Everyone remained silent until the Fortress had passed from view, and then they returned to their seats, muttering darkly to those beside them.
3
The Last Train moved rapidly across the blasted zone, past the long columns of monstrous beings marching out from the Enemy's Fortress. Their great war machines shook the ground as they rumbled towards the centres of habitation. Soon the train passed onto rolling downs, where the breeze-blown grass looked like waves on a green sea, and then to misty valleys and tree-covered slopes.
In the carriage beyond the one occupied by the Seelie Court, Tom perched on a seat, studiously constructing a roll-up from the small tin he carried in his haversack. With his silver hair tied back in a ponytail, he still carried with him the spirit of Woodstock. 'Scared?' he said.
'No, of course not.' Crowther watched the passing scenery intently. He was a big-boned man, wrapped in a voluminous overcoat topped with a wide-brimmed hat that made him appear even larger. 'I have been here many times. In my dreams-'
'Nightmares.'
'Speak for yourself. Our world is a place of low horizons. Here, anything is possible.'
'Yes, death from nowhere, torture, the dismantling and rebuilding of the body in infinite, agonising variations. It's one long, fun-filled holiday of the mind.'
'If you don't have the intellectual capacity to see the possibilities,' Crowther sniffed, 'there's little point in discussing it further.'
Tom eyed him coldly. 'Intellect is a poor substitute for experience.'
'As people without intellect always say.'
'Oh look, the old folk are arguing again. This journey is like one never-ending visit to a rest home. You'll be fighting over the Rich Tea biscuits next.' At sixteen, Mahalia had the cut-glass tones of an expensive private education, but her eyes suggested easy violence and a much greater age.
'Oh yes, the teenage delinquent,' Tom said. 'Move along. No mobile phones to steal here.'
'For God's sake, don't engage her.' Crowther sighed. 'You'll only find ground glass in your food.'
Mahalia snorted. 'I can be much more inventive than that.' Her hardness fractured briefly as she glanced back along the carriage to where her boyfriend, Jack, sat in gloomy conversation with Miller. At seventeen, with his shock of blond hair and healthy farm-boy appearance, Jack was a stark contrast to the older Miller's sickly pallor, only emphasised by the lank brown hair falling around his ghostly face. 'You need to do something about those two. They've got some kind of death wish,' Mahalia added.
Realising they were the subject of the conversation, Jack and Miller approached.
'Tell them!' Mahalia pleaded with Tom and Crowther. 'Just because they've been given these special abilities doesn't mean they have to go out fighting.'
'Don't, Mahalia.' Jack had a world-weariness that belied his age. 'Everyone can see how this is going to turn out.'
'No, they can't!' Refusing any sign of weakness, she quickly brushed away a tear.
Jack took her hand. 'My memory's back now. I know what happened. Snatched from my mum when I was a baby and taken to the Court of the Final Word where they worked on me.'
Tom winced.
'They made me into a weapon,' Jack continued. 'The ultimate weapon. The Wish-Hex that they buried inside me is like…' He fumbled for words to describe a concept he could barely comprehend.
'Like a nuclear bomb that can devastate the very fabric of reality,' Crowther interrupted.
'So it's there,' Mahalia said. 'So what? That doesn't mean it has to be used. You can have a normal life-'
Jack silenced her with an affectionate squeeze of her hand. 'You know I've got a part to play.'
'All right!' she snapped. 'So you release the Wish-Hex. There has to be a way you can do that without destroying yourself.'
Jack's sad smile stung more than any words could have.
'We all want a little happiness, but sometimes we have to give that up so everybody else can have a chance to be happy,' Miller said. Tom saw in him an echo of Shavi's inner peace.
'Shut up, you simpleton.' Mahalia sighed.
Refusing to be deterred, Miller took a seat across the aisle. 'I've got something inside me too, but mine heals. You don't know what it's like to have these gifts, Mahalia-'
'Gifts!' she snorted.
'They are! Jack's too, though it's hard to see it at the moment. They speak to us in a way I can't explain and they tell us we've got a job to do. If there's a chance we might be able to stop the Void-'
'Might, might, might!'
'We've got to try! To have an ability and not use it… and everybody suffers because of it — how could you live with that?'
'I could,' she said.
'We're the Keys,' Jack said. 'Miller… me… there's no chance of winning without us.'
'There's no chance with you!' Mahalia stormed down the carriage so no one could see her tears. Jack and Miller followed, trying to comfort her. Crowther watched Tom's face and saw an echo of Mahalia's desire for peace and happiness after a long period of responsibility.
'They say you have the Second Sight,' Crowther said.
'One of my many wonderful attributes.'
'And the tongue that never lies?'
'Oh, yes. But that doesn't mean I have to answer.'
'Can you see how all this plays out?' Crowther asked hesitantly. 'Victory or defeat? Who lives, who dies?'
Tom smiled tightly, rose and made his way to the opposite end of the carriage where he sat with his back to the others and closed his eyes. The gentle rocking of the train should have calmed him, but nothing did any more. Instinctively, his fingers went to the gold ring in the shape of a dragon eating its tail that the goddess Freyja had given to him in Norway. Known as Andvarinaut, it was cursed to bring misery to anyone who owned it. He had bartered away his future to help Church, Laura and the rest, and soon enough he would be forced to pay the price.
'Don't worry.'
Jerked alert by the voice, Tom saw a boy of about nine or ten sitting opposite him. He was black, his hair shorn to a bristle, and a little overweight, but he had the most expressive eyes Tom had ever seen.
'Who are you?' Tom growled.
'My name's Carlton.'
Tom glanced back at Crowther and the others.
'They can't see me,' Carlton said. Tom searched the boy for any suspicious signs. 'You don't look like one of those damnable fairy folk.'
'I'm not.'
'Then you're with the Enemy.'
'I'm a friend. I've come to help you.'
Carlton's face was open and honest, but Tom wasn't going to be fooled. He smoked, and waited.
'Time is running out. The Devourer of All Things is almost here. His army sweeps across the Far Lands. His assassins are abroad, attempting to kill or disrupt key elements of your opposition.'
'You know, little children do not talk like that,' Tom noted acidly.
'But there is one important thing you must know: in the battle to come, there will be people you can trust, and people you can't.'
'And you're going to tell me which is which, I suppose.'
'Even those closest to you are not above suspicion.'
