The blindfold is ripped away. I blink. Then I gasp.
We're on a hill above the forest. Or at least, what used to be the forest. It's an ocean of fire, roaring between the blackened twigs and branches. Clouds of black pile into the air.
I am tied to a tree, digging into my back. My hands are bound and rope wraps tightly into my ankles. It seems to be the only tree on the hill. In a circle, about five feet apart, jagged standing stones angle from the grass. Some have carvings - symbols I don't recognise, and others have been worn down by the wind and the rain.
Two giants are staring at me. Uselessness, the third, clutches the blindfold in one hand and grins. His yellow teeth are like tombstones.
"It's time then!" he shouts.
"Time indeed!" says Hopelessness.
There's no sign of the Photographer. Smoke turns the others to shadow against the low-angled sun.
-
"Look!" cries the balloonist from the basket. "Smoke!"
"Yes! Up. We need a thermal."
"Up then. Fire!"
A chorus of voices fills the sky.
-
I feel sick. The acrid smoke is fire in my throat. The giants are chanting, now in a language I don't understand. There's a deep foreboding about this. I close my eyes.
"You will not fear."
The words that had flickered are there.
They continue.
Then, through the smoke, one foot in front of the other she comes. Her shadow hangs long and low across the grass.
"You're about to meet him," she says, her lips curling into a smile.
"Who?" I splutter.
She laughs gently.
"The real Maker. The one who.. made all of this happen. The one to whom you now belong. You should be honoured! He's been longing to meet you."
The air pulses with heat. My heart is pounding and somewhere an awful drum is thumping in the distance. The light flickers as plumes of black smoke cover the sun. Everything grows dark - the burning trees, the stones, the giants and the Photographer, hidden for a moment by shadow.
"Oh ancient Earth!" she cries. The giants stop and raise their hands to the sky.
"Oh burning sun!" they cry together.
"We bid the ruler of all to come!"
"Where fire and stone divide the night, where blood runs red to shun the night"
"We four in chains obscure the light and choose your presence here tonight. O come o master come!"
Suddenly, loudly, thunder cracks through the air. The stones explode with fire and green flames roar upwards into the thick dark smoke, snaking together like lightning.
-
"What was that?"
"You don't think?" he clutches the basket as the shockwave wobbles past.
"It is. Look! It's happening. It's actually happening. We must hurry."
She glances up through the ropes at the army of balloons filling the evening sky. Everyone has the same thought, gazing at the distant cloud of murky green smoke over the forest.
-
I will not fear, I will not fear, I will not fear, I will not fear. My lips move but my voice is gone, cracked by the storm that rages above me. The smoke twists into the flames curling snaking over the tree as evil stirs.
She looks at me. The pain sears through my head.
-
"Go!"
The wind roars around them, the baskets juddering as the balloons rise. One by one, the balloons lift gently into the current. They cheer, they grip the wicker and they fly.
"Hold on!" she cries against the wind.
-
I watch. At the centre of the hill, just a few metres ahead, a small patch of earth is moving. Soil crumbles as though disturbed from underneath.
The giants shriek with delight. The green flame dances around them, as the Photographer removes one velvet glove, then carefully removes the other, folding them into a pocket.
The ground rumbles, then cracks, slowly at first beneath the mound of soil, fractures radiating in all directions. The giants stop.
Then out of the centre, a terrible set of fingers appears, clutching the earth between its nails. My head roars.
Hopelessness grins. Uselessness clutches his staff. The giants are ready.
An arm groans out of the deep. Then a shoulder. Then a head, shaking the earth and the soil from its hair. Another arm.
The giants kneel. The thunder roars in triumph. The fire, orange and green, spins in delight around the hill.
It stands, clumps of earth tumbling from its scaly body and thudding into the earth. Then in a single moment, as though all my fears had somehow been magnified and multiplied and were burying themselves in my heart, the creature opens its eyes and stares straight into me.
"I have watched you, child," it snarls. "You have fear, doubt, arrogance, failure."
I close my eyes.
"You have, yes, you have failed. Hopelessness caught you."
Hopelessness creaks a smile.
"Loneliness whispered and you believed her."
Loneliness stares at me.
"Uselessness defeated you. And Lustfulness... captured you... from the beginning. And now... you... belong... to... me."
It reaches its scaly hand into its body. I recoil. It snaps its teeth and draws out a blade from its own insides.
I can't watch. The sword is too bright, not just catching light but somehow radiating it. It burns into my eyes as I press myself against the tree. My head pounds with agony.
"Yes! You are... mine!"
The giants laugh into the sky. My eyes sting with tears and smoke. The sword flashes into the air. The creature growls with evil delight.
-
"Now!" she cries.
All at once, the ropes fall and the balloonists cheer as they tumble through the smoke.
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