The Devil in green

'Time's running out,' Mallory said, as they marched through the crisp snow at first light. 'If the brethren aren't dying already, they will be soon — either from starvation or because those things will have broken through the walls.'

'We're doing the best we can.' Sophie walked beside him gravely. The moment they had set foot on the road to Knowlton, the last remnants of elation at their escape from the cathedral had been wiped away by the gravity of what lay ahead. They were under no illusion about their chances of surviving an encounter with the Devil, less still that they could convince the Adversary to call off the attack. But they had hope.

'Still time to back out,' Mallory said.

'I will if you will.'

'I've got nothing to lose. Your people are counting on you.'

'Then we'd better make sure we get back in one piece, hadn't we?' She stamped her feet to warm them. 'You really think you can pull this off?'

'No, but I'd never be able to live with myself any more if I didn't try.'

His tone was striking, almost desperate; she wondered what it was in his past that was playing out in his decision to save Miller and the others. 'And the same goes for me, Mallory. If you've got the ability to do good, then you've got an obligation to use that ability. That's what my beliefs tell me.'

Awkwardly, she reached for his hand. He took it, and for a while their mood lightened.

They had spent the dark hours of the previous night huddled in one of the deserted semis on the northern fringes of the city before searching out a militiaman at dawn. He had never heard of Knowlton, but after consulting a map book in his sentry post, they discovered it was a hamlet of only one or two houses south of Salisbury.

'I wouldn't be going down that way if I were you,' the militiaman had warned them. 'It's wild country. Not much between Salisbury and the south coast.'

Now the city limits were visible away to the west and the road stretched out before them. The sun was turning golden as it crested the horizon. The cloud-free sky was a pastel blue; it was going to be a glorious day.

'At least we know where we're going,' Mallory said, without highlighting the anxiety he felt at what lay ahead.

They broke for a snack around eleven. They'd found a stash of cans on their overnight stay that had escaped the looters, and had brought a few tins of beans and fruit, a couple of spoons and a can-opener with them. They found a sheltered spot on the edge of a wood and Mallory lit a small fire to take the chill from their bones. A thaw had set in under the unseasonably warm sun, which eased their mood a little.

'I'm still trying to work out the rules of this world,' Sophie said, eating her baked beans with little desire.

'Does it matter?'

'When you're not top dog — which humanity isn't now — it matters more than ever. You don't want to offend some of the things that are loose.'

Mallory rubbed his hands in front of the fire. 'You want a rule? Never get in a transporter with a fly.'

She laughed, but the unsettled mood returned to her features too quickly. Her restiess eyes ranged across the countryside; there was no sign of human life. 'What Abarta said about the Wild Hunt-'

'He was just trying to scare us.'

'I've heard of it… something from mythology-'

'Lots of different mythologies. It's very adaptable. A Dark Lord leads a few mates and a pack of ghostly hounds across the countryside, scooping up anyone unlucky enough to be out. The Christians said it was Satan hunting lost souls to drag off to hell.'

'Ruth Gallagher met them, I think.'

'Sounds as if the Uber-Witch passed on a lot of useful information.' He paused when he realised Sophie was watching him curiously.

'You know a lot of things, Mallory.'

'I'm very well read.'

'What did you do in your past life?'

'I ate, I drank and I slept.'

She cursed. 'You're as infuriating as those things at Old Sarum.'

'I try.'

'What are we up against, Mallory?'

'Something that makes us look blind and stupid. It planned everything so carefully, manipulated us from the start. The siege… the way we were run to bring the beast in ourselves so we could be attacked from the inside, to break the faith of the brothers… even the choice of victims, picked to play off the two factions vying for power, so they'd suspect, and doubt, and hate… It knew everything that was going on, knew us better than we knew ourselves.'

'If this is supposed to be a pep talk, Mallory, you need to re-examine your material.' She dumped the remnants of her beans in the fire, then said, 'Why are you doing this, Mallory? Not so long ago, you were saying you didn't believe in anything, and now you're putting your life on the line. Have you finally found something worth fighting for? It must be something big to cause this kind of volte-face.'

Any answer he could have given her would have been too momentous. Instead, he said, 'We should get moving.'

She watched him for a long moment, even though he wouldn't meet her eye.

As Mallory stamped out the fire, the snap and crackle of the wood gave way to the deep stillness of the snow-muffled world. Yet the quiet only lasted for a second. In the deep background, Mallory picked up another sound that instantly set him on edge: the crunch of snow, but restrained as if someone or something was sneaking up on them.

Quickly, he caught up with Sophie, who had already started along the road. They hurried as fast as they could through the growing slush, pausing for breath ten minutes later, just before the road went over a rise. Mallory shielded his eyes against the gleaming countryside and looked back. A dark shape emerged from the edge of the wood where they had rested, keeping low, moving slowly but insistently. Not a man, certainly, but larger than any animal Mallory could imagine. It followed the line of their tracks, and at the road turned in their direction.

'What is it?' Sophie asked breathlessly some time later as they jogged along.

'I don't know, but it's not letting up. It doesn't matter what it is — we just need to keep ahead of it.'

Sophie was looking exhausted, and he was feeling weary himself. In shaded areas the snow wasn't melting at all and in some parts the drifts were so deep they had to wade through them. The conditions didn't appear to be slowing up their pursuer; in fact, over the previous hour it had gained on them.

They continued south-west along the Weymouth road, through wide- open countryside that would once have felt soothing in its agrarian order but was now wild and frightening. Just after the rolling Pentridge Hill loomed up on their left, they took a B-road that felt even more exposed, the hedgerows too close and too thick.

'I've got to try something,' Sophie said. Any rejuvenating effect of the Blue Fire had clearly worn off. 'Things don't work well when I'm tired. It peters out, or it has no effect at all… but I've got to try. I don't know if I can carry on at this rate.' Her face was drawn with exhaustion. Demanding privacy to help her concentrate, she climbed over a six-bar gate and disappeared into a field.

Mallory backed up to where he had a clear view along the road. The shape plodded along maybe a mile away, maybe less. He had an idea of what it was now: a dog, some supernatural entity, bigger than any real- world breed and black as space. The knowledge that it was something mundane yet at the same time alien was somehow even more disturbing. It carried with it an atmosphere that operated on some level beyond ordinary senses; Mallory felt threat and a growing sense of despair. Was this the Old Shuck that Abarta had mentioned?

Movement just on the edge of his vision to his right startled him. His hand went to his sword, but he didn't have time to draw it. A terrifying woman stood before him, as though she had appeared from nowhere. She was as thin as a winter tree, her skin almost grey, barely fitting her bones. A long black dress flapped around her, stained with tree-bark green and the white dust of a dry road. Her hair was grey and wild, untouched by a comb for months, years. But it was her face that chilled him, something that lay beyond its physical appearance, which was upsetting enough: it was smeared black with dirt or grease, malting the grey eyes even more striking; they contained thunder and lightning, and the end of him.

She stretched out an accusing finger. 'It's coming. You won't escape it now. You can't run any more.'

He backed off, almost slipping on a patch of melting snow, finally managing to get the sword out.

The woman began to laugh, sheer venom underlining the mockery in that sound, so palpable it stung him. Thoughts burst in his head, memories or dreams; she was releasing them. He was speeding away in a grey car, his face framed in the rear-view mirror, locked in an awful shock at what he had discovered in himself, tears streaming down his cheeks, his entire body racked with such shakes that it was almost impossible to drive.

'What do you want?' he yelled, with a fury that far exceeded the moment.

The old woman's laughter rose several notches, became hysterical, bitter. She threw her head back and her hair shook wildly.

'Stop it!' Mallory yelled. Tears sprang to his eyes.

Slowly, the woman backed away, still laughing, still pointing. There was one instant when he thought he would have to attack her with the sword, to shut her up before she said something he didn't want to hear, but then the sunlight glinted off his blade, blinding him, and when his eyes cleared, she was gone.

He'd just about composed himself when Sophie clambered wearily back on to the road. The dog — and he could finally see clearly that's what it was — was now only half a mile away.

'Are you OK?' Sophie said. 'I heard you yell out.'

'Did you hear anyone else?'

She looked at him curiously, shook her head.

'Did it work?' he snapped.

'I don't know… we'll see.'

They turned and hurried along the road.

Five miles further on, they realised Sophie's attempt at masking their presence must have succeeded. The dog had fallen back — only a little, but it gave them some respite.

As they went over another hill, they spotted a house almost hidden amongst the trees to their left, smoke rising from the chimney. Parked next to it was a battered van. The tyre tracks in the snow showed it was regularly in use.

'Where does he get his fuel from?' Mallory said, bringing them to a halt.

'Some of the more isolated farms have their own tanks. Maybe he found one that had been abandoned. What are you going to do?'

'Steal it.'

Sophie shook her head, the exhaustion making her emotions whirl.

'Don't worry, we'll bring it back. We'll get to Knowlton, do the business… bam… back tomorrow.'

'I don't know-'

'Think of all the people in the cathedral we'll be saving.'

His comments made some kind of sense, and she didn't have the energy to argue. He led her to the hedgerow and made her drop down below the line of sight. 'If I can get in it, I can hot-wire it,' he said. They crept along as quickly as they could.

At the gravel driveway, they paused, but there was no sound apart from the drip-drip-drip of melting snow from the tree branches in the wood that encircled the house.

'You wait here,' Mallory whispered. 'As soon as I come out, I'll throw the door open and you can dive in.'

She glanced back up the road. 'Just hurry.'

He kept low to the passenger side, which was furthest away from the house. It took him five minutes of working on the lock with his Swiss Army knife before it popped. He listened. Nothing. But when the door opened it gave a loud squeal. His breath caught in his throat. With heat spreading down his back, he listened again: still nothing.

Just as he was about to wriggle on to the van floor, the house door slammed open and the sound of running feet approached.

'Shit,' he muttered.

Around the front of the van appeared a dishevelled, large-boned man with the wild-eyed appearance of someone who had retreated from the world. He brandished an old shotgun with shaking hands. 'Get away!' he screeched. 'Get away! Get away!'

He pulled the gun up and fired wildly. Birds rose screaming into the air. Mallory had thrown himself backwards an instant earlier when he realised the van's owner wasn't going to waste any time talking. He landed on his back and rolled on to his feet just as another blast raised a shower of wet gravel an inch from his boot.

His instinct was to sprint to Sophie and get out of there as fast as possible, but the gun had already been reloaded and there would be a clear shot at his back if he ran. Another retort made his head ring. Shot passed his head so closely that his hair moved with the turbulence. Mallory launched himself to one side and bounded into the trees, weaving randomly. Wood splintered past his ear.

'You won't kill me!' The man's voice had the crackling paranoia of someone who had been unbalanced by existing in a climate of fear for too long.

Mallory had hoped his attacker would retreat into the house, but irrationality consumed him. He ploughed into the wood on Mallory's trail, obsessed with the idea that he would never find peace until the destroyer of his equilibrium was eradicated.

Mallory cursed at such a stupid distraction. His only choice was to go deeper into the woods to lose his pursuer, then circle around to get back to Sophie. But his legs were leaden, and as the shot whistled around him and branches crashed to the snowy ground, it was clear that the wild man was more likely to bring him down with his random shooting than if he had been taking aim.

He pressed on, running from one side to the other while trying to keep his balance on the uneven ground, with its fallen branches and hollows hidden beneath the covering of snow. He was faster and more agile than his lumbering pursuer, who was struggling with loading his shotgun on the run, but his progress was slowed by the increasing thickness of the wood and the old brambles and detritus that clogged the ground between the trees. In the shade the snow had not even started to melt and his footprints marked his direction clearly.

He slipped behind a trunk to catch his breath, pressing his back against the bark so he wouldn't be seen. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of ragged breathing and pounding feet against a background of constantly dripping water from the higher branches. The sun gleamed brightly through the branch cover, making the snow glow. With his dark clothes, it would be even more difficult for him to hide.

He drove on into the wood.

Five minutes later, he decided it was time to stop running and to attempt to circle back. Annoyingly, his pursuer had managed to keep pace with him, while the random shooting had kept Mallory permanently wrong- footed. The hunter wasn't going to give up until Mallory was dead.

Mallory came up suddenly on a snow-filled hollow about forty feet across that would take him out of his pursuer's line of sight. He skidded down into it and instantly turned to his left, scurrying low across the bottom. Ahead of him was a large area of bushes, tangled brambles and dead grass where he would leave no tracks behind him. On his hands and knees, he crawled into it, wriggling past the tearing thorns until he was hidden in the very heart; it would be impossible to get through standing upright. All he had to do was wait until the hunter got caught up trying to follow him in, then rush out of the other side and back to Sophie. Holding his breath, he waited.

It wasn't long before he heard the hunter hurrying through the crunching snow. He had reached the lip of the hollow, was obviously surveying the area cautiously.

Come on, you hick bastard, Mallory thought.

The sound of booted feet sliding down into the hollow: the wild man was picking his way along the mess of Mallory's tracks, the gun undoubtedly pointed dead ahead. Tension gripped Mallory's chest.

When the hunter passed into the thicket, kicking at the brambles that attempted to ensnare his boots, Mallory propelled himself forwards, low and hard. He burst out of the other side and hurtled up the bank and over the lip. The gunfire was so loud he thought his heart would stop; the blast ripped a chunk out of a tree to his right.

He ran.

It had worked; he didn't look back. But he'd only gone a few metres when he glimpsed movement on the periphery of his vision. The hunter was relentless; how could he have struggled through the thicket so quickly?

Mallory drove himself on, detoured to his left. The sound of crunching snow was loud enough to tell him that the hunter was keeping pace. Breathless, he paused behind another tree. Perhaps he could catch the hunter unawares, disarm him.

He set off again. The figure was slower, but still stalking efficiently, however fast Mallory ran. The hunter had clearly adopted new tactics, weaving amongst the trees, letting the trunks obscure him so that Mallory couldn't really tell where he was until he caught the most fleeting glimpse.

Steeling himself, Mallory hid behind the largest tree he could find and waited. Every fibre of his body was rigid. The constant drip-drip of water was disorienting; he strained to listen past it.

Finally, he had it: the familiar crunch of footsteps, slow, regular, coming nearer. Mallory drew his sword so carefully there was not even the familiar zing of the metal escaping the sheath.

Closer, and closer still. Mallory kept calm, though his chest was as taut as a piano wire. Only a few feet away; Mallory told himself to hold on until the hunter was right beside the tree.

Don't kill him, he had to tell himself.

At the last moment, Mallory lurched out, swinging his sword in front of him. Only it wasn't the hunter.

A black shape lay before him, huge and threatening, like death itself. Blood-red eyes seared intensely, a snort of hot breath like escaping steam rising in a cloud in the cool air. The sight was so terrifying that Mallory turned cold at the sight of a demon with the form of a dog, as big as a small pony, its sable coat sucking all light from die surrounding area.

It was the eyes that affected him the most, not dull and stupid like an animal's, but a man's eyes, crackling with an otherworldly intelligence that spoke of horror and threat and dread beyond his imagining.

For the briefest time, the tableau froze: there was just Mallory and the dog in a world of white. Then a deep bass rumble escaped from its throat and a gobbet of saliva oozed from its mouth, which opened slowly to reveal a monster's yellowing fangs.

Mallory was already moving as he saw tensing muscles ripple across its black fur. It erupted from the spot with the speed and mass of a car. Despite his advantage, Mallory only just got out of the way; the dog clipped his sword, sending it spinning across the ground. Its head turned as it passed and a ferocious snap of its enormous jaws only just missed taking off his face. He yelled out as some of its saliva splashed on his wrist, where the skin sizzled and smoked.

The dog was around in an instant, relentless, driving forwards. The ground shook beneath its thundering paws. Mallory tried to dodge; it smashed into his leg so hard it felt as if the bones were splintering. He spun, slammed into a tree, saw stars.

By the time his fumbling consciousness had returned, it was too late: the dog stood a few feet away, teeth bared, ready to tear him apart whichever way he tried to escape. But he couldn't have moved anyway; those red eyes held him fast. Something emanated from them, drilling into his skull above the bridge of his nose, into his brain, where it scurried and wriggled. In his mind, words that were not words echoed; images and impressions burst like fireworks in the night, so sickeningly alien he thought his consciousness was going to shut down at the contact.

Its muscles tensed again; the bass rumble began.

The blast shocked Mallory out of his mesmerised state. Shot smashed into the creature's skull — he saw the skin flow like liquid — but it made no impression; it kept its gaze on Mallory. Through fractured vision, Mallory made out the hunter lurching in the background, waving his gun, ranting incomprehensibly.

Mallory thought, Here it comes.

But the attack never came. Slowly the pinpricks of black at the centre of the fiery red eyes moved to the side. Its head began to follow suit, cranking around until it was staring directly at the hunter. What Mallory's pursuer saw in the beast drained the blood from his face. His eyes widened in terror, and briefly the banal madness that had gripped him was replaced by a startling clarity. Mallory saw how unpleasant true dread looks in a man's face: it stripped away everything that made him civilised, everything that made him human.

He had time to fire one final, useless blast before the thing crashed against him, smashing him to the ground. Mallory saw both of the hunter's shins snap in two on impact, but then Old Shuck's rending head was moving in a blur.

Shaking himself from the horror, Mallory jumped to his feet and ran, pausing only to snatch up his sword. He found an energy reserve he didn't know existed, speeding across the uneven terrain as if he were flying.

Sophie was searching the periphery of the wood, desperately upset. She was overcome with relief when he skidded up to her, throwing her arms around his neck. 'I heard the sounds,' she said queasily.

Mallory threw her off. 'No time.' He dragged her behind him as if she were feather-light, then scrambled into the van and deftly hot-wired the ignition.

'What about the owner?' Sophie asked, anticipating the truth.

'He's had it.' Mallory was filled with lightning. He thrust the gears into reverse and roared backwards, the wheels screeching in protest. Through the trees he could see a low, black shape approaching, now bizarrely part red.

Mallory spun the van around in the road and sped away.

There was more than half a tank of fuel, easily enough to get them to their destination. They had to drive cautiously along roads that had barely seen any traffic for a year, where the snow drifted so deeply they had to dig a path through with a shovel they found in the back.

Sophie began to doze intermittently and seemed on the brink of complete exhaustion. It left Mallory alone with his thoughts at a time when he really didn't need to be. Fragmented, buried memories surfaced, mingling with stark images of another world, another life. Once, he glanced at the side mirror and saw the hooded figure that haunted him standing in the middle of a field, lonely and stark amid the ruts of snow and sweep of mud and grass, scavenging crows bucking and diving around it. The sight made him cold and sick, and left him with a feeling that he was rushing towards a reckoning. The past wouldn't be staying behind him for much longer.

A mile from their destination, and with twilight coming in hard, the van suddenly lost all power and drifted to the side of the road.

'What's wrong?' Sophie mumbled as she stirred from sleep.

The next ten minutes were spent checking everything under the bonnet, but the problem remained a mystery. 'Back to walking, I think.' Mallory looked up at the darkening sky, then forced a smile. 'Maybe we're just jinxed.'

The warmth of the day faded quickly. The black dog was a way behind them, but a strange, troubling atmosphere was rolling out across the deserted landscape. The road wound amongst oppressive clusters of trees heavy on both sides. The occasional isolated house appeared, dark- windowed and uninhabited, but still with curtains and hanging baskets, as though the residents had been driven out and no looters had dared to venture in.

This far from the city, the fields were now clogged with thistles and weeds, the grass unclipped by cows or sheep. Soon the only mark of farming would be the wild hedge boundaries. The wind blew across the land, cold and shrill, stirring the rooks' nests in the tallest trees. The birds occasionally broke the silence with their raucous calls.

'We can't be far off,' Mallory said, consulting the book of maps he had brought with him from the van.

Sophie fumbled for his hand. 'Are you nervous?' she said, manifestly feeling so herself.

'No,' he said reassuringly. 'But I still wish we were walking in the opposite direction.'

'We're a Brother and Sister of Dragons,' she said ironically. 'We're only allowed to do the right thing.'

As they passed a deserted pub standing lonely at a junction, Sophie started and looked out across the fields. 'There's someone out there,' she said urgently.

'I noticed them about half a mile back,' Mallory said. 'They've been tracking us, keeping to the hedges and the shadows.'

'What are they?'

'I don't know. At first I thought they were animals, deer or something… I thought I saw horns… I don't know.' He adjusted his cloak so he could reach his sword easily if necessary. 'But then they looked as if they were walking on two legs sometimes.'

'Oh.'

'I think they're waiting for dark.'

'They like that, don't they?'

'I've been wondering,' Mallory said obliquely, 'do the gods you worship come to your rescue if you pray? Or aren't they that hands-on?'

'I think whatever created the universe would have an interest in the life that populates it, don't you?'

'I thought for a long time that there wasn't a God,' Mallory mused. 'You look at all the random suffering and the mean-spiritedness and the venality, and you think if there was a God He needs to be deposed pretty damn quick.'

Sophie sensed the gravity at the end of his comment. 'But?'

He sighed. 'Anything I say would be too twee. No one would take me seriously any more.'

'Go on, I won't tell.' They both knew the conversation was a distraction to keep away the void that lay at the end of the day.

'Well,' he began uncomfortably, 'take love. The evolutionists say it's a mechanical impetus, perfectly designed to create a bond between two breeding partners and then to provide an atmosphere of security so the offspring can thrive and perpetuate the species. But anyone who feels love knows that's not true. Inside your head you know exactly what love is but you can't express it in words because it's too rich and complex… so otherworldly… so non-human…'He was struggling to find the words. 'That's it. It's not of us. It doesn't exist within our frame of reference at all. It comes from… somewhere else…'

'Are you trying to tell me something, Mallory?' She smiled teasingly.

'Tallent, the only people who could possibly love you are the kind who'll come up to you in a park in piss-stained trousers and do a dance for twenty pence.'

'There's hope for you yet, then, Mallory.'

The road sloped gently down, curving around the edge of another thick copse. A house stood dark and forlorn amongst the trees. Sophie eyed the dying light anxiously; they couldn't pretend the dark wasn't coming any longer.

'Are we nearly there?' she asked.

Mallory closed the map book with a bang. 'It should be around here somewhere. Which is good. Because they're getting closer.'

A tiny B-road branched off past the deserted house. A little further on, they saw their destination, the symbolism so striking it brought an instant frisson. A ruined church stood at the centre of a large field, while encircling it, enclosing it, forever linked to it, was a Neolithic henge monument consisting of a raised bank and an internal ditch with a ceremonial entrance. The scene was heavy with the resonance of ancient mysteries in conflict yet at the same time inextricably joined.

The wind whistled across the countryside, buffeting them as they ran for the church. On the edge of the world the light was now only a pencil- width. Across the fields on all sides, grey shapes scurried and jumped and ran, neither animals nor beasts but something of both, all converging rapidly on Knowlton.

Mallory and Sophie slipped past the iron gate and sprinted through the gap in the ringbank. Instantly the wind fell, but the grass continued to ripple.

The church was no shelter. The roof and the outer wall on the far side were completely missing. The bell tower standing erect at the heart of the feminine circle offered a feeble defensive position, but it was still open to the sky and the doorway was wide enough to ensure Mallory wouldn't have to make a stand for long.

Mallory spun around on the crunching gravel, sword in hand, then said, 'This is it, then.' He tried to make it sound positive, but the fatalism wouldn't stay out of his voice. He looked to Sophie as if to say, Now's the time — do your stuff.

She leaned in the doorway and looked out across the henge, mesmerised by the shapes sweeping towards them. She guessed there must be hundreds of them.

Mallory's sword was growing bluer with each passing second. She turned to him and said, 'Drive it into the ground.'

He didn't question her. Once it was embedded in the gravel, Sophie squatted down and muttered. A second later, she threw her head back and gasped. 'So powerful here.' The words sounded like steam escaping from a pipe.

Mallory knew better than to interrupt. He was disturbed by the sound of a horn, a distinct blast that sounded somehow ancient and eerily threatening. The light was almost gone and everything had taken on a ghostly greyness. Across the sky, clouds swept in that looked strangely like men on horseback. He fixed on them until Sophie exclaimed and pointed through the doorway.

Two red lights approached the perimeter of the henge. They floated unsettlingly in the dark, and it was a second before Mallory realised they were eyes. Old Shuck had found them.

Urgently, he turned back to Sophie — threats were converging on them from every side and their time was almost gone. In the split second his attention had been away from her, she had changed. Her eyes blazed with blue light, her muscles holding her as rigid as wood while sapphire sparks flashed around her limbs. From the sword, lines of the earth energy radiated up into the stone structure of the church and, even as he watched, rushed out into the henge.

Blue lightning flashed all around. Mallory heard a voice that wasn't Sophie's, or his, or anyone he knew, saying, 'There are worlds beyond worlds. Which one is real?'

And then the night snapped shut.

Darkness lay heavily over everything. Only the glow of Mallory's sword provided any illumination. They stood in a dense forest, the trees so tightly packed that they couldn't see a beginning or end of it. The thick canopy of branches and leaves made it impossible to tell if it was night or day, but they guessed from the cool, strong aroma of vegetation that it was dark.

'Where are we?' Mallory said.

'I don't know.' Sophie sounded dazed; the effects of whatever she had done had taken their toll.

As Mallory shucked off his disorientation, the words of the strange beings at Old Sarum came back to him. 'The Forest of the Night,' he muttered. The place where they would become the prey of the Wild Hunt.

As if in echo of his thoughts, the dim sound of a hunting horn rang out through the forest. The density of the trees made it impossible to tell if it was distant or close at hand. He slipped a hand under Sophie's arm to help her to her feet.

'Come on,' he said insistently. 'We have to move.'

'Where to?' she said, confused.

And that was it: he had no idea where they were supposed to be going. 'Just move,' he replied.

The forest was unchanging, never-ending. There was a faint ambient light, enough to guide them, but Mallory couldn't comprehend its source. They ran as fast as they could amongst the trees, occasionally tripping on creepers or ploughing through bushes, jumping gently trickling streams or clambering through boulder-strewn hollows. Most of the time Mallory had to help Sophie along; she was drained of energy, at first a little delirious even, but gradually coming to her senses.

The sounds of pursuit drew closer. He heard the yelp of hounds above the crackle of his footsteps on the dry forest floor, felt the rumble of horses' hooves in the soft leaf-mould, and always the intermittent threatening dissonance of the hunting horn.

'We have to find him,' Sophie gasped, during one of her occasional moments of confusion. 'The… the Devil.'

'The Devil,' Mallory repeated bitterly. He wondered what hell would look like, recalled the last days of Stefan's rule in the cathedral and thought perhaps that he had seen the start of it.

The first inkling he had that the end was near was the appearance of shapes moving fast amongst the trees on both sides. They bounded low, like ghosts in the gloom. He found it hard to look and run in the obstacle- littered environment, but eventually he realised they were hounds, long, thin and whippetlike, but with an unnatural colouring of red and white.

Running, he thought with a sick desperation. He was always running. A metaphor for his life.

The dogs began to close in with a pincer movement. It was hopeless; it had been hopeless from the moment he had set off from the cathedral, but he had tried his best. He wondered if that was enough.

A storm of hoofbeats filled the air. And still they ran. A laugh escaped his lips. It was crazy. They should just lie down and be trampled or torn apart.

They leaped another stream where white water cascaded over glistening rocks and almost became bogged down in the mud on the other side. A rider jumped it easily. In the thin light, Mallory had an impression of furs and leather, and of a long pole with a sickle attached to the end. The horse, as he glimpsed it, looked like a horse in every way, yet he strangely felt that it was some unrecognisable alien beast. It danced amongst the trees in a way no horse could ever achieve. Mallory sensed more riders at his back, just the slice of a sickle away.

The rider to his left began to close in, raising the weapon to his underarm in a jousting position. Not long now, Mallory thought. At his side, Sophie was lost to her running and her thoughts.

The rider drew closer. The sickle glowed silver, cruelly sharp.

Suddenly, Mallory grabbed Sophie's hand and yanked her to a halt. 'What are you doing?' she asked, dazed. He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, a feeble protection and a final act of communion with the woman he loved. He smelled her hair, kissed her gently on the forehead.

The closest rider reined in his horse and came back. The others circled in a wide, lazy arc, the hounds baying and whimpering in the gloom beyond. Mallory held up his head, waiting for the killing stroke, but the huntsman lowered his weapon and waved it curtly to prompt them to move forwards.

They continued that way in silence for ten minutes, Mallory's arm tight around Sophie's shoulders, until they came to a clearing. In a circle of well-worn grass at the centre was a standing stone slouching to one side. Overhead, Mallory could see the stars for the first time, but no constellations that he recognised. The full moon, though, looked down brightiy. There was a cathedral-like stillness and gravity.

The riders brought their horses to a halt around the edge of the clearing and a deep silence descended; even the hounds were quiet.

Not long after, the black dog padded out into the moonlight on the other side of the clearing. When it reached the standing stone, it dropped down to its haunches and stared at Mallory and Sophie in such a human way it made Mallory's flesh prickle.

'We come with the night,' it said in a voice like iron on gravel. Mallory started in shock.

Its red eyes looked as big as saucers. Sophie surfaced from her daze, gripping Mallory's arm tightly.

'What you seek lies beyond,' the dog continued. 'Follow the path. Do not turn from it, whatever you might see.' The dog rose up and began to leave, pausing halfway to turn its head back to them. 'Nothing is as it seems. Ever,' it said. It lost itself beyond the riders.

'I can't see a path,' Sophie whispered.

As Mallory scanned the tree line on the other side of the clearing, the moonlight illuminated the standing stone at just the right angle and a trail of energy ran out from the base of it into the forest. It was undoubtedly of the same essence as the Blue Fire, but this had a milky luminescence, like the moon on waves.

Sophie's eyes were wide and distant. 'I suppose we should go,' she said.

When they passed the standing stone it felt as though they were moving through a gauzy veil. Briefly, they appeared to lose touch with each other, although they had been holding hands, and were again shordy after. And then they were across the clearing and plunging into the dark beneath the branches.

A night wind slipped amongst the trees like a spirit, bringing with it aromas of pine and grass and sleeping flowers. Mallory was filled with something close to peace.

This is the end, he thought dreamily. We're going to see the Devil.

As they followed the shimmering white path, they became aware of movement amongst the trees: shapes drifted by, as insubstantial as mist, some human in form, some animals, some a combination of the two.

'What are they?' Sophie asked.

Before he could answer, they were both overwhelmed with a tremendous sense of presence, as if the ground on which they walked and the trees and vegetation were all one being. They gripped each other, rooted to the spot, Existence spinning all around them. Their own thoughts and emotions were intermingled with something from outside, so far beyond them in every aspect they couldn't begin to comprehend it.

Eventually, they found the strength to progress in faltering steps, unable to speak.

They were suddenly aware that they didn't know how long they had been there; it could have been years, or just a second. Their own sense of personality appeared to be dissipating too, or at least growing weaker, merging with what was around them.

At the point where they felt they were about to cease to be, the path wound down a bank and into a dense mass of vegetation. They tried to pause before it, not seeing how they could pass, but some force pulled them in, the leaves and creepers, brambles and ivy parting and then enveloping them so hard that the mass pressed against their faces, chests, backs.

Mallory could no longer see Sophie. Desperately, he called out her name.

'I'm here!' she said. Her fingers fumbled for his and locked on; not there, but there, always.

They continued that way for a while, drifting in a world of green. But then the vegetation became more hard-packed. Leaves pushed into Mallory's mouth, pressed against his eyes. He lost touch with Sophie's hand, fought for it but couldn't find it anywhere. And when he tried to call her name, the leaves and creepers forced further into his mouth, pressing against the rim of his throat, making him gag. The prick of thorns was sharp against his wrists, growing sharper still until he would have yelled out if he had been able. With a sickening realisation, he knew the brambles were breaking into his veins, forcing their way along them. Yet the veins weren't being torn apart, in the same way that he wasn't choking as the creepers found their way down his throat — though he gagged and gagged — and continued on into his stomach. The vegetation was consuming him from the inside out. Soon there wouldn't be any him at all; just green.

Before he lost consciousness, a voice echoed around him, repeating the words he had heard before. 'There are worlds within worlds. None are real.'

'The Devil… the Devil

The car sped away. Blood trickled over his knuckles, splashed on the steering wheel. In the rear-view mirror, he saw his face… saw into himself… Horrible… horrible…

He could feel it looming ahead of him, a shadow so big it threatened to block out the moon and stars and all of Existence. He could feel subtle fingers reaching into his brain, twisting the very essence of him, tweaking memories and half-thoughts. There was a darkness like that experienced only in the thickest forests where human feet never trod. It was coming, across space, across the worlds, through the trees, towards him, daring him to scream, entreating him to break apart in fear.

Mallory fell from here to there and back again, falling still.

It was coming…

'You have the smell of my enemies on you.' The voice sounded like branches swaying in the wind, yet strangely like his own voice reflected back at him.

Mallory stood in another clearing, much smaller than the last. Before him sat a man composed of leaves and branches instead of flesh and bones, clear eyes staring beneath a brow of fronds. Ander horns protruded from his head. He lounged on a throne made of living willow, oak, rowan and ivy, appeared to be part of it, and both of them part of the surrounding flora, which was as dense as a wall on every side. Mallory recognised echoes of Green Man carvings he had seen in ancient churches, hints of Robin Hood in the way the vegetation arranged itself like clothes; here was Pan, the living mind of nature. Or the Devil, depending on your point of view.

Through the hazy dream-atmosphere that swathed everything, Mallory felt his thoughts stir with anxiety, laden with the burden of propaganda subtly insinuated from the moment he had set foot in the cathedral; from the moment his education began. He recalled that same profile looming, ghostly, above the city, considered every picture he'd seen of Satan — it was all here in the figure before him.

'I have been with your world since the earliest times,' the Green Man said, as if he could read Mallory's thoughts.

The sense of presence was so powerful — much, much bigger than the figure before him, bigger than the world — that Mallory could barely speak. His mind couldn't cope with what it was perceiving, his thoughts like quicksilver, slipping away from him before he could get a hold on them, the gaps in his consciousness filled with visual and aural hallucinations so that he couldn't tell what was experience and what was imagination.

Panic, he thought, grasping at reason. The dread of the beating heart of nature, of Pan, the mind that lay behind it all.

He was dwarfed by everything, expecting to be destroyed at any moment, eradicated by a thought or a whispered word.

And then, in some strange way, he was standing on the downs with the warm summer wind at his back and the moon beaming down on the circle of standing stones, the atmosphere heavy with mystical possibilities. Below him, men wearing the antlers of their totem spirit moved on two legs, then on four, howling at the moon and the stones in a dance that was ancient even then. The Neolithic world called out to him, not with the brutality of a mean existence, but with spirituality and a sense of something greater.

'Here.' The disembodied voice sent tingles up his spine.

The world fell away and he was in the sacred grove where the sickle cut the mistletoe, and gathered around were naked men prepared for battle, their hair bleached and matted with lime so that it stuck out in nail-like spikes. The wise men who kept the oak-knowledge, the great knowledge, whispered and moaned and felt the universe move through him, and all those assembled sighed with wonder.

'And here.'

And he was in the golden fields where the workers made the corn dollies and left them in the silence of the harvest night. And then in the greenwood where the villagers crawled through and under the crushing yoke of the rich and powerful, impeaching the trees for aid to bring back the wealth to the poor. And he heard the answering call of the hunting horn and glimpsed the movement of a green-clad hero in the emerald depths. In the thundering, sulphurous heat of the iron foundry as the Workshop of the World made cities and empires, he heard the apprentice knock on wood. The rural churches where the vegetative face stared out from pew and column, the other churches where the horned faces had been disfigured, made into a grinning devil, a feeble attempt at supplantation that would never, ever work.

'Here, here, here.'

Then, like some god, he was above it all, with a vista over all time, all place, hearing the whispered names — Cernunnos, Puck, Jack o' the Green — seeing how they were stitched into the fabric of everything, from the very beginning to the very end.

No Devil, he thought. And no Evil anywhere, just shadows and light, inextricably bound. Tears welled up at the wonder of it all; the meaning that he knew he would never grasp when the glue of his thoughts returned.

'I am part of it, and part of something greater, of Existence,' the Green Man continued, his eyes filled with a gleaming, unearthly light. 'An aspect. One face. To attack me is to attack everything.'

They were back in the grove. Mallory could smell lime, then cherry blossom, then decomposing leaves; everything was so rich it was all distracting. With a struggle, he forced himself to concentrate on why he was there, still amazed he had made it that far, doubting he would ever leave. 'Why've you allowed me to come here… to you?' he asked cautiously.

'All may come to me, if they do so with an open heart. I care for all living creatures, for life itself.'

'You attacked the cathedral.' Awe made his voice a whisper; still he feared he would be knocked down like an oak before the tempest, like the sand before the wave.

The words hung in the air for a while before they were obscured by the whisper of leaves. 'I defend Existence. When it is attacked, I strike back.'

'They took something-'

'They stole from Existence. They attempted to control the very essence of everything for their own aims. And in doing so, they caused disruption… and suffering… and death… the opposite of life.'

Mallory's mouth was dry. Power lay everywhere; a scratching feeling at the back of his mind hinted at some tremendous consciousness circling him. His dread began to flourish again. 'There are good men who are suffering. If I return what's been stolen, will you leave them alone?'

'If wrongs are righted.' The quality of light in the Green Man's eyes became more intense. 'You have it in your power, Brother of Dragons.'

Mallory flinched; was this mysterious quality in him so powerful that even such a force acknowledged it?

'You are part of me,' the Green Man said, answering his thoughts, 'and I am part of you.'

Mallory began to search those troubling eyes, but snapped his gaze away as they began to suck him in. He felt as if he was staring into a vast ocean of intelligence, one that stretched to infinity; unknowable, dangerous in its alienness, one that could swallow him whole in an instant, so that he would be lost to everything as if he had never existed. Worse than that, it knew him, knew his deepest secrets, his worst fears, appeared to want something of him; or wanted him to want something of himself.

'You have a choice,' the Green Man said. Mallory had the strangest feeling he was talking about something other than the matter at hand.

'If you call off your army, let me get back into the cathedral… I'll do what I-'

'You have it in your power, Brother of Dragons,' the Green Man interrupted. There was a lull; a rustle moved through the vegetation. 'This is your time,' he continued. 'There are two paths before you. Everything hangs in the balance. Your choice, Brother of Dragons. Your choice.'

Again, Mallory could tell he wasn't talking about the cathedral and the stolen relic. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said desperately. But another voice at the back of his head appeared to be telling him that he did, but it was lost, driven back, as always.

The Green Man only smiled.

Mallory had no idea what happened next; it was as if a light was switched off, but things continued to go on in the dark. The next thing he knew he was back in the church in Knowlton with Sophie standing beside him. It was daylight, but it felt as though days had passed. Where there had been a thaw before, the snow lay thick across the whole landscape, frosted in place. For a moment, they stood, still lost to the place they had been, but gradually it faded, like the wind across the fields, until it was almost as if they had never been there.

'What happened to you?' he said, dragging her into his arms with a force born of euphoria, and love.

'What happened to you,}' she replied, also giddy with her renewed life. 'I saw the Green Man.' 'So did I.'

They stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

'They had it all wrong from the start — Cornelius, Stefan, all of them,' Mallory said, as they walked across the henge in the bright sunlight. 'He was the good guy and they'd badly wronged him-'

'It was more than that, Mallory. In their language, they sinned against God… my god… Existence… nature. They thought they had a right to take anything. That everything was created to be bent to their will, for the ends of their religion. Nothing else mattered but what they believed. And now they're paying the price.'

Mallory remembered the Green Man's eyes and shivered. 'It felt as though he was… more than he was. Does that make sense?'

'In ancient times, pagans believed there was one true God, so far removed they couldn't know anything about him, and all the other gods were aspects of him, symbolising different facets.' She looked up at the blue sky. 'It feels like the solstice.'

'Time's strange in… those places.' Mallory wasn't really aware of the vocabulary to describe the experience. 'How do you know?' 'I just… feel it.'

They paused at the gate, enjoying the sun on their faces, despite the cold. 'We have to go back, then,' he said.

'It's down to us to put things right. For… Existence.' She leaned over and gave him a kiss.

'I can't believe we're alive. I never thought we would be.' He took the measure of himself inside. 'Everything's changed.' 'Then we'd better not throw it away,' she said.