Always Forever

Chapter Five

Tom and Veitch stayed in the cool confines of the cairn until the sky turned gold and purple, and then a powder blue. It was going to be a fine day. Witch's mood had remained ecstatic as he babbled through the final hours of darkness about what he had experienced with the archetype. Tom could see some long-neglected part of him had been touched by the encounter. He was loath to bring Veitch down with discussion of what lay ahead, but it had to be done; the archetype had stressed time was short.

After a brief, unappetising breakfast of roots, herbs and edible flowers Tom had foraged from the surrounding hedgerows and fields, the conversation turned to Shavi. Veitch was surprisingly confident, his usual strategic caution stifled by his joy that there was still hope he would see his friend again.

"You know where Shavi is?" Tom chose his words carefully as he gently prodded the small campfire that had taken the chill off the early morning air. "Not where his body is, but where he is."

"The Grim Lands. Or the Grey Lands."

"Two names to describe the same place. It's the Land of the Dead, Ryan."

Veitch shrugged.

"Doesn't that fill you with dread? It's been a source of nightmares for the human race since the dawn of our people, and with good cause."

"Don't start getting all negative." Veitch's body language showed he didn't want to hear any of Tom's cautionary tales. "Over the last few months I've seen and done things that would have had me screaming like a bleedin' idiot when I was just some chancer down in South London. Everything's a nightmare-that's the way it is these days. You just get on with it. So let's get on with it."

Tom cursed under his breath. "I knew it would be like this. You never listen to advice, do you? If you are not prepared before you go into the Grim Lands, they may never allow you to leave."

"They?" Veitch's brow furrowed. "Me?"

"Well, I'm not going in there. It's your responsibility, and besides, I don't have that wonderful Pendragon Spirit coursing through my system. And did you think the Dead would just allow some breathing, heart-pumping warm memory of lost times waltz amongst them and take away one they consider their own? The Dead have their own rules and regulations, their own beliefs, their own jealousies and hatreds. And the Grim Lands themselves are…" He looked down so Veitch could barely see his face. "… not a pleasant place for the living."

Veitch shuffled into a sitting position, annoyed that his good mood had been driven from him. "I'm sick of all this," he said obliquely.

"I'm sorry for having to say this, Ryan." Tom surprised himself at the sincerity in his voice. "You need to know. The archetype told us what you always believed: that there's still hope. But the outcome is never assured in these things. You need to understand that the danger of entering the Grim Lands would be, for many, insurmountable." He paused. "But if anyone can do it, you can."

Veitch brightened at the vote of confidence.

"But as I warned Shavi in Edinburgh, there is a great risk in allowing the Dead to notice you. A price might be demanded that could be too much for you to bear-"

Veitch waved a dismissive hand. "There's no point telling me that sort of stuff. You know I'm going to do it. I've got to go in for Shavi. How could I leave him there if there's a chance I could bring him out? That's what it's all about for me. Yeah, we might be able to do something to stop everything going belly up. But friendship, that's the important thing. You stand by your family, and you stand by your mates. Nothing comes up to that. Not even saving the world."

Though he didn't show it, Tom was impressed by Veitch's sense of right and wrong, and his understanding of obligation, traits he thought had long been abandoned since the nineteen-sixties, the decade he most loved. "As long as I know you're going into this with open eyes."

"So how do I get there? Don't tell me there's some big doorway in the graveyard."

"If only it were that easy. Firstly, we have to go to where Cernunnos has deposited Shavi's body for safekeeping."

Veitch began his regular morning routine of stretching to help prepare his muscles for the day ahead. "The Hill of Giants."

"That is one of its names, though it is more commonly known as the Gog Magog Hills, just outside Cambridge."

"Funny name."

"In the old tales, Gog and Magog were the last of an ancient race of giants. They are supposed to sleep under the hills, with a giant horse along the way, and a golden chariot beneath nearby Mutlow Hill."

Tom winced as Veitch cracked his knuckles, one after the other, oblivious to the Rhymer's displeasure. "So, just to prove I've been listening, all these old stories you keep going on about actually mean something, though not usually exactly what they say."

"They are an approximation, couched in metaphors."

"So, what does this one mean? No real giants, right?"

"That needn't trouble you for now. I merely tell you this to underline that we will be travelling to a place of great power and significance. The ancient races were drawn to the hills for that power, in much the same way they revered Mam Tor. On the windswept summit is Wandlebury Camp where Boudicca and the Iceni plotted their revenge against the invaders. The Romans themselves took over the site later."

"And that power's keeping Shavi's body safe?" A breeze blew along the floor of the glen, rustling the trees, making the phone wires sing.

"That and the fact that the hills have a guardian."

"Yeah?"

"The archetype mentioned him-the Night Rider. In the legends he was supposed to have ruled Wandlebury Camp ages ago, and no mortal could ever defeat him. Those brave enough would ride out to the camp on a moonlit night and call, `Knight to knight, come forth!' He would ride out on his jet black stallion and happily accept the challenge. A further story from Norman times claimed a knight called Osbert went out to try to put the legend to rest. He managed to unseat the Night Rider and even took the black horse home to Cambridge, but was wounded in the thigh in the process. The horse disappeared at dawn, and on every anniversary of the battle his wound opened up and bled as if it were fresh."

"So what part of that load of old bollocks is true?"

Tom bristled at Witch's typically irreverent reaction to the old myths and legends he held dear. "I'm sure you will soon find out," he replied tartly. "The Night Rider has rarely been seen throughout the centuries-the Gog Magog Hills is a particularly lonely spot-but all who speak of him talk of a great threat which is not explicit in the stories. There is danger there, make no mistake. If such a powerful place requires a guardian, it would be a fearsome guardian indeed."

"You expect me to be surprised?" Veitch kicked out the fire.

"I'm a little concerned that you're not taking this seriously-"

"I've had enough of taking things seriously. Since what happened to Ruth it's like that's all I've done. And if everything is going to end soon I don't want to end it like that."

"Fair enough. Then the next question is-"

"How the hell do we get there in a hurry? I mean, Cambridge!" Veitch paced around anxiously. "It's, what, five hundred miles away? No cars or planes or trains. That's crazy!"

"Horses," Tom suggested.

"Still take too long."

"A boat. We could sail up the Caledonian Canal, down the east coast to the fens-"

"No offence, mate, but I honestly don't fancy getting in a leaky old tub with you unless it's a last resort. I hate water." He sighed. "If it's the only option I'll do it, 'course I will, but it's still going to take too long."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Tom snapped. "We've gone back to the Middle Ages. A horse and a boat are top-of-the-range technology!"

Veitch chewed on his lip in thought. After a while he cast a sly glance towards Tom.

"What?" the Rhymer said sharply.

"Back at Tintagel when the crow man forced us over the edge of the cliff, you did something-"

"No," Tom said firmly.

Veitch squatted down next to him. "Yeah, you did, you did. You moved us all the way from Tintagel to Glastonbury. What's that? A hundred miles? Just like that!" He snapped his fingers.

"No."

"Stop saying no or I'll punch your head in."

Tom couldn't decide if he was joking. "What I did then was a one off. I'd been taught the principle, but I'd never been able to do it before. I don't have the ability. I don't."

"Then how did you do it?"

"The danger of the moment focused my mind. It was a subconscious act born of desperation. I couldn't repeat it if I wanted."

"Maybe I should stand with my crossbow next to your head. Focus your mind again."

Still Tom was unsure of Veitch's intention. His face was dangerously impenetrable, frightening in its coldness, with only the ever-present anger buzzing behind his eyes. "That wouldn't do any good. Too staged."

"Look, this is the answer, so we've got to make it work. Tell me about it. What makes it happen?" His eyes narrowed. "From the beginning, and make it simple. No talking over the top of my head or I really will do you. This is important."

"Make it simple, you say!" Tom cleaned his spectacles, an act of both irritation and preparation. "The Blue Fire is the essential force running through everything-the land, trees and animals, you and me. We are all part of the same thing. In ancient times it was fundamentally understood by all. The Blue Fire could be seen by everyone, and manipulated by many, particularly the adepts in a society, the shamen. Your society, certainly since the Industrial Revolution, has drifted away from the idea that man is a part of everything. Man is something special, above everything, is that not how it's seen?"

Witch was concentrating on every word.

"The Blue Fire was forgotten. But it is as much about thought and belief as it is any subtle, flowing energy stream. Its source is in the imagination and the heart. It's a wish and a hope."

"So it sort of dried up."

"In your actions around the country over the past months you have been awakening the King of the World from his slumbers, but the task is not yet complete. The Fiery Network, it was called. Lines of the Blue Fire crisscrossing the country, the world, like the pulsing arteries in a body. The Chinese understood this perfectly. They called the force chi and mapped it out both on the land and in the body. In the latter it was controlled and refocused through acupuncture. On the land, the ancient sacred sites-the standing stones and first churches and cairns-did the job. But stones have been thrown down. In the last century, narrow-minded Christians who saw them as the work of the Devil rooted up whole circles. The Fiery Network fragmented; desiccated. If you imagine the land is a body, you would see some healthy arteries, an intermittent structure of veins and capillaries, and vast swathes of cold, dead skin."

"So, it's like a machine that keeps the world running smoothly."

"In a way." Tom was relieved at his breakthrough. "An ancient technology, if you will. A global machine that allows transportation across space, even across time, that allows one to jump dimensions. The manipulation of energy. That is the language of science, but this age's petty view of science doesn't even begin to encompass it."

Veitch began to pace once more, the thoughts coming thick and fast. "So, this is what you're saying, right? That you can move along these Blue Fire lines like roads, only, immediately, like a transporter beam on Star Trek."

"Correct. Well… some people could. Not everyone. Even when the ancient races had the necessary skills to manipulate the Blue Fire, becoming one with the flow of energy was always fraught with danger."

"Why?"

"Because it's possible to go in so deep you become lost. In effect, you give yourself up to the energy to which we all aspire. The Godhead. Our lives are spent trying to attain that, so why should we ever give it up when we have it in our hands? Imagine the troubles of life washing away as you become swathed in glory, in ecstasy."

"So it's like a drug?"

"In a way, though that sounds too negative. Those who are skilled can skim along the surface of the Blue Fire, taking from it what they need. Others get sucked beneath the waves and happily drown in its wonder, never to be seen again."

"And that's what you're scared of?"

"To go into the Blue Fire and never return would be a blessed release, indeed." He wouldn't meet Veitch's eyes. "To leave behind all this… shit." He waved a hand dismissively around. "No more struggle, no more tears and hatred and misery-

Veitch looked around at the sweeping tree-swathed banks of the glen, listened to the bird song and the splashing of the river across the fields. "But no more of this."

Tom didn't appear to understand him.

"We've got a responsibility," Veitch continued, "to make things right for all those who can't go jumping into the Blue Fire."

"Yes, yes, I know that!" Tom snapped. "I'm simply saying I might not have the willpower to pull myself through it."

This time it was Veitch's turn to be puzzled. "You're not weak."

"Yes, I am. Every day is a struggle to keep going. I'm ready to give it all up." Veitch mused on this a while as he looked out over the countryside. "Nah, I don't believe it. You've got a load of faults, same as us all, but I know you, you old hippie. You'll always come through in a crunch. You just don't know yourself well enough."

Tom was so surprised to hear this character assessment coming from Witch's mouth, he was lost for words. Veitch laughed heartily. "Anyway, we have a responsibility-"

"Stop using that word! I know you've just added it to your vocabulary, but-"

11 — to the others. Whatever the risks, we've got no choice but to try. You're telling me you could live with yourself if you knew you might have been able to bring Shavi back-"

"All right, all right! Lord, you do go on."

"You'll give it a shot?" Veitch didn't mask his surprise that he'd won the argument.

Tom snorted in irritation as he collected his haversack and stood up. "Yes, but if I have to spend the rest of infinity with you, that Blue Fire will seem like the flames of Hell."

The atmosphere on board Wave Sweeper was growing increasingly oppressive. The Tuatha De Danann had distanced themselves from the other travellers, retreating to a tight coterie around Manannan, who kept a firm grip on the running of the ship. The death of Cormorel had affected them even more than their aggressive response suggested; they were scared, Church could tell.

Many of the passengers confined themselves to the lower decks, taking food in their cabins or whatever shadowy area they inhabited. The ones who did rise to greet the sun kept their heads down and their eyes averted. Of the Walpurgis, there was still no sign, although the search parties departed daily at dawn, marching as far as they could into the infinite bowels of the boat before returning at dusk.

Baccharus, however, remained Church and Ruth's link with the Tuatha De Danann, repaying, perhaps, the kindness they had shown him since their first meeting. He spoke about his people's thoughts and their strategy without going into too much detail, and he stressed, on behalf of Manannan, that neither Church nor Ruth were under suspicion. They both knew that state of affairs could change instantly; the gods had loyalty only to themselves.

The ship skimmed the waves with great speed, even when the wind was low and the enormous sails scarcely billowed, but Ruth and Church were more concerned than ever that time was running away from them. It didn't help when Baccharus told them Wave Sweeper would continue to make its scheduled stops throughout the Western Isles before it reached its ultimate destination.

"I can't bear this," Church said one morning as they leaned on the rail and watched what could have been dolphins rolling in the waves, but which made cries that sounded like shrieking women. "Anything could be happening back at home."

Ruth shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun off the water. "It would be good to have a despatch from the front. Just to know we're not wasting our time."

Activity further along the deck caught their attention. A strange contraption with a seat fixed at the end of a long, jointed arm was being dragged towards the side by a group of the plastic-faced younger gods. Once it was in place, the arm was manipulated over the side until the seat hovered mere inches above the water. With remarkable agility, one of the gods skipped up on to the rail then manoeuvred his way down the arm until he was precariously balanced on the seat, with no straps to restrain him and only providence keeping him from a ducking in the blue-green waves. A spear made from an intricately carved piece of enormous bone with an attached rope was lowered to him. He weighed it in his right hand, then poised to strike, concentrating on the depths.

"Do you think this is our sole reason for existing?" Church waited for something to happen, but the fisherman remained stock-still. "The life we had in London, everything leading up to this point, it's like a dream sometimes. Not quite real at all. But the only thing that keeps me going through all this struggle is the thought that at some point, I'll be able to return to that life. If I thought this was all there was…"

"A lot of religions say we have one purpose in life. We just have to find it."

"That's my worry. I don't want to have a life of nothing but sacrifice. When I used to read stories of the saints, and Gandhi, and Mother Theresa, I never found them uplifting. They always filled me with something like despair, because they were missing out on all the great things life had to offer: you know, fun and friendship and love and all that."

Ruth brushed a strand of hair from her face. Oddly, she felt closest to him during his brooding moments, when all his attention was turned inward; a usually hidden fragility was revealed that made her want to protect him. "Some people have to give up their lives so everyone else can enjoy theirs. I'm sure it's tough for the person in question, but that seems to be the way it works. Anyway, you know what Tom and Shavi would say-we can't ever see the big picture, so it's a waste of time for us trying to put something like that into perspective. Perhaps the reward is in the next world."

"This is the next world," Church said dismally.

"You know what I mean. There's always something higher."

"Well, I want my life back when all this is over. I don't think that's too much to ask. I'll have met my obligations, done everything expected of me. I don't want to die an old man, still fighting this stupid, nightmarish battle."

"Hmm, considering old age-that's optimistic of you. Me, I'm happy if I make it through to tomorrow."

The water exploded upwards in a spout, followed by thrashing tentacles and the glinting of teeth. The fisherman struck hard with his spear, his face as calm as if he were lazing on the banks of a river, and then he struck again several times in rapid succession. A gush of black liquid soured the water. One of the tentacles lashed around his calf, and when it retracted, the flesh was scoured. More tentacles shot up, folding around his legs like steel cables. Church gripped the railing. It was obvious the fisherman was going to be dragged off the seat, yet none of the other gods who hung over the rail above him were in the slightest concerned.

"Dog eat dog." The words at his left ear made him start. Standing just behind him was Taranis, Manannan's right-hand man, who oversaw the mysterious star charts by which the crew navigated. The face Church had chosen for him had a faint touch of cruelty, thin and sharp, with piercing eyes and a tightly clipped goatee. His presence made Church feel queasy. "Fish eat fish," he continued, by way of explanation for the scene they were observing. "Bird eat worm, cat eat mouse, wolf eat rabbit."

Church returned his attention to the fisherman and the crazed splashing that surrounded him. He was on the verge of slipping beneath the waves, clutching on to the seat with one hand while hacking mercilessly with the spear with the other. At the point when Church thought he would have to go, the spear bit into some vital point and he managed to wriggle his legs free and lever himself back up on to the seat. A few more choice hacks and an indescribable black bulk bobbed to the surface where it floated, motionless.

"Dinner?" Ruth asked distastefully.

Taranis gave a thin-lipped smile at the outcome. "The way of existence," he said.

"I'm heading back to my cabin for a bit," Ruth said, before turning to Taranis. She motioned to the collapsible telescope made of ivory and inlaid sable and gold that hung from his belt. "May I borrow this for a while?"

Taranis seemed taken aback by her request, and Church, too, was surprised by her forwardness, but the god acceded with a curt nod. Ruth weighed it in her palms, nodded thoughtfully, and headed towards the door that led beneath the deck.

Without Ruth to talk to, and with Niamh distracted, Church felt out of sorts. The other occupants of the ship made his skin crawl, even the ones that most closely resembled humans. There was nothing to see across the water, nothing to do in his cabin, little anywhere to occupy his time. He was reminded of Samuel Johnson's quotation: Going to sea is going to prison, with a chance of drowning besides.

As he made his way along the corridor towards his cabin, his nose wrinkled at an incongruous, sulphurous odour; it was powerful enough to sting his eyes and make the back of his throat burn. It appeared to be emanating from a branching corridor he had never seen before. In the back of his head an insistent alarm was warning him not to venture down it, but if there were a fire on board the alarm would need to be raised. He vacillated for the briefest moment before turning down the offshoot.

The corridor followed a serpentine route that made no sense, even doubling back on itself before ending at a double arched door made from seasoned wood. The handles were big enough to take two hands, made from blackened cast-iron. From behind it he could hear a thunderous pounding. The sulphurous stink was so potent now it almost made him choke.

Cautiously, he opened the door.

The room was stiflingly hot and the acrid smell hung heavily all around. His ears rebelled from the constant clashing of metal on metal, his teeth rang from the reverberations. It was almost impossible to tell the dimensions of the room, for it was as dark as night, with occasional pockets of brilliant light, ruddy and orange, or showering in golden stars. It was a foundry. On board a ship. Nothing in that vessel made sense at all.

The dull glow came from three separate furnaces. The sound of the bellows keeping them incandescent was like the turbulent breathing of a giant. He covered his mouth to keep out the fumes and prepared to back out, until his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he realised he was not alone. Three huge figures worked insistently, pounding glowing shards of metal on anvils as big as a Shetland pony, plunging the worked piece into troughs of water, raising clouds of steam, moving hastily back to thrust tools into the red-hot coals.

Transfixed, he found himself trying to guess what strange implements were being constructed. He was woken from his concentration by a voice that sounded like the roar of another furnace. "Draw closer, Fragile Creature."

His heart thumped in shock, but it was too late to retreat. He moved forward until the glow from the furnace illuminated the shadowy form. It took a while for the figure to stabilise, marking out his position in the hierarchy of the Tuatha De Danann. Though none of it was real, Church smelled the stink of sweat, heavy with potent male hormones. The blacksmith had a rough-hewn face, marked with black stubble and framed by sweaty, lank black hair. He was naked to the waist, his torso and arms rippling with the biggest muscles Church had ever seen. His body gleamed, with sweat running in rivulets down to a wide golden belt girding his waist. In one hand he held a hammer as big as Church's upper body, poised midstrike; in the other he clutched a pair of tongs that gripped a glowing chunk of iron flattened on one edge. Without taking his eyes off Church, he lowered the iron into the trough at his side and was instantly obscured by the steam.

When it had cleared, he said gruffly, "We get few visitors here, in the workshop of the world."

"I smelled the furnace. Thought there was a fire."

The blacksmith's eyes narrowed. "Are you the Brother of Dragons I have been hearing about?" Church introduced himself. The blacksmith gave a nod, his movements slow and heavy. "The cry goes out across the worlds, in death and black destruction, the child answers, full of fury, yet finds no absolution."

"What's that?"

"A memory." With a clatter, he dumped the tongs and the piece of iron on a workbench. "In the times when my workshop armed your world, your people called me Goibhniu, known too, as Govannon." He leaned forward and showed Church a ragged scar across his side. "See my wound." Church wondered why the god didn't lay down his hammer, but when he peered at it closely the edges of it rippled. Church couldn't tell if it were the heat haze from the furnace or if it were Goibhniu's Caraprix in the form that would help him the most. The god saw Church eyeing the tool and held it out before him. "Three strikes make perfection. I can work the stuff of existence, shape worlds or insects. With these hands, anything can be made in a single day, and anything can be destroyed."

Beyond him, in the shadows, Church could make out a tremendous armoury: swords and spears, things that looked like tanks in the form of beetles, and also enormous machines that served no purpose he could recognise.

"And weapons?" Church asked.

"Weapons from which none can recover. Weapons that can destroy the whole of existence."

The words caught in Church's mind. "Weapons that could destroy Balor?"

Goibhniu surveyed him for a long moment, then motioned towards the other figures, who had not paused in their work. "My brothers, as your people knew them: Creidhne and Luchtaine, known as Luchtar, who works wood and metal, as well as the stuff of everything."

Luchtaine had paused from his work at the anvil to shape an unusual piece of wood on a lathe that whirred like a bug. Creidhne was fashioning what appeared to be rivets made of gold. They both looked at Church with eyes filled with flame and smoke.

"Why are you here, on board this ship?" Church felt uneasy, as if he was missing something important and terrible in the scene.

Goibhniu's eyes narrowed; an atmosphere of incipient threat descended on them all. "The Western Isles beckon. These are difficult times."

"Difficult times? You mean the murder of Cormorel?"

Church shrank back as Goibhniu advanced with his hammer before him. Light glimmered off the head and shone like a torchbeam into the depths of the room; Church was shocked to see the beam of light appeared to stretch for miles. And it was packed with weapons as far as he could see. Near to the foundries was some hulking piece of machinery that dwarfed all others, but it was unfinished; waves of menace washed off it. The angle of light changed and the view was lost, but it had been enough.

Goibhniu continued to advance until Church's back was pressed against the door. Fumbling behind him, he found the door handle and flipped it open, almost tumbling out into the corridor. The last thing he heard before Goibhniu slammed the door shut was the god saying forcefully, "Stay away from here, Fragile Creature. We have work to do."

The sweat trickled into the small of Ruth's back as the full force of the noontime sun blazed through the open windows into the cabin, even though she was sitting naked on the floor. Her visit to the kitchen stores had been a success. It was a vaulted hall that went on forever, its air laden with the aroma of spices, fruits, cooking meats and steamed fish, and it was apparent from the demeanour of the dour-faced god in charge that she could find anything she wanted there. Even so, she was surprised to locate so easily such rare items, and ones that were not used in any dishes she knew; but then, who could guess the tastes of the other travellers on Wave Sweeper?

With a borrowed mortar and pestle, she had prepared the ointment in just the right way and now she was filled with a wonderful anticipation; it had been too long.

Soon after came the familiar sensation of separation from her body. There was rushing, like a jet taking off, and then she was out of the window and soaring up into the clear, blue sky. Once her mind had found its equilibrium, she looked down at Wave Sweeper ploughing a white furrow through the greenblue sea far below. The sails billowed, the deck was golden in the sunlight, the crew moving about like ants.

The exhilaration filled her as deeply as the first time she had experienced the spirit flight in the Lake District, her limbs divested of earthly stresses, her mind glowing with a connection to the godhead. It would have been wonderful just to stay there, floating amongst the occasional wisp of clouds, but she had a job to do. "Are you there?" she asked the sky.

In response came a beating of wings that was much more powerful than she had anticipated. When she turned to greet the arrival she was even more shocked: her owl familiar was a bird no more. It resembled a man, though with an avian cast to the features: too-large eyes with golden irises, a spiny ridge along its forehead, and its torso and limbs a mix of leathery brown skin like rhino hide and dark feathers. It beat through the air towards her on batlike wings.

The breath caught in her throat. When she had just considered it an owl, albeit with a demonic intelligence, it had not been too threatening, but now it was patently menacing; she felt instinctively that if she did not treat it right, it would tear her apart.

"Is that your true form?" she asked hesitantly.

He smiled contemptuously. "As if there is such a thing!" He could have left it there, but he took pity on her. "It is the way I appear to you, in this place, at this time."

She turned to look at the dim horizon. "I need to return to my world, to see what's happening. Is that possible?"

"All things are possible when the right will is imposed. I told you that."

She recalled their conversations in the cells beneath Edinburgh Castle when he had been a disembodied voice, passing on the information vital to her development in the craft. "I can't believe I've learnt so much, so quickly."

"Others would find it harder. You have been chosen for your abilities."

"I still wonder how much I can actually do."

"You will find your answer, in time." There was a disconcerting note to his voice.

She allowed herself to drift on the air currents, overcome with apprehension. "I'm worried I won't be able to get back here quickly enough." Nina's warning of what would happen if the spirit did not return to the body within a reasonable time weighed heavy on her. "It's so far-"

"Then you should waste no more time." He moved ahead of her, heading higher, towards the sun, then dipped down and made a strange movement with his left hand that stretched his ligaments to their limits. By the time he had finished, a patch of air had taken on a glassy quality; Ruth had the odd impression that it was a pool of water, floating vertically. He flashed a piercing glance that charged her to follow him and then he plunged into the pool and disappeared. She hesitated for only a second before diving.

A sensation like icy rain rushed across her skin and then she was high off the coast of Mousehole, as if, for all their travels on Wave Sweeper, they had not gone anywhere at all. Everything seemed so much duller after her time in T'ir n'a n'Og, the quality of light, the sea smell, the greens of the landscape beyond the shore. Her companion had once again reverted to his owl form, keeping apace with her with broad, powerful wing strokes.

As she moved inland across the late summer fields, her apprehension became more intense. On some rarefied level she was sensing danger ahead.

Increasing her speed, she swooped over the landscape, uncomfortably eyeing the deserted roads and tiny villages that appeared devoid of life. And faster; Dartmoor passed in a brooding, purple-brown blur with memories of the Wild Hunt and senseless slaughter. In Exeter a fire was raging out of control. The grey ribbon of the M5 was a string of abandoned vehicles. And on through Devon, acutely aware how much the land had changed. No more comforting mun danity, supermarket shopping and boring commutes to work, daytime radio and bank managers and accountants. Even with the cursory glance she was giving the rolling greenery below, she could see it had become wilder, a land of mythology where humans were at the mercy of competing species with much greater powers. A place where anything could happen.

Over Wiltshire and Hampshire, closer to the source of the danger. Some towns and villages were wrecked and burning, others reclaimed by strangely wild vegetation. But there were still signs that people were there, either in shock or in hiding: cows, obviously milked and fed, here, clothes hanging on a washing line there. Little markers of hope; it was something. The faint, insistent tugging dragged her eastwards.

The owl had been keeping pace with her, beyond the ability of any true bird, but the beat of its wings began to grow slower until it had dropped back a way, dipping and diving with obvious caution. The reason was clear. On the horizon, London brooded. Although the sun shone down on its sprawling mass, Ruth had a definite sense that it hung in darkness. Her heartbeat speeded and anxiety began to gnaw at the back of her head; an aura of menace was rolling out across the Thames Valley.

It had to have been London, where it all started. The circle had closed.

Yet from that distance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary, apart from the stillness that lay over the approaching M4. She dropped back until she was beside her familiar, adopting its cautious approach. She listened: nothing, but not a serene silence: no birdsong at all. She sniffed the wind and caught the faintest hint of acrid smoke. As the suburban tower blocks and estates fell into view, that ringing sense of menace became almost unbearable, hanging like a thick cloud of poisonous gas over the capital. It was moving out across the land, barely perceptible in its slowness, but inexorable.

"Dare I go closer?" she asked the owl. When there was no reply she took it on herself to advance. She still needed something substantial to tell Church.

She knew she could be seen by the Fomorii in that form-they had spotted her as she watched their black tower being constructed in the Lake District-so she soared higher, desperately wishing for some cloud cover. And with that thought came the realisation that, if she wanted it, she could make it. Under her breath, she mumbled the words the familiar had taught her, making the hand gestures that activated the primal language: words of power in both sound and movement.

The wind changed direction within seconds and soon a few fluffy white clouds were sweeping in from the north. Not too many-she didn't want to draw attention to the sudden change in the weather pattern-but enough to provide a hiding place.

With a slight effort she sent them billowing towards the capital and slipped in amongst them. The air became filled with pins and needles; her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was having a coronary. "It feels bad," she said to her familiar, although she was really talking to herself, "but it doesn't look too bad."

And then the clouds cleared.

She was still beyond the suburbs, but from her vantage point she had a clear view deep into the heart of the city. At first it looked like the outlines of the buildings were rippling as if they weren't fixed. She wondered if it had somehow slipped into T'ir n'a n'Og, where things regularly looked that way. But as she drew closer, she could see it wasn't the outline of the buildings that were changing; something was moving across them.

A wave of revulsion swept through her. London was swarming. It looked like an enormous jarful of spiders had been emptied out on to the buildings and streets. The Fomorii scurried everywhere, at times as though millions upon millions of long-legged insects were racing chaotically over everything, then as if one beast lay across the capital, flowing like oil. Many or one, it didn't matter; London was subsumed. And at the heart of it, an abiding darkness pulsated: Balor, replete in its lair, growing stronger after the strain of rebirth, sucking in energy ready to consume the planet. Beating like a giant heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. She couldn't truly see it, had no real idea of its form, but it was there on a spiritual level, tendrils creeping out from the cold sore. She gagged, despite the fact her corporeal body was a world away.

What made her flesh creep the most was the way that vibrating black mass was pushing out from the centre, reaching into the suburbs, moving out across the country. Nothing could have stood in its path.

"All those people," she gasped. The realisation of what must have happened made her head spin: an atrocity on a grand scale; perhaps millions dead, and more to come.

"We have to get back," she said to the owl. "We can't afford to waste any more time."

But as she turned to depart, brutal reverberations crashed inside her skull and her body doubled up with pain. Looking back she saw, rising up above the skyscrapers of the City, an area of infinite darkness, blacker even than deepest space, cold and sucking. It was impossible to tell if it was truly happening in the real world or if it was a metaphor imprinted on a higher level of consciousness, but it filled her with utmost dread. It was alive, and it had an intelligence so vile her mind screamed at even the slightest brush with it.

Balor. The name tolled like a funereal bell deep in her head.

And it rose up and up, bigger than the city, bigger than all existence. How can we beat something like that? she thought with the bitter sting of despair. And still it rose, and washing off it came waves of malignancy. And then, as it had in the dream that was not a dream in Mousehole, an eye opened in that black cloud, an eye that was not an eye, though she characterised it as such. And it focused its attention on her and she thought she was about to go mad with fear.

It could see her there, hidden in the clouds, miles away. It could see her anywhere. But worse than that, it recognised her.

The shock dislocated her thoughts; it was already in motion before she registered it was coming for her.

A wide flailing disrupted the air currents next to her. Her familiar was thrashing and screaming, an owl, a ball of feathers, then the owl man, and then something infinitely worse, moving rapidly backwards and forwards across the spectrum of its appearance in a terrible panic.

In terror, she attempted to flee, only to realise she couldn't move. The evil had her in some invisible grip, holding her steady like a fish on a line. Until it reached her.

Her consciousness finally burst from whatever spell it was under, and suddenly she was thinking at lightning speed. "Help me!" she yelled, but the owl was already moving away from her, every wing beat a flurry of desperation.

She tried to flee once more, but it was as if her limbs, or her mind, was pinned; no amount of effort could move her. Behind her, the monstrous gravity of the thing grew more powerful.

"Come back!" she screamed. "You were supposed to help me!" The familiar was lost in the glare of the sun.

A freezing shadow had fallen across her, reaching through her physical body to the depths of her soul. It was creeping up her spine, deadening the chakras as it passed, crawling towards her brain. Incomprehensible whispers began to lick at her mind. In that contact she sensed the sickening presence of Balor, and she knew it was the reason why fear had been implanted in the human consciousness. The Celts had given it a name to try to contain it, but it could not be contained; it was bigger than everything.

Her vision started to close in, until there was only a tunnel of light towards the sun. A strain was being placed on the invisible cord that connected her with her body. One snap and she would be lost to the endless void forever. And then, slowly but relentlessly, the thing started to drag her back.

Just as she thought the darkness was about to engulf her completely, she caught sight of faint movement in that tunnel of light. Nothing. It was nothing. She slipped back further.

She was startled from her panic by the owl erupting from nowhere close to her face. Its bristling feathers obscured the whole of that tunnel of light, and for a second she was sure she had gone blind. But then it moved back slightly, changing shape back and forth as it had done at the height of its desperation. She could still feel its fear, but now behind it was determination and obligation.

The air pressure increased, iron filled her mouth and a weight built behind her eyes until she was convinced they were going to be driven from her head. Slowly, she started to move forward.

She felt like she was trying to push a truck up a hill; every agonising inch she moved was a triumph. Yet although the grip of the darkness didn't relinquish in the slightest, gradually her strength increased and she began to make slight progress. It was nowhere near fast enough, though; the tension zinged through her arteries.

With determination, she drove herself on until she reached a point where her speed began to build. Finally it felt like she had crossed some invisible barrier, and with a burst of relief she was soaring out over the golden-tinged clouds. The coldness left her head, skidding down her back to her thighs. Later she wondered if she had imagined it, but she thought she heard a howl of fury that was at once the movement of tectonic plates, the boom of cold water shifting in the depths of the Marianas Trench.

And faster still; hope soared in her heart at the same time as tears of fear stung her eyes. She would never be so stupid again. If she got back. A pain in her solar plexus told her time was running out. She had been away from her body for too long, and the flimsy spiritual bond was close to being broken.

The shadowy cold was still on her legs. Stupidly, she glanced back and thought her heart would stop. The entire sky was black, boiling like storm clouds, but not natural-sentient-and pursuing her with venom.

Fire filled her belly. Focusing all her attention on the flight, she propelled herself forward with a speed that made Dorset flash by in the blink of an eye.

Still the darkness didn't give up. She knew it would never give up now it had recognised her. She put the thought out of her head. Faster, faster, thinking of Church, giving meaning to her struggle; if not for her, for him.

Soon they were over the choppy sea and the owl was ahead of her, already turning itself inside out. The sky and sea swapped place, turned blood red. And then they were soaring over Wave Sweeper and the darkness was nowhere to be seen.

She plummeted towards the ship as the connecting strand grew thinner by the second. It was just the width of a hair when she finally slid into her body, exhausted. Amongst the receding terror, one thing stayed with her: at the last, she had looked into her familiar's eyes. What she saw was a definite impression that she was now in its debt.

She recovered in her cabin for an hour or more, listening to the soothing wash of the waves beyond the open window. She couldn't believe how stupid she had been to venture so close, but until then she had not truly grasped the enormity of what they faced.

Once she had calmed herself, she made her way back to the deck, though she kept her shaking hands hidden from view. Taranis was at the rail, scanning the horizon. She handed him his telescope with a sly smile.

"How curious." He turned it over in his hands. "It is so very warm."

"Hmm," Ruth replied. "I wonder why that is?"

Church had spent the time on deck, watching the crew go about their puzzling tasks. Few of the passengers ventured up from the depths in their attempt to keep a distance from the grim Tuatha lle Danann, so that the ship had the dismal, empty appearance of a seaside resort in off season. The atmosphere was so intense he had felt it politic to stay away from the gods himself, nestling in a heap of oily tarpaulins and thick ropes where he could watch without drawing attention to himself.

He had never seen the Tuatha lle Danann so strained. Irritation gripped them because they had not managed to track down the Walpurgis, a failure that only added to their pain at Cormorel's death. Their aloof nature had always made them appear dangerous in a haphazard, detached way; now they were a constant threat, ready to take out their fury on anyone who crossed their path.

If the gods could not find the Walpurgis with all the heightened abilities at their disposal, there was little chance Church would be able to locate the creature he had increasingly convinced himself was not the murderer. Yet he felt a growing imperative to do so, for he was sure the Walpurgis had information of vital importance.

His thoughts were disrupted by a cry from one of the crew perched in the crow's nest. Everyone on deck stopped moving. Church couldn't tell if it was because of hope, or apprehension-or fear.

Across the pea-green sea he could just make out a purple and brown smudge on the horizon. Here it is, he thought, suddenly concerned himself. The Islands of the Dead.