The Queen of sinister da-2

by Marc Chadbourn

  'What now?' Matt asked.

  'Now?' Crowther grabbed Caitlin and made her stand in the focal point of the circle. 'You wait there,' he said to her, 'and do what I say the second I say it.' To Matt, he said, 'Meanwhile, we wait for the hallucinogen to take effect… and we hope.'

  A sense of awe had descended on the entire stone circle, pregnant with possibility. No birds sang; the trees barely stirred in the breeze. The sun slipped to the horizon, bringing gold to the face of the stones, ploughing long shadows into the heart of the ring.

  'A fairy circle,' Mahalia said in a whisper, the first stages of the trip evident in her voice.

  'Exactly,' Crowther said. 'Metaphors and symbols, all hiding a deeper truth.' They listened to the silence for a few moments and then the professor added, 'We are Psychonauts, embarking on a journey beyond reality. Few have been this way before us.'

  'Let's hope we come back,' Matt said.

  'Look.' Caitlin/Amy pointed past the shimmering ethereal stones to a hazy area in the field beyond. Ghostly but unthreatening figures appeared and then faded, walking through their echo-lives oblivious to Crowther and the others.

  'The dream zone,' Crowther said. 'Reality is thinning.'

  Caitlin glimpsed people in ancient dress, images she distantly recalled from storybooks, some dressed in clothing styles she didn't recognise, others that looked barely human. And briefly she saw five people staring back at her — a man with dark hair, another whose torso was covered with tattoos, a thin Asian man, a woman with brown hair and another with dyed-blonde hair. They appeared to be trying to communicate with her, but they were gone before Caitlin appreciated their presence. Caitlin looked round; Mahalia had seen them too.

  'Magic,' Matt said dreamily. 'Everywhere.'

  'In the local stories, this place was supposed to be the favourite haunt of Oxfordshire fairies and Warwickshire witches,' Crowther said. 'The last Oxfordshire fairies were seen disappearing down a hole under these stones in the eighteenth century. It was reported, written down — an eyewitness account. Amazing.' The air had grown unseasonably warm, and a hazy, cosseting feeling enveloped them all; they felt at peace yet excited about what lay ahead. Distant music floated in and out of their hearing, merging with the sound of the wind.

  But just as they began to enjoy the warm, joyful atmosphere, Carlton began to whimper. Caitlin didn't have to ask what was wrong: she could feel exactly what Carlton was sensing: a dull psychic warning of impending danger. If they hadn't been in that spot, tripping, they would never have perceived it, but now it was like an alarm bell tolling.

  'What's going on?' Matt asked fearfully.

  'Don't get worked up,' Crowther cautioned. 'The drug will magnify your emotions. You'll panic.'

  'Don't get worked up?' Amy was gone, and now the neurotic, frightened presence of Briony dominated. 'You know what's coming.'

  'What is it?' Matt said, urgently.

  'Things have been tracking us,' Caitlin said. 'Tracking me. They won't give up.'

  'Stay calm.' Crowther laid a heavy hand on Caitlin/ Briony's shoulder.

  'What things?' Matt searched the area. The sun was now just a thin line of red at the horizon, and the shadows surged everywhere amongst the trees.

  'The Whisperers.' Caitlin/Briony hugged her arms around herself.

  'Can you feel that?' Matt stood up, ready to roam to the edge of the circle to search the growing dark until Crowther grabbed his jacket and pulled him back down.

  And then they all could feel it: a wave of black despair washing across the land, rising inexorably up to the higher ground where the stones looked out. The Whisperers were coming.

  'What are they?' Caitlin/Briony asked desperately. 'How can they make us feel this way?'

  Mahalia grabbed Crowther's arm and said ferociously, 'How much longer before this thing works?'

  'I don't know. I don't know if it will work.'

  Mahalia whirled around. 'We're too exposed here. We need to find shelter… somewhere we can defend.'

  'They shouldn't be able to step into the circle,' Crowther said. 'The Blue Fire will keep them out.'

  'But if we don't cross over, they can just wait outside the stones until we starve,' Mahalia said.

  A thin purple light was visible far away down the valley, but drawing quickly closer.

  'Come on!' Caitlin screamed. It felt as if all her occupants were struggling to gain control.

  The remaining sun was just the slightest sliver, as if the sky was cut and bleeding. Yet oddly the blue glow edging the stones was growing brighter, running in veins and capillaries down the very rock as if infusing them with life. The air became charged with magic.

  A ragged breathing rose above the stillness. Mahalia drew one of the knives from her harness and turned in the direction of the sound. Purple mist drifted languorously through the trees and soon after a figure came stumbling through it. But this was not one of the Whisperers. It had the shape of a man, though the purple light was leaking out of him as if he were a fractured steam pipe.

  Carlton whimpered; Mahalia crouched low to the ground, ready to fend off any attack.

  The figure reached the edge of the stones and they recognised him as the hermit who had tried to drive them away from the Motor Museum. But he was no longer as he had been.

  'My God! What have they done to him?' Crowther breathed, transfixed.

  The man could barely be called that any more. Bones protruded through his skin as if it had been broken and the frame had torn through, but without blood; instead there was that purple light. His skull shimmered in a spot where there should have been hair and scalp; an eye stared out of a harsh orbit. He somehow managed to lurch forwards even though a thigh bone was cracked and exposed. The numerous ridges and furrows of exposed bone made him resemble some kind of walking dinosaur.

  And as he moved, he moaned, a thin whine of pain and despair that provided a backdrop to words that could not have been his. 'There is no hope,' he said with an unsettling, otherworldly sibilance. 'It ends here. You end here.' Rusted sword-blades emerged from both of his hands where they had been embedded in the bone.

  Behind him came the dark, lumbering shapes of the Whisperers on their mounts, black against the shadows but their eyes lit with purple. The colour itself had begun to make Caitlin feel queasy. They were approaching the circle on every side, drawing in their ring of terror.

  And if they couldn't enter the circle, their herald had no such qualms. He crashed across the barrier, swinging those sword-blades wildly. Mahalia ducked at the last moment, narrowly escaping the loss of her head. Carlton scampered on all fours to the other side of the circle where he was feverishly aware of the Whisperers just a stone's throw away.

  The man turned on Crowther, his crazed attacks unpredictable.

  'LET ME OUT!' The terrible voice roared at the back of Caitlin's head: the Fifth, the one the others all feared. 'LET ME OUT! LET ME BRING MY FURY TO BEAR!'

  'No!' Caitlin told herself. 'Never, never, never.'

  Matt threw himself forwards, knocking Crowther out of the path of the killing blow. The sword drove into the soft earth.

  'Life winds down to decay, then death,' the herald continued. 'All things are ending, always.'

  The drug was slowly working its magic in all of them, spinning up the spiral dance of the trip. The visual hallucinations were taking over from the auditory and emotional twists. The world within the circle was like a dream of bursting flowers and life, while the darkness howled at the stones from without.

  'Now!' Crowther yelled at Caitlin. 'Slam your hand on the ground! There! There!' Frantically he pointed to a spot near her feet.

  Caitlin did as she was told and instantly lines of Blue Fire ran from each stone towards a focal point in the centre of the ring. The coruscating energy crackled, rising up like liquid, then forming odd geometric shapes. A massive structure of shimmering sapphire was forming over them.

  The herald turned on Caitlin. He pointed one of the swords to
wards her throat, then drove it forward. She was rooted.

  Matt knocked the blade away at the point when Caitlin closed her eyes in acceptance that it was all over. The rusted metal tore through the flesh of Matt's forearm, but still he turned and smashed a fist into the herald's jaw. The attacker stumbled, off-balance. Before he could right himself, Mahalia appeared between his legs, thrusting a screwdriver up into his groin. Like a rat, she darted underneath him and came up, bringing a knife in a sideways motion across the herald's throat. Purple light was everywhere, mingling with the blue luminescence until they were all lost in colour.

  As the herald went to his knees, Crowther yelled with a raw throat, 'Get to the centre! Where the light is strongest!'

  They all scrambled to the place where music swirled all around like a tornado and a rush of excitement came up through the ground and into their heads. Crowther made some strange gesture with his hands, whispered a word they couldn't comprehend, and then there was a sound like thunder and the world rippled and fell away.

  Chapter Five

  In the footsteps of Infinity

  'There are fairies at the bottom of our garden.'

  Rose Fyleman

  The new world came up at them in a flash of white and they hit it hard, crashing to their knees and sucking in a huge gulp of air as if they had fallen from a high place. A fleeting memory of somewhere wonderful and blue slipped from their thoughts the moment they tried to catch it. Yet the sensations came too thick and fast for reflection on the transition. Snow lay thickly all around and a blizzard roared with such force they had to hunch against it like old men, yelling so their disbelief and amazement could be heard. Within seconds they were shaking with the bitter cold.

  Despite their situation, Caitlin's eyes sparkled with wonder. 'I can't believe it! We're… we're…'

  'In Fairyland,' Crowther said wryly. Good humour transformed his face. 'For those who have studied the Kabbalah, this is Yesod, land of dreams, first staging post for the dead. We all go here in our sleep sometimes.' He looked around, scarcely believing it himself.

  'This is… just… amazing.' Even though he was buffeted by the blizzard, Matt stretched out his arms so he could fill his lungs. 'The crossing was so… wild.' He struggled to find words to describe the experience. 'I felt like I was filled with energy… like my thoughts were electric… like they were spinning around the universe. And here, it's… magic.'

  They all knew what he meant. The very essence of reality was heightened, as if they had walked through the screen into a movie. Colours were brighter, textures more evocative, aromas unbelievably heady, sounds so vibrant they had to stop and listen in amazement to the music the wind made. Suddenly there was no such thing as mundanity and boredom. Magic burned in even the smallest thing and anything was possible. The sheer wonder of it made their heads spin.

  'It's like a drug,' Caitlin said. 'You could lose yourself in it.' She thought for a moment and then added, 'Who'd want to go back after experiencing something like this?'

  'Who indeed?' Crowther said.

  The cold was too much for them to wallow in the experience. 'We have to find shelter before we freeze to death,' Matt yelled. He took in their position in a second. At their backs were the loftiest mountains any of them had ever seen, the peaks snow-capped and filled with the dreams of childhood, solid against a sky of threatening slate-grey cloud. Protecting his eyes from the stinging snow, he motioned down the slope.

  The snow was knee-deep and it was hard going as they trudged downwards, but at least the gale was at their backs. Soon Matt spotted a gully filled with boulders as large and misshapen as mythological beasts. He led them directly into it, relishing the protection it gave them from the wind and the worst of the snow.

  Once in the shelter, they relaxed a little, but after the initial exhilaration, worries surfaced. Mahalia checked back up the slopes, the haunting images of the Whisperers still echoing through her mind. 'Can they follow us?' she asked.

  'I don't know,' Crowther replied, 'but I have no intention of waiting around to find out.' Caitlin was still dazed by the crossing. More than for the rest of them, the lure of the blue world they had passed through so quickly remained strong. 'What did they do to that poor man?' she said. 'It was as if they'd tried to turn him into one of them.' 'He looked like some kind of zombie,' Mahalia said. 'Maybe that's what they do — take people over.' Matt was checking his arm. 'What is it?' Crowther asked. 'The hermit guy wounded me. Pretty badly.' Matt held up his arm to show them. 'But it's healed.' 'A quality of the Blue Fire,' Crowther said. 'It has strong healing properties-' 'That blue, blue world…' Caitlin said dreamily. Carlton started suddenly, his eyes wide. 'What is it, mate?' Mahalia hurried to his side and followed his gaze, but there was only the thick snow running along the edge of the gully and the grey sky beyond. The boy shook his head, unsure. 'He's probably disorientated,' Crowther said. 'Understandable. We've done something remarkable here — travelled between worlds to a place that has influenced our dreams for millennia-' 'Oh, stop being so pompous,' Mahalia said. 'Carlton's probably dealing with it better than you. Don't forget-' 'I know,' Crowther said, adding in a childishly mocking voice, 'he's special.' Mahalia shook her head in disgust at the professor's immature manner before leading Carlton gently away. 'Don't worry, mate,' she said gently, 'we'll keep a good lookout.' They continued to pick their way along the gully, their teeth chattering. The gully ridge and the boulders obscured any view of their exact location, although it was clear they were on the lower slopes of the monolithic range. As they edged their way round a rock as big as a house, Matt threw an arm across Crowther's chest to stop him and pointed to the thick snow at the gully ridge. Two red spots blazed like hot coals. They disappeared, came back again, and then there was a flurry of snow and they were gone.

  'Eyes,' Crowther said in shock.

  'Something's tracking us.' Mahalia remained cool as she eased one of the knives from beneath her jacket. Carlton huddled close to her. 'Don't worry, mate, I'll look after you,' she whispered comfortingly. She eyed Caitlin coldly, fending off Caitlin's attempt to move in to comfort Carlton herself.

  'Come on, Prof,' Matt said quietly, 'you're the expert here. What kind of predators should we be looking out for?'

  Crowther's laugh was not comforting. 'Think of your worst nightmare, then expect something ten times more hideous. This is the land where anything is possible, good or bad. If we thought we were slipping down the food chain on our world, here-'

  'I get the idea, Prof. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.' Matt continued to lead the way, but his eyes never stopped searching the surroundings.

  Eventually the gully opened out on to a small, exposed plateau where the snow lay thickly. Beyond it, the land gradually fell away again and the snow soon gave way to another mass of the enormous boulders. 'Looks as if we're nearly in the foothills, Matt said. 'Should be easier going if we can get across this bit.' He didn't need to give voice to his fear that this would be the place where whatever was tracking them would attack; there was no cover, no place to run. At least they would be able to see it coming.

  The snow was calf-high as they lurched into it, crunching underfoot like gravel. But they hadn't gone far when the two red eyes appeared suddenly on the ground six feet ahead of Matt. He half-turned, ready to urge the others to sprint back to the gully. Something rose up from the ground, as white as the snow that had concealed it. At first glance it resembled an enormous jellyfish with a crab-shell head from beneath which the two eyes glowed. But then they saw that beneath the strangely shaped skull it had a human form and what they had taken for the jellyfish-like drifting appendages were glistening white clothes hanging from its shoulders in tattered rags.

  'I search for the Cailleach Bheur,' the thing said in a voice that sounded like glass breaking. 'She may release the Fimbulwinter.'

  Everyone in the group was struck dumb by the terrifyingly strange apparition looming before them. It swayed from side to side in a manner that sugges
ted it was uncomfortable and they realised it couldn't quite understand the effect it was having on them.

  'We… we can't help you,' Crowther replied eventually, his mouth dry. 'I'm sorry.'

  'What are you?' Caitlin asked in the frightened voice of Amy.

  The thing moved forwards as if blown by the wind until it stood in front of Caitlin, and those frightening red eyes burned into her face. 'I see ice in you?' it said, puzzled. Then, as if realising it had acted impolitely, it stepped back and held out arms swathed in the white tatters. 'I am Moyaanisqi, known as the White Walker. I roam across all worlds. My home is the great wilderness, the frozen plains, the chill peaks. But what,' it added curiously, 'are you?'

  'We're… humans,' Crowther replied awkwardly.

  'Humans?' The White Walker thought for a moment, then exclaimed, 'Fragile Creatures! I have seen your kind from afar when I have wandered the great mountain ranges of the Fixed Lands in search of the Cailleach Bheur, but never so close. Fragile Creatures!' There was wonder in its voice, as if they were the fantastical beings.

  'You've been to our world?' Caitlin asked. 'Many times, though my long quest has made me solitary and wary of contact with others. I roved the high places and the white wastes for a time, leaving only the prints of my feet behind, finding nothing. And so I moved on, here, to the Far Lands. Perhaps my journey will take me further afield again.'

  'Then you have seen many things.' There was a gleam in Crowther's eye.

  'Many things.'

  'We are searching for a place called the House of Pain, though I suppose it may have another name. Could you direct us to it?'

  The White Walker thought long and hard, then shook its strange crab-head slowly. 'It may lie in the burning places where I cannot pass. But if that is so, then you may encounter the Djazeem who abide in the great sand- deserts. There is a word of power I know that will make them do your bidding. Whisper it to them and they will be empowered to take you to your destination.' It looked intently into all of their faces and then returned to Caitlin. 'You. For in you there is not only ice, but also the fire that does not burn. You will carry the word of power.'