with a power that made my heart beat faster. The occasion was so desperate, so sad, so grim, but yet so different from the life we knew. I loved my uncle. My heart went out to my aunt, who had not been separated from him for forty years. But in that moment we touched an aspect of life we never experienced in our normal days. It had a charge, like electricity, and we felt so strongly — not just emotions, but the quality of the light, and the sound, and the stillness, and there was meaning all around us, so powerful we could touch it.'
Shavi grew animated. 'There was magic, Ryan. Magic is meaning. A lack of meaning is mundane. Once you have the meaning, anything is possible. You can change the world, yourself, those around you. You can make things better. If there is no meaning, you are locked in a world without feeling where everything is as it is. Nothing can be changed. Those who advocate no meaning are sealing themselves inside their own cell, locking the door and throwing away the key.'
He fell silent, but his eyes gleamed. Veitch dwelled on his words; they had touched something deep inside him, although he still could not work out exactly what. 'So you're saying we shouldn't fear death?'
The deep, rumbling laughter may have been in response to Veitch's question, but it made goosebumps rise on all of their arms.
'I just knew it,' Tom muttered.
'Who is that?' Ruth whispered.
The laughter came from just beyond the large mausoleum ahead of them. Two figures waited in the warm, yellow light of a lantern. On a tomb sat a Caribbean man in a black tailcoat, shiny top hat and sunglasses, and carrying a silver-skull-topped cane, his face painted white to resemble a skull. He clutched a cigar between two knuckles, and blue smoke drifted from his pearly-white grin. The one behind him had more of the grave about him than elegance: grey, desiccated skin, baleful red eyes, a necklace of human finger-bones and grey hair tufting from a scalp showing patches of the yellow bone beneath. Bearing the taint of the Anubis Box, they were both under the Void's control.
Church and Veitch advanced, swords drawn.
The one in the top hat laughed louder. 'No worries, boys! We are no threat to you. That lies ahead. We just watchin' over our domain, makin' a little place for you, a-while from now.'
'Who are you?' Church asked.
'We got names and names, boys, but on the island they called me Baron Samedi and my silent partner is Baron Cimetie're. He is me and I am he. I am head of the Guede family of the Loa. We stand at the crossroads to watch the souls of dead humans pass.'
Church shivered. 'Is this the crossroads, then?'
Baron Samedi grinned wider.
'We're not dead yet,' Veitch said defiantly.
'Maybe you are and maybe you not. I am a wise judge, boy, even with these marks upon me. I say you pass now. And so says he.'
Baron Cimetie're leaned across the tomb to inspect each of them in turn. When his gaze fell upon them, they each felt a cold breeze.
Tapping his nose, Baron Samedi added, 'I am also Loa of sex and resurrection. Ring any bells?'
'Time is slipping away, Brothers and Sisters,' Baron Cimetie're said in a whispery voice. 'The Devourer of All Things is nearly come. Any moment now… any moment-'
'Don't let them distract you!' Tom shouted. 'Move on!'
Amongst the mausoleums and the crypts, something — someone? — drew near.
'Don't look at it!' Tom cautioned, too late.
Church was caught by the sight of a familiar face, and was suddenly flooded with recollections, the smell of her hair, the softness of her skin, lying in bed on a Sunday morning, slick with sweat after sex. 'Marianne?' he said.
'I deserved to live, Church,' his long-dead girlfriend said. 'And I would have, if you hadn't been chosen to be some stupid hero. Why couldn't someone else do it? Why did I have to die to set you on this path? It's not fair.'
Her words resonated with his own doubts. So many people had suffered because of the manipulation of the Great Powers in their sprawling millennia-long campaign.
'We're all just pawns, Church. The gods manipulated Veitch to kill me. The Void manipulated the gods and Veitch. Existence manipulated everyone. None of them can be trusted, so why play their game? Why follow their rules? You have the power to walk away. Do it, and save someone else from having to go through what we both suffered.'
She was right. It wasn't fair; he could see fault on both sides, and strength on both sides, and it was always humanity caught in the middle. If he walked away, what would the Powers do then? Only dimly did he feel the Blue Fire when his hand went to his sword; he could throw it away, a symbolic gesture-
'Church!' Tom was shaking him roughly.
Where Marianne had stood, there was now a hideous yellowing skeleton with staring eyes, its claw-like hands clutching long tendrils of mist that reached to the heads of Ruth, Shavi and Veitch. The one that had been fastened to him was now breaking up and drifting away.
'Lee…' Shavi mouthed.
Ruth muttered the name of her dead uncle, tears streaming down her face.
A queasy guilt was carved into Veitch's features at the memory of all the people he had killed.
'I am Mictlantecuhtli, God of Death, and all who walk the cemeteries are my servants. In your arrogance, you raised a sword against my little brother Tezcatlipoca, and now a balance must be struck,' the skeleton intoned. 'Choose one of your comrades to join me here for all time, in service to the Devourer of All Things.'
As Church made to draw his sword, Baron Samedi laughed heartily. With a flick of his wrist, Mictlantecuhtli drew the tendrils taut and Shavi, Ruth and Veitch crumpled to their knees, their faces drawn as if the life was being sucked out of them.
'Your grief for your lost loved ones traps you,' Mictlantecuhtli said. 'You cannot see that they are inside you and around you for ever. You cannot break this thing. It sucks the life from you.'
Church continued drawing his sword until Tom stopped him. 'They'll be dead before you can do anything,' the Rhymer whispered.
'You want me to choose one of them to die? I can't do that. And they'd never let us go anyway.'
'Stay calm. Think. This is the land of death. What has power here?'
'Choose now!' Mictlantecuhtli ordered.
'Why don't you just tell me what you're thinking?' Church snapped.
'Because I can't — don't you understand!' He showed Church his ring. 'The deal I did with Freyja was that I would not help you at any turn. As my power of prophecy returned after you dragged me back to this life, I could have helped you so many times. Lives have been lost… lives will be lost… and I could have prevented it. I see them so clearly. And I have had to live with that knowledge.' Tears sparked in his eyes. 'But that witch didn't want me to aid my friends… the only people I have ever cared about… because that way you'd be truly tested.'
'Why?'
'If you were weak, the Void would have won easily. She wanted to know you were strong so she could decide if she should side with you.'
'Now!' Mictlantecuhtli drew the tendrils tighter.
'Wait,' Church said. 'Give me time.' His mind raced as he turned over Tom's words. 'Why didn't you tell us this before?'
'You would have spent all your time wondering what I knew.' He looked away. 'I would have been even more alone.'
'Power in the land of death,' Church repeated. He looked around, examining the symbols of death on every mausoleum and crypt in the cemetery; and then he had it.
Closing his eyes, he whispered, 'I am the Raven King. I can do anything. '
It sounded like a storm approaching across a great plain. The thunder rolled closer, magnified by the echoes along the network of tunnels and caverns through which they had walked. Within moments, a black cloud rushed into the cemetery, the swirling tempest of black wings bringing darkness and chaos. The Morvren attacked with one mind, tied to Church's consciousness as strongly as the Fabulous Beast.
