and look towards the door, and wait.
Chapter One
GOD ONLY KNOWS
1
The Last Train thundered out of the world. Behind it, swarming spiders tore apart the land and rebuilt it with a boiling intellect and a cold eye. Hope and wonder and magic could not survive under that scrutiny. The unequivocal image of the Void was all that would remain.
Through the carriage window, Church attempted to see some pattern in the dark pressing in on all sides, but the dream was still heavy on him, distracting, haunting. Lying on some kind of bed or trolley or bench, faces loomed over him uttering familiar yet unrecognisable voices. On awakening, he had been convinced of some life-changing meaning just beyond his grasp, but it was slipping further away with each moment. It felt very much like a death dream.
His reflection in the window revealed the burden of responsibility carved into his brooding features. There was too much darkness about him, from the black hair, to the eyes lost in shadow, to the hollowness of his cheeks. Was this the chrysalis state before he would emerge as the Libertarian, bloody eyes staring from the gloom?
Veitch came up silently behind him. His features carried the hardness of a life lived on the street, his eyes registering every hurt, every betrayal, every disappointment, all too close to the surface. Church still didn’t know how much he could trust him.
‘You know what we need? Some music,’ Veitch said.
‘Sinatra,’ Church replied.
‘Nah. Something . . . something sunny. A bit of heart, bit of hope. I’ve got this Beach Boys song stuck in my head. Can’t remember what it’s called.’ He quietly hummed a few off-key bars.
Lounging back in a seat, Veitch’s silver hand caught the lamplight, the glow illuminating another hint of uncertainty in Veitch’s eyes. ‘Laura’s never going to accept me,’ he commented.
‘Surprised? She never liked you much before. Now she knows you’ve killed about ten times as many people as the worst serial killer in history, all of them Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’
Veitch gave nothing away.
‘Any regrets?’ Church pressed.
‘I did what I did.’
‘You had the spiders whispering in your ears—’
‘Don’t blame them. I knew what I was doing.’
‘The Void deals in despair, Ryan. Once you get infected with that you can believe black is white and up is down. Nothing looks right.’
‘You’re the one always banging on about accepting responsibility. What I did felt right then. Now . . .’ Veitch gave a shrug that was supposed to represent easiness. ‘All that matters is I did it. I’m never going to put it right, no chance. I’ve got to accept what I did and live with it.’ Veitch rolled up his shirt to reveal the mass of colourful tattoos that covered his torso. He indicated a Promethean figure strapped to a rock being attacked by ravens. ‘See that? That’s me. Being punished for ever for what I’ve done. No relief. Just pain. You fuck up like I did, you deserve to pay the price.’
Church felt a pang of pity. ‘You’re here now when we need you most.’ ‘So you trust me?’
‘I do.’
‘You’re an idiot, then. Even I don’t trust me.’
Their eyes locked, and Church was acutely aware of the weight that lay between them. Veitch loved Ruth as much as he did, and neither of them was wholly sure where Ruth stood. What would happen when the time came for choices to be made? Could he trust Veitch to walk away? Could he trust himself?
His transformation into the Libertarian would be sparked in some way by his relationship with Ruth. Before, he couldn’t comprehend how that could possibly happen. Now he could see with startling acuity the road begin to appear before him. The question was clear: how far would he be prepared to go for the woman he loved?
Something similar unfolded in Veitch’s face.
‘None of us are heroes, mate,’ Veitch said quietly. ‘In the end we just do the best we can.’
‘And sometimes we fail.’
Veitch nodded.
‘But that’s the thing about five. If one screws up, there’s always someone else to make sure the job gets done.’
Veitch pondered this for a moment. ‘We’ve all got a part to play. Thinking about this too hard does my head in, but it’s like even bad stuff is important. Like you couldn’t have had some of the good if the bad things hadn’t happened to cause it. So it’s all linked. Pull back a bit and you start seeing things for what they are. They’re just part of some . . .’ He struggled to complete the concept.
‘Pattern?’
‘It’s like we’re so far inside it we don’t see how it all fits together, but if you could float above it somehow . . . you know . . . Listen to me - I sound like bleedin’ Shavi.’ He laughed. ‘Looking forward to spending some time with that fucker. I missed him. He keeps me calm.’
‘We go well together.’
‘Yeah. We do.’
Outside the carriage, the impenetrable black was like deepest space, punctuated every now and then by a burst of fire in the far reaches, a beacon crying for help, quickly extinguished. Briefly, a vast mountain of stone came into view, topped by a sharp spire with gargoyles and carvings and windows but no sign of life: the Watchtower between the Worlds.
‘You think Miller and Jack are enough to stop the Void?’ Veitch was lost to the gloomy view.
‘Not without the Extinction Shears. Maybe not even then.’
‘It’s not going to end well for us, is it?’
‘No happy endings.’
‘I never expected that for me, but you lot . . . you deserve better. You’ve fought hard.’
‘Maybe dying won’t be so bad. I just feel so tired. All this running, and fighting.’
They were interrupted by the silent arrival of Ahken, the host of the Last Train, his heavy-lidded eyes staring from a skull-like face. His black robes were pristine, but he smelled of the grave, and when he clasped his hands before him in a show of obsequiousness, it hid something darker. ‘Brothers of Dragons,’ he said. ‘Is there anything that would make your final journey more pleasurable?’
His words chilled Church.
‘Yeah. Some dancing girls,’ Veitch replied.
Ahken smiled slyly. ‘You feel at home on the Last Train.’
Veitch stroked the leather seat. ‘It’s weird. It feels a bit Egyptian, some Chinese, Arabic, Victorian.’
‘Oh, the Last Train is very old,’ Ahken said. ‘It was here in the earliest time, before the Golden Ones, before even the Drakusa.’
‘Before the Oldest Things in the Land?’ Church asked.
Ahken did not reply.
‘What are you going on about?’ Veitch asked.
‘There’s a hierarchy. The gods manipulate us. The Oldest Things in the Land manipulate the gods and us. Puck, the Caretaker . . .’ With an involuntary shudder, Church recalled the two figures he had seen, or imagined, hovering over the cauldron that was not a cauldron while he suffered the Sleep Like Death in the casket of gold and ivory. ‘There’s always something higher. Apparently.’
Defiance hardened Veitch’s features. ‘Humans are on the way up, and we’re not taking any bollocks from anyone any more.’
Church nodded in agreement. ‘This whole perio
d is ushering in the next step of our evolution, if we can follow the right path. Not Fragile Creatures any longer. A lot of the ones above us don’t like that.’ He eyed Ahken, who smiled, giving nothing away.
‘So does that mean we get one of those little silver rats like all the gods?’ Veitch said.
‘A Caraprix?’
Ahken flinched.
‘You know something about them?’ Church asked him.
‘I know the Last Train, and that is all,’ Ahken lied.
‘The Tuatha Dé Danaan can’t live without them,’ Veitch said. ‘But what use are they? They change shape, yeah, but I mean, so what, right? It’s not like they serve up your dinner. They’re like pets.’
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