Always Forever

by Mark Chadbourn

  And Church was lost in thoughts of Marianne, of times frittered in the belief they could be picked up in the future, in thoughts of guilt at what he had done to Laura and Niamh; and then, once they had dissipated, at Ruth beside him. But before he had a chance to turn to her, the tempo increased and another emotion washed everything else away.

  The food and drink came in a never-ending stream. Once they had eaten their fill, another dish materialised to tempt them, and when they certainly could eat no more, there was still wine, and more wine.

  During a lull while the band members refreshed themselves with a drink, Ruth rose from her chair and hurried over to them. They drew in close around her as she spoke in low tones, their faces at first curious, then intrigued. When she retook her seat, Church asked, "What was that all about?" but she dismissed him with a wave.

  He got his answer once the band started up again. Although the tone was oddly distorted, the song was unmistakable: "Fly Me to the Moon." Each note was filled with meaning, of his old life, certainly, but more importantly, and surprisingly, of the time at the pub on Dartmoor when he had performed karaoke with Ruth and Laura in a few moments of pure, unadulterated fun. He looked over to her, felt a surge of warmth at what he saw in her smile: she had remembered what he had said about never hearing Sinatra again.

  "I hummed it to them," she whispered. "They picked it up straight away."

  What he felt in that instant, he tried to blame on the drink or the music, but he knew he would not be able to deny it, even in the light of the next morning. He put his hand on the back of hers, but it didn't begin to express what he was feeling.

  "You know," he said, mesmerised by the moment that felt like a lifetime, "these days everything is so much more vital." He was rambling, drunk. "This is what life should be. Meaning in everything. Importance in everything."

  She smiled, said nothing; so much more assured. How could he not feel for her? He leaned forward, closed his eyes, savoured the anticipated moment as if he had already tasted it.

  This is the time. This is everything. The words burst in his head unbidden, meaningless, yet filled with meaning. "It's like I'm on drugs." He could feel the bloom of her breath on his lips.

  "I am the Messenger. The Message here is very clear." The voice was a blast of cold wind, freezing the moment. Church looked up at the tattered rag-figure Cormorel had called the Walpurgis, a sucking core of darkness, too much for one space. There was something so alien about it, Church's skin crawled; in the back of his head a worm of terror began to wriggle.

  Cormorel had been involved in an intense, whispered conversation with Baccharus and the Walpurgis's arrival had taken him by surprise. He turned sharply, his face hard. Church hadn't seen that expression on any of the Tuatha De Danann before; he had the face of someone with something to hide.

  "Away with you, Dark One." Cormorel waved his hand dismissively. "We have no time for your shadowy discourses."

  The Walpurgis began to back away, until Church said, "Wait. Who are you?"

  "I am the Messenger." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

  "He is a dismal leech," Cormorel said. "Nothing more."

  "A leech?" Ruth's brow had knitted; Church could tell she was sensing something too.

  "The Walpurgis reaches into heads and pulls out dreams." Cormorel made a snapping motion with his fingers. "A distasteful trait, even by the low standards of his fellow travellers."

  "You have a very contemptuous view of your fellow sentient beings, Cormorel," Church noted sardonically.

  Cormorel eyed him, aloof. "All are beneath us." It was announced as a statement of fact, with no obvious arrogance.

  Church was unable to pierce the gloom falling from the brim of the Walpurgis's hat; there were only those hot-coal eyes, unpleasant in their intensity. "You said you have a message?"

  The Walpurgis nodded his head slowly. "But first there is something within you which should be examined."

  "Within me?"

  "A dream." A bony finger snaked towards Church's forehead. Instinctively Church drew back, his skin starting to crawl.

  "You want to pull out my dream?"

  "Did you know," Cormorel said icily, "the Walpurgis eats the souls of the dying?"

  Church ignored him. There was something about the Walpurgis that made him feel queasy; it was so alien he couldn't begin to judge its trustworthiness. Perhaps this was how it preyed on its victims.

  "All have dreams hidden away that could change the way they live their lives," the Walpurgis said in its rustling voice. "It is the nature of existence to obscure the important. A game it plays with us. The finding is often part of the lesson."

  Church weighed this for a second. There was something repugnant about admitting so alien a being into his head, but he could see Cormorel did not want him to continue, and that was enough.

  "Will it hurt?"

  The Walpurgis said nothing.

  "Okay. Do it."

  Cormorel moved to stop him, then his pride made him turn back to his conversation with Baccharus, as if Church, Ruth and The Walpurgis no longer existed.

  "You're sure?" Ruth asked.

  Church presented his forehead to the Walpurgis. The creature reached out again with its skeletal hand. The fingertips brushed his skin like the touch of winter, but their advance did not stop there. Church was shocked to feel the coldness continuing into his skull. It had not been a metaphor: the fingers were literally moving through his head as if it were mist, reaching inside him. He gagged, shuddered involuntarily; a spasm made his fingers snap open and closed.

  What's it doing to nae? The thought fizzed like static on a TV; he was losing control of himself.

  Panic rose within him, but just as he began to believe he had made a dreadfully wrong decision, the sickening sensations faded and he was suddenly jolted alert by a stream of intensely evocative images. The Walpurgis had tapped into the cable wire from his subconscious.

  His mother and father, seen from the perspective of his cot. Niamh appearing at the end of his bed, strangely happy, yet tinged with sadness. Coming faster now: school, university, knee-deep in mud at an archaeological dig in North Yorkshire. And then Marianne. The shock of her face was like a punch; so clear, like she was really there, like he could reach out to touch her. His emotions welled up and threatened to overflow his body; everything felt so acute.

  And then it was like the images were playing on a screen just in front of his eyes and he could see through them to the Walpurgis. His red eyes were growing brighter. "Near. So near." The words echoed so deep in his head he didn't know if the Walpurgis had spoken them aloud.

  A rapid flicker of memories, the speed making him feel queasy. Making love to Marianne, slicked with sweat. Out drinking with Dean and his other buddies. Kissing Marianne under the stars. Watching a band. Drinking. Writing something. Eating ... somewhere. A restaurant. Already gone, and two more as well. Brighton. And ... and America. And back to South London. The pub with all the bric-a-brac in Clapham. Faster, and faster still. And then ...

  Oh God. No. Not that.

  The images were slowing down as if the Walpurgis had been fastforwarding through a video and was now getting closer to the point he was after. Flicker, flicker, click, click, click. The flat, the night he had been out drinking. The night Marianne died.

  No. Please, no.

  But how could he be remembering that? He hadn't been there. And then he realised he wasn't exactly remembering the night, he was recalling his experience in the vast cave beneath Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, when time bent and he had been thrust into that awful moment.

  The Walpurgis's eyes cut through the familiar image of his flat. "Here. Now."

  "No!" Church said aloud.

  The image coalesced. The empty flat, removed of the clutter of his maudlin bachelor years. And it was no longer just an image: he could hear and smell, feel the texture of the carpet through the soles of his shoes. In the background one of Marianne's acid jazz CDs play
ed quietly, and she, just out of sight, was humming along. There was no sorrow, only cold, hard fear; he knew what was coming.

  "Please." The Walpurgis ignored him, draining every sensation out of his head.

  Marianne crossed to the bathroom. The sound of the cabinet opening, just as he recalled it from Arthur's Seat. But then he had broken the spell before the final, sickening moment, so what was the point of the Walpurgis's actions? He loosened up a little; of course he wouldn't see the worst thing.

  And there it was: the faint click of the front door opening. Nearly there now. Through the moment, Church could feel his fingernails biting into the flesh of his hand. "Church? Is that you?" Her voice, almost unbearable. The shape, like a ghost, flitting across the hall. He hadn't concentrated before; it had all been too painful.

  And then, oddly, the image rewound a few seconds and played again. Church's head spun. What was going on?

  It reached the same point, then rewound again. And again. And again. And then Church realised: the Walpurgis was trying to show him something. This time he concentrated.

  The shape, flitting across the hall. No, not the shape; that wasn't it at all. He was looking at the wrong thing. What was it? The image rewound and played again. And then he saw something: the shadow the shape cast on the wall as it passed. So brief, a fraction of a second, but Church knew he had seen its outline before. That wasn't all, though: a smell, wafting briefly in the air. A familiar smell. Vague, unsettling thoughts began to ripple up from the hidden depths of his mind. What were they? Piece them all together.

  And then he had the first part of it. The realisation swept through him like the harshest winter. The shadow of the intruder, the one who had murdered Marianne, had been one of his recent companions: a Brother or Sister of Dragons. Every subtle indicator told him his instincts were right. At that stage he couldn't pin it down any more, but he knew if he watched the image a few more times he would have it.

  His stomach was turning loops. Surely it couldn't be true. One of the people who had been closest to him over the last few months, someone he trusted more than life itself? Not Laura. Or Veitch. Surely not Shavi. Not Ruth. His stomach flipped again and he felt like he was going to vomit. It was so close, he could almost see the face. So close, so close.

  "Here it is," the Walpurgis said sickeningly.

  Church wanted to snap himself away. He didn't think he could bear the revelation, like discovering a loved member of your family had committed the ultimate perversion. It would destroy him, he was sure.

  But he had to see. It was his responsibility. He concentrated and waited for the dismal tableau to begin once more.

  But within seconds of it beginning again, the whole world went sideways. Electric fracturing lines lanced across his vision; pain crackled deep within his head. The Walpurgis was breaking contact. His stomach did another flip. When the bizarre TV screen effect disappeared and he saw the Walpurgis's fingers withdrawing from his forehead, he knew the revelation wasn't going to come.

  "No!" he yelled. He reached out to drag the Walpurgis's arm back to him, but it was like a cartoon nightmare: though he stretched and stretched, the Walpurgis was receding in slow time. Church's stomach was continuing to move of its own accord. A sudden bout of vertigo made him reach for the table that was no longer there.

  "Church!"

  His thoughts rolled in a daze. The world was turning turtle.

  "Church!" His shoulders were roughly dragged round. It was Ruth yelling at him, concern etched on her pale face. "We're going down!"

  It took another second for her words to register and then he snapped completely back into the real world. The room was engulfed in chaos. Platters and cutlery were floating through the air, along with the occasional traveller. The floor was at an impossible angle.

  "We're going down!" she screamed at him again, so close to his ears it made them ring. She pulled him to his feet, they clung for an instant before pitching across the floor.

  Everywhere were screams and yells and clanging metal and splintering wood. Church was rolling as the floor rose to forty-five degrees. Violent vibrations thundered back and forth, at odds with the sucking, downward motion; it felt like Wave Sweeper was being shaken apart. Some enormous creature that smelled of burned rubber crashed against his back with such force he thought he had broken it. He had barely recovered when the gigantic top table began to slide, picking up speed until it was rushing towards his head. When it was inches from turning his skull to jelly, he propelled himself a few inches to one side so he passed between the hefty, carved legs.

  He too started to slide backwards towards the melee of bodies thrashing near the far wall. He'd moved a few feet, spread-eagling his arms and legs as far as they would go to slow his fall, when his fingers found purchase in a crevice between two floorboards. Clutching on tightly, he searched for Ruth, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Something cut through the madness and left him feeling like he was floating in a soundless, slow-motion vacuum: Manannan moved eerily across the floor, perpendicular to it, oblivious to the force of gravity dragging everything else downwards. Bodies flashed past him, but he continued his gradual progress in such a languid manner it looked like he was actually floating an inch or two above the boards. And then, when he was halfway across the room, his head turned almost mechanically and his attention fixed on Church. It was only a second or two, but it made Church's blood run cold.

  The ship tipped a degree more and Manannan was lost behind more flying bodies as he made his way to the main exit at the rear of the banqueting hall. Just as Church feared he couldn't hold on any longer, the boat pitched forward. The moment the keel hit the waves, Church was thrown six feet into the air before landing hard on the boards.

  Instantly the ship began pitching from side to side. Creatures careered wildly around the room, throwing him to his knees every time he tried to stand upright. Finally he was attempting to run with them towards the exit, but the rippling floor made him stagger as if he were gallon drunk. In the end he clubbed aside anyone or thing which got in his path, anxious to find Ruth.

  When he saw the heaps of broken, unmoving bodies he feared the worst until he caught sight of her in a space against the wall, dazed, half kneeling, a cut leaking blood on to her forehead. It looked like they would never get past the throng fighting to get out, but when the ship lurched crazily to one side they managed to hang on to a set of drapes while all the others near the exit were swept away.

  The constrained space of the corridor made it easier for them to catch their breath. "What the hell's going on?" Church was still disoriented after the Walpurgis's intrusion.

  Ruth pulled herself along the wall towards the deck. "I thought our progress was a little too smooth."

  They emerged into madness. Black waves soared up, some passing completely over the boat before crashing on the other side. The ship rolled in the wild water so violently that first one rail almost touched the churning sea, and then the other. The night sky was cloud tossed and torn by lightning, with no sign of moon or stars. Church and Ruth had to grip on to the mast to prevent the howling wind hurling them into the turbulent ocean. Every time they inhaled they took in a mouthful of salty water; the very air was infused with it.

  In a flash of lightning that froze the tableau in glaring white, they sensed movement above them. The next burst confirmed their fears. Something with the texture of black rubber gleamed in the light. It moved rapidly, but they recognised it was a tentacle, so large Church would not have been able to put his arms around it. Another lashed out of the water in an arc across the boat. The monster was trying to wrap itself around the entire ship to drag it down into the depths.

  A further tentacle smashed into one of the crew, his body folding where no joints had been. Others skidded across the deck, fighting to keep control of the boat so it wasn't breached by the waves. And then, in another lightning burst, they caught sight of the bulk of the creature just off the port side, ten times as large as
Wave Sweeper, something that was part octopus and part whale, with other, stranger inclusions too. It reminded Church of engravings he'd seen in old books about the mysteries of the deep.

  "A G'a'naran." Baccharus was beside them, answering Church's unspoken question. He was almost white, trembling from the shock of the attack. "They breed on the ocean floor, grazing on the dreams of mortals. They rarely challenge ships, and never Wave Sweeper."

  "Then why is it here?" Ruth yelled above the storm.

  Baccharus was steadying himself with a rope around his wrist attached to a nearby spinnaker. "I fear it was summoned."

  "By whom?" Church could tell from the god's face some vital information was not being passed on. Baccharus's gaze grew hollow.

  "What's going on here, Baccharus?" Church pressed.

  The god might have answered, but in that instant a tentacle swept along the length of the deck towards them. Baccharus ducked at the last moment, but the tip of it slapped Ruth away from the safety of the mast. She hit the deck hard, stunned. Church barely had time to register what had happened when a wave crashed over them and Ruth was propelled by the thick, foaming surf towards the rail. At the same time the ship began to roll on that side. In shock, Church realised she was going over the edge.

  Without any consideration for his own safety, he threw himself forward, allowing the surge of water to give him speed. It was futile. He watched in horror as the waves flung Ruth over the rail.

  At the last moment her jacket snagged on one of the hooks used to secure the rigging and she was jerked to a sudden halt. Church was already moving fast with the force of the water and it was difficult to direct himself. He prayed her jacket would hold until he reached her.

  Somehow she managed to buy a little extra time by clutching on to the carved rail, and then he slammed into the side with such force it knocked all the wind from him.