‘Nothing happened.’
She looked back at him.
‘There was no awakening.’ He pulled her even nearer, his voice rising. ‘Nothing has happened.’
He released her.
Alex leaned back against the wall breathing heavily.
‘Except I’ve found someone,’ he said in a whisper.
‘Gwen sent me,’ said Alex.
‘I’ve found someone,’ Paul said again, his eyes unfocused, staring somewhere else.
‘Paul,’ said Alex reaching forwards and grabbing her brother’s shoulders.
‘Don’t you understand?’
She shook him until his head lifted upwards and his eyes, so deep, so blue, looked into hers.
‘Gwen sent me.’ His gaze met hers, unflinching.
‘Gwen sent me,’ her voice softer now, soothing him.
‘She said she could no longer see you, that something was wrong.’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ said Paul. He broke free from his sister’s embrace, pushing her away as he stood. Losing her balance, Alex fell backwards onto the floor. Paul twisted round and reached out, opening the front door. Wind and rain filled the hallway. Paul stepped forwards, towards the storm that lashed the sky outside. Alex struggled upwards, reaching out with one hand to try and stop him from going. She grabbed his left calf pulling him back. A tremendous crash of thunder rolled around the courtyard outside. He turned to face her, his eyes burning with hatred.
‘Let go!’ he shouted over the noise, rage contorting his face. Alex held on, unable to let him go. He kicked down at her with his foot, bruising her shoulder. Cold gripped Alex’s heart and she froze. Paul pulled his leg out of her grip. He looked down at his sister.
‘Gwen knew nothing,’ he raged. ‘She was wrong.’
He turned away, stepping outside into the storm, into a blackness that swallowed him. Alex stared after him and for an instant lighting flickered and she saw him running down the steps into the lane. Rain hammered at the windows, splashing in the doorway. Alex pulled open the door and stepped out into the torrent.
‘Paul,’ she shouted, her voice drowned out by thunder. ‘Paul.’
She tried to follow him, running across the front patio and down the steep steps onto the lane becoming quickly soaked by the driving rain. Several metres in front of her she saw her brother under a streetlamp as he crossed the road and climbed over the style and onto the cliff path before he disappeared into the blackness beyond.
‘Paul,’ she screamed after him but he did not come back. She followed, cursing her trainers as she slipped on the wet cobbles of the lane. She crossed the street and climbed over the style, dropping down on the other side into pools of mud and, as she did so, a great roll of thunder crashed around her making her scream in shock. Lightning forked across the sky lighting the path, and she saw him now, a lone figure a long way ahead. She pushed on but kept slipping and sliding, the wind tugging at her in great gusts, and soon she was too scared to move forward anymore. More thunder rolled around her and lightning flashed and she gasped in shock for the edge of the cliff was barely a metre away. She froze knowing that to stay out here was madness yet that to return meant abandoning her brother. Also she knew she had no choice for it was now a matter of her own survival. She turned and began to slip and slide her way desperately back up the path towards the faint lights of the town and with each step she fought down the sobs that threatened to engulf her. She made it to the style and climbed over, a car passing slowly as she did so, and she caught sight of a child’s surprised face in the safe, steamed up windows and then it was gone.
Paul stumbled along the path as the rain hammered down and the storm rolled around him. The going was slow and the weight of his rucksack and soaked clothes and his desire to get back to her made him keep slipping on the treacherous mud and he had to check himself from falling off the edge of the cliffs and down onto the wet rocks far below. A desperate hope forced him onwards because he did not know what else was left for him.
Paul jumped as a cracking peal of thunder rolled around him, lightning flickering instantaneously across the sky in a jagged finger that stretched across black clouds contorted with the storm. The countryside around him was lit up and ahead of him on the path stood the horse and rider. Paul froze, his heart in his mouth, churning stomach making him want to vomit. It had come for him, as he had always known it would. He was not ready. There was so much more he wanted to do but now it was over.
The lightning spent itself, plunging everything into darkness again. Paul turned and tried to run but his feet slipped and slid on the mud and he fell. He scrabbled forward, blind to the black dirt sticking to his clothes, just knowing the animal instinct to get away from the heavy thud of hooves almost on top of him. He heard a loud, chilling whinnying and snorting, felt the heat of breath fill the air and he looked round in terror to see a massive shadow bearing down on him. He pushed himself up and stumbled blindly forward, the driving rain hiding the horizon. He slipped, stumbled forward and then felt only air under his foot. He flailed his arms out trying to catch something but before he could grab a hold he was falling, tumbling down over and over, his rucksack ripping away and then gone, rocks tearing clothes, bruising and bleeding him and then, just as sudden, a stillness.
For a moment he thought he was dead but the pain that then racked his body told him he was alive. He opened his eyes slowly. Lightning lit the sky and he saw that he had fallen down a low cliff onto rocks that were only a few metres from the roaring sea. He also saw the horse and rider walking their way down the slope towards him and then again darkness. He tried to move, to roll over, to push himself up and carry on fleeing but the pain stopped him and he fell back. Terror gripped him, sinking in his bowels as he waited for the rider to reach him.
The rain fell away and ceased its falling from the darkness. The sea calmed, as if a hand had moved across the land sweeping the fury of the storm before it. Quiet descended and all he could hear, faintly at first, was the snorting of breath through the horse’s nose and the slow and steady thump of massive hooves picking their way down the slippery cliff side. The darkness accentuated the sound as it grew nearer, terrifying visions flashing in his mind. He tried to get up again but the pain was still too great. He felt the ground vibrate beneath him as each juddering hoof came nearer, the air filled with monstrous whinnying and snorting. His bowels wanted to empty themselves with each great thud, and then he felt it, the heat of the stallion’s breath on his face, slime dripping onto his chest. Leather and metal creaked and clanked as the rider dismounted. Metal sang against metal as a sword was slowly but smoothly unsheathed. Frozen by terror, Paul screamed as the white hot fire of the blade pierced his body.
Chapter Thirteen
Paul's scream ended as everything went dark and a searing pain arced through his body sending his muscles into uncontrollable spasms. Then the pain was gone and waves of pins and needles swept through him with an intensity he had never experienced before. His body was changing, his bones becoming denser. Ligaments, tendons and muscle fibres multiplied and strengthened. At the same time a doorway opened within his mind and now a torrent of raw energy flooded through him, filling every pore of his being with tainted fire and something was answering within him. Rising from the depths of his subconscious the rider came for him, flowing into his body and mind, assimilating thoughts and memories with his. Paul’s mind struggled to cope, teetering on the edge of madness. Then new neural pathways forged themselves throughout his brain. His subconscious accepted the memories and adapted, learning how to access and interpret them as his own. Within the torrent of power that swirled around him Paul and the rider became one, and with this came knowledge.
Suddenly he knew how to interpret and harness the tainted energy that flowed everywhere as weaves of darkness. He saw the land entwined within a web of death and life, saw how he could sense living things and their thoughts and desires. He grasped how to filter the noise, how to read what he wanted to read, to see and man
ipulate the very reality of it, how to command nature itself. He saw the strength of the taint, how it weakened the energy of life, how it was winning against it. Then the images came, tumbling into his consciousness. His mind worked to organise them and they became memories, and one memory, the rider’s last, rose to the surface and burst across his consciousness.
A hut in the forest under crimson clouds.
Fleeing on horseback, his lover pressed against him.
The air suddenly full of arrows and steel.
The terror in her eyes as she is torn from him.
Searing pain as blades pierce his body.
And then darkness.
Paul’s eyes snapped open, his heart racing in his chest, breath coming in quick gasps. He was laying on some kind of table and he rolled off and collapsed to the floor like a drunk. His body was alien to him, his brain struggling to cope with the sudden change in the signals firing back to it from his muscular system. He gagged and coughed as his stomach heaved, saliva dripping down his chin to the floor. The images still burned in his consciousness, raw death that had just happened to him, and for a moment his mind could not accept that he was alive.
Paul tried to push himself up but he was too weak and he fell to the floor again. His mind was spinning, his guts still trembling with the sudden fear of his betrayal. His lover Amalia was gone. He saw her before him, could reach out and touch her, the image was so vivid. And then confusion came. He knew her again. She looked different somehow, was dressed differently but they were together, had been together that day. What magic was this? What was it that had resurrected him to relive the pain and suffering of his death, the tearing apart of his life? Paul fought for control of his mind, focusing on the image of Nicola, forcing himself to remember being with her. In desperation he pulled more and more memories. Aunt Gwen, Alex and his father, his school friends, the holidays, playing football in the park, his first kiss, anything to remember who he was, and slowly a delicate equilibrium began to form. As each minute passed he felt himself stabilising, his thoughts becoming less chaotic. His heart rate and breathing were slowing as his body got used to itself. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the darkened ceiling, his breath forming condensation in the air above him, his brain only now registering the freezing air. He took a little power from the taint to warm himself and then blinked in surprise at how natural the action had been.
‘Welcome Rider,’ said a thin, elegant male voice from somewhere over to Paul’s right, making him sit up in shock. He was in some kind of square room, two sides of which were glass from floor to ceiling. Outside it was night, the lights of a city stretching away in both directions several hundred feet below. A man stood in silhouette by the far end of the window. He was facing outwards, his back to the room. Paul felt a tremor run down his entire body as recognition filled his consciousness. It was Myrkur. The darkness. The one who discovered the taint and now spread its filth through the world. The one who has brought the Light to the very brink of extinction. It was the very thing Paul had sworn to fight, had been told was his destiny to defeat, and now he was in the same room as it and the enormity and consequences of this threatened to overwhelm him.
‘What do you want with me?’ Paul rasped, his voice sticking in his throat. In an automatic reaction part of him cried out to attack for he could end everything here.
The man let out a low laugh.
‘You have never been compliant, I will grant you that.’
Paul pushed himself up to stand unsteadily against the wall.
‘How does it feel Paul? To have been tricked like this? To have been so misled by her.’
Paul thought for control of his thoughts and emotions. The desire to attack was buried under the conflict.
‘How can you know?’
The man inclined his head towards Paul, his voice dropping, taking on a harder edge.
‘You will find I know a great many things.’ He turned into the room, his face now in darkness. ‘She tricked you and betrayed you and now you have come to me.’
It was Paul’s turn to laugh.
‘Did I have a choice?’
‘No you did not,’ Myrkur shot back. He turned back to the window and was briefly lit by the glow of the city lights. As he turned Paul saw a thin face with smooth skin, short hair and eyes that were like black pits. He was dressed in a dark suit jacket and trousers that fitted his thin frame perfectly.
‘You were created for one purpose Rider. While you struggle with this now, while you attempt to reconcile this truth with the life you were told you would lead, this confusion will pass.’
‘I should kill you now,’ growled Paul.
Myrkur chuckled as he turned and began to walk towards him.
‘Why do you defend her now, the white witch?’
Paul felt the air growing denser and colder as the shadowed figure approached him. Ice crystals began to form along the edge of the table.
‘She who has taken everything away from you. She who lied to you. She who abandoned you to me.’
Paul began to shiver uncontrollably as Myrkur stood before him.
‘If that is how you feel, then go ahead.’ He lifted his arms, palms facing outwards. ‘I have no weapon with which to defend myself.’
Paul struggled to control the compulsion to fight. Images, thoughts and feelings were flashing through his mind causing confusion and disorientation.
‘Why have you done this?’ he asked, his voice trembling.
‘Because I created you. Because I can.’
Paul stared into those black eyes, seeing nothing but his own faint reflection staring back at him.
‘The Light are fools,’ said Myrkur as he turned away and walked over to a low cupboard in the far shadows of the room.
‘They let Amalia live.’
The name jolted in Paul’s consciousness. He saw the face of his lover, her eyes filled with terror.
‘No,’ said Paul shaking his head, fighting to keep control. The face was Nicola.
‘She had a daughter,’ Myrkur said. ‘Your daughter.’ He turned his head towards Paul. ‘They tried to hide this from me.’
Paul stood paralysed, the shock overwhelming him.
‘I saw this as I see everything.’
Myrkur turned his body and came towards Paul holding something that faintly gleamed in his hands.
‘I have waited a long time for this day. For the first son of the Rider to be born and take his father’s place.’
His face hardened, his eyes trapping Paul with darkness.
‘Those witches took you from me Rider. Now they will pay.’
The man had come even closer, leaning into him, each word being forced into his brain.
‘We know all about her. And soon we will know even more.’
Paul looked down struggling to focus at the bronze cup now held in Myrkur’s hands.
‘You must drink this,’ he said, slender white hands reaching behind Paul’s head, gripping his scalp and pulling his head, his lips, towards the cup. ‘It will make many things clear to you and,’ said Myrkur smiling. ‘To me.’
Paul’s eyes widened in fear as he saw a dark, frothing liquid steaming in the bottom. He tried to cry out, to struggle but found he was powerless to even speak.
‘Then, once you have drunk this you will do something for me.’
The cup came closer, an acrid smell burning his nostrils.
‘You will kill the white witch before she can regenerate and then you will hunt down the rest of them and kill them too.’
The cup touched his lips and a hot viscous liquid began to spill onto his tongue. He tried to spit it out but more came filling his mouth and spilling onto his chest. The smell blocked his nostrils until he could not breathe and finally he had to swallow. His stomach turned, revulsion from the evil entering his body, and then it hit his mind and he fell, tumbling away into a chaotic whirlpool of darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
Alex stood in the porch of Gwen’s
house, her sodden clothes dripping great dark pools onto the stone floor. She pulled them off and left them in a pile by the door. She sank to the ground, a numbing fear gnawing at her stomach and clenching her body. With one last effort she dragged her rucksack over and opened the top, eventually finding some dry clothes which she put on before sinking down again and pulling her legs up to her chest, hugging herself while her brain tried to shut out what had just happened to her.
She did not know how long she sat there with her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the visions of the night but at some point calmness entered her mind, a soothing presence that replaced her fear with quiet. Warmth pervaded through her, the glow of a rising sun becoming bright behind her closed eyes. The deep aroma of woodland filled her nostrils, fresh and crisp in the morning air. She felt leaves beneath her while from somewhere soft music was carried to her, a whisper on the breeze, mixing with the gentle murmur of moving leaves.
Alex opened her eyes.
She was in a wood. It was autumn, golden yellows and browns highlighted by the rising sun, the bark of the trees glowing as if on fire. She lay on what seemed like a faint path between widely spaced trees. In front of her the trees gave way to a clearing where short grass glistened, brushed lightly with frost. She stood up, feeling calm, a sense that everything was right and as it should be and she remembered when she had felt this before.
As Alex stood a mist began to creep through the trees. Almost unnoticeable at first but soon thickening to hide the far reaches of the clearing in damp greyness. Soon Alex could only see a few feet in front of her and as she stared into the mist she saw cloaked figures moving towards her like waifs. The figures stopped in the mist except one which carried on towards her. As the figure approached Alex saw that it was Gwen, her white cloak glowing in the shadows, her deep, intense eyes holding Alex’s gaze and sending calm and reality spreading through her consciousness.
‘Welcome again to our wood, Alex,’ said Gwen. She stood in front of Alex, her gaze seeming to look through her. She took Alex by the arm and guided her forwards, the touch again sending electricity coursing through her body.
The Dark Rider (Fading Light) Page 12
