gardens.
‘Is that it? Bloody hell, you’ve been living in a right old pile,’ Mallory said. ‘What’s this place again?’
‘Barnsley House. It’s famous. It used to have gardens that people came from all over the world to see. Bit overgrown now. Then it was turned into this plush hotel, but it was empty after the Fall so we moved in. Thought it would be safer here.’
‘The place is so big, if anybody came looking for you, it’d take them a month to find you inside.’
‘They’re in the pool garden. Will you go? I’m afraid.’
Twilight was already drawing in and Mallory considered leaving any confrontation to the morning, but he knew that the old man wouldn’t let him. ‘You get in the house. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ the old man sobbed with pitiful gratitude.
Mallory lowered him to the ground, then turned his mount in the direction Stanley had indicated. An abiding stillness lay heavily on the thick snow. Yet as he surveyed the lengthening shadows of the black and white world, he felt an odd tingling deep inside him as though some invisible energy was radiating out from a source just ahead.
He rode on a little further and then dismounted. When he drew his sword, the blue light that always limned the blade was brighter than he had ever seen it. Cautiously, he made his way across the overgrown but still ordered gardens. He kept low, but it was impossible to progress quietly on the frosted snow.
Finally, he glimpsed a frozen pool through an entrance in a winding hedge. Blue light shimmered on the ice and surrounding snow and there was a tang of burned iron in the air. His heart beating insistently, he followed the light to its source.
The sight that greeted him was stunning; slowly, the sword drifted to his side. Blue Fire blazed without heat or sound, and at its heart, coiled around itself in a vast area of crushed trees, shrubs and hedges, was a Fabulous Beast more glorious than any Mallory had ever seen. In Salisbury, he had experienced them up close as they soared on the winds, leathery wings beating, metallic scales glinting red, gold and green as the furious flames belched from their mouths. But this one appeared to be made of the sapphire flames that raged around it; at times, Mallory could see through the scales to the vascular system beneath, and beyond, into its organs. It was completely blue, and its eyes, as they probed him, were the deepest blue, too.
Standing motionless amongst the flames yet untouched by them was a slim, attractive woman in her thirties, her face the colour of alabaster and just as unmoving, made even paler by the long black hair that framed it. But it was her eyes that held Mallory. Unblinking, they were the mirror of the Fabulous Beast’s, as blue as the sky on a summer day.
The Fabulous Beast’s tail coiled tighter around her legs, as if it knew Mallory was about to drag her free; the tip of the tail tapped at her shin, like a cat’s.
Mallory was not afraid. The Fabulous Beast’s flaming breath could turn whole cities into an inferno; they were unpredictable, chaotic, terrifying in appearance. Yet Mallory was convinced that they were inherently a force for good, tied in some way to the spirit-energy that coursed through the earth itself.
As the blue light on his blade gleamed brighter still, Mallory realised that his sword was calling out to the Fabulous Beast, which in turn was calling out to the sword, and through it, to Mallory himself.
‘I suppose this is what being a Brother of Dragons means,’ he said.
‘It is the First.’ The voice echoed so loudly all around that Mallory took a step back; it was deep, masculine, but with a hint of sibilance. More disturbingly, Jenny’s lips had formed the words, but the voice was certainly not hers.
‘Jenny?’ Mallory didn’t expect a response and shifted his attention to the Fabulous Beast. ‘This is the First? The original? The father — or mother — of them all?’ But as he said the words, Mallory realised it was more than that.
‘The First has been waiting for you, Brother of Dragons.’
‘Waiting? Even I didn’t know I was going to be here.’
‘The First knew.’ The odd dislocation of voice and Jenny’s moving mouth continued to unnerve Mallory.
‘Why is it after me?’
‘You are bound into the great events that are unfolding. These days of crisis are only the beginning of a great upheaval that will decide the path of humanity for all time to come. Here, now, is the axis around which everything turns. Foretold since the dawn of your race, everything that has happened has been in preparation for this. Every moment of suffering that has shaped and guided your kind. Every joy, every sorrow, every victory, every defeat. There has been meaning in even the smallest thing, even a leaf falling from a tree, but your people have never had the perspective that would allow them to understand.’
‘OK… destiny… fate — I can understand that,’ Mallory said cautiously. ‘Big things are happening and I’ve got a part in them. I knew that already. So, again, why me, why here, why now?’
‘The truth and the fire, Mallory. The truth and the fire.’
The tone of the words made his blood run cold. Something skittered in the back of his head; dark thoughts emerged at the tug of the Fabulous Beast’s blazing stare.
‘Five new Brothers and Sisters of Dragons have been chosen for these crucial times. The King and the Queen are true to the patterns of old. The remaining three were selected for chaos and confusion. The Devourer of All Things, known in these times as the Void, cannot easily read them or predict their actions, and the Devourer of All Things sees all, knows all.’
Mallory understood: ‘Their unpredictability means they can blindside the Void.’
‘That is why they were created. But one has already fallen, though she fights to return to the field.’
‘Who are they?’ Mallory didn’t want to ask the question, but like a moth drawn to a flame he couldn’t resist.
‘The Broken Woman. The Shadow Mage. And the Dead Man.’
The rushing cold washed through Mallory and he thought for a second that he might faint. His heart was pounding; panic fastened a strap across his chest. ‘No. I don’t want to hear any more.’ He stepped back another pace.
‘You will only reach your potential through full self-knowledge, Mallory. This is the reason you are here, now. The First is the key and you are the lock.’
‘Don’t,’ Mallory said. He was shaking. The squirming at the back of his head had grown unbearable. He clutched at his temples with his free hand; it felt as if his skull was about to crack open.
‘The sword you carry is more than a sword. It is a part of Existence, as are its two brothers. But it has been disguised to hide it from the Devourer of All Things. Now is the time to return it to power, Mallory, and by doing so unlock your mind.’
Against the palm of Mallory’s hand, the sword throbbed in response to the beast.
‘Come. Plunge your sword into the purifying flame and cleanse yourself in the process.’
‘No,’ Mallory said. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘You fear the death you have experienced, Mallory, and the events leading up to that death, for your true self knows them well. But understand this: you have been reborn. There is always hope. It is not visible in the small things, but when you soar high, you can see it clearly, Mallory. In you, in your very being, is this lesson.’
Emotion surged up in Mallory. He remembered his parents, his childhood, the feeling that he had let them down. He recalled his first meeting with Sophie, in the pub in Salisbury, and later at the travellers’ camp, where he had come to realise that he wanted her and needed her. The feeling that she was the key to his redemption. And then her death, and the grief burrowing its way into his soul, and the knowledge that by losing her he had lost his only chance of salvation. A hot tear blazed down his frozen face. He hesitated, then thought: what did it matter? What did anything matter? He strode forward and plunged the sword deep into the blue flames.
The fire rushed up the blade as if it was kindling, and then up his arms and into him, burning through his mind, his soul, until everything was blue. He didn’t know how long he remained in that state, but the next time he came to consciousness, he was staggering around in the snow, with the sword still blazing blue in his hand. He felt as if he’d had a massive shot of adrenalin.
In his head, it felt as if a stopper had been pulled from the bottom of an enormous vat. Thoughts and feelings surged through him, three hundred movies playing at the same time, all speeded up to a blur. He knew instantly who he was and who he had been, what terrible act he had committed and how he had atoned for it. He saw himself pull the trigger, the blaze of fire across his head, and his death.
