Jack of Ravens(182)

‘I’d save Ruth and Tom and Niamh … and … and the Tuatha Dé Danann,’ Church said without a second thought. ‘I’d change it all.’

‘Is that a small thing?’ The woman pondered. ‘I think it is!’

‘Come, then,’ the Caretaker said. ‘Let us see the strength of your will.’

As he led Church out of the cave, the wild-haired man ranted, ‘Changes ring changes ring changes. Who knows where this will turn? Bad or good! Good or bad!’

Dreamily detached, Church followed the Caretaker and his lantern. He passed another cave inside which stood three hooded women, their faces lost in shadow. He had an overwhelming feeling that if he did see their faces he would die.

‘Beware the Daughters of the Night.’ The Caretaker urged Church onwards.

Church glanced into the cave one final time and saw that one of the women was unravelling a spindle, another measured out the thread, while the third brandished a pair of shears that reminded him oddly of the Extinction Shears.

A chill ran through him, but then the women fell from view and the Caretaker brought him to a third cave. When Church stared into its depths, his consciousness failed to grasp what he saw. His perception slid greasily across a slowly revolving crystal, then a series of flashing lights, a mandala, a Mandelbrot set. Finally it settled on a portion of some enormous machine filled with cogs and gears. The Caretaker held up his light so Church could see a lever nearby.

‘That’s all it takes?’ Church said.

‘It is more than most could manage. To push the lever is like pulling a sword from a stone.’ The Caretaker smiled.

Hesitantly, Church took the lever in his hands; it didn’t feel how it looked. He put his shoulder to it and pushed. Nothing happened.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘Do you always give up so easily? It takes much to turn the axis of Existence.’

Church tried again, and again, gritting his teeth and straining. Eventually the lever shifted a fraction, and then a fraction more, and then it was moving easily. He had a sudden sense of everything shifting around him, as if he were in a theatre with a revolving stage and the scenery turning around him. The feeling was shockingly powerful, and for the briefest moment it felt as if he had been cut adrift from the universe and was spinning off into a dark chasm. He was floating, floating, and everything he saw was fake, a construct to keep him calm so he would not go insane.

The cogs and gears turned and shifted, and Church was back in the cavern, shaking with a terrible fear that he had done something that should never have been allowed. All an illusion, he told himself, knowing it wasn’t. Exhausted, he staggered back. Did that do it?’

‘Soon we will know.’

Church felt himself flagging. ‘This is all a dream, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is a dream.’

Church rubbed his hands wearily over his eyes. ‘And soon I’ll be back in the casket. With the spiders.’

‘Yes.’

‘Take me to Ruth,’ Church said. ‘One more time. Before all this fades.’

The Caretaker nodded, and this time his smile was more enigmatic. He held the lantern aloft and led the way.

Church didn’t know how he got out of the cavern, but soon they were walking along an odd corridor-like structure that was like scaffolding on one side and a wall of frosted glass on the other. After a while, the frost disappeared and Church was looking out on London. It was like being behind a two-way mirror that reached to the sky. On the other side, people shopped and chatted, cars drove by, planes flew overhead.

The Caretaker led the way through a door, up some stairs and into a flat. On the other side of the glass, Shavi sat next to Laura, staunching a wound on his head, and Veitch toyed with a knife. He looked menacing.

‘What’s going on?’ Church asked, concerned.

‘You cannot influence this,’ the Caretaker said. Reluctantly, Church moved on.

They went into the bedroom and came to a wardrobe, and then passed through the doors and into darkness.

‘I can’t see,’ Church said. ‘Raise your lantern.’

The Caretaker’s enigmatic smile grew wider.



6



Ruth held her breath and thought that she might die. In the dark the presence hovered behind her, all around her. Any second it would attack, she knew, and then it would tear her soul apart.

She bit her lip and tasted blood, forcing herself to hold on. And then she glimpsed a firefly moving far away. After the intensity of the gloom, she thought it might be a hallucination. But it stayed, and drew closer, and she realised it wasn’t a firefly but a distant light. Hope flared in her heart.

Tentatively, she began to move towards it. She felt the malignant presence surrounding her fill with rage, rise up ready to strike, but she kept moving, focusing on the light ahead and not what lay at her back.