But once the three of them led Crowther into the rooms beyond, the power became less aggressive, though still potent. Psychedelic colours painted the walls or surged in fountains in the air. Briefly, Mahalia's hand became like crystal. The motion-music burst from the walls with the force of a hundred orchestras, beautiful melodies and wild, percussive rhythms fighting for space, so loud they could barely hear themselves think, the compositions brilliance and madness in equal measure.
And wherever they went, the air appeared to peel back to give views over alien landscapes, or into deepest space where cold stars glimmered, into other worlds, other dimensions. People came and went in a flash, faces that appeared vaguely familiar, some old friends, others strangers, but behind it all was an unnerving sense of meaning, as if they were seeing the structures of reality laid bare. Jack saw a Fabulous Beast soaring high over London, its jewelled scales glinting in the burst of fire that erupted from its mouth on to some dark tower. Mahalia glimpsed a desperate man who'd done desperate things shoot himself in the head, dead, dead as a doornail, and then later running with a sword through what appeared to be a cathedral, though the order of the visions made little sense to her. And Matt, he saw generals and spies and dead-eyed men sitting around a table plotting some big lie to deceive a population, only for that lie to become reality. And they all saw someone reading a book, painting mind-pictures from the words, creating more realities with every thought, making them hard and fast and real. Existence was fluid, everything was changing.
They rushed onwards, dragging Crowther between them, while the chaos and the madness of the warp surged all around, so that after a while their minds began to rebel, not knowing where they were or what they were doing.
The court was a vast maze, and in the heavy darkness it was impossible to tell if they were doubling back on themselves. They began to feel as if they would be in there for ever, trapped in an awful purgatory.
But then they discovered that Crowther was beginning to lead them, at first subtly suggesting changes in direction with a shift of his body weight, then increasingly pulling them along with him. They hurried down extravagantly decorated corridors, through vast, ringing halls, until they came to an arch big enough for three buses to pass through side by side. Over the top was a carving of a coiled, bewinged Fabulous Beast with sapphires for eyes, and beyond lay steep steps winding down into darkness.
'This looks like the way out,' Jack gasped breathlessly. He let go of Crowther's arm; the professor stood quietly, the mask now silent. 'Why's he suddenly calmed down?'
'Don't hang around talking,' Mahalia pressed. 'I just want to get out of this creepy place.' She headed through the arch without giving the others a chance to debate. The stairs were broader and more grand than the secret way out of the Court of Soul's Ease. Celtic spiral patterns in mosaic lined the walls, suggesting that the route was perhaps ceremonial. After fifteen minutes, they opened into an enormous cave with a small beach and the river lapping against it. Through the cave mouth they could see the late-afternoon sun on the slow-moving water and, beyond, the thick forest pressing heavily against the far bank.
'Looks like we bypassed the gorge and the rapids,' Matt said, with definite relief. 'I don't want to tempt fate, but we may be able to pick up Triathus.'
'Blind luck,' Mahalia said. 'It's about time something worked out in our favour.'
They helped Crowther as they picked their way over the slick rocks around the cave mouth, and after splashing through the shallows with the refreshing sun on their faces, they eventually pulled up on to the bank and lay amongst the trees at the river's edge.
'I thought we were dead in there,' Mahalia said, one arm across her eyes, the rise and fall of her chest gradually calming.
Jack sat next to her, unable to resist gently stroking her hair. 'Professor Crowther saved us. If he didn't have the mask…'
'I don't reckon it's as simple as that,' Matt interjected.
Mahalia looked up at the dark tone in Matt's voice. He was watching the professor uneasily, who sat against the base of a tree, unmoving, the mask still clamped to his face.
'Why doesn't he take it off?' Mahalia asked.
Matt grimaced. 'I don't think he can.' Caitlin marched through the night, the world red and black. Birmingham was far behind her. Lightning surged through her arteries, blazed across her mind; she was supercharged, glorious, almost floating above the land as she walked. At times her own mind was present, though hyper- aware, with none of the doubts that had torn her apart before. The clarity and confidence only added to her sense of ultimate wellbeing. At other times, the Morrigan's dark presence wove its way through her consciousness, like the thrashing of a murder of crows, and then there was only chaos and fragmented thoughts, like glimpses of a terrible battle through the drifting smoke of destruction.
Caitlin had covered miles in her energised state; she had no idea where she was going, but the Morrigan certainly did. The Midlands landscape had rolled under her feet. She neither tired nor paused for rest over a day and a night, gaining sustenance only from the fruit and wild vegetables she found on her route. Now she was passing through the lush Leicestershire countryside, a place of overgrown fields and a rampant, once well-tended forest that had spread almost magically across the area.
She came to a village called Griffydam, so named, according to myth, because its water supply had once been guarded by a griffin, the legendary half-eagle, half-lion creature. Crowther could have told her that such ancient stories were a code, denoting places where the barrier with the Otherworld was thin and where strange things often crossed over. But Caitlin knew this instinctively.
As she approached an old stone-lined well beside the road, thin lines of blue slowly rose to the surface of the ground beneath her feet, growing brighter and stronger as they rushed towards the well, casting a sapphire glow across the hedgerows and walls in that dark time just before dawn.
At the base of the well, cold blue fire blazed up higher, then formed lines of coruscating energy that rose up and up, crossing over, building a structure like a church with the well at its heart, as visible as a beacon across the surrounding countryside.
A burst of thunder shook the ground and continued to roll out all around as blue sparks fizzed and crackled in the ionised air. Caitlin stopped and stared in a moment of clarity brought on by the awe and the wonder, but then the familiar, urgent cawing of the Morrigan rose up once more.
Standing nearby, though he hadn't been there before, was the knight in the boar's-head mask. In her detached state, Caitlin half-made to speak to him, still not sure if he was there to help her or torment her. But all he would do was guide her towards the crackling blue light with his pointed sword.
She cast one last, wary look at him, and then the Morrigan propelled her into the blue.
Chapter Fourteen
'Women must come off the pedestal. Men put us up there to get us out of the way.'
All day long, carrion crows swept in clouds so vast they brought a nocturnal gloom down on the fields, even in the middle of the day. Rats, too, swarmed everywhere, bigger, more daring and more vicious than any Mary had ever known. She tried not to get too biblical, but the symbolism of portents and omens was vivid for anyone who wished to see them.
Her winding journey through England's heartland had followed ancient trackways away from the centres of population, but signs of the plague tightening its grip were evident in even the smallest hamlet. Plumes of smoke rose up like markers of despair, sometimes whole villages burning. The stink of decomposition tainted the wind, ever-present behind the sweet aromas of summer countryside. Mary knew her history. During the Middle Ages, the Black Death wiped out twenty million people across Europe and killed a third of the population in its first onslaught, with even more dying subsequently. Questions haunted her. How many were dying now? Thousands? Millions? How many people were needed to create a viable population? Once that defining line had been crossed, humanity would just wither away, another extinction in a long, long line.She had spent many an evening next to the campfire considering the nature of those malign imps she had seen tormenting the infected and spreading the plague with their touch. In her contemplation, she had sensed subtle strands coming together into a grand scheme, and as she examined them she realised that something didn't make sense.