losing their minds in the nightmarishly claustrophobic environment. They lost all sense of time; there was only the furnace heat and the feeling that they would suffocate and die at any moment.
It could have been an hour later, or fifteen minutes, when the sound of pursuit faded away. They continued dragging themselves on for a little while longer and then the temperature eased slightly. Soon after, Jack forced his way past the final flap and emerged into a large room. He stretched his mouth wide and sucked in a huge gulp of air, not caring that it was still hot. He realised he was shaking and crying.
It was a ten-foot drop to the floor, but they were so keen to get out of the tunnel that they jumped instantly without even trying to lower themselves. At the foot of the wall, they lay on their backs, scarcely believing they had made it through the ordeal.
'Never again,' Matt said. 'I'll let those things give me the damn plague next time.'
When they had recovered a little, they sat up and looked around. They were in a room the size of a cathedral, the roof lost in the darkness overhead. A thin green light illuminated the lower reaches.
As their eyes adjusted, they made out two figures like ghosts in the gloom; one was Caitlin, the other a boy.
The boy looked up with big, troubled eyes when they neared. 'I don't know what's happened to my mummy,' he said. 'She won't talk to me.' Caitlin sat cross-legged, her head bowed. She was rigid, her eyes wide and staring, unseeing.
'Mummy?' Jack repeated. An image of his own mother hit him hard, accompanied by the terrible grief he had felt in the last room. He wondered if it would be like that for the rest of his life, the two things now inextricably linked. 'Dammit, she really did it,' Matt said in amazement. He dropped down next to Caitlin and checked her. 'Pulse is fine. Looks like she's having one of her episodes.'
Jack took Liam to one side. 'Don't worry — your mummy will be fine. She's a great lady… a heroine.'
'My mummy?' If Caitlin could have seen the innocent hero-worship in his face, she would have cried.
Matt held her head up so he could peer deep into her enlarged pupils, so black they almost covered the entire eye. 'I wonder what's going on in there,' he said. The wind blasted across the Ice-Field with such force that Caitlin was in no doubt that a storm was coming. She shivered behind the insubstantial shelter of the rocks, peering through the gap across the gleaming white sheet to the black sky at the horizon. She was bewildered; she had spent fifteen minutes talking to Liam, and hugging him, and kissing him, and then suddenly it felt as if hooks had been driven into her flesh and she had been dragged back to this terrible place.
'You've done it now.' Amy stood behind her, her singsong voice laced with judgment. 'You're going to be sorry.'
'I won,' Caitlin said. 'I got him back.'
Brigid cackled bitterly. 'You won? You lost it all! Can't you feel it?'
And she could; the heat was draining from her, so that she felt more acutely the biting cold. 'What's happening?' she asked.
'You're a stupid bitch,' Briony said. She sat on a rock, staring into the Ice-Field, smoking neurotically with the look of someone who had accepted defeat. 'We counted on you… everyone counted on you… and you let us all down. Selfish. So bloody selfish.'
'But-' 'Don't start making excuses! We warned you not to give in to despair. You were supposed to rise above it,' Briony continued.
'But who can do that?' Caitlin said, still not understanding.
' You can, you idiot! That's why you were chosen. You're supposed to be better than everyone else — a champion of life. The Blue Fire was in you… and now it's going.'
'Going?' Caitlin looked down at her hands.
'You betrayed it. You-'
'Do not treat her harshly.' The voice was like a cold wind through a night forest. Briony slid off the rock and cowered behind it. Brigid stopped cackling, and Amy ran behind her, clutching at the old woman's hair.
The Morrigan emerged from the shadows at the back of the shelter, fierce and beautiful, her hair the deepest, most lustrous black, her skin pale, her lips the brightest red.
'Any mother would have done the same,' Caitlin protested. 'To get their son back… I don't care what you all say. That was the only choice I could make.'
The Morrigan held out her slim hand, and though she was afraid, Caitlin took it. It was filled with a cool power that made Caitlin's head spin. The Morrigan led her to the centre of the sheltered area, and then stood facing her so that Caitlin could lose herself in those dark, unfathomable eyes.
'Women also understand sacrifice, more, much more than men.' Her voice, though frightening, was also somehow soothing. 'Sacrifice… the burning heart… for the sake of sisters and brothers, however much pain it causes inside. And you, Caitlin Shepherd, would have been able, when the need came, for you were a Sister of Dragons, one with the flow of Existence. But you were driven from the path… forced into the wilderness…'
'I don't understand,' Caitlin said. 'Who did that?'
'A man. Always a man, for since the dawn of your age only they have been capable of plumbing the depths of heartlessness, of manipulating women in the age-old struggle. The seasons have shifted, and the sisterhood is coming back to power once more. But some men will not stand for that. They cannot bear women with power. They cannot accept a sister standing shoulder to shoulder with them. And so they will play their male games of power and manipulation, of violence and unnecessary slaughter. To crush us down, sister. To make us lesser.'
Caitlin's mind was racing at the Morrigan's hypnotic words. 'I was manipulated…?'
'Until the boy's death, you would have chosen the sacrifice to save all Fragile Creatures, despite the hurt you would have felt. His death changed everything. And it was done in the full knowledge that it would take your power away.'
'I don't understand. It was done to-?'
'To stop you achieving your potential, sister. As simple as that.'
Caitlin slumped to the cold, hard ground and hugged her knees. 'But I got Liam back.'
'Yeah, but at what price.' Briony had found the nerve to speak. 'All those people are going to die — horribly, their spirits infected, just so you can have a bit of happiness… a happiness that should never have been! Your little boy should have moved on. But the monster behind all this held him back, just so you could make this stupid move. A broken Sister of Dragons is better than a dead one. It causes despair… it carries on infecting
'Nobody should be asked to make that kind of decision!' Caitlin said.
'No,' the Morrigan said. 'Nobody should.'
'I can't put it right,' Caitlin said. 'I can't give him up, not now I've got him back.' 'It doesn't matter — it's already too late, you stupid bitch.' Briony rocked backwards and forwards in her hiding place. 'We're all going to hell in a handcart. You made the choice. The Blue Fire is leaving you. You've blown it.'
Caitlin looked to the Morrigan and thought she saw a hint of sympathy in those cold features. 'True,' the goddess said. 'You are no longer a Sister of Dragons.'
Amy marched forward with the forced haughtiness of the very young. 'Can't you help us?' she asked the Morrigan.
'I was sent here for a purpose, and that purpose has now passed,' the Morrigan replied. 'Here and now, I take my leave of you.' She turned back to Caitlin and her voice softened. 'You are a good sister, Caitlin Shepherd, whatever this outcome may mean for your kind.'
Then she turned and disappeared into the shadows at the back of the shelter. Beyond the rocks, the howling wind grew more intense; it was getting colder.
'That's it, then,' Briony said. 'It's all over.'
Chapter Eighteen
