The Burning Man

3

Some time later, in the thin hour before dawn, Mallory, Decebalus, Jerzy and a rapidly recovering Rhiannon made their way across the city in a storm that, if anything, had grown more intense. They had left Virginia tucked up asleep in her bed in the Hunter’s Moon. Wind hurled protesting shop signs furiously and thrashed untethered shutters. Rain sluiced from the rooftops in sheets.

Mallory had the sense that the tiny, winding streets shifted their position in reality continually, confounding expectations, bringing confusion and doubt, and eventually despair. But Rhiannon’s map continued to guide them. Every now and then they would shelter in a porch or the lee of a building, and study it beneath a cloak by guttering lantern light.

And that was how they found themselves in a small cobbled square with four roads leading off it. In the centre was a circular shallow pool enclosed by a low stone wall. Bloated by the rain, its black waters now lapped over the edge. And in the centre of that circle was a stone arch, simple in design, so rough-hewn it did not attract the attention and so slipped easily into the bleak background. The only detail was on the keystone, where a leafless tree had been etched.

‘The Gateway to Winter,’ Rhiannon said.

‘Oh, what do we do now?’ Jerzy scampered round and round the pool, raising large splashes.

‘If it’s a gate, the logical approach would be to find some way to open it.’ Mallory stepped into the pool and stood before the arch. Up close, the impression that there was a clear view through the arch was an illusion. It was as if a fine gauze covered the gap, but he could pass his hand through it without meeting any resistance. Yet as he felt around the area where a handle would have been on a normal gate, his fingers closed around something hard. He pulled, and the gate opened.

The view through the arch showed the same buildings, but now the cobbles were covered with a thick blanket of snow, and flakes fell heavily from a night sky. Backing off, Jerzy gave a high-pitched whine, and even Decebalus shied away.

‘Where is that?’ Mallory asked. ‘The past? The future?’

‘Winter-side,’ Rhiannon said in awe, as if that was enough.

Steeling himself, Mallory stepped through the gate; Rhiannon followed close behind, and after a moment’s hesitation Decebalus and Jerzy came, too. Mallory shivered in the icy breeze, his sopping clothes leaching the heat from him.

‘We need to move or we’re going to freeze,’ he said.

Sword drawn, Decebalus looked around at the snow-capped buildings. Everywhere was eerily still, as if the city was empty. ‘But where do we go?’ he said.

It was Rhiannon who pointed the way, so obvious the others had missed it. Along an alley between two faceless granite buildings the snow had been hard-packed by numerous feet.

The buildings rose so high on either side it felt as if they were moving beneath the earth. The snow continued to fall. The silence was unnerving. The alley twisted this way and that, picking an irrational path amongst the cramped buildings, each as blank as the last.

After a while, Jerzy began to tug annoyingly at Mallory’s sleeve. ‘Let us go back, good friend,’ he pleaded. ‘I do not like it here. We should come in the daytime. Perhaps even in the summer!’

Mallory realised that Jerzy was sensing something untoward, and after a few more paces he could sense it himself; they all could. It felt like someone standing just behind them, about to touch the napes of their necks. None of them could resist looking back from time to time as they hurried on.

The alley passed an area where a building had been demolished, the site sealed off with seven-foot-high wooden boards. After the claustrophobia of the route, the sudden open space was just as unnerving. A dim red glow emanated from somewhere on the other side of the fence — a fire, perhaps.

A low growl emerged from the sealed-off area. Then another, and another.

Jerzy whimpered louder.

Rhiannon caught Mallory’s arm. ‘Steady. I believe sentries have been posted to guard the way.’

Ahead, the alley formed a T-junction, and at the corner the boards had collapsed. As they approached, the growling grew louder. Mallory drew Llyrwyn just in time.

From out of the gap bounded a large dog, smeared a bloody red for it had no skin, and all its muscles and organs were in clear view. Blood spattered on the snow as it skidded around to face Mallory. On the other side of the fence, more dogs could be heard bounding towards the gap.

When the dog snarled, its red-stained teeth showed clear up to the hinge of its jaw. It leaped at Mallory with a force and fury that shocked him. It took all his skill with the sword to fend off its snapping jaws, but its momentum knocked him onto his back. Snarling, it went straight for his throat, spittle flying, uncontained eyes rolling insanely. There was no time or room to bring his sword up.

Just as its teeth brushed his skin, Decebalus brought his sword down, severing the dog’s head from its neck and showering Mallory with a gush of steaming blood. The head rolled into a snowdrift where it continued to snap and snarl and roll its eyes.

‘Foul hell-beast!’ Decebalus spat.

Mallory just had time to scramble to his feet before three more ferocious dogs attacked. With Decebalus at his side, they hacked and slashed until there were only twitching, bloody chunks in the snow.

‘That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve seen,’ Mallory said as he cleaned his blade.

‘There may be worse things ahead,’ Rhiannon warned.

As dawn began to turn the sky a fiery red, they followed the branching alley with the most frozen footprints and eventually came to another cobbled square. A large rock stood in the centre, in the middle of another low-walled pool, looking like the tip of a mountain bursting from the earth. In the side of it was a wooden door.

Mallory noticed Rhiannon’s curious expression. ‘You know where it leads?’ he said.

‘There is another one in Summer-side, but Niamh closed it off so none could pass through.’ Awareness lit her face. ‘It leads to the Watchtower between the worlds.’