“I’ve been alone most of my life,” said Toby. “You don’t know a damn thing about suffering. Don’t you care about my feelings at all?”
“No,” said Gayle. “I told you; I hate it when they get all clingy.”
She looked back at Carys, whose scowl had deepened. “You are cruel,” said the Waking Beauty.
“Cruel to be kind,” said Gayle. “Be grateful you only got a glimpse of the lines, Toby. You have seen what links the material and the immaterial worlds, what holds existence together. It is said that if you could see the source and origin of those lines, see from where and what they draw their power, the sight alone would blast the reason from your mind.” She hesitated, and then offered Toby a neatly folded handkerchief. “Here. Wipe your face. It’s wet.”
“I know.” Toby mopped clumsily at his sweat-covered face with an unsteady hand, and then gave back the hanky. “So; have you ever seen the source of the ley lines?”
“No, she hasn’t,” said Carys. “Neither have I. I don’t know anyone of the material planes who has, and survived it. Some mysteries are hidden even from the greatest of us, and it’s best we don’t ask why, for our own protection and peace of mind.”
“We don’t know everything,” said Gayle. “Which is just as well, really. Think how boring life would be, if there were no more surprises.”
“Some surprises I can do without,” Toby said darkly. “From now on, keep your hands to yourself. Though I never thought I’d hear myself saying that. My eyes feel like they’ve been scoured with wire wool.”
“Very well,” said Gayle. “Let’s get back to business. You’ve been very free with your advice just lately, Carys Galloway. Why don’t you tell Toby all about yourself. Who and what you are, and why your words are worth listening to. And maybe along the way I’ll remember some reason why I shouldn’t make you rue your distant birth, for interfering in my affairs. Pay attention, Toby. It’s a cautionary tale.”
“I’m older than I look,” Carys said to Toby, ignoring Gayle with admirable thoroughness. “I’m older than the town, older than the races that have lived in it; so old the very language I spoke as a child no longer exists. Britons, Romans, Celts, Saxons and Normans have come and gone, and I was here before and after all of them. But I have paid a terrible price for my longevity. I cannot sleep. Cannot, dare not, sleep or dream or really rest. I don’t sleep because something is waiting for me in my sleep. It waits for me, on the other side of consciousness, and if ever I weaken and allow myself to sleep or doze even for a moment, it will be there, and it will take me at last.”
“What is it that’s waiting for you?” said Toby. “Death?”
Carys laughed briefly. “If it were just death, I wouldn’t be half as scared. No, it’s something worse than death. Something from my ancient past, old and awful and unrelenting. My longevity must be paid for and promises must be kept. I’m always tired, Toby. Always. Weary, even to my bones. I can’t remember what it was like to be able to sit down and relax, to close my eyes and rest. I must always be alert, ready, prepared.”
“Then die,” said Gayle. “I can help you, if you like. One time pays for all. And material contracts have no power in the immaterial realms.”
“I can’t die yet,” Carys said immediately. “Not when there’s still so much left to see.” She smiled at Toby, suddenly seeming a lot younger. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you can’t help hearing things, interesting things. Bradford-on-Avon is an open book to me, and has been for centuries. I know all its history, the light and the dark, the official records and the secret deals, the sacred and the profane. I’ve seen a lot of it first-hand. Because of who and what I am, I can exist in both worlds, the real and the magical. Everyone in Veritie just accepts my presence, and never even thinks to question it; though generations of families have known my company down the years. I’m here because I’ve always been here, and no one ever thinks beyond that point. It’s part of my nature. Luckily I don’t show up on recording devices. I think I’m too weird for them.
“There have always been people here, and I have seen them come and go. Go back two and a half thousand years, and there were people living here. Before there was a town, there was an Iron Age settlement; five centuries before the Christ was born, to save or damn the world. A dark and ugly kind they were; savage and brutal and tenacious, maintaining a community in defiance of all that the elements could throw at them. I was there. I remember them. I saw them dance and sacrifice to things best forgotten, in the name of survival.
“The Romans wiped out such unhealthy worship when they finally arrived, though they had their secrets too. No one in the city of Bath now remembers why the old spa baths were originally built, but I do. It’s still down there somewhere, sleeping. I remember when the Saxon armies drove the last Celtic forces out of this area, and named this town bradanford, or broad ford. They kept the old Celtic word for river, though: afon.
“I have seen men butcher each other on the hills surrounding this town, seen the river run red with blood, for good reasons and bad. But I have seen wonders and miracles too, as the town has grown down the centuries, acquiring grace and hope and civilisation. I have seen it all … but never been part of it. For all my longevity, I have never been a force or a power. Never been able to fight the shadows or embrace the light, protect the innocent or punish the wicked. I watch and I remember, and I forget nothing—it is my blessing and my curse. For every joy and every pain I ever knew is as fresh to me now as the first time I experienced it. I am the town, its history and its legend. So when I tell you Something Bad is coming, you listen, Gayle.”
“Something bad is always coming,” said Gayle. “But the world goes on turning. Are you the oldest human being, Carys?”
The Waking Beauty frowned. “I don’t know … there’s always Tommy Squarefoot.”
“Yes, but he’s a Neanderthal.”
“Don’t try to distract me!” snapped Carys. “You came here to talk to me, so listen! I don’t normally pay much attention to the future or the past. I try to concentrate on the present. Otherwise I’d lose my focus and be twice as crazy as I already am. And for all my fascination with gossip, I usually keep important information to myself. People have tried to kill me before now, for what I know or what they think I know and might tell.” Carys smiled. “I’m still here and mostly they’re not. You don’t live as long as I have without learning a few survival tricks; some of them quite spectacularly nasty.”
“Get to the point, Carys,” said Gayle. “You love to talk so much it’s a wonder you haven’t had your tongue hinged in the middle so you could flap both ends at once. What does any of this have to do with Toby and me?”
“One of my survival tricks,” said Carys to Toby, “is to pay attention. Sometimes, when vital or terrible or momentous things occur, they make such an impression on time they send reverberations back down its spine. And people like me, rooted so firmly in the timestream, can detect such things. Something is going to happen, and it’s almost upon us. Something so important that it will affect Veritie and Mysterie and the nature of existence itself. It’s going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon, and you and Gayle will be a part of it. Whether for good or bad is beyond me. Events just are. Beware The Serpent In The Sun and his earthbound son, the Hob. Whatever it is that’s coming, they’re a part of it, just like you; whether you like it or not.”
“If this future event is so damned important, why didn’t you detect it earlier?” said Gayle.
“Someone’s been hiding it,” said Carys. “Want to guess who?”
“Hold everything,” said Toby determinedly. “Let’s take some time out. Will somebody please explain to me just who or what The Serpent In The Sun is, and why you both look so worried about him?”
Carys and Gayle looked at each other, and then Gayle looked at Toby. “The Serpent … is the oldest of us all. Our progenitor, in many ways. No one knows exactly what he is. We call him the Serpent because we ha
ve to call him something. Real and magical, both and neither, he lives inside the Sun.”
“Inside the sun? Our sun, the one our world orbits?” Toby looked incredulously from Gayle to Carys and back again, but both women looked entirely serious. “Oh, come on! Nothing could live inside the sun; the whole thing’s one bloody great nuclear reaction!”
“And the Serpent lives there,” said Carys. “Think about that. Think how powerful he would have to be, how large and potent, compared to us small things … In the Bible, the Serpent was the physical incarnation of evil in the Garden of Eden, the Enemy of all that is, now and for ever, eternally, implacably evil. There are many who call The Serpent In The Sun the old Enemy. And this being, this old adversary, has turned his gaze upon you, Toby Dexter. Because even the greatest of the Powers and the Dominations can be shaken or changed or brought down by the implacable forces surrounding a focal point.”
“I am dead,” said Toby. “I am so dead you might as well nail down the coffin lid right now and start choosing the hymns.”
“Not necessarily,” said Carys. She was glaring at Gayle again. “She could protect you, if she wanted. She could put a stop to what’s coming. All she has to do is stop slumming, stop pretending to be human, and assume her rightful mantle, and then even the Serpent would stop and think twice. But she doesn’t want to do that. The comfortable illusion of the life she’s built for herself, the lie she hides behind to avoid her responsibilities, is more important to her than you or me or any other mayfly human life.”
“That’s not true,” said Gayle. Her voice was still calm, but she did seem just a little perturbed by the raw anger in Carys’s voice. “My only real responsibility is not to interfere directly in people’s lives. I have to stand back, remain uninvolved. People have to learn to stand on their own two feet, to take responsibility for their own destiny. Otherwise free will would be nothing more than an illusion, and the whole point of being human would be lost. People have to be free to make their own mistakes, or they’ll never learn anything.”
“Even if they destroy the whole planet in the process?”
“Even then,” Gayle said firmly.
“And how many innocents suffer every day as a result?”
“As many as necessary.” Gayle looked at Toby almost apologetically. “I have to take the long view. And Waking Beauty here only thinks she knows what that is. I was already far older than her when she drew her first breath.” She turned back to Carys. “Why did you send Toby to me? There have been focal points before. Why send this one?”
“Because you’re linked,” said Carys, with smug satisfaction. “The skeins of fate are wrapped around you both, so strongly I’m surprised you can’t see them yourself. You think ley lines are impressive, Toby; you should see fate’s workings. It’s like looking behind the world, to see the stagehands at work. In my experience, life isn’t nearly as arbitrary as it seems. Patterns and statistics have a way of working out, whether we like it or not.”
“Crazy,” said Gayle. “Crazy, and mean-spirited with it. There is no fate, no destiny; only possibilities.”
“Believe what you like, if it makes you happy,” said Carys. “Fate doesn’t care. But you two have been linked ever since you let him follow you through the door you conjured up at the railway station.”
“I didn’t let him follow me! I didn’t even see him!”
“And how likely is that? He was right there, in plain view … You couldn’t have missed him, unless you were meant to. It’s no use kicking and screaming, Gayle. This has been decided where all the things that matter are decided; in the Courts of the Holy. Someone’s pulling strings again …”
“Excuse me,” said Toby, raising his hand like a child in class. “But I could have sworn I heard someone mention free will just a moment ago. How does that fit in with all this talk of Something interfering with people’s destinies?”
“Oh hell,” said Gayle. “As if things weren’t complicated enough. Look; individually, you have free will. Everyone does. But sometimes the worlds that be get a nudge, from Upstairs. And then it’s up to us how we cope with it. For example, you are a focal point, but you could still choose to forget everything, and walk away from it.”
“And then … someone else would be the focal point?” said Toby.
“Damned if I know,” said Carys. “Focal points are tricky things. I don’t think the town would actually get hit by earthquakes, volcanoes and swarms of killer bees, all at once, but I wouldn’t rule it out either. Once you start mucking about with fate, you have to be prepared for a backlash, and there’s no telling where the psychic bricks would fall. It’s like pulling one can of beans from the bottom of the pyramid; it might collapse or it might not.”
“If you believe in fate,” said Gayle.
“I’d say it’s more to the point whether fate believes in you,” said Carys. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Toby won’t walk out on you. His feelings for you won’t let him.”
Toby could feel his face growing warm. “My feelings are my own business, thank you very much.”
“Not any more they’re not,” said Carys. She smiled knowingly at Gayle. “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. You’ve had mortal paramours before.”
“And every single one of them came to a bad end,” said Gayle. “They might start out loving me, but they all end up worshipping me, and I hate that. I haven’t taken a mortal lover in more years than I care to remember. I got tired of them dying on me. I hope you’re paying attention to this, Toby.”
“Hell,” said Toby. “I’m taking notes.”
Gayle shook her head. “We are going to change the subject, right now. Let us talk instead of Nicholas Hob.”
“If we must,” said Carys. “Nasty little toad. The Serpent’s Son is back in Bradford-on-Avon, and has taken up residence at Blackacre. Only fitting, I suppose. It’s the only place in town that’s as corrupt as he is. No one knows what’s brought him back after all these years, but he’s taken the woman Angel as his companion.” She paused, and looked at Toby. “Nicholas Hob is the Serpent’s only living offspring, a product of rape and horror in the early days of the world. Hob’s almost as bad as his father, but luckily he’s trapped in human form, which limits the damage he can do. Angel used to be an angel. The whole wings-and-halo bit. Demoted to the material worlds for a crime the likes of which you and I can only guess at. So we’re now faced with two beings, both powerful enough to tear this town apart at the seams on a whim, even before they joined forces. And you’re still not convinced fate is stirring things?”
“I don’t think I feel very well,” said Toby. “Every time I turn around the odds get worse. I could shoot an albatross and not get luck like this.”
“Aren’t I worth it?” said Gayle.
Toby sniffed. “I’m thinking about it. Trust me, I’m thinking about it.”
“There’s more,” said Carys.
“Surprise, surprise.” said Gayle. “Hit me with it.”
“You’ve seen the news. There are stirrings in the sun, solar flares leaping out to caress the world. The Serpent is flexing his muscles. He’s planning something. Hob and Angel are his chosen instruments. And all we have to stop them is a focal point who doesn’t understand his own purpose … and you. If I had anywhere else to go, I’d be packing. I have a horrible suspicion this town has been designated ground zero for something truly appalling, something that will crack open all the worlds and let the blood run out. You have to intervene, Gayle, and soon; before it’s too late for all of us.”
“Do you know that for a fact?” said Gayle.
The Waking Beauty sighed, and sank back in her chair. She looked suddenly tired, and older. “No,” she said reluctantly. “I can see the pieces but not the pattern.”
“Sometimes you need to be reminded of that.” Gayle considered the matter in silence for a while. “All right; something’s going on. And Toby isn’t just another focal point, or he wouldn’t be linked so closely to me.
Could he be the next in line to be Humanity’s Champion?”
Carys looked startled for the first time, studying Toby with new eyes. “I don’t know. He could be, I suppose. It’s been so long since Humanity needed a Champion … You know, it does make a kind of sense.”
“Yes,” said Gayle. “Unfortunately, it does.” Both the women looked at Toby in a curious but unsettlingly speculative way.
“If I am Humanity’s Champion,” Toby said firmly, “then we are all in really deep trouble.”
“You should be honoured,” said Gayle, and Toby couldn’t quite tell whether she was mocking him or not. “True Champions are few and far between. They are heroes, warriors, legends; defenders of Humanity against the forces of darkness. Of course, most of them end up dying horribly, but … Toby! Toby, sit down! You’re not going anywhere and you know it.”
“Every time I think it can’t get any worse, it does,” said Toby, slumping back into his seat. “I’d just got my head round being a local point, and now you want me to be a hero and a warrior? Trust me: you have got the wrong guy.”
“Not even for me?”
“Not even for Kate Bush dipped in honey.”
“If you won’t do something,” Carys said suddenly to Gayle, “I will.”
“If you do,” said Gayle, “I can’t protect you. You’re long-lived and you know a lot of things, but at the end of the day you’re still only human, Carys, while Hob and Angel are so much more. You sit tight and leave this with me. Let me think on it.”
“Time is running out …”
“It always is.” Gayle smiled suddenly. “You know; I think I’ll go and see the Mice. They’re bound to have noticed something.”
“Mice?” said Toby ominously. “You want to talk with a bunch of mice?”
“Oh, you’ll like them, Toby. They’re very charming. A bit rough and ready, but then, that’s Mice for you.”
“They’re newcomers to the town,” said Carys, frowning. “What could they possibly know that I don’t?”