The Queen of sinister

'Don't go near the walls — they'll get you!' Briony's whining voice rose above the keening wind that cut like a knife across the Ice-Field.

'I'm not about to go near them!' Caitlin snapped back. She hugged her knees and looked out over the desolate landscape that appeared to go on for ever beneath the night sky; a black and white world. It was unbearably harsh, yet at times it still felt preferable to the place inhabited by her body.

'They're after you, you know,' Brigid cackled. 'They don't care about the others.'

'Why would they be after me?' Caitlin replied sourly. 'Why should anyone be interested in me? I'm no use to anyone. I can't heal people. I couldn't save… couldn't save…'

'Don't talk about them!' Amy shouted, her eyes wide with fear.

'They know you're special,' Brigid continued. 'They know you're a Sister of Dragons.'

Caitlin spun round. 'What does that mean? I don't know! It's just words…'

The old woman tapped her scrawny hand against her chest. 'It's in the heart, it's in the blood…'

'It doesn't matter,' Briony interjected, 'because you'll never get past those Whisperers. They're waiting outside the walls. They can't come in, but if you try to go out…' Brigid began to laugh hysterically, her phlegmy whoops soaring higher and higher until Caitlin wanted to scream at her to shut up. 'Let me out!' The harsh, rustling voice crept out from the shadows at the back of their tiny sheltered spot. Caitlin's blood ran cold. 'LET ME OUT!' Amy began to cry and Briony fell to her knees and covered her face, but Brigid just laughed and laughed and laughed… 'Caitlin?' She woke to find Matt leaning over her, his blue eyes searching her face. Once he saw that it was her and not one of the others, he smiled. 'You're a deep sleeper.' 'Something like that.' She sat up and scrubbed at her hair, which she was sure must look like a haystack. 'They're still out there. I just checked from the tower… it's been three days now. That weird purple mist keeps moving all around the walls.' 'They're not going to go away. They want me.' 'What have you done to attract that kind of attention?' He felt unbearably close, so she swung herself out of bed and walked to the other side of the room. 'All I know is we have to find that cure. And nothing's going to stop us.' 'I wish I had your positivity.' 'Have you been able to convince the professor to come with us?' 'I haven't been able to find him. I think he's avoiding me… or just soaking up the beer in some dive.' 'I can't understand it. He seemed so desperate to get here.' She splashed her face with icy water from a pewter bowl next to the bed. 'What's the point in crossing over and then just hiding out in this godforsaken place?' 'I haven't been able to keep a track of Mahalia or Carlton, either. They're roaming all over this place, night and day. They'll disappear for hours into the corridors, as if they're searching for something. And you know what a maze it is.'

'No great loss. Well, Mahalia, anyway. Carlton's a different story.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know exactly. There's something about him… I can't help feeling as if he's the key to what's happening.'

'Can you explain it?'

She sat back down on the bed, but left a gap between them. 'I don't know… it's in here.' She tapped her heart and her head. 'Instinct. I just think there's something locked away inside him, something important, if we could only get at it. He knows things…'

Matt clearly knew what she meant, judging by the expression on his face.

'We can't afford to sit around any longer, whatever Lugh said about time being strange in this place.' She stood defiantly and waited for Matt to join her. 'We need to get whatever information we can from this place and get back on the road. And,' she added flintily, 'Crowther is coming with us. We need him.' Caitlin and Matt decided to split up to search for the professor, and soon after Caitlin found herself in a maze of mews that had a faintly menacing air. She was the only one walking the cobbles, but occasionally she would catch a glimpse of someone standing in a darkened doorway. They would beckon to her, whispering promises of something or other — magic, escape, things she didn't understand but which sounded threatening or perverse — and she hurried on, knowing it would be dangerous to get too close.

The mews grew thinner and darker the further she progressed into the heart of that quarter, so that eventually she could touch both walls at the same time if she reached out. The sky had almost disappeared behind the overhanging upper storeys. The oppressive atmosphere at that point became more than she could bear; she couldn't shake the feeling that someone, or something, was waiting behind the doors to grab her and drag her in, never to be seen again.

It was at the moment when she decided to turn back that she heard her name. It sounded like the buzz of an insect, almost lost beneath the echoes off the cobbles.

She stopped sharply. 'Who's there?'

No immediate reply came, but her instincts were sharp enough to make her move quickly away. Yet after a few yards, the sound of her name made her glance back again. At the end of that section of mews was the knight with the boar's-head helmet who had pursued her at the Rollrights, his gleaming black armour almost lost in the shadows.

Caitlin didn't wait to see any more. She ran as fast as she could through the labyrinthine streets, not even pausing to see if the knight was in pursuit. Yet in her keenness to escape, she missed her turning and found herself in an area she didn't recognise, and soon after that she came up sharp against the end of a twisting cul-de-sac.

Her hopes that she would have time to retrace her steps were dashed when she heard the clatter of the knight's approach. He appeared around a bend and stood in the centre of the street, arms at his sides.

'What do you want?' Caitlin said defiantly.

'Caitlin Shepherd.' The same fizzing voice, distorted, like high-tension wires. 'None of this is real, Caitlin Shepherd.' There was an awkwardness to his intonation, as if he wasn't used to speaking.

'What do you want?' Caitlin repeated.

'You.' The word chilled her. 'I want you.'

A nearby door opened with a loud creak and a short man with wild white hair emerged carrying a box of empty bottles. Caitlin saw her moment and dashed through the gap, almost knocking the man over. His curses rose up behind her as she scrambled through a dark, dusty back room into what appeared to be an apothecary's shop. Bottles and jars of herbs and coloured liquids filled shelves on every wall.

She burst out of the front door on to a main thoroughfare and continued to run for several minutes, only resting when she was sure the knight had not followed her. The experience troubled her immensely. It wasn't only the Whisperers who were tracking her incessantly. Who was the knight? What did he want? And why did she feel so scared by his presence? Caitlin finally found Crowther sitting at the back of the Sun tavern. The place was deserted, but he looked happy enough. She'd spent most of the morning scouring the rain-swept backstreets, ignoring the uncertain glances of the strange, gloomy residents, poking into bakeries where the scent of fresh bread almost turned her head, or strange emporia filled with disturbing and magical objects that appeared to have been lost from the pages of a fairy-tale.

'Hail and well met,' Crowther said tipsily, raising a foaming mug.

'You're in a good mood.' Caitlin sat opposite him on a rickety stool.

'And why not? Food whenever I call for it, good beer — and all for free. What more could a man want?'

'How about survival for his fellow man?'

He made a flamboyant gesture of weariness. 'Please, don't get on that moral high horse. I've done my bit. I got you here.'

'We need you, Professor. Wherever we have to go, it's not going to be easy, and the more help we can have on the road, the better.'

'That may very well be the case, but I'm not your man.'

'Why? Are you afraid?'

'Of course I'm afraid. At my age you're afraid of everything… afraid of dying from some hideous illness, afraid of spending your last days eking out a miserable existence, afraid of… of… loneliness.' He stared into his beer for a long moment, then flapped the thought away with a hand.

'You don't need to be afraid…'

'Really? And I should be taking life advice from someone who hasn't crossed thirty, why exactly?'

'You don't gain wisdom just through years. You get it from experience, and tragedy…'

'And I've had my fair share of that, believe me.' He slammed his pint down so hard beer slopped across the table. 'Listen to me. We move from innocence, hope and joy to compromise, disillusion and misery,' Crowther said. 'Why do you think no one wants to grow up?'

'I don't believe you,' Caitlin said.

'Of course. Because you haven't grown up yet. It's waiting for you, make no mistake.'

The happiness had drained from his face once again, and in the harsh lines that remained, Caitlin saw hints of what lay behind his posturing. 'What tragedy, Professor Crowther?'

His eyes misted, the repressed emotion released by the alcohol. 'Just the usual. Wife taken in the Fall. Children missing and grandchildren…' His shoulders loosened and sagged so that he appeared to diminish in stature. 'You're never happy with what you've got until what you've got has gone. I had no time for them, no time for anything apart from myself. The whole family taken, and I couldn't do a thing about it. Useless, you see. All my life being an academic… wasted time. It didn't help me one jot. My whole ethos has been pointless.'

'That's not true-'

'It is true.' Caitlin leaned across the table and grabbed his wrist supportively. He flinched as if he'd been burned. 'You don't have to feel this way. I've suffered loss too and I-'

'Ah, but then you're stronger than me, you see.' He pulled himself free of her and took up his drink.

'You were brave enough to come here.'

'Brave enough?' he laughed bitterly. 'This is my refuge, my escape from the world of tears. Here I don't have to face up to anything. I can live for ever, or near enough, free of fear. I can just… be.' He looked deep into her eyes and forced a smile. 'I needed you to help me cross over here. Most people can't activate the transition unless they have the untrammelled force of the Blue Fire in them. And you're one of them, one of the few. I went to the college in Glastonbury with the explicit aim of gaining the abilities to seek you out. And once I'd done that, I left, taking with me all I needed to find you.'

Caitlin pulled back as his meaning slowly dawned on her. 'Then you lied to me — I wasn't some chosen one destined to cure the plague. You just needed me to get you here…'

'See what a horrible person I am. You really don't need me around you any more.' He sucked in a breath of air. 'That's not true. You are the one. I simply saw a confluence between what I wanted and what was expected of you.'

Caitlin stood up, but it was Amy who surfaced to speak their mind. 'I really am disappointed in you, Professor Crowther.'

He thought he would be inured to her words, but that little-girl voice from Caitlin's place of innocence hit to the very heart of him. Caitlin/Amy saw it in his face, but made no attempt to comfort him. She left the tavern as quickly as she could. Mahalia and Carlton had spent hours trawling along the twisting, dark corridors of the palace. They had seen many secret places and overheard whispers of great importance, but still hadn't found the object of their quest.

'Maybe they executed him,' Mahalia said. 'That could have been why he'd got the hood on, and the chains…'

Carlton shook his head and pressed ahead.

'Haven't we been down here already?' But the words caught in her throat when she noticed an unfamiliar tapestry hanging on the wall between two sizzling torches. It showed five people — humans by the stylised design — joined by the sinuous coils of what appeared to be a serpent. Other illustrations surrounding the central motif appeared to tell a story that, at first glance, ended in some great disaster, but before she could examine it closer, a voice called out clearly, 'Who's there?'

Mahalia dragged Carlton into her protective grip. He fought free and advanced quickly along the corridor with Mahalia at his heels until they came to a heavy oaken door with a small barred window set into it.

'I know you're there. There's no point hiding.'

Cautiously, Mahalia approached the window and peered into a small, dank cell. Straw was scattered on the stone flags, and pinned to the far wall by chains was the hooded prisoner. Surely, Mahalia thought, he must be a real danger to be secured so forcefully. She ducked away when she saw those brilliant eyes fixed on her through the holes in the hood.

'Don't go.'

His voice, though clear, was faintly pitiful and she couldn't help coming back to the window and that hypnotic gaze. 'You're not one of them,' she said.

'No. I'm one of you.' He rattled the chains for her attention. 'Can you get me out of here?' Though he was clearly human, there was an awkwardness to his speech as if he wasn't used to talking.

'Right. Free the psycho imprisoned in the bowels of the palace. That's a good idea.' 'I'm not a psycho. They're just… scared of me.' She laughed. 'Why would they be scared of you? You look as if you'd snap in two in a strong wind.' He didn't reply for a few seconds as he sorted his thoughts, then he said, unconvincingly, 'They just are.' 'I don't waste time talking to people who lie to me…' She made as if to go and he called her back with a desperate urging. 'I'm sorry. I'm not lying! I just… it's hard to talk, with you out there and me hanging here…' Mahalia gripped the bars. 'Well, if you think I'm coming within arm's reach of you, you've got another think coming.' She eyed the large padlock below the handle. 'Besides, there's no way I'd get through this thing.' 'You could find some way,' he said hopefully. 'How'd you get here, anyway?' 'They stole me.' 'What?' 'From my mother, when I was a baby. That's what they do… what they've always done — steal infants so they can experiment on them.' 'I don't believe you.' Empathy fanned up inside Mahalia. Then: 'You've been a prisoner all your life?' 'Since I was a baby. I escaped from them once, but now they've recaptured me and they're going to send me back to the place where they carry out the experiments — the Court of the Final Word.' Mahalia couldn't decide whether she should believe him or not. She hoped Carlton would give her some sign, but the boy's face was impassive. 'What's your name?' 'Jack.' 'How old are you?' A pause. 'I don't know.' He sensed he was making some headway with her, so he continued to talk in the hope of winning her over. 'There are two factions amongst these people-' 'I know all about that.'

'Well, this lot are neutral. They don't want to offend either side till they've decided who they're supporting, so they're not going to risk having me here as a point of contention. They're sending me back as soon as they can. I need your help. I couldn't bear to go back there again. The things they do…' He swallowed heavily. 'If I went back there'd be no point in me living.'

'Don't say that.'

'If you were in my place you'd feel the same.'

Mahalia chewed on a knuckle. She felt for him greatly, but there was also a part of what he was saying that didn't add up. She'd grown adept at recognising risk and the last thing she wanted to do was to make their situation worse.

'I need to think about this.' She grabbed Carlton and pulled him away from the door.

'Don't go!' Jack pleaded.

'I'll be back.'

'Don't go!' This time it was a yell of desperation, and she could still hear his agonised calls when she had put many, many lengths of corridor between them. Matt was lost in a maze of narrow mews when frantic cries came to him on the wind. He followed the sound out of the oppressively dark backstreets until he came up against a force of heavily armoured soldiers rushing in the direction of the walls. The silvery metal of their helmets and breastplates transformed them into a river of light washing down the dismal streets in the drizzle that had fallen ever since the group's arrival.

The urgency of their actions made Matt uneasy, and he grabbed at a woman hurrying away from the source of the disturbance. 'What's going on?' he asked.

'They attack,' she said breathlessly. 'They have found a way past the defences.' She broke away from Matt and continued on her way before turning to point an accusing finger at him. 'Your fault,' she hissed bitterly before disappearing into the throng.

Matt fought his way through the citizens swarming away from the walls until he had a clear view of the activity. That sickening purple light was everywhere, drifting like the smoke of a battlefield, and through it came hideously misshapen figures, transformed by the Whisperers like the poor hermit from the Motor Museum who had attacked them at the Rollrights. Bones protruded from limbs, skulls shone through flesh, and weapons — swords, spears, axes — had been embedded in their frames as if they were natural parts of the body. They lurched with the relentlessness of zombies from some horror movie, the purple illumination leaking out of them.

Even at that distance, Matt could sense the paralysing despair they carried with them. As the soldiers approached, they stopped in their tracks, their swords falling hopelessly to their sides. Some simply lay down on the cobbles, offering themselves up to the sweeps of the Whisperer weapons, demanding to be released from the pain of life.

The Whisperers, Matt guessed, had caught some poor travellers making their way across the plain to the court and were using them to breach whatever magical defences kept the court secure. Somehow they had clambered up the vertiginous walls to gain access to the city. The ones within were now forcing their way down the road towards the gates, to throw them open for the leaders who waited without.

There were only twelve of them, but the horde of soldiers seemed incapable of stopping them. Thirty or more of the little men already lay dead, their blood running down the stones in a claret stream, and now the others were starting to hold back, realising the futility of their attack. Without a second thought, he turned and bounded up the steep streets until he found the shop he had noticed earlier. It was a fletcher's, the interior hung with more bows of all description than he had seen in his life. The owner eyed him suspiciously, but did nothing to stop him as Matt selected one he thought he could handle, along with a quiver full of arrows, and then he was hurtling back down towards the melee.

He clambered precariously on to a water butt, steadied himself, and fitted an arrow to the bowstring. His experience instantly came into play, mechanical, cool. The bow flexed easily and he loosed the arrow straight at one of the Whisperers. It smashed into one side of his head and tore straight out of the other. The Whisperer tottered for a few seconds, as if coming to terms with the fact that his life was over, and then he crashed face down on to the stone.

The heads of the soldiers turned as one towards Matt, and then they set off for the fletcher's shop. Matt got another Whisperer, but by that time the remaining interlopers were well on the way to the gates and his view had been obscured by the jumble of rooftops pressed up tightly against the walls. Jumping from the butt, he joined the soldiers, who parted with a little grudging respect to allow him into their midst, and then they all set off in pursuit.

One Whisperer went down like a pincushion with fifteen arrows sticking out of him. Others followed, but the soldiers found it difficult to make progress over the bodies of their comrades who had paid the price for venturing too close to the pervasive, toxic emotions the Whisperers radiated.

Frustrated, Matt pushed his way back through the soldiers and ran up the street, taking a right turn through an alley until he located another route down towards the gates. The thoroughfare was completely empty, but he had to temper his run for fear of slipping and breaking his neck on the precipitous street. Finally the gates loomed up ahead of him and he fitted an arrow as he moved.

He turned a corner, ready to fire, and came straight up against a Whisperer.

The shock paralysed Matt for a second. Spears protruded from each of the Whisperer's shoulders, and the thing used them by pivoting at the waist to knock the bow from Matt's hands. The lethal tip of one of the spears narrowly missed taking one of Matt's eyes out as he threw himself backwards on to the ground.

As the Whisperer loomed over him, its shimmering purple eyes aglow, Matt felt the slow, damp creep of despair. His muscles ached; tiredness inched along his bones. He didn't have the energy to do anything but lie down, give up. The soldiers were too far away to help him. There was no point, in anything.

Yet even with his abilities shutting down, his instinct remained a powerful force. As his fingers closed on the fallen arrow, he was almost amazed to see it rising up in his hand, up and up, until it was driven into the eye of the stooping Whisperer. Matt rammed it deep into its brain then fell back wearily, but he had done enough. The despair ebbed away quickly and his strength and purpose returned.

The last remaining Whisperer was already at the gates, ready to open the intricate locking system. He was beyond the reach of the soldiers' arrows.

Matt jumped to his feet, put one foot between the shoulder blades of the fallen Whisperer and wrenched out one of the spears. In a fluid motion, he turned and hurled it. It smashed into the last Whisperer's hand, pinning it against the wood of the gate. A few seconds later, the whistle of arrows signalled an ending.

As the adrenalin seeped away, Matt sagged against a wall. He could hear the heavy trundle of the other Whisperers' mounts just beyond the gates.

His thoughts were echoed by the captain of the soldiers, who marched up to Matt holding the head of one of the Whisperers. He brandished the grisly trophy in Matt's face and said, 'This will not be the end of it.' And then he returned to his troops, the accusation hanging in the air with the hint of future menace. A plan was already forming in Caitlin's mind as she left the Sun, but she had no time to act on it before the captain of the guard and three others came sweeping up to her from one of the many side streets.

'Our Lord requests your presence,' the captain said in a manner that suggested it was not a request at all.

Caitlin was led briskly back to the palace and then along the miserable corridors to the same darkened room where Lugh sat in the same chair, staring into the blazing fire as if he had not moved since the last time she had seen him. As the guards retreated, Lugh acknowledged her with a morose glance and then returned his attention to the flames.

'There has been trouble at the walls,' he said. 'A breach by those who wait without.'

'Oh.'

'They come for you, Sister of Dragons. Your presence here compromises the security of the Court of Soul's Ease. This degree of threat is more than we can tolerate.'

'You're scared of them. I understand.'

He glared at her so suddenly and murderously that she backed away a step. But then he relented and waved her towards a chair on the other side of the fire. 'My race is above all, as always, for ever. Yet what these things represent is not to be taken lightly.'

Despite his words, his tone suggested deep fear kept tightly in check.

Caitlin sat. 'What do they represent?'

'You do not know?'

'No.'

'You do not know why they pursue you?'

She shook her head.

He held out his hands to the fire. Despite the stifling heat it radiated, he couldn't seem to get warm. 'Then it is not for me to say, Sister of Dragons.'

'But you could help-'

Lugh allowed himself a bitter laugh. 'The Extinction Shears are the only thing that could fend off what is coming, but their whereabouts is unknown.' He examined her intently.

'What is it?' she asked.

'It is intriguing to meet you, Sister of Dragons. You are known to us, from the old stories. The Broken Woman, one of the last generation of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons before your kind… become.'

'Become what?'

'Greater. One Fragile Creature exists who can bring everything together — the Far Lands and the Fixed Lands, Fragile Creatures and gods…' He slipped once more into a daze, so hypnotised by the fire that she couldn't tell if he thought this a good or bad thing. 'His destiny is unknown even to him. And it is the destiny of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons to bring him to the point where Existence turns.'

Caitlin recalled what Crowther had told her about the hope for the human race, and the war the gods were fighting over that ascension. 'There's someone who can help us achieve our potential?'

'Only one. His aid is essential.'

'Then we won't do it without him.' Her mind was racing; she had taken in so much since she had left her home; it all felt like a dream — fantastical things she could never have imagined, unknown worlds, and now schemes of such incredible import that it was almost impossible to take on board exactly what was at stake. 'Who is it?' she asked. 'If you know, please tell me.'

He gave a small, cruel smile, relishing what little power he had. 'That is not for me to say, either. But he will be drawn to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Existence will see to that.'

'He?' Caitlin mused. She jumped as something separated from Lugh's belt, where she had thought there was a buckle. It sprouted long spiderlike legs and scurried into the shadows beneath his chair. 'Ugh. What is that?'

'The Caraprix?' He thought for a long moment, as if he wasn't wholly sure of the answer himself. 'They are with us at all times. Sometimes they are almost… a comfort.'

Some kind of pet, Caitlin presumed. She returned her attention to Lugh; he wasn't going to answer questions about the mysterious saviour, but there was more pressing information that she needed. 'Answer one question, at least,' she said.

He gestured magnanimously.

'Where is the House of Pain?'

Her query surprised him, for he sat forwards in his chair and peered at her. 'You are searching for that place?' An unsettling note caught at his voice, and if Caitlin didn't know better she would have said it was fear.

'Where is it?'

'Far, far from the Court of Soul's Ease,' he said. 'North. Across the Forest of the Night, beyond the great river, past the Plain of Cairns. It lies on the very edge of the Far Lands, where all worlds meet — where, if you look correctly, you can see for ever.'

Caitlin nodded thoughtfully. 'I'm sorry we've brought the… Lament-Brood to your home. We don't intend to stay long-'

'You cannot stay any longer.'

'All right. Then we'll leave now, if we can find a way past the Lament-Brood.'

Lugh shook his head. 'We cannot risk the Lament- Brood punishing us. We shall present you to them.'

His meaning dawned on Caitlin slowly, and with horror.

'Make your peace with your fellow Fragile Creatures, Sister of Dragons. You will be delivered to the Lament- Brood shortly.' Caitlin related everything she had learned from Lugh to Matt, Mahalia and Carlton in the privacy of her room.

'The bastards,' Matt said. 'They invite us in, give us hospitality and then toss us to the wolves.'

'They can't be trusted,' Caitlin replied. 'That was one of the big lessons in the old myths and legends I remember.'

'We definitely can't get out the front,' Matt said. 'The Whisperers look as if they're busy expanding their forces. They took over some people like they did with that hermit and tried to storm the walls. They're probably transforming everyone who comes up the road to the main gate.'

'They're not the only problem,' Caitlin said. She told them about the knight with the boar's-head helmet. 'I don't know if he's with them or what, but he's definitely after me, and he's here, inside the walls already.' She massaged her forehead; her skull throbbed fit to burst. 'Why is everyone after me? What's going on?'

Matt gave her shoulder a squeeze. 'Are you going to be OK?'

She shook her head, glad of his support. 'We've just got to find a way out of here.'

Mahalia had been cleaning under her fingernails with a knife. 'I think I know somebody who might be able to help.' 'This way! This way! You're back!' Jack's excited calls unnerved Mahalia, for their approach had been uncommonly quiet to avoid detection, yet he had known the four of them were on their way long before they came anywhere near his door. When Mahalia peered between the bars, he was straining at the chains in anticipation. 'Who's with you?'

'Friends.' Mahalia found herself excited by Jack's thrill, and that puzzled her.

'You're going to get me out?'

'Depends. Do you know another way out of this place?'

Thoughts flickered across his crystal eyes. 'You can't go through the gates,' he surmised. 'Then yes, there is another way. An escape tunnel under the mountainside.'

'You're not just making this up so we'll set you free?' Mahalia said threateningly.

'No, I swear. I always make sure I know another way out of a situation. I didn't want to go back, but they caught me before I made it to the tunnel.'

Mahalia turned to Caitlin and Matt. 'What do you think?'

'It's not as if we've got any other options,' Matt said. He examined the padlock. It was old and rusted; the cell didn't appear to have had much use in recent times. He advised the others to stand back, then gave it kick after kick until the metal catch eventually disintegrated.

Matt led the way in. 'We'd better not hang around,' he said. Matt pulled the black hood off Jack's head, revealing the strong, honest face of a youth of about seventeen. His blond hair only emphasised the eerie intensity of his eyes.

'Thank you,' he said.

'You're not free yet.' Matt examined the many chains that swathed his upper body before dismissing them with a curse. 'We'll have to work on those later. But we should be able to get you off the wall — those fixings look as weak as the padlock.' Matt set about straining to pull them free, with Jack offering his own weight to assist. After much sweating and pulling, both wall-chains shattered.

'They really kidnapped you from our world?' Caitlin asked.

'I don't know who my father was, but my mother travelled around the country in a group of old vehicles with several others. She's dead now.'

'I'm sorry-' Caitlin began.

But Mahalia interjected, 'If you were taken as a baby, how do you know about your mother?'

'When I was on the run, I found myself at a watchtower that hangs between the worlds. I thought it might be the safest place to hide, which it was for a while. But it's a very strange place where you can see all that has happened, and probably all that will, and that's where I saw my mother. I wasn't taken long ago by your terms — three or four years — but this place does strange things to you.'

'You look like a teenager,' Mahalia noted curiously.

'I feel much older.'

Cautiously, they ventured back out into the corridor. 'Which way?' Matt asked.

'I think, if you agree, that we should collect some weapons for you,' Jack said hesitantly. 'There's a store not far from here, and we should be able to get rid of the rest of these chains there.'

They agreed, and Jack led the way deeper into the bowels of the building. Just as they came to the arms store, a strangely neglected open door to a vaulted chamber that stretched as far as the eye could see, they heard activity some distance away in the palace.

'I think they're looking for us,' Caitlin said.

'You'd have thought,' Matt said, 'that once Lugh told you he was going to hand you over to the Whisperers, they'd have imprisoned you straight away.'

'I wondered about that, but I think he's crippled by arrogance,' Caitlin said. 'They're all so convinced that nothing is a threat to their superiority that they never bother to act until the last moment.'

'Look at these.' Mahalia was dazzled by the array of weapons, not just swords and bows and spears, but also eccentric oddities such as portable brass cannon and blades that formed a fan.

'You should just take something simple that's easy to carry,' Jack suggested. 'Some of these things are too dangerous to take with us.'

'You seem to know a lot,' Matt said suspiciously.

'I do.' Jack turned to him deferentially. 'I've always kept my eyes and ears open. I wanted to learn as much as I could — anything that might help me get out of this place.'

'You could be of great use to us, Jack,' Caitlin said.

'I'd rather just go home,' he replied wistfully.

She shook her head, and the sadness she revealed was honest. 'I'm sorry, I can't allow that. Not until we've found a cure for the plague that's loose in our world. You wouldn't want to return if you could help save us all, would you?'

'I suppose not.' He flashed a glance at Mahalia, who met his eyes for a moment before looking away.

'Well, well.' Matt was grinning, arms crossed.

'What?' Caitlin said.

'I see leadership potential. You're clearly getting better. What next — you're going to be ordering us into battle?'

'Don't be sarcastic.'

'I'm not. We need someone to take charge, and I'm a sucker for that dominatrix thing.' He winked at her, then turned before she could respond, moving amongst the stacks of weapons, testing axes for weight and crossbows for portability, before opting for a bow and arrows, a scimitar in a scabbard and two short daggers that he secreted about his person. Caitlin immediately chose a longbow and a double-quiver of arrows, which she slung easily over her shoulder.

'You know how to use that?' Matt asked.

'I was very good at archery when I was at university,' she said. 'Not Robin Hood standard, but I can hit a target.'

Matt looked impressed. 'There you go again. Lights and bushels and all that.'

'How about you?' Caitlin asked.

Matt shrugged. 'I did some historical battle re- enactments at university. See — the Halls of Academe still have their uses.'

Mahalia found a box of rusted, blood-stained weapons and removed a short sword that looked sickeningly brutal, one edge razor sharp and the other serrated; two curling prongs arced from the tip. She made a few gentle sweeps and was pleased with the feel of it.

'That's a Fomorii Glakshi,' Jack cautioned. 'It's designed to leave the opponent with lethal wounds, not kill them outright.'

'That's good,' Mahalia said, missing his point entirely. It came with a simple leather scabbard, which she strapped on to a belt around her slim waist.

With disgust, Carlton refused all Mahalia's attempts to press a weapon on him. When she suggested that Jack arm himself, he shrugged and said mysteriously, 'I don't need one.'

As Caitlin watched Carlton's innocence manifest itself in his refusal to take a weapon, she felt a deep tide of affection that had been growing in her ever since she had first laid eyes on him. Here was all she had lost, and in him Caitlin also saw hope — for herself, as much as anything.

She knelt before him and rested her hands on his shoulders so that she could look deeply into his mysterious eyes. 'You're a very special boy, Carlton,' she said gently.

He smiled. Nearby, Mahalia's attention was drawn to the scene with a cold intensity.

In that instant, Caitlin was hit with a flash of insight.

Mahalia saw the shocked expression on Caitlin's face. 'What is it?'

Caitlin continued to stare into Carlton's eyes. 'Lugh told me there was someone very important, someone who could bring together all the different sides to… I don't know… save us all, make us better.' She stood up to address Matt and Mahalia. 'I think it's Carlton. Lugh wasn't giving anything away — just teasing me with bits of information — but he said this person would be drawn to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.'

'You, in other words,' Matt said.

'Or one of the others like you,' Mahalia pointed out. 'The professor didn't say you were special or anything. Just that you were a champion… not the champion.'

'I know,' Caitlin said, 'but…'

'He is special,' Mahalia said with a grin.

'Then we'd better make sure we look after him.' Matt scrubbed Carlton's hair. 'Right, kid?'

Carlton's strange smile did nothing to disavow any of them of the notion.

'I'm already doing that,' Mahalia said. Her voice was hard, but her eyes looked strangely worried.

'And we're all going to help out,' Caitlin said.

They made their way out of the palace as quickly as possible, and were relieved not to meet anyone en route. But outside, Caitlin turned to them and said firmly, 'I want to stop off at the Sun.'

'To get Crowther?' Matt said. 'That's insane. You know he's adamant he doesn't want to come.' He glanced back in the direction of the palace, where the outcry was now growing. There was more activity near the walls, and he guessed that the Whisperers had embarked on another assault. It was time to go, whichever way they looked at it.

'I need to ask him one thing. Don't worry — it won't hold us up long.'

Matt could see that she would not be moved. They moved quickly off through the drizzle, keeping their heads down, staying close to the walls. Crowther was still in the same place, a little tipsy, but still not completely in his cups despite the amount of ale he must have consumed since Caitlin had left him. She motioned for the others to wait at the door while she went over to his table.

'You're not about to have another go at convincing me to leave, are you?' he said wearily.

'No. I can see that wouldn't do any good.' Relief tinged his smile. 'I just want one more piece of advice,' she continued.

He gave a drunken theatrical gesture for her to continue.

'What you said when we first came here,' Caitlin began, 'about this place being the first staging post of the dead… You meant it?'

'Absolutely. To the Celts, this was Otherworld, the Land of Always Summer… heaven.'

'And is it?'

The question was too big, too taxing; his shoulders sagged a little. 'Look around you… does it look like heaven?' He saw the flicker of sadness cross her face and softened his tone. 'There is some evidence to suggest that whatever remains of us after we die passes through here, en route to… somewhere else.'

'Go on.'

He looked surprised at her questioning. 'The Grey Lands… the Land of Mists. And from there on to the next place, whatever that might be… on for ever, for all I know. Learning a little bit more as we pass through each place. Then coming back here to close the circle, hopefully a little wiser, a few more steps down the road to nirvana. Why the sudden interest in metaphysics, Caitlin?' 'You say the dead pass through here,' she pressed on. 'How long do they stay in this place?' 'I don't know that…' 'But it's possible Liam could still be here… and Grant. That I could get to them before they move on.' He blanched. 'I don't think that would be a good idea, Caitlin-' 'Bring them back with me.' 'Don't go down that road-' 'Answer me!' Her voice was low, but her eyes blazed. 'Yes, it's possible-' 'Where would they be?' she demanded, feverishly talking over him. He sat back in his chair, folding his arms defensively. 'A long, long way from here, probably on the very edges of this land. The true nature of reality is clearer here. Nothing is fixed. Lands, dimensions — whatever you want to call them — are fluid, merging and mixing at the fringes. At least according to my limited knowledge.' 'And the dead…?' 'Would probably be at the point of greatest flux — the liminal zone between this world and what lies beyond — where energy exists in its purest form.' The smile that crept on to her lips troubled him immensely. 'Do you believe in coincidence, Professor?' 'Why do you ask?' 'Because that's the place I'm supposed to go to find the cure to the plague. Perhaps this is happening for a reason. Perhaps I'm being led there for my true task… to bring Liam and Grant home.' 'Oh, Caitlin, please don't do this to yourself.' Deep sympathy wiped the drunkenness from his brain. 'We need you, Professor. We need your knowledge. We can't do this on our own.' In her eyes, strange spirits danced; not Caitlin. Crowther felt a chill run through him. 'What are you-?'

The flagon came from nowhere; he hadn't even seen it clutched in her right hand. It smashed into the side of his head with a force that belied her size. In the brief instant before unconsciousness, a single thought flared: how sweet and innocent she looked, what darkness lay within… 'I don't think that was fair,' Jack protested as he led them through the myriad backstreets, so high up the mountainside that the court beneath them was swathed in cloud.

'She did what had to be done,' Matt grunted, hauling Crowther's heavy, limp frame as quickly as he could.

'She'd better not look down her nose at me again.' Mahalia chuckled coldly. 'She's the Queen Bitch round here. The poor old idiot only wanted a few drinks and an easy life. Now we're taking him to the ends of the world.'

Jack stopped at a simple oak door set into a sheer face of rock that rose up from the street for twenty feet.

'Is this it?' Matt asked. 'Shouldn't it be guarded or something?'

'I don't think they ever expected anyone to use it,' Jack said.

The only thing that held it shut was another rusty padlock, which Matt demolished with a single kick. 'Looks like we're out of here,' he said.

Caitlin pushed by him, her jaw set. 'Let's hope we're not going from bad to worse.'