by Alan Baxter
Within moments he was dressed, banging on doors. Bleary faces emerged into the dim light of the hallway, a glowing Exit sign near the stairs the only illumination.
‘Come on, lads, we have to go.’
‘What?’ Darius mumbled. ‘What happens?’
Nicholas reached in and flicked on the lights in each bedroom, making the men squint and frown. ‘We’ve all bloody slept in. Let’s go. It’s nearly midnight.’
‘What about food?’ Salay grumbled as he pulled on trousers and shirt.
‘Too late. We’ll eat afterwards.’
‘There’s time, no? Between twelve and three, right?’
Nicholas took a deep breath, calmed his mind. ‘Yes, but we don’t know how long things might take. Sure, the previous rituals have been very short. But this is our goal, this may take longer. It would be foolish to waste time now.’
The others continued to grumble but got ready anyway. As they snuck out the front door of the guest house, icy night sliced into them. Sub-zero yet calm, stars bright in a clear sky. Heavy snow had fallen, a soft white blanket that muffled everything, smoothed every sharp edge. Haydon dragged a sleeved arm across the windscreen of his car and jumped in. They sat rubbing hands together as the engine sputtered into life and coughed into a smooth purr. Nicholas cranked the heater up, his wipers dragged with protest across the frosty glass. Eventually there was a small clearing in the obstructed view and he drove off, tyres squeaking and crunching over fresh snow. The car slid and fishtailed on the corners, but it was only a short drive to the circle.
Everything was silent and still as the men stomped across frozen grass and snow to the stones, standing tall and thin like broken teeth, silhouettes in the dark, lit by ghostly starlight.
‘Impressive,’ Salay muttered, his breath clouding about his face.
‘Beautiful, aren’t they,’ Nicholas agreed. He closed his eyes, drew a long breath in through his nose that chilled his throat and lungs. ‘You can feel the energy here, no? There’s a buzz in the air.’
Darius and Salay both nodded, said nothing. Haydon knew they sensed what he did, the ripple of arcane vitalities. A vortex of something beyond human lived here, as it did at every ancient site of power. Some were dull, almost irrelevant, like the Convenanter’s Stones. Some were stronger, far greater in potency. Stonehenge was one of the strongest he had ever felt, though that was partly the vigour so many visitors gave the place, with their wishes and desires. This place had a natural, ancient energy. Something previous people had felt and worked with, erecting this site where power already resided. ‘Gentlemen, shall we?’
The three of them pulled plastic bags from their pockets and spread them on the ground to sit on. They faced each other, centred among the stones, linked hands and began their chant. Their voices droned low, each breathing in turn as they set the vibration. Nicholas immediately sensed something different, a new pulsation that had not been present at any ritual before. A sensation of movement, of incredible drag, drew against his mind. He heard the voices of his colleagues falter and knew they felt it too. With renewed strength he breathed deep to control his voice and let the ceremony itself guide him. Each raised the tone of their incantation until the pitch reached its high, penetrating volume. Six eyes flicked open in the night, jet black and shining, reflecting icy stars. They each spoke their name in unison and intoned together, ‘We travel the mysteries and seek the arcana. We are vessels for gnosis. We are three, three is power, speak through us.’
The frozen night deepened its chill, an eldritch light drifted up from the frosted grass and bathed the men and stones. Nicholas gasped as energy coursed through him, a euphoria and a dread combined and something, somewhere, laughed in manic glee.
‘Now wait,’ all three men hissed together in the voice that was not their own. ‘Patience and strength.’
A mild panic shuddered through Nicholas Haydon as he felt the magic of the ritual lock down. He was held in place, bound by chains of ethereal might and he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Whatever they had set in motion had them trapped, and they had no choice but to see it through.
‘I’ve got them!’ Rowan’s voice was childlike with excitement.
Alex, Sil and Jarrod spun around to see the small man at the door. ‘And?’ Alex asked.
Rowan shook his head, his eyes wide. ‘It’s amazing. It’s … it’s not like anything before. They’re doing something right now and we have to go.’
‘Okay. Where are they?’
‘I’m not sure, but I can feel them. Even now, they’re hanging off me like weights. I don’t know where they are, but I know which way we need to go. They’re near. I see tall standing stones in a field of ice and snow and I sense a magic unlike anything I’ve ever known.’
‘Callanish,’ Jarrod said.
‘What?’
The big man held out a leaflet to Alex. ‘Callanish stone circle, one of the main draws of this place. About twenty-five minutes’ drive.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’
Within minutes Alex guided the big Land Rover as fast as he dared through snowy, deserted dark streets and out into the rolling, rugged country of Lewis. They passed farms and homes, soft and blanketed white.
Alex watched the road with all his vision as he drove, looked for any shades, any warnings. A sudden sensation of culmination swamped his senses. Something significant was happening. Something irreversible. Silhouette rested one hand on his knee, fingers strong in a nervous grip. He flicked her a tight smile, nothing more to say.
Even in the dangerous conditions he made the twenty-five-kilometre trip in a little over twenty minutes. The road became thinner and more treacherous with ice. A small frozen loch glittered in starlight to their left as Alex drove carefully up a shallow rise. An unnatural blue glow greeted them at the top, drifting among the tall stones like mist. Three seated men were dark shadows in the circle, hands linked. Alex braked to a halt as Jarrod and Silhouette growled deep in their chests.
Silhouette grabbed Alex’s arm, her fingers like iron. ‘This is Fey magic!’
The four of them climbed out of the car and jumped a low wire and wooden fence that surrounded the stones. The immediate sensation of static and crackling magical energy rippled through them relentlessly. Rowan turned, took one step back towards the car before Jarrod grabbed him, dragged him along.
As they made it within a few metres of the stones, Alex clutched at his chest and fell. The Darak burned like molten iron. He howled, the pain excruciating, as he writhed in the snow.
Silhouette dropped beside him. ‘Alex! Alex, what’s happening?’
He gasped for breath, tried to speak but no words came out. Something dragged against him, as if it tried to pull the stone from his body. But the Darak could no more be removed than his bones could be pulled out from among his muscles.
Magical energy swirled around the stone circle, around them all, like a storm, a localised tornado of arcane power. Sharp, coppery odours crackled through the night.
Rowan cried out, struggled in Jarrod’s grip. ‘Realms are opening!’ Jarrod shouted over the howling winds.
Alex heard him, but could do nothing about it. He squirmed in pain, hands pressed to his chest, mind consumed by agony.
‘What can we do?’ Silhouette screamed. ‘Are they doing this?’ She pointed one trembling hand at the three men seated among the stones.
‘I’m doing it!’ Alex hissed from between clenched teeth.
Silhouette looked down at him, eyes wide. ‘What?’
‘They’re using me!’
Nicholas Haydon felt a massive shift in their focus and knew others were present. Where they had come from, who they were, was irrelevant. Their presence somehow amplified the ritual. If ever he had doubted the veracity of his activities, if ever he wondered how much magic really existed in the things he did, he need worry no longer. It swarmed around him now in undeniable quantity, unfathomable depth. Reality itself tore open and winds drove through h
im from all directions.
The Accord again spoke as one, their voice not their own. ‘The nexus opens! The opportunity is here!’
Sound and light whipped and curled around them as the ground became air and colours became solid. The three men were lifted and swirled through a mass of energy and sucked away from everything they knew.
Alex dragged himself to his feet, grimacing against the pain. He staggered towards the stone circle, barely visible through the arcing lights, pulsing magesign and howling wind.
‘Alex!’ Silhouette screamed. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We have to follow them!’
‘Follow them where? Alex, this is Fey magic at work. This is fucking dangerous stuff.’
Jarrod grabbed Silhouette with his free hand, his other still held a thrashing Rowan. ‘What day is today?’ he shouted over the storm.
Silhouette’s eyes widened. ‘Why didn’t we think of that before?’
‘We never suspected direct Fey magic before. Ridesprites, maybe …’
‘We should have!’
Alex pressed the heel of one hand into his chest, the Darak pulsing painfully in time with his heart. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked, teeth still clenched.
Silhouette turned to face him, her blonde hair swirling in the static wind. ‘Alex, it’s December twenty-first today.’
‘So?’
‘It’s Yule. Shortest day of the year. The winter solstice.’
Alex struggled to understand through the pain. ‘So fucking what?’
‘It’s a thin day, Alex! A day when the Fey are at their most powerful.’
Alex nodded, finally understanding. ‘And this is Fey magic. But it changes nothing. We have to go through.’
Silhouette pointed back over her shoulder at the swirling vortex, eyes fearful. ‘That might lead to Faerie!’
‘It doesn’t matter where it leads. They went through, and so must we. That’s what all this is about.’
Jarrod pulled Rowan around to face them. The small man was whiter than the surrounding snow, terrified. ‘Is this the danger?’ the big man demanded of him. ‘Are we too late or does the danger exist in there?’
Rowan trembled violently, his mouth working soundlessly.
Jarrod shook him again. ‘Well?’
‘The danger still exists,’ Rowan said, barely audible over the winds. ‘Please, let me go!’
Alex started for the stones again. ‘They fucking used me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened or how, but I’ve been used. That does not sit well with me.’
The burning in his chest persisted, made it hard to speak or breathe. But his fury overrode it. He would not be a pawn in the games of others.
Silhouette faltered. ‘Please, Alex! What if it leads to Faerie?’ She turned to Jarrod. ‘Tell him!’
Jarrod shook his head. ‘We have a job to do, Silhouette. Faerie is a dangerous place for humans and Kin, but we have no choice.’ Still dragging Rowan in one hand, the big man put the other around Alex’s back and helped him along. With a cry of resigned fear Silhouette followed.
The churning magic buffeted them as they went between the stones. An incandescent cloud whirled at the centre, sucked them towards itself. The Darak pulsed fit to explode, tore at Alex’s very soul. With a shout of defiance he grabbed Silhouette’s hand, planted a kiss hard on her lips and pulled her through.
Claude Darvill skidded the tiny Avis hire car to a halt behind a big black Land Rover. Coruscating blue lights and unnatural winds whipped around a stone circle on the top of the rise before him. He saw a group of figures staggering towards it, leaning against the magical storm.
‘Just what the fuck is going on here?’ he demanded aloud.
He ran from the car, one arm up to shield his face from the maelstrom. Almost lost against the brightness at its centre he saw the four figures and knew instantly that the tall, muscular one with the cropped hair was Alex Caine. After all this, his quarry so close, he found himself faced with some abomination. Not now. He refused to give up when he was this close. He ran across the frozen grass, shoes kicking up clouds of glittering snow. The figures disappeared into the rapidly contracting brightest light at the centre of the storm and Claude doubled his pace. As they vanished, the roiling storm of magic folded swiftly in on itself. With a scream of frustration, Darvill leapt forward, disappearing into the brightness as the storm snapped away, as if it had never been.
8
The burning in Alex’s chest became a dull echo of reality as his senses were overwhelmed by light and noise. A rushing like a giant waterfall filled his ears, streaks and pulses of luminescent colour drove needles into the backs of his eyes. He gripped Silhouette’s hand tightly, blinking rapidly as he tried to see her through the rippling flashes. He felt five miles long and stretched thinner than rice paper. He felt planet-heavy and bigger than a galaxy. His mind railed against every stimulus it read, nothing made any kind of sense. All he knew for certain was Silhouette’s hand in his, squeezing back. She seemed to be a thousand miles beyond that tight grip, but they were together.
The rushing became a squealing wail, the pulsing colours strobed. Alex shut his eyes, tried to calm his mind against the maelstrom, but it burned right through. A sensation of falling, of rapid acceleration, pulled against him and he wondered if he would die any second, slammed up against something solid, squashed like a bug on a windshield. He hauled against Silhouette’s grip, tried to draw her to him, but nothing moved. His elbow didn’t even kink when he used all his considerable strength.
The lights and colours began to dim, the barrelling sensation slowed. He risked opening his eyes and saw the vague outline of Silhouette, her face a mask of terror. Beyond her he could make out a shadowy pair, Jarrod, a giant with Rowan wrapped against his chest. Waves of cold and heat swept over him. The sense of motion became more real, his eyes watered at an actual wind rushing past. With a grunt of escaping breath he struck something hard and rolled, tumbling over Silhouette. She grabbed for him and they held on to each other on dark, earthy ground that smelled musty and damp, rocks and gravel scattered all around.
As they came to rest, they faced endless night. The ground they sat upon stretched brown and rough for just a few metres before it dropped away. A ragged edge like torn canvas, with nothing beyond but darkness. Thin tendrils of mist wound lazily around the edge, moving sluggishly. Occasional pale blue glimmers danced in the air. There was no breeze, no sound.
Alex looked out into the dark and saw nothing. No stars, no clouds, no movement of any kind. He trembled, aware that he stared into absolute void. It was not night, or space, or anything he could comprehend. He had no idea how he knew, he simply did. Beyond that tattered edge of land was absolute, endless oblivion.
He put a hand around Silhouette’s shoulders as she stared with him, their breath shallow and short.
‘What the fuck?’
Alex turned at the sound of Rowan’s voice, expecting the nervous seer to be looking out into the blackness as well, and gasped. The seer’s back was to him, and beyond him an edifice of shining, opaque black rock, like glass. Alex turned Silhouette to see. A wall with uneven roofs towered twenty metres over them, smooth and unbroken. Other roofs and towers could be glimpsed beyond the wall, tiny windows, glassless gaps in the shining surface, seemed randomly scattered among them.
‘Some kind of city?’ Jarrod said, his deep voice tremulous.
Alex stood, pulled Silhouette to her feet. ‘Looks like it’s made from obsidian.’
‘Made?’ Jarrod asked. ‘Or carved? Can you see any joins in the wall? Any bricklines?’
He could not. The wall seemed perfect and solid, stretching away into mist on either side. He noticed dim shadows lying behind Jarrod and Rowan and tipped his gaze up, wondering where the light they could see by came from. High above the glistening city a curve of shivering brightness shifted, rippling like a breeze across still water. It cast a wan, pale blue glow over everything, pulsing gently, but
never fading completely. As Alex shifted his view, he saw the glow all around them, never where he directly looked, but always on the edges of his vision. The illumination was only vaguely constant in the concave sky far above. He cringed inside against the creeping sensation that they were inside something like a giant snowglobe, the only thing in eternal black nothingness all around. ‘Where are we?’ he asked.
No one had an answer.
A rushing suck of air, like a vacuum suddenly filling, made them spin around. Some twenty metres away a swirling vortex briefly opened, like a flower blooming in fast forward, and spat something out. As the light blinked away, a figure could be seen writhing on the ground. Without a word they ran towards it.
The man had gained his knees by the time they reached him and stared mesmerised at the black walled city. He jumped as they drew near, scrambled to his feet. His face was furious. He wore a thick jacket over a heavy cotton shirt and khaki cargo pants. He scooped up a leather fedora from the ground, planted it on his head. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he demanded.
‘Who are you?’ Alex said, ignoring a question for which he had no answer.
The man’s eyes narrowed, his lip curling in a sneer. ‘You’re Alex Caine?’
Alex was startled. ‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘My name is Claude Darvill. I’m Robert Hood’s son.’
Alex’s mind spun in neutral for a few seconds as the implications struck him. He saw Hood in his mind’s eye, screaming his defiance and anger, demanding Alex’s blood, the Darak, the book. He saw himself curse Hood with eternal life and indestructibility, use elemental magic to split open the earth, drop Hood into a personal hell of molten rock and slam the ground closed over him, to burn forever. And this was the man’s son? ‘How did you find me?’ he stammered, unsure what else to say.
Darvill’s sneer remained in place. ‘I used the considerable resources of my father’s business to track down the last person he’d been dealing with before he disappeared. Turns out that’s you. Right?’
Alex paused, thinking frantically. Silhouette slipped her hand into his, squeezed. He didn’t need the warning. How could he possibly tell this man the truth? ‘I’m sorry, Claude. I don’t know where he is. I didn’t know he had a son.’
