Jack of Ravens

6

‘You must try to see things from beyond your limited perspective!’ Jerzy implored.

Finally recovered from the paralysis and back at the palace, Church looked out of the window across rooftops painted silver by a summer moon. Anxiety tied his stomach in knots. ‘All I know is that here, a long way from my home, some bastard told me that my girlfriend in the future is going to die. And it wasn’t, “She’s going to die like we’re all going to die one day.” It was, “She’s going to die because I’ll slit her throat and dump her at the side of the road.” ’

‘Church-’

‘And I can’t do anything about it!’

‘Good friend!’ Church turned at Jerzy’s sharp tone and was surprised to see concern in the Mocker’s face. ‘Please, do not hurt your heart!’

‘What’s going on, Jerzy? How did I end up here? Why does everyone want to kill me and the people I care about?’

‘You were born in the Fixed Lands and you expect everything to be fixed. But as I told you at our first meeting, the closer one gets to the heart of Existence, the more fluid things become. Even time.’ Seeing the incomprehension in Church’s eyes, Jerzy sighed and tried again. ‘Time is not the same here in the Far Lands as in your world. It flows back and forth, or remains a constant always now.’

Church recalled the folkloric tales of people transported to Fairyland for a night of dancing, only to find on their return that a hundred years had passed. Possibilities dawned on him. ‘I could while away a few months here and then drop back into my world in my own time.’

‘If the Queen of the Wasteland frees you from your obligation.’ His tone suggested Niamh would never agree to this.

‘Except that I have no idea how fast time is passing in my world, so if I sit around here for too long I could end up missing it completely. Walk out into some world of flying cars and personal jet packs, and everyone I know dead.’

‘You must not set your hopes too high,’ Jerzy cautioned.

‘I’ve got no choice. I have to talk to Niamh.’

It was near midnight, and the palace slept. As Church and a reluctant Jerzy trailed along the echoing corridors, guards stood silently, their numbers increasing the closer they came to the royal apartments. Their eyes fell on Church, but he was not a threat to be challenged. He had the run of the place like a favoured poodle. Sit up. Beg. Play dead. Defiantly, Church increased his pace.

As he neared Niamh’s door, the air grew colder and soon he could see sparkles of frost on the stone. Jerzy indicated with an uncertain finger the guard who stood outside. His skin gleamed white, his eyebrows and hair rigid with frost.

‘Frozen,’ Jerzy whispered. ‘Do not enter, friend Church,’ Jerzy pressed. ‘Leave what lies beyond these doors to the Golden Ones.’

Despite his apprehension, Church was eager for answers. He marched in. Ice shimmered on the floor, walls and ceilings. The bodies of Niamh’s inner guard were scattered in an arc near the door, ribs protruding like dinosaur teeth, slippery organs trailing. A slaughter, quick and brutal. Church wondered briefly what could have the power to dispatch these beings before his attention was caught by a rapid fluttering of golden lights over one of the bodies, then another, and finally over all of them.

They were shimmering moths, composed entirely of light, spiralling up from the bodies to the ceiling and then passing through it like ghosts. As the moths departed, the gods’ bodies began to break up, as though they were as insubstantial as light. When the final moth had fluttered away, all the bodies had vanished.

Church snatched up one of the guards’ short swords and progressed towards the heavy drapes that sealed off Niamh’s bed-chamber. Pulling back the thick fabric, he found Niamh being menaced by the stranger from the market. Church recognised the long, black hair and overcoat, but the face … it was a thing of abject horror. Noting Church’s arrival, the stranger’s lips twisted into a cruel grin revealing needle-sharp animal teeth, stained with blood. Church registered a goatee beard and an aquiline nose, but it was the eyes he would never forget — lidless and fiery red with a small black pupil. When the full force of them was turned on him, Church felt their gaze pierce his very soul.

‘Well, this is something I hadn’t bargained for.’ The attacker crooked his arm tighter around Niamh’s neck, her beautiful features fragile next to his brutal frame. His right hand was raised ready to strike, the fingers pointed to reveal bloody talons.

‘Leave her alone,’ Church said.

‘What’s this? Misplaced loyalty? Or have you already grown into your role of lapdog? Jump through hoops for the mistress. Woof, woof!’

Church bristled at the echo of his own thoughts. ‘She doesn’t deserve to die like those others out there.’

That would be a matter of opinion. I think she does deserve to die. I presented her with a perfectly good opportunity and she chose to turn me down. I find that very disrespectful.’

Jerzy had been watching the scene, wrapped in the drapes. Tentatively, he stepped forward and tugged gently at Church’s arm. His eyes pleaded but he said nothing.

‘Speak up, you grinning buffoon!’ the intruder said. ‘Ah, I see. You don’t want to be seen to be disloyal in case, by some extremely slight probability, your mistress escapes with her life.’ The intruder said to Church in a tired voice, ‘What he’s trying to tell you is that you should let her die because then you will both be free of her control. And that sounds eminently sensible to me.’

‘But even then I’d still be a prisoner,’ Church replied, ‘of my guilt.’ His eyes briefly locked with Niamh’s.

‘You really have been seduced by her propaganda, haven’t you?’ the intruder said wearily. He flexed his fingers and prepared to strike.

‘Who are you and what do you know about Ruth?’

The intruder’s cruel smile grew more enigmatic. ‘Finally, a discussion that really matters. Of course, the first question is the most important. Let’s talk about me. What should you call me? I have many names, and you’ll never discover the one that really counts. But for the sake of argument you may call me the Libertarian, because I believe in personal freedom … from the rigours of choice, from life itself. See? I too can play the favourite game around these parts.’

The Libertarian increased the pressure on Niamh’s neck with a twist of cruelty. She clawed at his arm, her breathing shallow.

‘I said, let her go.’ Church raised his sword.

‘Ooh, a weapon,’ the Libertarian said with mock-dismay. He was unthreatened, but he released the pressure of his arm a little so Niamh could gulp air. Church took a step forward. The Libertarian’s red gaze became so menacing that Church stopped dead in his tracks.

Summoning his strength, Church asked, What about Ruth? Tell me.’

‘Ah, the love of your life, waiting so mournfully at the end of time-’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A word to the wise: her survival is wholly dependent on you. Interfere in any way and she will die.’

‘I don’t understand. Interfere in what?’

The Libertarian made a faux-puzzled expression. ‘Now there’s the question. Perhaps it would be better not to interfere in anything, just to be on the safe side.’

His words triggered a moment of revelation. ‘You … and whoever murdered my friends in Carn Euny … and the spider-thing that controlled the Redcaps — you’re all together in this.’ Church added a disturbing codicil: And Etain, too.’

The Libertarian continued to play his part with studied theatricality. ‘Look at Existence, all nice and shiny and neat and new. Then pull back the surface and, lo, there we are. An army … no, that doesn’t do us justice — a civilisation. We’re all around you, all the time, yet you never see us, not really, not directly. Just an occasional glimpse on the periphery of vision. We live in the cracks between reality. We watch from the shadows, peer from the depths of caves, from drains and sewers, from the dusty windows of empty houses and rooftops at night.’

‘What do you want?’

‘The same as anyone else — food, drink, a roof over our heads.’ His sarcasm hung in the air for a moment. ‘We are everywhere. We are legion. There, a quotation that has not yet been written. Or perhaps it is being written as we speak. Ah, the mysteries of Existence.’ He smiled coldly. ‘We are the flipside of your world, but the flipside does not always have to stay at the bottom.’

Something in the Libertarian’s eyes or tone made Church unaccountably fearful. ‘If you are what you say you are, why are you so concerned about me?’

The Libertarian’s eyes narrowed.

‘It’s the Pendragon Spirit, isn’t it?’

Niamh seized the opportunity to break free from the Libertarian’s grip. She scrabbled across the floor to Church’s side, all her haughtiness gone. ‘The light burns too brightly in you,’ she gasped. ‘They are only brave enough to crush you by subtle means, from a distance.’

‘Some of us can strike directly,’ the Libertarian said, ‘and we will, when the time is right.’

‘He asked me to destroy you, in the night, while you slept,’ Niamh said. ‘I refused. No Golden One would obey such an order.’

‘If you do it, it has to be of your own free will,’ Church noted sardonically.

‘Our power may be limited now, but it grows with each step closer to the Source,’ the Libertarian said, before skipping lithely to the open window. He bowed and dived through it.

Church rushed to the window, hoping the killer had leaped to his death, but he could just make out a dark shape disappearing down the side of the sheer wall. The handholds were few and far between, but somehow the Libertarian found them, moving with remarkable speed.

Church turned to Niamh, clearly still dazed by her experience. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

The goddess eyed him as if he were speaking a foreign language. ‘You could have allowed me to be eradicated from Existence. You would have been freed from your obligation.’

‘I could. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.’

A flicker of emotion crossed Niamh’s normally impassive features, before she snorted, haughty once more.

‘I saved your life,’ Church said. ‘You can deny it, but it’s true. And if you think your life has some value I’d ask for one small thing in reward.’