The Burning Man

4

Shavi was oblivious to the cacophonous bird calls that now drowned out the deep drone of the motorway traffic. He had left Hunter and Laura to their flirtatious insulting of each other, and Ruth to a quiet brooding that appeared to have been consuming her since she had left St Paul’s, and made his way beyond the service station perimeter to where he had a view of the tranquil Berkshire countryside.

The struggle Church had set for them was vast and victory unimaginable, but he was convinced of its rightness. He was prepared to risk anything, even his own life, in pursuit of that victory.

At the bottom of a slope that hid him from the service station, he sat cross-legged, no longer feeling the warmth of the sun on his face, or hearing the wind in the copse nearby. Every part of him was focused internally.

A hint of fear, a remembrance of the price he had already paid, and then the familiar taste of iron filings in his mouth. Ahead of him, six feet above the ground, the air grew opaque and then began to steam and bubble. A hole opened up, and after a minute a figure forced its head and shoulders through, a mewling monstrosity being born. Its face was blank, but indentations revealed the location of its eyes and mouth; Shavi was convinced he could see the eyes moving just beneath the silvery caul.

‘Who calls?’ it said with wrenching jaw movements.

‘I do. Shavi, Brother of Dragons.’

‘Again you draw me from the Invisible World?’

‘I need information.’

There was a short pause before it replied, ‘You know the price, Brother of Dragons. A small thing. Only a small thing.’

Shavi remained calm, but inside he felt a ghost of the pain he had suffered the last time he had paid this being with ‘a small thing’. Through his contact with the earth, he reached deeply within himself, feeling for the thin residue of the Blue Fire. It echoed in the darkness of his mind, spoke to him without words.

‘A small thing?’ he said.

‘Just a small thing,’ the construct said nonchalantly.

‘No,’ Shavi said. ‘I am a Brother of Dragons. I am awakening to what that means, despite all the efforts of greater powers to keep me in a deep sleep.’

The construct shrank back. ‘Then there can be no answers for you. The rules-’

‘The rules have changed.’

Shavi quickly caught the construct at the back of its silvery head. The skin moved like mercury beneath his fingers.

‘Stay back!’ it said sharply. ‘This cannot be-’

The words died in its throat as Shavi drove his fingers into one eye socket beneath the caul. The thing shrieked so loudly that Shavi’s ears rang. Blood began to drip from his nose.

The skin split. Beneath it, an eye popped from the construct’s socket. Shavi closed his hand around the gelatinous orb and tore it free.

The construct’s shattering howl threw Shavi back several feet. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I will have answers. But first …’

He examined the eye, weighing up what the voice in the Blue Fire had told him. Then he tore off his eye patch and forced the shiny orb into his own gaping socket.