Jack of Ravens

by Mark Chadbourn

  ‘You have thrown in your lot with the Devil!’ Will shouted furiously.

  For a second his accusation appeared to strike a chord with Don Alanzo, but then the spider parasite on his neck reasserted its control and he smiled contemptuously. ‘You fear what you know is about to come to pass. England’s days are numbered. Philip will triumph over the despised Elizabeth, who will finally be forced to explain to her Maker why she turned away from God’s path. Even now our Armada prepares to sail—’

  ‘Look around you, lumpkin!’ Will shouted. ‘Since when did Spain ally itself with demons in the form of spiders?’

  ‘There’s no point, Will,’ Church said. ‘The spider controls his thoughts. I’m sure he thinks he’s being perfectly rational in carrying out the king’s business.’

  ‘If that is so, then why are we not all the mares of spiders?’

  It was a question that had troubled Church since he realised Maxentius had fallen under the spiders’ control in their bid to take Rome and prevent Constantine’s succession to power.

  The answer soon became apparent. One of the Spanish guards walked along the lines of colonists and selected a man who was on his knees, whining, and whom Church recalled had been one of the most prominent doomsayers about the declining supplies. The guards dragged him to the campfire and held him down. Salazar loomed over him and made a gesture in the air. Instantly one of the spiders scurried forward and climbed onto the man’s cheek, where it raised one metallic-looking leg at a time and thrust them into the man’s flesh. As the last leg went in, his screams subsided and he grew calm.

  ‘Despair,’ Church said in a moment of clarity as all the evidence of his eyes over recent months fell into relief. ‘The spiders can only control people who’ve given in to despair.’

  ‘Then the nature of this war is clear, Master Churchill. It is not between Spain and England, but despair and hope.’

  ‘Spiders and snakes,’ Church whispered.

  As the victim stood up quietly to join the Spanish soldiers, Don Alanzo said, ‘A short period of madness will afflict him intermittently, but then he will give in freely to our philosophy. Good shall win out in the end.’

  Will laughed hollowly.

  Salazar communicated silently with Don Alanzo. ‘You are honoured indeed to be here, Will Swyfte,’ the Don said. ‘Tonight you will witness the very pillars of heaven shake. The angels are coming down to Earth.’

  A man walked out of the shadows at Don Alanzo’s beckoning. It was Sir Robert Balfour, as refined and calm as the last time Church had seen him in the Templar store beneath his home.

  ‘Rab? Have they hurt you?’ Will questioned with concern, but Church could see Will already knew the truth.

  ‘A change has to come, Will. Elizabeth must die. And she shall.’ Rab read the betrayal in Will’s eyes. ‘My family is Catholic. We put our hope in Mary, but Elizabeth saw that threat off.’

  ‘The spiders have you.’

  ‘No spiders, Will. This comes from the heart.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Church said. ‘Two factions of Christianity fighting each other to the death while a greater enemy is destroying the human race. Can’t you see how ridiculous that is?’

  ‘Our roads are our own. We can walk no other.’ Rab motioned to the guards to bind Will and Church’s hands. ‘I would not see you hurt, Will. I hold you dear, but I hold my religion dearer. Bind them tight. This is a wily one.’

  ‘Your betrayal came early, Rab – I see it now. You told Dee of the crystal skull because you had no idea how to retrieve it yourself.’

  ‘I knew you would find a way. You always were the clever one.’

  ‘And now you’ve given it to them.’ Will nodded towards Salazar and Don Alanzo who were marking out an area in the centre of the fort. ‘And they’ll use it with the box.’

  ‘Politics and religion make strange bedfellows. But the end justifies the means.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Church asked.

  ‘This New World will teem with people one day. It will provide riches uncounted for whoever rules it. The Spanish will not see it fall into English hands.’

  ‘I don’t care why you’re here,’ Church said. ‘The spiders will wipe you out the minute you’ve served your purpose. Why are they here?’

  Balfour looked uneasily at the mass of spiders sitting silently on every available surface apart from the small area at the centre of the fort. They moved as one, a single mind, a single beast breathing. ‘They serve our purpose,’ Balfour said, but everyone present knew the lie. He nodded to the guards to take Will and Church away.

  They were dragged to one of the huts and thrown inside. When the guards had gone, Will said, ‘Do you know why the spiders are here?’

  ‘Balfour was right. In the future, this will be a thriving, powerful nation. Whoever controls it controls the world.’

  ‘But only,’ Will said speculatively, ‘if they turn their backs on hope and give in to despair.’

  Church recalled the spiders rising up out of the marshland, and thought of them in the centuries to come, nestling down under the ground, rising up in ones or thousands to take control of those who would do their bidding; here in America, in Rome, perhaps London, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing. Everywhere. The spiders were playing a long, long game. From this point forward they would be the nightmares of the human race, slipping out of the shadows to torment and direct, but never being seen in full light.

  The door opened a crack and Eleanor Dare crept in, her face tear-stained and frightened. She crawled behind Church and began to saw at his bonds with a kitchen knife. ‘They have taken Richard Frasier and Judith Carter. They are taking all of them.’ Her voice was cracked and desperate. ‘Some walk of their own accord, putting their heads low for the spiders to climb on.’

  ‘Don’t give in to it, Eleanor,’ Church urged.

  ‘I shall not,’ she said defiantly. ‘I will survive for Virginia and for God. In life’s long journey there are many threats. We do not bow down to them. We stand tall, we fight, we abide.’ She sawed through Church’s bonds and he took the knife from her and moved on to Will. ‘I place my faith in you, Master Churchill, and you, Master Swyfte. Deliver us from this evil.’

  She slipped back outside as quickly and silently as she had entered. Will flexed his wrists to bring back the blood supply. ‘I am my own master, and I play by my own rules. I am not comfortable when faith is placed in my abilities.’

  ‘Neither am I, Will,’ Church said, ‘but it’s too late now. They’re trusting in us. Their lives are in our hands.’

  22

  Church and Will retrieved their weapons from where the Spaniards had left them and found a good vantage point at the side of one of the huts. Salazar and Don Alanzo had finished marking out a large circle with torches burning at the four cardinal points. But it was what stood beside it that caught Church and Will’s attention. It appeared to be a doorway rising up nine feet or more with a frame constructed of some substance that resembled meat – the same substance that had formed the enemy fortress in the Far Lands. Looking at the abandoned clothes scattered nearby, Church wondered if it really was made from flesh. Within the frame the air shimmered, making it impossible to see through to the other side. Church sensed that passing through that doorway would take one much further than a mere step across the fort.

  His fears were confirmed when Don Alanzo ordered his guards to make the colonists line up before the doorway. Some fell in easily, controlled by the spiders, but others had to be prodded sharply. Eleanor was near the rear of the line, holding Virginia.

  ‘Where do you send them?’ Balfour said uneasily.

  ‘To a fortress in a land beyond the sunset.’ Don Alanzo’s voice was strained. ‘They will not be alone.’

  Church understood: the spiders had been stealing people for centuries and taking them back to their fortress in the Far Lands where they would march alongside the Ninth Legion and all the others who had mysteriously disappeared. He saw Eleanor
rocking her baby and forced himself not to consider what horrors waited on the other side of the door.

  ‘Do you have a plan, Master Churchill?’ Will hissed. ‘For I must confess I am bereft.’

  ‘There are two of us with swords and we’re surrounded by a small army of Spanish soldiers and about a million supernatural creatures. Who needs a plan?’

  Will laughed. ‘I will miss fighting at your side, Good Jack.’

  The first of the colonists were prodded through the doorway. It looked as though they passed through a gelatinous membrane – one moment of clinging, then gone.

  Salazar was at work in the circle, drawing patterns in the air with one gloved hand. He had barely finished when there was a distant sound of rending, then another, drawing closer. To Church it sounded like a series of doors opening one after the other.

  In the air over the circle the final doorway opened with a deafening crash and the smell of burned iron. An oblong of darkness obscured the night sky. Into it stepped a figure that made Church’s blood run cold: Janus, the dual-faced god of doorways, radiating a primal dread that made men blanch and turn away.

  ‘The preparations have been made?’ The voice was like a funeral bell.

  ‘Our power will rest in the dark beneath the earth until the season is right.’ The words came from Don Alanzo, but they were clipped and mechanical, and his eyes were glazed. Church had the impression Salazar was speaking through him. ‘Our power will rest beneath an island named Croatoan. And the word of power that will summon it is Croatoan.’

  ‘Then call them from their prison. Open the Anubis Box, and let the long-closed doors be thrown wide.’ Janus disappeared from view as a gust of icy wind blew through the camp.

  Salazar took the crystal skull from its velvet wrapping and set it in the centre of the circle. Church and Will were transfixed as Salazar bent over it and made another strange gesture with his gloved hand. The skull began to glow with a faint purple light. A sound emanated from it, high-pitched and reedy, growing louder by the second until everyone present clutched at their eyes and ears. The crystal skull was screaming.

  At Don Alanzo’s summoning, two guards escorted a woman from one of the huts. Despite the hood placed over her head, Church could tell it was Niamh. She walked proud and erect; Church wondered what power Salazar had over her that she offered no resistance.

  From the floating doorway, two golden-skinned angels emerged. One had the same refined, beautiful features as Niamh. Church guessed it was Lugh. At first the other’s features swam, but when they settled Church could see he was slightly rougher in appearance, though still beautiful by human standards, his nose straight, his hair curly; he looked like a distant cousin of Niamh’s branch of the family.

  They dropped slowly down until they stood before Salazar and Don Alanzo. There was something in their sagging-shouldered, bowed-headed posture that suggested they had been broken by their experience. Church saw none of the arrogance he had witnessed in other Golden Ones.

  Niamh tore off her hood. She looked frightened, and Church saw her mouth the words, ‘My brother …’

  Salazar took the Anubis Box from a bag and held it before him. An unnatural silence fell across the camp; even the tramp of the colonists’ boots as they walked through the doorway could not be heard.

  ‘With this power, we bind you, known on this world by your worshippers as Apollo,’ Don Alanzo/Salazar said.

  He held the box before the second god and raised the lid slightly. Black tendrils rose out like smoke, curling through the air until they suddenly lashed into Apollo’s face. The tendrils spread out, driving his head back, forcing their way into his nose, his mouth, ears and eyes; and it seemed to Church that along those tendrils surged tiny creatures, pouring into the god’s body.

  Finally the tendrils retreated back into the box. They left Apollo’s face with a malignant cast; the whites of his eyes were now black. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and said, ‘We are one.’ It sounded to Church like a thousand voices speaking at once.

  Church suddenly became aware he had been mesmerised by the strange ritual taking place. As he looked around, he saw everyone else had been affected the same way. He shook Will who said, dazed, ‘The box … it allows them to bend angels to their will.’

  Church launched himself forward. He was past the Spanish guards before they even saw him coming, drawing his sword as he leaped into the circle. With a powerful swing, he cleaved Salazar in half. There was a flash of blue molten sparks, and a terrible shrieking echoed through Church’s head. Spiders of all sizes flew from Salazar’s body and scurried into the vast mass of arachnids that covered the fort.

  Church was too dazed to put up a defence as Don Alanzo drew his sword. Will threw himself in between them and engaged the Spanish aristocrat.

  Niamh grabbed Church as he staggered and slowly came back to his senses. He looked around for the skull and the Anubis Box, but they were already disappearing beneath the sea of spiders.

  ‘We must leave,’ she hissed. ‘There is no more that can be done here.’

  ‘They can’t have the box …’ His attention was drawn to the dwindling line of colonists and Eleanor and Virginia Dare near the back.

  Before he could move to help her, he was grabbed and lifted into the air. Slowly he was turned to face Apollo; the sun god was now transformed into a malignant engine of destruction. Black spiders swirled around the edges of his eyes and crawled in the depths of his mouth. Church could feel a brutish power rolling off the god; it felt like the furious burning of a nuclear core. Church could feel it searing through his skin, driving into his centre, cooking him from within. He gripped the sword tightly, but couldn’t lift it. Consciousness began to leak out of him.

  Something wrenched him from Apollo’s grasp and hurled him across the fort like a toy. He crashed to the ground near one of the huts. As he finally slipped into the deep black, he saw two things.

  It was Lugh who had saved him, and now the god fought furiously with Apollo. Bolts of golden and black lightning lashed across the camp accompanied by peals of deafening thunder. At their core, Lugh and Apollo were two suns, their shapes indistinguishable in the burning incandescence of their fury.

  The final thing Church saw was Eleanor Dare turn to look at him. Behind the sadness, her pale face still registered hope as she clutched her child tightly to her and stepped through the doorway into hell.

  23

  Church woke as dawn’s first light fell across the camp. His head was nestled in Niamh’s lap and he was looking up into her beautiful face. Her deep concern slowly transformed into relief by way of a growing smile.

  ‘I feared you were dead,’ she said softly.

  Church lifted himself onto his elbows to look around. The fort was deserted. There was no sign of the millions of spiders, nor of the transformed god who had almost burned Church’s life from him. Church recalled that last lingering look from Eleanor Dare and felt a sharp stab of righteous anger.

  ‘I’m going to get them back,’ he said defiantly. ‘Nothing’s going to stand in my way, however long it takes. Eleanor, Virginia and all the other colonists are counting on me and I’m not going to let them down.’

  ‘Are you certain they still live?’ Niamh asked hesitantly.

  ‘The spiders took them alive for a reason. They need them that way. I’m betting they’re being kept prisoner in the spiders’ fortress in the Far Lands.’

  ‘Then you will never be able to reach them.’

  Logically, Church knew Niamh was right, but he refused to accept it. ‘Some day we’ll be strong enough to attack that fortress and when we do I’m going to be right at the front, freeing Eleanor and Virgina and making whoever took them pay.’ He punched the ground in frustration. ‘If only I hadn’t lost the skull and the box.’

  Niamh placed a cool hand on the back of his neck. ‘You saved my brother. You saved me.’

  Church nodded. ‘Maybe we’ll call this one a draw.’

  ‘This i
s the start of a brutal war. I have seen that now. It will shake the foundations of the Fixed Lands and the Far Lands, and all lands beyond. This was but one battle. There will be many more.’

  Will emerged from one of the huts, munching with distaste on one of the hard biscuits the colonists had brought with them.

  ‘Don Alanzo?’ Church said.

  ‘Escaped, and took Rab with him. We are too equally matched. I lost him in the blaze of …’He shook his head, unable to describe the details of the gods’ battle. ‘My head is filled with wool and not a drop of wine has passed my lips.’ He took another bite. ‘We shall cross paths again. And next time the blades of Albion will triumph.’

  Will put on a brave face, but Church could see he had not forgotten Lucia. A moment passed between them, a bond, an unspoken agreement that neither of them would rest until justice had been done.

  They walked out of the camp towards a large tree, where Will took out his knife and began to carve.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Church asked.

  ‘Whatever dark power was here has returned to its lair to wait until its time comes round again. We must leave a reminder, and a warning, for those who come after.’

  When he had finished, the word ‘Croatoan’ was carved into the bark.

  ‘And now, Master Churchill, you will be wanting to return to that place where great heroes live, with your angel-love and her angel-brother.’ Church began to protest at Will’s implications, but the spy silenced him. ‘I fear I may have a few months’ wait until a ship comes this way, but there are fish in the sea and I will have time aplenty to lick my wounds and rest my bones.’