Jack of Ravens

1

Church stood at the window and looked out over the Court of the Soaring Spirit. When he had first arrived it had been a grim, labyrinthine prison of the mind and soul. Now it was a source of transcendental magic with lanterns gleaming in every window and torches ablaze in the streets and public places. Music rang out from the inns and drifting fragrances were caught on the breeze. The Far Lands altered continually, like life, like emotions. You could never see the same view from a window twice.

He tried to recall Ruth — not her face, which was as clear as ever, but the subtleties that were the foundation of any relationship: the looks, the touches, the shared words, the fleeting moments in between the big occasions. They were all lost. Even his trips to the Wish-Post didn’t help, for they only reminded him of the threat and what was missing, not the heart. He feared he was losing her.

He gently hummed ‘In the Wee Small Hours’, taking refuge in the familiar: old songs, old friends, old times. The past had always offered him great comfort, but now he couldn’t shake his troubled sense of foreboding. What had happened in London was so bizarre it betrayed any kind of understanding. The mysterious disappearance of Jerzy, the equally mysterious appearance of Helena Blavatsky telling him about Gnostic thought, the apparently coincidental arrival of the Seelie Court and the involvement of Spring-heeled Jack — Church was convinced they were linked in some way, but the connections eluded him. Patterns were forming all around him, then disappearing from view just as quickly. He felt as though he was being poked and prodded in a certain direction without any real understanding of why. The sensation was both creepy and infuriating.

At least his wounds had healed reasonably well. He was angry that he had not been able to prevent Veitch from escaping, but he had started to believe that nothing would be resolved until one of them was dead.

‘They’re ready.’ Tom leaned against the wall, casually rolling himself a smoke with some of the herbs he bought from one of the shadowy stores in the Gothic quarter.

Church reluctantly left the window and turned his mind to the struggle that lay ahead. As he passed Tom, he paused. ‘What Veitch said-’

‘Forget it. He’s a liar and a murderer. You don’t want to start believing the words of scum like that.’

In the moment of silence that passed between them, the lie in Tom’s words was evident and he looked away, inhaling a deep draught of the aromatic smoke.

‘All right,’ Church said. ‘I’m glad you were with me in the Crystal Palace and … I’m glad you’re still around.’

Tom nodded. ‘Don’t let them push you about. You’re the king, remember.’

‘I don’t feel like it.’

‘Does any king?’

Church entered the vast Hall of Whispers, where every sound was magnified into a susurration of invisible beings, travelling back and forth until they slowly faded. In the centre was an ancient, huge oak table, and all around, some sitting, some standing, were representatives of Niamh and Lugh’s courts. Church surveyed the faces, his perception swimming when his eyes fell on creatures he had never seen before until his disoriented mind settled on an image it found acceptable. Many were unfamiliar to him, but some echoed descriptions of gods from Celtic mythology. Math, the sorcerer with the four-faced mask, was there, as was Ceridwen, a nature goddess with flowing black hair and a sensitive face.

All eyes turned to him as he entered. Niamh rose from her chair at the head of the table and said, ‘The Brother of Dragons has arrived. Let the council begin.’

‘Do we recognise the authority of this Fragile Creature?’ Math said gruffly from behind a bear mask.

Lugh stood and said, ‘I recognise his authority, as does my sister, and so our two courts shall also recognise him.’

Math nodded but did not appear to concede the point. Church could see in some of the other faces the contempt in which Fragile Creatures were held; it would be a hard fight to overcome that prejudice.

‘We are gathered here to discuss the information we have collected,’ Niamh announced, ‘and to discuss our response to the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’

‘Why should we respond? We are the Golden Ones,’ someone said.

‘They mass on our borders,’ Lugh said. ‘Their fortress grows by the day and is now larger than any court. The army swells with stolen Fragile Creatures, and the lesser races who are easily controlled. They have Redcaps, Baobhan Sith, the Gehennis, and more.’

Discussion about the relative powers of both sides ranged back and forth for a while, with the majority of the group unshaken in their belief in their innate superiority under any circumstances. Church grew angry with the arrogance and signalled to Niamh that he wished to speak.

Suspicious eyes fell on him as he stood. ‘You’re seeing the Enemy in the wrong light,’ he began. ‘You consider them lesser because they’re marshalling Fragile Creatures and Redcaps and all the others. But they’re none of those things. They’re not even spiders. Those things are just the surface, symbols representing what lies behind them. And what they will be, very shortly, is you.’

Church looked around at the beautiful faces. ‘They have in their possession a magical artefact — a crystal skull. I don’t know where it came from, but I do know what it is capable of: summoning you against your will. It’s a lure for gods. That in itself is not enough. They have also obtained another weapon, the Anubis Box. With it they can corrupt any captured god and control them.’

A ripple of angry voices ran round the room. Some called out for Church to be expelled.

‘What the Brother of Dragons says is true,’ Lugh interrupted, ‘for I was almost corrupted by those very weapons. And I saw it take another.’

‘Who?’ Math asked.

‘A god from one of the other branches of your family that you pretend doesn’t exist,’ Church said. ‘If you want to survive this, you need to change your thinking. You need to recognise that there were other races here in the Far Lands before you, who may well have been responsible for the creation of the crystal skull and other weapons like it. And you have to accept there are others like you who have been seen as gods across my world throughout our civilisation. And you and they could soon be working for the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders towards your own destruction.’

Church was shouted down by angry gods, some of whom looked as if they were ready to kill him on the spot. Surprisingly it was Math who turned the tide of the debate, speaking through the boar’s-head mask. ‘What the Brother of Dragons says is true.’ The crowd fell silent. ‘In my studies I have become aware of others like us, and some of you know in your hearts that we are not alone.’

‘If we, or others like us, fall to the Enemy, it will become a fight we cannot win,’ Lugh said.

‘There is another matter,’ Niamh began hesitantly. She recounted how the Libertarian had killed her guards and how the Ninth Legion had ‘wiped from Existence’ many of the Court of Peaceful Days. ‘We thought ourselves free of endings,’ she said, ‘but now we know that is not true. We are resilient. It takes much to eradicate us. But in the final reckoning we are no different from Fragile Creatures.’

Her blasphemy stunned the room. Church had never seen so many rocked to the core of their being, but they could not deny the truths that had been delivered by the queen and king of the two courts. It would take them a long time to assimilate the information.

‘Who are the Enemy? Truly?’ one of the Tuatha De Danann asked, eager to change the line of conversation.

‘We don’t know,’ Church replied, ‘but they are extremely powerful, and they appear to be fanning out through history to achieve their ends.’

‘And what are those ends?’

‘The Enemy thrives on despair,’ Church said. ‘I think they want to eradicate all hope. That’s what they appear to be doing in their interference in the history of my kind.’

A woman with long blonde hair and silver eyes stood up. Her voice had no trace of arrogance; it quavered. ‘Then what path should we take? To confront them could mean we will all be wiped from Existence.’ A tear sprang to her eye.

‘I fear we have no choice,’ Lugh said.

‘But we could be wiped from Existence,’ the woman repeated desperately.

‘Their forces are already too strong for us to meet them head on,’ Niamh said. ‘Certainly not without the aid of the other courts.’

‘You will not convince the others,’ Math said adamantly through the mask of the fish, and Church could see that Niamh believed this to be true.

‘The first thing we have to do is destroy the crystal skull or the Anubis Box, preferably both,’ Church said. ‘They may have the numbers, but those are their most potent weapons.’

‘We do not know how many have already fallen under their spell,’ Math said.

The silver-eyed woman clutched at her hair. ‘Madness! If we cannot confront the Enemy, how do we destroy these weapons?’

‘I’m not going to pretend I know how these weapons work,’ Church said, ‘but it appears they have to be operated — if that’s the right word — from my world, otherwise the Enemy would have summoned Lugh and Apollo to their fortress. They didn’t. They did it in my world, and they chose their time very carefully. They didn’t rush into it, so I’m betting they can’t use the skull and the box at the drop of a hat.’

‘So the weapons must be found in the Fixed Lands,’ Math mused.

‘And you can do that?’ Ceridwen said to Church.

‘There are people in my world who are my eyes and ears. They can look out for any activity, anything that might point me to the weapons.’

‘And you will fight for the Golden Ones?’ the silver-eyed woman said in amazement.

Church considered this for a moment. ‘I will fight for Existence,’ he said.