'-which way would I go?'
The creature shivered, rolled its eyes, but saw no reason to try to dissuade her. Coldly, it said, 'When you reach the edge of the Weeping Wastes, it will present itself to you. If it requires you, you will not be able to turn away. And there shall come an ending.'
Caitlin glanced towards the horizon; her decision had already been made. It would be a waste of time to seek out her fellow travellers; besides, she had always known it would be down to her in the end. 'One last thing: I don't want any more trouble from your kind, or the Djazeem. I'm just going to pass through and leave you to your own devices. Understand?'
He nodded eagerly. 'And should we offer the same protection to any who follow in your wake?'
'Sure. Why not? Though I can't imagine anyone would want to follow in my footsteps.' She saw the creature's fellow watching malignantly from underneath the other breastplate, and tossed the one in her hand towards him. He hit the sand with another squeal. 'Now,' she said, 'not long ago I learned a little word to whisper to you.' Matt, Jack and Mahalia said goodbye to the Culture on the misty banks of the river. The members of the secretive group, now eager to play some part in the events they had awaited for so long, could barely wait to get back to their camp to scheme and plot. Mahalia hardly said a word. The weight of her actions still lay heavily on her, but she was starting to see a way through it.
As the Culture trailed back through the marsh to begin the ritual that would return the First to the human world, Sunchaser moved back into the stream. The mists disappeared so quickly, it became apparent they were part of the peculiar defences of the Culture's home, and soon the sun was beating down hard on a savannah that reached up to a range of snow-topped mountains in the east, and disappeared towards the horizon in the west. Occasionally the yellow grass shifted violently as if large beasts were tracking the boat, but they saw no other sign of life.
'He's off again,' Matt noted to Mahalia and Jack.
At the aft rail, Crowther sat rigidly while the mask began to tune into its psychedelic displays.
'It started the minute we left the mist,' Matt noted.
'Perhaps we should have left him with the Culture,' Jack suggested.
'No,' Mahalia said firmly. 'He's one of us.'
'You say that now.' Matt pulled his sweaty shirt away from the skin of his chest; it was growing hotter. 'You saw how bad it was getting. If he spins out of control, we're in trouble.'
'We'll think of something,' Mahalia said.
Matt thought for a moment and then said, 'You know we'll have to kill him. We can't risk failing the mission.'
Mahalia fixed a cold eye on Matt that made him feel instantly uncomfortable. 'This leadership thing is going to your head,' she said. 'You sound like some stupid army man. Or,' she added as she started to walk towards the professor, 'like me.'
She approached Crowther cautiously. It was impossible to tell exactly how the mask would react, but the nascent light displays moved away from her enough for her to conclude that she was seen as safe. She sat next to him and said gently, 'Professor, can you hear me?' There was no reply, but she thought she saw the silver mask move a little in her direction. 'I saw you in the clearing last night. Something had changed. I think you're aware in there. Can you hear me?' It seemed as if he wasn't going to answer, but then his muffled voice sounded. 'Yes.' She felt honest relief. 'If you're yourself again, why don't you take the mask off?' 'I can't.' 'Won't it let you?' 'No. I won't let me.' He turned his head away. 'Professor, you know what the mask can do. You told us yourself. It's getting out of control out here.' She glanced back to Matt who was watching her, arms folded. 'They won't let you stop us getting to the cure.' 'I know what you're saying.' 'Then take the mask off, for all our sakes.' 'Go away,' he said bluntly. 'Don't ask me again… for your sake.' She waited for a moment or two to see if he would soften, but his head remained turned away and the intensity of the mask's display increased, as if responding to Crowther's emotions. 'So are we going to have to kill him?' Matt asked when she returned. She walked straight past him to the prow. 'We'll probably all be dead long before we have to make that decision.' The mood on the boat was grim, and they all settled down in separate areas, conserving their strength in the growing heat; Mahalia told Jack she needed some time to think, and while it upset him, he acceded to her wishes. The savannah gradually gave way to a scrubby wasteland and then to an arid rock-strewn landscape that resembled the surface of Mars. The river had grown much narrower and it was apparent that they would soon have difficulty following its dwindling course. Before they had to make any decision, the boat drifted over to a wooden jetty. It was rickety and treacherous, with missing planks, some broken; it looked barely used.
'Terminus,' Matt said.
They collected their things and disembarked, sorry to be leaving the relative security of Sunchaser.
'Which way now?' Jack asked.
Matt pointed towards the northern horizon where the sky shifted with colours like a kaleidoscope. There was an area of darkness that hinted at some kind of structure, but it made their eyes hurt to stare at it for too long.
'The House of Pain,' he said redundantly.
'So all we have to do is cross this dusty old plain with all those piles of rocks,' Jack said, peering from beneath a shading hand.
'Cairns,' Mahalia said. 'They're called cairns.' Across hills and fields she came, down long roads filled with shadows, under nights of sparkling stars, through dappled forests, across windswept plains where the echoes of ancient voices could be heard, over crystal streams and the summer-drenched meadows of wild barley and poppy. At times, Mary thought the journey would never end. It was a quest that left the path and went deep into the heart of her, where dark caverns loomed like cathedrals, unexplored throughout her long life, the terrors they contained shrinking from the lamps of her eyes. When she finally emerged from the lanes leading out of Bradford-on-Avon on a sparkling morning of blue sky and hot sun, she was finally reborn into a new life, though she still hadn't truly understood that fact. Death continued to track her relentlessly, and it had drawn closer; on several occasions she had seen the twisted form jerking its way across the landscape and she had been forced to pick up her pace. But it no longer frightened her; it was simply there, as it always would be.
And now she had reached her final destination. Bath was spread out before her, home of her spiritual ancestors for ten thousand years, since the first Neolithic hunter- gatherers had left their simple offerings at the gushing hot springs. Mary knew her history and she knew her Craft, and everything had pointed her towards this place as the solution to the questions that gripped her.
Yet this was not the Bath she remembered. Vegetation swarmed over it, almost obscuring the grand Georgian buildings, the classical Royal Crescent, Pulteney Bridge with its echoes of the Ponte Vecchio. A wall of blackthorn the height of three men, softened by climbing honeysuckle and clematis, circled the entire city. Mature trees sprouted through the hard asphalt of the city centre's roads. Ivy draped from chimneys and gorse clustered in bushes, wild roses like small explosions of colour bloomed in every direction.
Though nature had started to reclaim many aspects of civilisation since the Fall, the density and maturity of the flora was too advanced. Magic was all around, in more ways than one: the vision of the works of humanity and nature in harmony was undeniably uplifting.
Yet the city was eerily still. No smoke drifted up from the many chimneys, nothing moved on the winding, ancient streets, neither human nor animal. Yet something was there; Mary could feel it, like a tremendous weight pressing outwards. Desperately hoping she had made the right decision, she set off down the slope towards the city.She walked for almost a mile around the perimeter before she found an opening. It was barely wide enough for one person to pass through, and the vicious blackthorns were so dense and so close that one misstep would have raised blood. As she moved cautiously along the winding path, she realised it had been carefully designed to allow only one person to enter at a time, either for defence or as a processional route to some sacred inner sanctum; perhaps both.
The wall of blackthorn must have been fifty feet thick, and when she emerged once more into the sunlight, she felt as if she was being born into a new world. The city no longer had the feel of any human place; it was otherworldly, heavy with mystery and a profound sense of sanctity. As Mary moved out into the sun-kissed streets, now filled only with the rustling of leaves and the perfume of wild flowers, she felt she was on the verge of some tremendous transcendent revelation. Everything around her, even the air itself, was heavy with meaning.
Feeling humbled, she made her way through the city slowly, drinking in the incredible peace, reaching out
