gleamed.
Hal thought it prudent to retreat to the safety of the buildings as quickly as possible, but was sickened to discover that his legs wouldn’t obey his thoughts. Yet despite the stranger’s foreboding appearance, Hal felt no sense of threat. Instead, it was almost as if he was in a dream, watching the scene through someone else’s eyes.
‘I have searched for you across the worlds, for time upon time upon time,’ the giant began, ‘and now I find myself summoned to the place where you stand. Existence weaves a pattern that none of us can see.’
‘Who are you?’ Hal asked. The taste of iron filings numbed his mouth.
‘I am the Caretaker. I am the lamplighter. In the darkest of the dark, I ensure that a single flame burns. In the midst of chaos, I ensure that the home is kept safe and secure.’
Something supernatural, Hal’s sluggish brain thought. One of the gods?
‘Are you causing all this?’ Hal gestured towards the shimmering phantom city that kept overlaying itself on the Oxford skyline.
‘No. But it is serendipitous.’
Slowly, the Caretaker’s words wormed their way into Hal’s consciousness. ‘You’re looking for me?’
‘I come with a warning of greatest import: something has noticed you.’
‘What?’ Hal’s mind fumbled for meaning.
The Caretaker raised one huge hand and pointed up to the sprinkling of stars. ‘Out there, on the edge of Existence. It has seen you… and it is coming.’
Hal stared dumbly into the deep black depths of space. ‘What’s coming?’
The blue haze began to fade and the true outline of Oxford started to emerge into sharp relief once more. When Hal looked back at the Caretaker, the giant had retreated several paces, though Hal had not been aware of him walking away.
‘It will be here soon now… very soon,’ the Caretaker continued in a low, echoing voice. ‘It may even be here already. You must be prepared. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons must be united. But know this: one of the Five has already fallen. And without the correct number their effectiveness is dimmed.’ He stared towards the few lamps still burning in the windows of Magdalen. ‘There is little hope. Soon even the last light may be extinguished. And then my job shall be done.’
The Caretaker continued to fade, drifting across the grass, becoming more insubstantial the further from Hal he got.
‘War…’ The giant’s words were breaking up. ‘There will come an ending.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Hal called.
The Caretaker’s response was lost to the night breeze. A second later, he vanished and the blue haze along with him. Reality was hard and fast all around. But inside Hal the dread that had been mounting all night had now crystallised.
He had been noticed. And something was coming.
Chapter Two
‘ The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.’
‘Give us the sword.’
The skinhead wore a fixed, dead stare, but it was the shotgun the thug was pointing casually that held Mallory’s attention. In the distance, smoke from the burning village clouded the blue sky.
‘It’s not very fair, is it?’ Mallory said. ‘Sword… shotgun…’
‘You should have thought of that when you were choosing your weapon.’ The skinhead let out a gurgling laugh, then looked around at his gang as if he had said something clever. The gang clustered closer, smelling blood.
Physically, Mallory and the thug couldn’t have been more different: Mallory, with his shoulder-length brown hair and calm, intelligent eyes; the skinhead, clearly unintelligent, his arms a mass of tattoos — the flag of St George, a skull and crossbones, the names of girls who had long since faded from his memory. But Mallory’s attention was drawn by the one thing he shared with his opponent: a uniform. Mallory still wore his distinctive Knight Templar garb of a black shirt with the red Templar cross against a white square on the breast and right shoulder. The skinhead’s black shirt had a large red ‘V’ running from shoulders to waist.
‘What is that?’ Mallory said, nodding at the T-shirt. ‘I’m seeing it all over.’ And the insignia wasn’t just on the clothing of the gang members who were increasingly visible around the countryside; it was also painted on walls, abandoned cars, doors — graffiti with an odd air of menace.
‘He’s killing time,’ one of the other gang members said. ‘Just kill him instead.’ More laughter ensued, but Mallory’s calm in the face of his impending death was clearly destabilising the group.
A strange expression briefly obscured the brutality in the skinhead’s face; Mallory decided it was almost like awe. ‘We’re followers of the Lost One,’ the thug said. The others grew sombre, nodding in agreement.
Mallory considered a glib response, then decided it probably wouldn’t be in his best interests. ‘Who’s that, then?’
‘The Lost One,’ the leader said again, vehemently this time. ‘He disappeared in the Battle of London. His name is Veitch… Ryan Veitch.’
Mallory recognised the name instantly. ‘The traitor.’ One of the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons who preceded him. They hadn’t been heard from since the Fall, but their presence still loomed large over the population; Mallory heard their names wherever he went.
The leader ignored the implication in Mallory’s words — denial or acceptance, Mallory wasn’t sure which. ‘He was the one who saved us, not the other four. When he comes back to us, he’ll lead us out of this mess we’re in.’
‘He’s dead,’ Mallory said. ‘He’s not coming back — or so the stories say.’
‘The stories are wrong! No one’s seen a body! He showed us how to act, how to survive — you do what you have to. And that’s what we’re doing.’
‘Just get his sword and have done with it,’ another gang member prompted.
Mallory gripped the hilt of his weapon more tightly, though he had no idea what he could do against a shotgun and fifteen brutes armed with knives, razors and clubs. ‘You know, this isn’t just any sword,’ he said. Mallory turned the blade so that they could see the faint blue glow emanating from the steel itself and the dragons carved into the handle. ‘It comes from the Otherworld-’
The leader hesitated; the others grew uneasy. Sensing that he had them, Mallory continued quickly, remembering the words of the god who had given it to him. ‘It’s one of the three great swords. The first is the sword of Nuada Airgetlamh — you know that one, right?’ Mallory didn’t even know it himself, but his confidence convinced the leader to nod. ‘The second is lost, believed corrupted. We won’t be seeing that one again. But this one… this is Llyrwyn. And, well, basically, mate, you don’t stand a chance.’
Mallory wished he was telling the truth, but while the sword endowed him with a degree of prowess, it certainly wasn’t powerful enough to take out the whole group. The gang had grown edgy — like most people since the Fall, they had quickly learned to assimilate the supernatural and the terrible dangers that surrounded it — but Mallory knew it would only be a matter of time before they tested his bragging. He braced himself, ready at least to take off the leader’s smirking head; a small spot of joy before he died.
A sound like the billowing of a tarpaulin disturbed all of them. As the gang looked around for the source of the noise, a shadow swept across the green fields and descended on them. Mallory saw what it was before any of
