The Burning Man

1

What is the Burning Man? The question was whispered throughout the claustrophobic, labyrinthine streets and alleys of the Court of the Soaring Spirit, and in the back rooms of the Hunter’s Moon, and in the coffee houses and grocery stores and anywhere people passed, quickly, for no one gathered long in a place. It was as if every resident instinctively felt they were being pursued by forces unknown. There was no rest in the courts and little hope, for the distant sound of the Enemy’s war drums never ceased, and there were ashes in the wind, and whenever they raised their eyes from the gutter, the Burning Man was there, in the sky on the horizon, hanging over them, a mystery and a threat.

In the secret network of rooms tucked away at the back of the Hunter’s Moon, the goddess Rhiannon still lay in the Sleep Like Death. Decebalus cared for her around the clock, with assistance from the young Virginia Dare, but it was not work for a barbarian and he was growing irritable with the constraints of his small existence.

‘She’s not improving?’ Mallory paced by the fire. He had barely rested since they had returned from Ogma’s library.

‘She muttered one word in the throes of a fever dream, but it made no sense to me.’ Decebalus slurped noisily on mutton broth. ‘How much longer must I wait here? She will not awaken.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘She has been like this for days. What will change?’

‘Stay positive. She’s all we’ve got. She knows who did this to her, and probably why.’

Grunting, Decebalus pushed back the empty bowl, eyeing Virginia who was curled up asleep in one corner. ‘So your trip to the library was a waste of time.’

‘You need to kick back, Decebalus. Those veins on your neck are starting to pulse.’ Mallory ignored Decebalus’s glare. ‘For some reason, Math implanted in our minds the image of a calendar split between the good months and the bad. MAT and ANM. Summer and winter.’

‘So it was a waste of time.’

‘Only till we crack the code. Math probably expected one of his own kind to find it, and that they’d know what he was getting at. We’re in the dark.’

‘Until you find the light. You are not going to ask one of those golden-skinned bastards?’

‘We don’t know who we can trust.’

‘You cannot trust any of them, ever.’

Mallory looked to Rhiannon. ‘I could trust her. She was good to me once.’

‘Then you find yourself in a difficult situation. Where next?’

They both started at a knock at the door; Decebalus went for his axe, Mallory for his sword. Another coded knock followed. It was Caitlin, her features delicate against the coarse hood and cloak that swathed her.

‘You made sure you weren’t followed?’ Decebalus said.

‘Of course.’ She marched in and flopped onto a large wooden chair before the fire. ‘I looked all over for Sophie.’

‘She said she was going to use her Craft to try to find something,’ Mallory said.

‘She wasn’t in her room, so where’s she doing it?’ She kicked off her boots and curled her legs under her. ‘She seems to have a real downer on me at the moment. What’s wrong with her?’

Decebalus sighed loudly. ‘I need a drink. Find me in the bar when you are done prattling.’

After he had gone, Mallory said, ‘I think we make him uncomfortable.’

‘Why would that be?’ Caitlin didn’t look at him when she spoke.

Mallory steeled himself and drew up a chair. ‘We’ve been stuck with this Pendragon Spirit and none of us knows what it really means.’

‘You like your non sequiturs.’

‘We do know it creates a bond between us,’ Mallory forced himself to continue. ‘The kind of bond you rarely find in life.’

Caitlin grew serious. ‘That’s true. I feel as though I know you … all of you … better than anyone. Like the friends you always wished for as a kid, but never found.’

‘That’s it exactly. It’s a spiritual thing, if that doesn’t sound all hippie and girly.’ He let the words hang for a moment, aware that Cardin was watching him intently. ‘That connection is on a spectrum. Friendship merges into-’

‘Love?’

He nodded. ‘Church and Ruth. Me and Sophie. Patterns repeating. Always patterns.’

‘I know what you’re trying to say.’

Her words brought him up sharp. ‘There’s that connection again.’

‘Or maybe I’m just really smart.’ She smiled, but it didn’t ring true. ‘I loved my husband more than anything. Yes, we had our problems, mainly down to me, but that love never went away. I miss him every day. I met someone else a while after Grant died, Thackeray was his name, and I started to grow fond of him. Until the Void turned the world upside down and now I’ve got no idea where he is. And then there’s you.’

Her words still hit Mallory hard despite long knowing the unspoken emotions that lay between them.

‘You’re telling me the Pendragon Spirit may be causing the feelings between us, or it may be magnifying what would already be there,’ she continued. ‘The why doesn’t matter, just that those feelings are there. But recognising doesn’t mean acting on them. I know what I feel, and I know you feel something, too, and it’s beating you up because you love Sophie. And I know you do because I see it so clearly whenever the two of you are together.’

He nodded, now entranced even more by the depths of her empathy.

‘And I recognise what you two have, and I’m not going to go against that. Do you really think I would? The friendship that’s the basis of my feelings means I don’t want to see you or Sophie hurt, whatever that means for me.’ She took a breath. ‘I love you, Mallory. That’s the first and last time I’ll ever say it.’

Her words brought both relief and regret. ‘You’re a good person.’

‘I know. And life would be so much easier if I wasn’t.’

‘And life would be a little less confusing if good things couldn’t be bad, and vice versa. It’s all MAT and ANM and ANM and MAT.’

‘MAT … ANM.’

The words were so quiet they were almost an exhalation. It took Mallory a second to realise they had come from Rhiannon. He raced Caitlin to her side.

Rhiannon was still in a coma, but now her lips moved soundlessly. Mallory put his ear close to her mouth. ‘What about MAT and ANM?’ he asked quietly.

After a moment he withdrew, lifting one of Rhiannon’s eyelids to check her pupil. ‘Still gone.’

‘Did she make any sense?’

‘She said, “Turn the seasons to find the Gateway to Winter.” ‘