The Queen of Sinister (25 page)

Matt chose his words carefully. 'Caitlin's suffered a great tragedy. She's lost her only son—'

'And she wants Carlton to take his place?' The edge to Mahalia's voice suggested Matt had touched a nerve.

'In a way. He's a surrogate, I suppose ... filling that hole she's got inside her.'

Mahalia's jaw set. 'She's not going to take him away from me.'

'You shouldn't think of it like that—'

'You don't understand. Carlton's all I've got. Everybody else walked out on me, but he's stuck by me through all the shit we've come up against. He's family. She's not going to have him.'

'You've got to be reasonable here, Mahalia. You don't own Carlton—'

Mahalia glared at him. 'I never said I did. So what do you think she's going to do? Be, like, his mother?'

'Maybe. It would be good for him. You've got to think of that, Mahalia.'

She had the jittery look of a frightened animal. 'She won't take him from me,' she repeated. 'I'll do whatever I have to to keep him.'

Matt watched her stalk away. He realised, for the first time, that Mahalia was truly capable of anything.

Crowther had spent a good hour familiarising himself with the contents of the galley. It came as a welcome relief after a long night of struggling and failing to sleep. Events weighed heavily on him, and food was always one of his favourite diversions. He found a selection of the ubiquitous dried, spiced meats and several loaves of the nutty bread that never appeared to lose its softness; an abundance of fruit, too, none of it blemished, even though it must have been on the boat for a while.

He munched heartily while he set about preparing breakfast dishes for the others, and eventually the tactile and olfactory ritual allowed him to shuffle some of his black thoughts to one side. He had almost reached a state of blank bliss as he bit into a ripe peach that sent juices spraying across his face when he was jolted by an electric voice.

'Put me on.'

He whirled, not knowing whom to expect, but the galley was empty. The steps led up to a sun-drenched and deserted quarter of the deck. An odd cold-hot flush swept over him. The voice had a crackling, otherworldly power.

'Put me on!'

The force of the command physically threw him back against the wall. Now he knew its source, and the realisation filled him with dread.

With trembling fingers, he hesitantly withdrew the Mask of Maponus from his overcoat. It felt hot to the touch, the silver flashing like lightning in the sun.

'Put me on.'

Crowther dropped the mask with a jerk. It clattered on to the floor, blank, inhuman eyes fixing a gaze of terrible gravity upon him. The lips had moved when it spoke; they had moved as if the thing were alive.

Crowther clutched at the work surface with sweaty, itchy hands. 'I'm not putting you on,' he said in a low, tremulous voice.

' You must. You have opened yourself up to the infinite
vision of the Good Son. Bonds have already been forged; they
cannot be shattered. You have partaken of the wonders that
spring from my eternal joy and now you must pay the price.'

'No. I know what'll happen if I keep putting you on—'

' The things you shall see! The knowledge you shall gain,
the wisdom! Worlds shall be spread before you, all Existence
under your will. Nevermore to be afraid ... of anything...'

'No!' Crowther kicked the mask furiously so that it spun across the floor. It was all he could manage, and he knew his hands were already reaching down for it as his foot lashed out. 'I know what will happen!' he shouted. 'There won't be any "me" left. You'll suck me in, swallow me up in your madness ...'

'What are you doing?' Matt stood at the top of the steps, surveying Crowther curiously.

The professor blinked slowly and stupidly, the echoes of Maponus' voice still fizzing around inside his head.

'You were talking to yourself,' Matt pressed. 'Don't tell me you've developed a few extra personalities in your cranium as well.'

'Don't be so stupid,' Crowther snapped. He snatched up the mask, slipping it effortlessly into his hidden pocket, despite the way it tugged at his fingers. 'Talking to myself, you say?' He tried to read Matt's attitude and decided the mask had not spoken aloud; perhaps it only spoke to him inside his head. Perhaps it didn't speak to him at all. Perhaps he was going mad. Maybe that was the price any human paid for venturing into the Otherworld.

'Look, we haven't got time for you to play silly buggers,' Matt said with exasperation. 'Caitlin's having another of her turns.'

'And that should concern me why, exactly?'

'Just come and listen.' With irritation, Matt spun round and marched back on deck.

‘I
am the eggman, they are the eggmen,' Crowther said after him, with a dismissive gesture. 'Goo goo goo joob.'

'They're there, I tell you!'

Crowther found Caitlin marching back and forth along the aft rail, glaring menacingly at the white wake. Her voice belonged to the irritating, neurotic Briony.

'I've tried to explain to her that we know the Whisperers are behind us,' Matt said, 'but they can't be close because there's no way they could move quickly through the forest. And if they were there we'd see the disturbance they make ... or at least hear that God-awful whispering.'

'This personality is a construct to provide a voice for her inherent paranoia,' Crowther replied quietly. 'After what's happened to her, she feels the whole world is against her and something bad is just around the corner.'

'So we can safely ignore her?' Matt asked.

'I wouldn't say that,' Crowther replied.

'See, shithead.' Caitlin/Briony gave Matt the V-sign.

'These constructs come from the primal mind,'

Crowther said. 'If Jung's theory of the collective unconscious is correct, they may have access to information denied to the rest of us.'

Matt looked suspicious of this intellectualising.

Crowther wasn't deterred. 'And in quantum theory we are all connected. Some have said that consciousness isn't confined by the brain. At the quantum level, consciousness - perhaps an analogue for the soul - can move beyond the form, explaining how some seers can see events at a distance ... telepathy ... magic

'You're just doing this to make me feel like an idiot, aren't you?' Matt said.

'Yes. Is it working?'

'Will you two stop having a wank,' Caitlin/Briony snapped. 'You'd better listen to me or it's all over.'

Crowther pushed past her and surveyed the tree line. 'No sign of anything moving in there,' he said after a moment. He listened. 'Can't hear anything either.'

'That's what I said.' Matt shook his head with exasperation.

But despite their words, both Crowther and Matt could feel something. An oppressive atmosphere had settled over the area.

'I think we should take it in turns to keep watch,' Crowther suggested.

On a warm spring evening with the sun only just turning orange and the midges alive with excitement, Mary crested the final rise to see the object of her search in all its majesty. The Long Man of Wilmington was etched in white along more than two hundred and twenty feet of hillside, gripping his twin staffs proudly. She had broken away from the South Downs Way to follow a path to Dragon Hill for just such a view. It seemed right to process towards it in that way, a part of the ritual that lay ahead.

The Long Man's size surprised her - bigger than the pictures suggested - and she was also surprised to see that the chalk outlines were still sharp and clear. She guessed the locals must have continued to look after the figure as their ancestors had done for hundreds of years. Did they sense something more potent than a simple illustration; a race memory of hill figures as signals to the gods? Or even as the gods' presence on earth?

She hurried down the slope towards Windover Hill, the birdsong loud and melodious, the scents of the English countryside uplifting. This was how she always thought of England - on the brink of summer, with the elements conspiring to conjure up that unique mystical energy that coursed through the land.

Only one thing cast a shadow across her thoughts: Caitlin. So many days had passed since Mary had set off on the long, trudging march from her home that anything could have happened to the young doctor. Perhaps the whole quest and its many privations had been for nothing. Caitlin could already be dead at the hands of whatever dark force had set the plague upon the population.

In the end, it all came down to hope, and faith, as so many things did in life. Mary had to do the best she could and place her trust in the Universe to make everything all right.

She eventually found a quiet spot that had the right vibrations for what she had planned. It afforded a perfect view of the Long Man's ancient form; she could already hear the beyond calling to her.

The Long Man had been carefully crafted by the ancients. Viewed from the ground, the proportions had been drawn just right to make the figure appear as if it were standing upright; a remarkable feat of engineering, or perception. And from her vantage point she could also see something else clearly. The Long Man was not supporting himself on two staffs, he was holding open a gateway. To where? She had already guessed the answer.

She removed from her bag all the doings she had brought with her for this moment - the tiny packets of herbs, the mortar and pestle, the cream that would provide the base for the alchemical ointment. She hadn't brought her broomstick - too cumbersome for the long road journey - but she had another ritual applicator carved from smooth soapstone.

Stripping off her clothes, she briefly enjoyed the heat of the sun on her skin. The breeze made her nipples hard and there was a familiar flurry of excitement deep in her belly that was almost sexual; it always felt like this, that moment of heady anticipation on the verge of the ride of her life.

The herbs and cream were prepared with a ritualistic attention to detail, the right words muttered, the correct movements followed, and finally, as the sun eased towards the west, she was ready.

She applied the ointment to the applicator and then lay with her legs apart, facing the Long Man. Already moist from the sexual tension, it was easy to slip the applicator inside her. An electric thrill ran into her belly. This was how her sisters had done it, in times long gone, when the Old Religion was the only religion. The true night-flight, the real broomstick ride, for sexuality and spirituality were always inextricably linked, part of the great worship of life.

The psychoactive elements of the herbs rapidly entered her bloodstream through the porous walls of her vagina. It felt like heat, like energy, engorging her clitoris, rushing up through her body to her brain where it tripped the right switches, threw open doors to secret rooms. And then she was falling back, back, through darkness, the hidden door at the back of her head. She emerged through it, and the rush was as astonishing as it had been the first time she had embarked on the spirit-flight, sucking her up high into the sky where the sheer wonder of it all made her head spin. Far below, her prone, naked body looked so fragile; here she was glorious.

As the light of the setting sun made her spirit-form sparkle with an inner warmth, she soared even higher until the landscape was a mass of green with the Long Man standing out in stark white. It was only then that she realised the figure had been designed for viewing from above as well as the horizontal. Yet it had been constructed at a time when man was supposed to have been rooted to the earth. Perhaps everyone in those times indulged in spirit-flight, an era of true freedom that made a mockery of the claims of the leaden modern age, trapped in materialism, a fixed worldview. Everywhere she looked, the marks of ancient mysteries, forgotten mysticism, lay across England's green and pleasant land. Gateways to old knowledge, hidden powers, secret stories, forgotten tales. They'd tried to concrete over it, trap it under roads and pylons, but it was still there, dreaming, just beneath the surface.

She was shocked to see she was not alone. Ghostly figures were dotted all around Dragon Hill, glistening like patches of mist, their heads raised to look at her. Mary drifted down, unsure if there was danger present, and found herself drawn to one particular figure, a man, tall and imposing, his hair long, his face strong-jawed and high-cheekboned.

'We greet you, sister.' His words came to her, though his mouth did not move.

'Who are you?' Mary asked suspiciously. She had seen many strange things since the Fall, but nothing like these people.

'Old souls. Guardians and guides. We move along the lines of Blue Fire, shepherding mortals who need us at the points of power, offering wisdom to those who seek answers to questions of the spirit. For centuries, the ley system lay in ruins, fragmented by those who had lost their link to the world-mind, and our influence was restrained. But now the Fiery Network is active once again, and so we are free to move and guide. And our presence is needed more than ever at this time, when the seasons have changed, great events fall into alignment and mortals prepare for the great step into the unknown. We are the Elysium, and I am Sharish.'