Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

place existed before its inhabitants started showing up in the Nightside: King Artur, Merlin Satanspawn, Prince Gaylord the Damned ... That last one actually turned up here a few days ago. I locked the doors, pulled down all the shutters, hid in the toilets, and pretended I was out until he gave up and went away. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere. No, if you want to go to Sinister Albion, Mr. Taylor ... you’re going to have to provide the co-ordinates. Of course, they say you can find anything ... Must be a wonderful gift. Very useful. I can never find anything. Can’t even find my spectacles most of the time.”
    “They’re on top of your head,” I said absently, studying the Door before me. It looked like any other wooden door, but even without using my Sight I could tell it was much more than that. It had a sense of potential about it, a strong feeling of possibilities, as though it could take you anywhere at all. And might even snatch you away for standing too long in front of it. This was a Door that wanted to be used.
    I raised my gift and let it glide forward and sink into the Door. Beyond it I could see endless scenes, flickering on and off, worlds without end, worlds come and gone in a moment—some familiar, some horrible, and some so utterly other I couldn’t even make sense of what I was Seeing. I concentrated, frowning, focusing on Sinister Albion. Worlds fanned out before me like a pack of cards; and one world snapped suddenly into focus. I pulled back immediately and concentrated on the brass combination lock on the Door. The mechanism whirled back and forth, spinning rapidly under the impetus of my gaze, then it snapped to a halt, and the Door swung open a little.
    Blood-red light spilled out round its edges, bleeding into the cool antiseptic light of the Showroom. The Doormouse fell back a step, his whiskers twitching frantically. A terrible stench of blood and carrion filled the air, wafting out into the Showroom from the world beyond the Door. It was the smell of death and horror, like some gigantic slaughter-house. The world Merlin Satanspawn had made, to please his father ...
    “You know,” Suzie said thoughtfully, “you can be really spooky sometimes, John.”
    “You’re just saying that,” I said, shutting my gift down as thoroughly as I knew how.
    “I feel it is my duty to remind you,” the Doormouse said diffidently, “that while my Doors can take you anywhere in the unknown universe, they are all strictly one-way operations. To be blunt: once you’re in Sinister Albion, you’re on your own. I cannot bring you back. And no, I don’t do travel insurance.”
    Suzie looked at me. “What about your Portable Timeslip?”
    “Only works in this world,” I said. “It operates in Space and Time, not dimensions. It’s a gold watch, not a TARDIS.”
    “Wouldn’t work anyway,” said the Doormouse. “Not where you’re going.”
    I looked Suzie in the eye. “You heard the mouse. This could be a one-way trip. You don’t have to come with me.”
    “Don’t make me slap you in front of a mouse,” said Suzie. “You can’t do this without me, and you know it. Someone’s got to watch your back.”
    I nodded. Suzie’s never been very good at the sentimental stuff, but I knew what she meant. There was no way she’d let me go into danger without her, not while she had a say in the matter. I pulled the Door all the way open, and the blood-red light flared up. Suzie and I walked forward into it, into Sinister Albion.
    And behind us I could hear the Doormouse crying, “Come back! Come back! You haven’t paid yet ...”

    It was dark, even though it was day. The sun burned a sullen crimson through heavy, lowering clouds, turning the sky blood-red. Ashes fell out of the sky as though the clouds were on fire. But it didn’t take me long to work out where the ashes were really coming from. In long rows, all along the distant horizon, stood rank upon rank of giant burning Wicker Men. Huge hollow forms, roughly man-shaped, full of men and women burning alive. I couldn’t really hear them screaming, from so far away; but it felt like I could. The Wicker Men burned like beacons, illuminating Sinister Albion.
    The land round us was churned-up mud, for as far as the eye could see. No fields, no crops, no forests, and no rivers. Thick filthy mud, soaked with old and new blood, punctuated here and there with human body parts and all kinds of scattered offal. Some of the mud had