The Burning Man

3

In the Court of the Soaring Spirit, the night was white with lightning flashes. The storm whirled ferociously around the foothills, bringing with it rain as hard as bullets and thunder so loud it shook the glass in the windows.

Mallory sat beside the bed in the room at the top of the tallest tower, where he had sat for most of the day. Rhiannon barely stirred. Occasionally her eyes would flicker as if she was in the throes of dramatic dreams, but she showed no sign of waking from the Sleep Like Death.

Caitlin slipped in. ‘Still nothing?’

‘Maybe I’m wasting my time. I keep hoping she might come round long enough to give us a hint as to what’s going on here.’

‘Sophie’s been in the ritual for hours. She looks exhausted.’

‘She found nothing?’

‘The Market of Wishful Spirit might as well have fallen off the edge of the world. That’s what she said.’

Mallory cursed under his breath. ‘Everyone’s counting on us.’

‘She’s doing her best. We all are.’

Mallory gently mopped Rhiannon’s forehead with a damp cloth; it appeared to soothe her. ‘I keep thinking there’s something staring me in the face and I can’t see it. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons that Church rescued are missing. Lugh and Math and some of the other Tuatha De Danann are missing. The whole population’s terrified. And the Market of Wishful Spirit has gone into hiding. We just need to find the pattern that links it all together and then we’ll start getting somewhere.’

‘You think the Enemy’s already here in the court, undercover?’

‘I’m certain of it.’

Caitlin thoughtfully fingered the axe she now carried at her waist. Mallory was impressed by the transformation that had come over her; she appeared more together than at any time since he had met her.

‘I think we should start questioning people,’ she said. ‘They know something. We just have to find a way to make them talk.’

Mallory was acutely aware of her standing beside him. She had an odd but appealing musk, a hint of lime, which he guessed might be a byproduct of her troubled mental state affecting her body chemistry.

‘You holding it together okay?’ he asked

‘Yeah.’ She smiled. ‘Give me an axe and the chance to chop something into bloody chunks and I’m a picture of mental health. How dysfunctional is that?’

‘I wouldn’t say any of us are pictures of stability.’

‘You seem okay.’

‘Yeah, I thought I was, until …’ He dried up. He could feel Caitlin’s eyes on him but she was too polite to prompt. ‘I did something really bad,’ he continued. ‘Killed somebody.’

‘They deserved it?’

‘No. The exact opposite. At the time I felt I didn’t have a choice. I was forced into it by some nasty people. But I wonder … if I’d been stronger … smarter …’

She rested a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ve all been through so much. Death is the catalyst that transforms normal people into what we are now.’

‘Whoever thought up that idea was a real sadist. So I murdered an innocent, and you lost your husband and son.’

Her voice grew unbearably fragile. ‘I’m glad my memory’s back so I can think about them again, but it also means I have to remember them passing. Is that one of the lessons we’re supposed to be learning: you can’t have the good without the bad?’

Another flash of lightning filled the room with white.

‘More like the value of things is defined by the loss of them. No potential loss, no value.’

‘You’re a bit of a philosopher, aren’t you, Mallory?’ she said wryly. Her hand was still on his shoulder.

‘Not me. I’m a man’s man. None of that thinking stuff.’

‘Before the Void got to me, I’d started to come to terms with my loss. I’d even begun to see someone else. Thackeray, that was his name. I wonder where he is now. I wish I could see him again.’

‘Maybe you will-’

The door burst open with a crash and Caitlin took a sharp and unconscious side-step away from Mallory. It was Jerzy.

‘Good friends, come quickly!’

They followed him down the winding stairs and out into the driving rain where the storm was so loud it was impossible to hear what Jerzy was saying. At the main gates there was a group of guards in a circle of torches, their capes swirling as they surrounded a large man on horseback clutching a bundle to his chest. The guards brandished spears and swords threateningly.

Jerzy grabbed Mallory’s arm tightly. ‘You must help her!’ he shouted.

Mallory thrust his way through the guards. They rounded on him, swords pointed at his chest, but backed off when he half-drew Llyrwyn.

Evgen, the captain of the guard, blocked Mallory’s way. ‘You are not required here. Leave now.’

‘Who is that?’

‘It is none of your business, Brother of Dragons-’

‘Ho!’ The rider threw back his hood to reveal a mane of black hair and glowering features. A ragged scar ran above and below his left eye. ‘A Brother of Dragons, you say!’

Mallory pushed past Evgen. He could feel the captain’s hateful eyes on his back.

The rider peered into Mallory’s face. ‘Yes, I can see it now. Soft features, but it is there.’ He half-fell from the horse and caught himself at the last. ‘I have ridden for five days and nights to escape the Enemy. I need a bed, ale and a woman, not necessarily in that order.’

‘Who are you?’ Mallory asked.

The rider grinned. ‘My name is Decebalus, once of Dacia, then a bastard of Rome, now a Freeman of Existence.’

Mallory recalled Church’s description of fighting alongside Decebalus centuries ago in the earliest days of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.

Decebalus raised the bundle cradled in his arms. ‘I return with a great prize.’ He pulled back the blanket to reveal a girl of about eight, blonde ringlets framing a dirty, tear-stained face and wide, frightened eyes. ‘Give greeting to Virginia Dare, first child of the New World.’