The Bride Wore Black Leather

understand what I’ve been through,” said the Sun King. “Your mind is too small, too limited. Too human. Power, prices, answers . . . these are all human obsessions.”
    “Because they matter,” I said.
    “If we’re human, what are you?” said Julien. “The man I remember was still a man, for all his miracles, and the Dream he pursued was a human Dream.”
    “What I could do then was nothing compared to what I can do now,” said the Sun King. “See what I can do . . .”
    He clapped his hands sharply, and the sun blazing overhead grew suddenly in size, half filling the sky. The sky turned a bright blue, so pure a colour it was painful to look at. The sun was fierce and furnace-hot, and my bare face and hands smarted under the impact. What had been a cool and quiet evening in the Nightside was gone, suppressed, replaced by an almost unbearable desert heat. Air shimmered all around us with heat haze. The greenery surrounding the Standing Stones shuddered with new life, as though suddenly woken from long seasons of sleep. The hedgerow maze rocked this way and that, as though under attack. Flowers blossomed all along the hedge walls, bursting out of the dark green. Thick pulpy petals opened everywhere, in flaming colours the same shades as the Sun King’s Coat of Vivid Colours. The flowers unfolded over and over again, while the hedgerows writhed and convulsed as though in pain. Great swellings of moss and fungi erupted out of the dry ground, pulsing like living brains. The air was thick with the scent of all kinds of flowers, filling my head with over-ripe perfumes. Dusty pollen swirled on the air; and the whole Garden pulsed with the beat of living things. But even I could tell these were hothouse flowers, forced into shapes and sizes against their will and against nature. The Sun King put his head back and laughed; and I had to wonder where all the grace and spirituality had gone.
    Suddenly the Very Righteous Sisters of the Holy Druids appeared, standing silently among the Standing Stones. Hundreds and hundreds of them, stiff and stern in their pristine white robes, surrounding us in all the Circles of Stones, their cold gaze focused on the Sun King. He stopped laughing and looked unhurriedly about him. If the sheer number of Druids opposing him impressed him at all, he did a really good job of hiding it.
    “How did you get in, Sun King?” The Sisters spoke in unison, hundreds of voices blended into one authoritative voice. “The only way to approach the Sacred Stones is by proving your worth, through the rigours of the Maze.”
    “That’s how people do it,” the Sun King said easily. “But I’m not people any more. Haven’t been for a long time. I can be anywhere I need to be. I don’t need to pass any stupid tests.”
    “Tests?” said Julien, glancing back at the Maze. “Did we . . . ?”
    “Of course you did,” said the Sun King. “You proved yourself worthy long ago.” He paused, and looked at me. “Not sure how you made it through, though. Must be more to you than meets the eye.”
    I had to smile at that. “You have no idea.” I looked at the Sisters, and when I spoke, I could hear the anger in my voice. “The bodies we found, along the way. Did the Maze kill them?”
    “Yes,” said the Sisters, in their single unrelenting voice. “They were not worthy. They came to the Stones with impure thoughts and purposes. They proved themselves a danger to Green Henge, so they were not allowed through. Sun King, you should not be here. You do not venerate the Sacred Stones.”
    “Of course not,” said the Sun King. “They’re nothing but stones.”
    He clapped his hands again, and the hedgerows in the maze buckled and twisted, erupting into new growth, losing all their carefully sculpted meaning. The dark green walls swayed this way and that, as though under the pressure of some unseen storm though there wasn’t a breath of movement in the furnace-hot air. And the greenery surrounding the Standing Stones constricted suddenly, crushing and cracking the ancient menhirs within.
    “Let new life replace old stone!” said the Sun King, happily. “Let’s have a little fun, in this solemn old place! You’re not Druids, Sisters. They knew how to party.”
    The Very Righteous Sisters ignored him, singing in harmony, a great choir replacing the single voice. Hundreds and hundreds of women, singing a song that was old when civilisation was new. Their song rose on the air,