Destroyer of Worlds

by Mark Chadbourn

  Veitch pushed through the dense flow to one side where a puppeteer was performing a show in the shade of an inn. He was at least eight feet tall, with long, black robes that Veitch presumed obscured his stilts, and he wore a white mask with a curving nose like a bird’s beak. He looked like the wall painting in the Halls of the Drakusa. But it was the dancing puppets that caught Veitch’s eye: they resembled Church, Shavi, Ruth, Laura and himself. The Church and Ruth puppets were hugging, while the Veitch one stood off to one side, holding a sword, before turning to attack. Veitch experienced a brief burst of anger moderated by the knowledge that he was surely imagining the resemblances. He took one step towards the puppet-master, and was sent flying by a woman weaving frantically through the crowd.

  Cursing underneath the figure sprawling on top of him, Veitch was shocked to see she was human, wearing modern clothes, and gripped by such terror that her eyes barely saw him.

  ‘Calm down.’ He caught her shoulders as she prepared to throw herself off him to run again. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’

  His words cut through her fear and she gradually focused on him. ‘You’re from Earth? Oh God, oh God, what’s happening to me? Where is this place?’ Sobbing fitfully, she collapsed into him.

  Veitch helped her to her feet. After her fugue, she was now shaking uncontrollably. Awkwardly, Veitch tried to calm her. ‘I’m Ryan. What’s your name?’

  ‘R-R-Rachel,’ she stuttered. ‘Something was chasing me! Making me come this way. I-I remember . . . a grin, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to eat me up or kiss me . . . and those eyes . . . and . . . and . . .’ The memory slipped from her and she shook her head in frustration.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  Before she could answer, a column of smoke soared up above the rooftops accompanied by a boom that echoed off the metallic walls. Sizzling, coloured lights arced out from the direction of the explosion.

  The crowd responded with panic, and in the mêlée Veitch and Rachel were torn apart. Already forgetting her, Veitch fought his way to Shavi and said, ‘Let’s get back to Church till we know what’s going on.’

  ‘No. If we can help, we should.’

  Veitch set his jaw. ‘I bloody hate you, Shavi.’

  3

  When the blast happened, Ruth and Laura had been quietly questioning the occupants of one of the overcrowded inns, but few had any knowledge of the Enemy Fortress itself, and those that did were too afraid to discuss it. Only one street away, the explosion shook the building so furiously that tankards flew from tables, spilling ale and wine across the sawdust-covered boards. Fearing the worst, the anxious drinkers flooded from the inn into the screaming mob outside, leaving Ruth and Laura to edge through one of the vermin-infested alleys to find a view of the blast site.

  ‘I can do the reconnaissance,’ Ruth suggested. ‘Why don’t you head back?’

  ‘You don’t have to keep treating me like I’m a baby,’ Laura responded with undue harshness. ‘Hunter’s gone. I’m dealing with it. I’m not going to collapse in tears at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘Sorry for thinking of you.’ Ruth bristled.

  At the end of the alley, rubble and twisted metal were strewn across the street along with the bodies of several passers-by caught in the blast. Flickers of flame and thick, acrid smoke rose up from the ruins of a demolished building.

  As the smoke shifted, they caught glimpses of a giant figure strapped to an X-frame in the wreckage of the building.

  ‘He couldn’t have been there before,’ Ruth said. ‘There’d be nothing left of him. He must have been brought in after the explosion. Why?’

  ‘Maybe it’s his place, and someone wants to make an example of him,’ Laura replied. ‘You know, like tar-and-feathering. He probably sold some gangster a knock-off watch.’

  The shifting smoke revealed wild black hair and a beard. Ruth’s tart response to Laura died in her throat. ‘I know him! I saw him, back in London, when the Void had me living that fake life. He’s the one Mallory said gave him the lantern . . . the Caretaker.’

  ‘What’s he doing here? And . . . who did that to him?’

  As the smoke finally cleared, the extent of the Caretaker’s plight was revealed. Wounds gaped on his arms, his head sagged and more ragged cuts marred what skin was visible on his face. Jagged twists of barbed wire held his wrists and legs to the X-frame, and another had been fastened around his neck.

  ‘Poor man!’ Ruth said. ‘It looks like he’s been tortured.’

  ‘He’s not a man, is he, though?’ Laura replied. ‘He’s . . . something else.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he can’t feel pain.’ Ruth brushed away a stray tear. ‘We have to help him. He’s going to die there.’

  Wrenching his head back painfully, the Caretaker said in a booming voice that would have carried three streets away, ‘Brothers and Sisters of Dragons! If you can hear me, stay away! My time here is nearly done, and there is nothing you can do to aid me!’

  ‘Did he hear me?’ Ruth whispered, before realising, ‘The Enemy must be nearby. He’s saying it so loudly so they won’t realise how close we are.’

  The Caretaker sucked in a juddering breath of air. ‘The Enemy knows you are here,’ he continued. ‘They wish to draw you out. You will not be allowed to get any closer to your destination. They fear you, Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. They fear the power that burns in your hearts.’

  Ruth began to cry silently at the Caretaker’s suffering. ‘He needs our help,’ she said desperately. ‘We can’t just leave him to die.’

  ‘You must forget me,’ he continued. ‘The Oldest Things in the Land have attempted to help you as best we could during your long struggle. But that aid may well be coming to an end. We face our own battles, with our own kind, and now, as the great plans fragment on both sides, only chaos beckons. The outcome is uncertain.’ Wincing, he took another deep breath. ‘Your lessons are not yet complete, but this desperate time has brought the teaching to an end. We must all hope that you have learned enough to defeat the Enemy.’ He paused, then repeated wearily, ‘The outcome is uncertain.’

  ‘You think we should risk it?’ Laura asked. ‘Whip out there quick, drag him down and bring him back? We might be able to get away with it.’

  ‘We have to listen to him,’ Ruth said dismally. ‘He’s right - there’s too much at stake.’

  A deep shadow fell across the ruined building, though the source was not visible from Ruth and Laura’s vantage point. As they craned to see, a noise behind them alerted them to the approach of Veitch and Shavi.

  ‘The lights are going out all across the lands,’ the Caretaker intoned, ‘and I will no longer be there to keep the last lamp lit.’ His eyes flickered, and his head slumped forwards onto his chest.

  As Ruth stifled a cry, Veitch put his arms around her to comfort her. ‘If even they’re dying . . .’ he began, before catching himself.

  An intense blue light burned where the Caretaker had hung from the X-frame, and when it finally cleared his body had gone.

  The deep shadow remained, however, and grew stronger. Across the rooftops, something feline darted, its shape altering as it moved into an almost-human form. A mirror glinted in its hand. As they tried to perceive what it truly was, darkness folded around it and briefly blocked out the sun. Cold fingers of dread touched them all.

  ‘I do not think it wise to stay here any longer,’ Shavi said.

  4

  Although none of them knew the Caretaker, they all felt a deep grief at his death. Instinctively, they recognised that something good had passed and the universe was a worse place for it.

  For a long hour, they had sat in a shady spot on the café terrace where they could not be seen by the other clientele, drinking cups of the hot, spicy drink and trying to make sense of what had just occurred. Ahead of them, the setting sun turned the desert the colour of blood.

  ‘This is a right bleedin’ mess. You don’t know who to trust,’ Veitch s
aid.

  Laura fixed a knowing eye on him. ‘Very true.’

  Veitch glared at her.

  ‘I can’t believe the Caretaker’s dead.’ Ruth’s knuckles were white on her spear. ‘Something so powerful, destroyed by the Enemy.’

  ‘Janus is one of the Oldest Things in the Land,’ Tom reminded her, ‘and he has joined the Void.’

  ‘So . . . what? This is a civil war?’ Laura said.

  ‘Could be.’ As Church listened to the soaring dusk song of one of the many sects now occupying the city, he remembered a similar moment in Cairo, sitting on the edge of mystery in a hot, sprawling city, looking into the night and wondering what the future held for them. Would there ever be a chance for rest, or was this as good as it got - a brief interlude in the chaos of life before it wound down to failure and death? ‘The Caretaker said the Enemy knew we were here. How?’ He looked around the group carefully.

  ‘The most obvious answer would be that someone told them,’ Tom said.

  Veitch sneered. ‘You’re saying one of us? Nah.’

  ‘You would say that,’ Laura said.

  Church saw Veitch bristle and stepped in quickly. ‘I’m not saying anything, except it’s something we need to keep at the back of our minds.’

  ‘That we can’t trust one of us?’ Veitch continued, growing more incensed. ‘That defeats the whole point of the Five. A team, all together when it’s backs-to-the-wall time.’

  ‘That didn’t stop you when you sold us out first time around,’ Laura said.

  ‘That wasn’t me!’

  ‘Will you two stop it?’ Ruth snapped. ‘Don’t you get it? The Enemy knows we’re here - they’re not going to sit back, they’re going to come looking for us . . . with something powerful enough to kill the Caretaker.’

  Accepting the magnitude of Ruth’s words, Veitch and Laura fell silent.

  ‘So, should we leave the city tonight?’ Shavi asked.

  ‘And go where?’ Church said. ‘We came here to try to find a way into the House of Pain. We shouldn’t leave till we’ve got the information we need. And it’s a big, crowded city - the Enemy’s going to take some time to find us. If we’re smart.’

  ‘I agree with Church,’ Tom said.

  ‘You don’t get a vote, old man.’ Laura swung one booted foot onto the table and stretched out, hands behind her head. The others remained tense.

  Veitch sat up sharply, remembering. ‘I forgot . . . I met a girl.’

  ‘Did you hold hands and skip?’ Laura asked.

  ‘A girl from Earth.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Church asked.

  ‘Looked like she’d just arrived. She was in a right panic. Being chased by something, she said.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Tom snorted. ‘You know all the gateways to the Fixed Lands were closed by the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’

  ‘She just got here, I tell you.’

  Church thought for a moment, trying to contain his mounting excitement. ‘That means there’s another path back to Earth that we don’t know about. We can go home.’

  Ruth couldn’t hide her concern. ‘You’re thinking about running away?’

  His mind racing, Church ignored her, and the uneasiness the others were starting to exhibit. ‘Drop everything else and turn this city upside down. We need to find that woman.’

  The song of the cult reached a crescendo as darkness fell across the overcrowded city, stinking of sweat and misery and desperation, and filled with voices that never stopped. But with the fading of the light a new degree of misery was added. From the shadows, where nothing had been, shapes moved out into the population. No one saw them pass, but they felt them in their hearts, and the fear began to rise.

  5

  ‘Stand firm!’ Decebalus bellowed as the Army of Dragons faced into a ferocious wind beneath a darkening sky. Amongst the roiling black clouds, the Riot-Beasts advanced, their eyes roving insanely. Bolts of lightning crashed randomly from them to sear the green plain.

  ‘Sir. How are we supposed to get a bead on those things, if you don’t mind me asking, sir?’ Ronnie shouted above the gale. He’d polished the buttons of his army uniform ready for the battle and now wore the tin hat that had seen activity in Flanders.

  ‘The Enemy hope to break our ranks with their war engines. They do not yet realise what weapons we wield, and neither do you. Watch.’

  Decebalus raised his eyes to the heavens, ignoring the heavy rain. Despite numbering almost a hundred and fifty, the Army of Dragons was a small knot of resistance compared to the seemingly never-ending ranks of the Enemy. The Dacian barbarian was proud of his troops, huddled together in the face of such overwhelming opposition. They came from more civilised times than he knew, and he had feared their softness of muscle would hamper them in the coming struggle, but they had shown a deeper seam of hardness than he could ever have hoped. Warriors, tacticians, mystics and magicians, they were individuals with a group mind and a spirit that could never be broken. In their eyes, he could see their fear, but still they stood firm. Heroes, he thought. No wonder the Devourer of All Things was afraid of what they could achieve.

  Under the clouds, the day became like night. Forty feet away, a bolt of lightning raised a shower of burned earth, and although he could feel its heat, he did not flinch. Instead, he started to laugh heartily, celebrating the storm.

  ‘Pardon me, sir,’ Ronnie said, ‘but the boys and girls will probably think you’ve gone mad. Madder.’

  ‘Let them! Mad, yes! Mad with joy at the horror the Enemy will feel when they see how they have underestimated us! See!’

  As if on cue, the glamour disappeared and the ranks of the gods were revealed. All around the small clump of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, like a sunlit mirror at the heart of the storm, the powerful beings dazzled their mortal comrades.

  ‘Crikey!’ Ronnie exclaimed. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t let us see them before?’

  ‘The gods exist to make mortals mad,’ Decebalus replied. ‘The less you have to do with them, the better it is for you.’

  Two gleaming figures ran from the ranks at speed, arching their backs as they threw themselves into a glide just above the ground before soaring up on the air currents. One appeared to Ronnie to be flipping back and forth between two forms: a man with an ornate gold helmet and a coiled beast that appeared simultaneously to be bird, serpent and something constructed of lush foliage.

  ‘That one goes by the name of Quetzalcóatl.’ Decebalus rolled his tongue around the syllables as though it had taken him a long time to learn the word. ‘All those gods are strange, but he was the strangest of all. Until the last, I could not tell if he even understood me.’

  The other figure began to glow like the sun as he flew upwards. His hair was wild, like a beggar’s, but he wore golden armour that gave him majesty.

  ‘And that one also hails from the Great Dominion of the southern Americas. His name is Viracocha,’ Decebalus continued. ‘His melancholy is breathtaking to see. And also irritating. He claims that his tears will wash away the world. But then they all say something like that.’

  Caught in the turbulence near the Riot-Beasts, the two gods fought to maintain their stability. Lightning flashed around them as the three monstrous creatures drifted towards the figures they dwarfed.

  ‘They won’t stand a chance!’ Ronnie said.

  When a lightning bolt finally found its way to Viracocha, he lit up like a star. It took Ronnie a second or two to realise that the flash had actually invigorated the god. Sparks fizzed from his fingertips and every follicle of hair until a corona surrounded him. From nowhere, he summoned a micro-weather system. Rain lashed like bullets at the nearest Riot-Beast, and winds buffeted it so it drifted untethered across the plain; and yet still Viracocha burned like a sun, the light growing more intense with each passing moment.

  In contrast, Quetzalcóatl swooped like a raptor on a Riot-Beast, raking with claws and beak that came and went every time Ronnie could see him pas
t the glare of Viracocha. Finally, with a sound like shattering glass, the Riot-Beast careered into another before crashing down, those dumb eyes rolling upwards one final time.

  Before the creature fell onto the plain, the blazing sun that had been Viracocha threw back its arms and a blast of the purest, hottest light seared the Riot-Beast that had been throwing lightning at him in a ceaseless rain of crackling energy. The light tore through the Beast and continued across the plain to explode in a starburst over the heads of the Enemy, for the first time illuminating their dark ranks. Burning chunks of the Riot-Beast rained down onto the plain, setting the grass ablaze.